Episode 109: EchoStar and DirecTV Deal; Paramount Drops Nielsen; Netflix and Prime Video's Ad Business

In regulatory filings, more details have emerged in Bending Spoons plans to acquire Brightcove, including some terms for employees who stay on with the new company, the number of aggregate shares of company common stock tied to RSU awards, the exact number of Brightcove employees, a disclosure of a "material weakness in internal control over financial reporting,” and other company details. In this special podcