Posts for 'Roku'

There were a lot of new streaming dynamics that unfolded this summer, including YouTube’s growing dominance and budding rivalry with Netflix, two movies from YouTube creators that have generated a combined $900 million+ at the box office, Comcast splitting off NBCUniversal, Fox acquiring Roku, sports migrating to streaming, the ongoing Paramount-WBD saga and much more. 

We discuss the top stories we covered over the summer and what’s on tap for a busy Fall. 

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We’re pleased to welcome Antenna’s VP, Strategy Brendan Brady back to Inside the Stream for an exclusive interview about the firm’s new State of Subscriptions research focused on specialty SVOD services. 

Antenna’s research found that specialty SVOD (streaming services targeted to specific audiences and focused on content niches) continue to thrive, with 1.8 million net subscriber additions in Q2 ’26. Specialty SVOD’s growth is outpacing the broader SVOD category. Howdy (owned by Roku) and Wonder Project have emerged as particular specialty SVOD winners.

Amazon Channels plays a dominant role in specialty SVOD, accounting for 67% of net subscriber additions in Q2. As Brendan explains, Amazon Channels is the de facto “front door” to specialty SVOD sign-ups. While Roku and YouTube Primetime Channels have made some inroads, they are still far back. We also discuss whether there’s a play for Disney and Netflix in this space. 

As we move into the final part of 2026, and the all-important holiday season, Brendan says YouTube is worth watching closely, to see if it can leverage its massive user base to become a meaningful player in specialty SVOD distribution.

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In a surprise move, Fox is acquiring Roku, for $22 billion cash and stock. Is it a good deal, bad deal or something in-between? We discuss from all angles. 

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Two horror movies created by young YouTubers are dominating the box office. Both were made for small sums by Hollywood standards and are attracting overwhelmingly young audiences. Is this the start of a trend for YouTubers going Hollywood, or more of a one-off?

Next, TV OS’s continue to gain in their role of driving viewers to content, according to TiVo’s new Video Trends report. Other new research shows FASTs are still growing revenue, even as ad-supported premium SVOD gains a larger share. 

Last, the NFL’s media rights deals are coming under scrutiny from Congress. Commissioner Roger Goodell was asked to testify about the various streaming deals the NFL has struck, but declined to appear.
    
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On this week’s Inside the Stream we discuss:

• Netflix and Spotify luring podcaster Jay Shetty’s "On Purpose" to their platforms from YouTube and iHeartMedia
• YouTube’s new AI tagging initiative
• Comcast enabling YouTube TV sign-up and billing for Xfinity subscribers
• Roku’s new home screen

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YouTube’s Q1 ad revenue approached $10 billion, up 11% vs. last year and around 25% vs. two years ago. YouTube said that both direct response and brand advertising were strong. However, subscriptions were the fastest growing part of the business, with YouTube Premium and Music performing best, recording their largest increase in non-trial subscribers. 

Meanwhile Antenna estimates that Roku’s Howdy has hit 1 million subscribers less than one year following its launch. At $2.99 per month Howdy is a relatively low cost SVOD service that appears to have high stickiness. The gains speak to Roku's promotional clout. Roku also reported a strong Q1 for ad revenue. 
    
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Roku announced that it now reaches 100 million households, up from 90 million in Q1 ’25 and 80 million in Q4 ’23. Related, Hub found in a survey that among households that stream monthly 55% have a Roku smart TV or streaming media player. Roku has become a strong player in aggregation, with 26% of Hub respondents citing Roku as their source for streaming subscriptions, behind Amazon with 54%. 

We discuss all on this week’s podcast, plus  Sony’s plan to remove over-the-air features from certain Bravia TVs, and a protest letter sent by Hollywood celebrities who are against the Paramount-WBD deal. 

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YouTube is now the world’s biggest media company, with an estimated $62 billion revenue in 2025, according to analysts MoffettNathanson. That would exceed Disney’s, though be slightly less than the combined Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery. We discuss key components on YouTube’s revenue, its competitive advantages and prospects going forward. 

Then we discuss the challenges viewers have navigating streaming services to find sports they’re looking for. New Hub Entertainment Research found that sports fragmentation caused frustration by 87% of viewers. Addressing this pain point are new features from ESPN, Roku and others helping ease things. 

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This week we’re pleased to share our interview with Roku’s Senior Director, Global Ad Platform Partnerships and Business Development Miles Fisher. We do a deep dive into Roku’s recently announced partnership with Amazon Ads, which appears to be a potentially significant milestone in CTV realizing its ultimate potential as a full funnel medium.

As Miles explains, key to the partnership’s opportunity is the scale that both companies bring; Roku has 125 million logged in viewers per day on its devices, while Amazon has massive Prime program as well as other user data. Advertisers will be able to tap this impressive scale to target specific viewers with tangible performance outcomes. Roku and Amazon first-party data will be integrated through a custom identity resolution service.   

Roku has been focused on driving CTV to become a performance medium for a while, including programmatic (see panel with Roku and Walmart executives at VideoNuze’s June ’23 CTV Ad Summit). Miles said the companies have conducted early tests of the integration with positive tests. This is a partnership is definitely one to keep an eye on.

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Four topics for this week’s podcast:

Both Google and Roku announced new streaming media devices this week, with Google launching its Google TV Streamer, which is positioned as the “next generation of Chromecast,” and Roku releasing an updated version of its Roku Ultra. As we discuss, these are two companies at far ends of the TV OS battle, with Google somewhat surprisingly still a laggard, and Roku still a leader.

Next up, Disney+ officially launched its paid sharing globally, following its announcement earlier this year. Disney+ is clearly hoping to emulate the success Netflix had following its rollout of paid sharing, though as we detail, there are important differences between how Disney+ is executing that could lead to much different results.  

Then we discuss a newly announced initiative by Whip Media to bring more transparency to FAST viewership across channels. While this would be a step forward, as Colin explains there are critical challenges to making this a reality.  

Finally, we circle back to a report last Friday about remarks from Netflix’s co-CEO Greg Peters concerning the possibility of the company leaning into live sports. Peters said “never say never” about live sports and with nearly 280 million global subscribers, Netflix would have an immediate impact.

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This week we interview Roku’s Head of Ad Marketing Jordan Rost and MAGNA’s EVP, Intelligence Solutions Kara Manatt, about their companies’ new research - "From Power On to Power Off" - about viewers’ content discovery journeys and the role of CTV Home Screen advertising. A key takeaway of the research is that almost half (44%) of streaming sessions begin with the viewer browsing, rather than knowing what they want to watch.

That opens up a huge content discovery opportunity on the home page, which dovetails with advertisers (especially streaming services) desire to gain awareness and action. We discuss this dynamic and other findings from the research about viewers’ mindsets and receptivity to ads along with how home page ads are already being executed.

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The following video was recorded at VideoNuze’s Connected TV Advertising PREVIEW: 2024 virtual on February 28, 2024.

Exploring CTV's Key Trends and Opportunities in 2024
TV viewership is fundamentally changing, and CTV is a clear beneficiary. In particular, ad buyers are excited about how CTV combines the best of TV advertising’s reach and impact with the best of digital advertising’s targeting and engagement. Learn about all of CTV's key trends and opportunities in 2024 and beyond.

Beth Anderson - SVP/GM, FAST Channels & VOD Sales, BBC Studios
Ashley Arena - Head of US Advanced Video Activation, PHD
Carly Friedman - Head of Industry, Gaming, Tech and Telco, Roku
David Pudjunis - VP, Revenue Operations & Digital Partnerships, AMC Networks
Danielle DeLauro - EVP, VAB (moderator)

It’s earnings season, and on this week’s podcast, Colin and I discuss results from Disney, Roku, WB Discovery and Dish. The four companies’ subscriber counts, profitability and shifting business models all provide insights into larger industry trends and challenges.

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First up on Inside the Stream this week Colin and I discuss the latest data from Nielsen’s The Gauge report. While it said that “linear TV” viewing fell below 50% for the first time, we explain how a more accurate headline would probably be that broadcast and cable TV viewing fell below 50%. Viewership is following along with pay-TV adoption, which we also discuss fell further in Q2 ’23.

Also in this week’s podcast, new data shows that watching TV with subtitles has become quite popular, especially among younger audiences. Finally, The Roku Channel is going to stream local news from 30 CBS and FOX channels, further converging broadcast TV and streaming.

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The following video was recorded at VideoNuze’s fourth annual Connected TV Advertising Summit virtual on June 8, 2023.

Why CTV’s March to Full-Funnel/Lower-Funnel and Shoppable TV is Inevitable
In 2023 the vast majority of CTV ads will be bought with upper-funnel KPIs, as TV ad buyers seek to replace GRPs lost due to traditional TV’s decline and cord-cutting. With a $70 billion TV ad market in the U.S. alone, the shift from linear TV to CTV has lots of runway ahead. But more strategically significant are myriad initiatives that are transforming CTV into a full-funnel/lower-funnel channel. In an era when the importance of first-party data is rapidly increasing, engaging viewers on their TVs will soon become table stakes. In this session, learn how CTV is going to create a multibillion-dollar bonanza in shoppable TV, as well as new frontiers in content creation and personalization.

Jenna Chen - Director, Strategy and Business Development, Partnerships, Walmart Connect
Lindsay Pullins - Director, Ad Revenue Business Strategy, Partnerships, Roku
Lance Wolder – Head of Strategy and Marketing, PadSquad
Eric John - VP, Media Center, IAB (moderator)

Most media and technology companies have now reported Q1 ’23 results. We dig into who’s up, who’s down and who’s pick ‘em, and where they all might be headed. We share all this with the caveat that one quarter’s results are not the final word on a company’s ability to survive and thrive going forward. We hope we’re not in any way contributing to the short-term, quarterly performance myopia so common on Wall Street.

Rather, we’re looking at these companies’ results in the context of prior results, the competitive landscape and their particular products’/services’ positioning. All while trying to do some basic “pattern recognition” - what have we seen before and how is this likely to play out in TV and video. Our discussion is primarily focused on Netflix, Roku, Amazon, AMC, Disney, Comcast, Vizio, YouTube, The Trade Desk, Paramount, Diamond Sports Group, Tegna, Dish and how they’re sorting themselves in the up, down and pick ‘em categories.

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I attended the 2023 IAB NewFronts earlier this week and today on Inside the Stream we discuss my 5 key takeaways. These include 1) connected TV as the dominant throughline in all the presentations, 2) an early shift in messaging around how CTV campaigns should move to more full/lower-funnel KPIs, 3) whether the overwhelming volume and pure free, ad-supported nature of FASTs should be concerning, 4) how CTV platform/glass ownership will be a critical competitive differentiator going forward, and 5) why, of the 14 presentations that I attended, three companies’ presentations stood out in particular.  

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This week on Inside the Stream we focus on two main topics: first, is Warner Bros. Discovery’s decision to brand/bundle its streaming services under “Max” going to be successful, or is it going to be “Min” (as in have Minimum impact)? There’s little daylight between how Colin and I see things.

Of all the many issues, to me the most worrisome is the fact that the discovery+ library is being thrown into Max for no additional cost. That means WBD assigns its incremental, measurable value in the bundle at $0.

Next we turn our attention to the dynamics in the CTV/device industry. Colin is excited about a new initiative Google unveiled this week, where it provides improved guide/UI access to 800+ FAST channels. Colin sees this as a meaningful competitive differentiator, and believes Google TV / Android TV will grow briskly outside of the U.S. and even gain a few points of market share domestically.

It’s hard to argue against better discovery being valuable, yet I don’t see it as a game-changer in the CTV space, at least domestically, because, well, to start with, very few people actually use Google TV domestically.

In fact, according to insights from Beachfront’s CTV Marketplace for H2 2022, Google TV’s share of impression volume was a measly 1.9%. Meanwhile Roku, the perennial market share leader in the U.S., notched 39.2% of impressions, roughly consistent with the range I’ve seen for Roku for years.

While Colin and I agree that Google TV / YouTube / YouTube TV is a formidable collection of assets for Google, I remain quite sanguine about Roku’s ability to compete in the land of the giants. There have been no shortage of Roku naysayers over the years, since I wrote “Scrappy Roku Makes More Deals, Keeps Elbowing Its Way Into the Big Leagues” back in January, 2013, following a keynote interview I did with CEO/Founder Anthony Wood at NATPE in Miami.

In the 10 years since, Roku has more than held its own, and is arguably the most innovative company in the ad industry. Roku is focused and relentless, and it has a very strong talent bench. As I put it in 2013, Roku remains “more a work horse than a show horse.” As for Google, a sub-2% CTV/device share after all these years? The good news: there (continues to be) really only one way to go from here.

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The following video was recorded at VideoNuze’s third annual Connected TV Advertising PREVIEW: 2023 virtual on February 28, 2023.

Is CTV’s Future at the Bottom of the Funnel?
With linear TV’s decline, CTV ad spending has surged as advertisers “follow the eyeballs” in order to achieve their reach and frequency objectives. But rather than CTV being viewed solely as a “top of funnel” branding channel, its biggest opportunity may be as a “full funnel” or even “lower funnel” opportunity. This would unlock performance-oriented advertising budgets that are based on high impact targeting and measurement, much the same as the successful playbook Google has run in search and Facebook has run in social. Learn how and when CTV may evolve into full funnel and what this means for all market participants.

Sean Doherty, Jr. – Co-Founder and COO, Wurl
Eric Smith – US Head of Verticals, Auto, Tech, Gaming & Entertainment, Roku
Jen Soch – Executive Director, Channel Solutions, GroupM
Olga Weinraub – Senior Director, Enterprise Marketing Partnerships, Cox Automotive
Colin Dixon – Chief Analyst and Founder, nScreenMedia (moderator)

On this week’s podcast, Colin Dixon and I boldly  introduce to the industry a new acronym (technically it’s a “macronym” or “nested acronym”).

We’re all aware that free ad-supported TV (“FAST) services are currently all the rage and that many are predicting it will become a multibillion dollar streaming segment in the years ahead.  

Content providers, TV OEMs and TV networks are seizing the opportunity by launching new FAST services to capitalize on two key trends - advertisers’ insatiable demand for premium CTV ad inventory and viewers’ SVOD fatigue especially as economic uncertainty surges.

All of this makes FASTs a “road to gold” in the short-term.

But, in the longer-term, an unintended consequence of FASTs’ growth may be to precipitate accelerated churn among SVOD providers. Hence the new macronym: SVOD Losses On the Way (“SLOW”).

There are still only 24 hours in the day, and viewers constantly make choices about what to watch, what services get displaced and what they’re willing to pay for. If viewers reapportion their viewing time to strong FAST services that are flooding the market, then they’re being “trained” to consume free premium video via FASTs. Further, their expectations for ever-better shows to be accessible without payment also escalates.

SLOW is a concept I’ve been contemplating for some time, especially as I read one FAST-boosting report or article after another, as well as observing the slowing growth SVODs are already experiencing.

But this week’s announcements of WBD moving “Westworld” plus a trove of other programming to Tubi and to The Roku Channel FAST services really crystallized things for me. After all, “Westworld” is a show that garnered 54 Emmy nominations and 9 wins in its four-year run. Its popularity has faded recently and HBO cancelled it, but it still boasted a familiar, name-brand cast. For HBO, it was no “Game of Thrones” or “The Sopranos,” but it was respectable. Now all 36 episodes will be available completely for free on Tubi and The Roku Channel.

To be clear - and as I say in the podcast - I remain a fan of FASTs. I’m only raising the caution flag that the decision-making around which FASTs to launch and what premium content will be included must be made with a lot of strategic awareness. Companies condition their customers what to expect; once this conditioning is set it is incredibly difficult to recondition them.

Note: There will be a dedicated session on whether FASTs are a road to gold or a road to “SLOW” at VideoNuze’s CTV Advertising PREVIEW virtual event on Feb. 28th afternoon. Sign-up is complimentary. Initial speakers being announced next week.

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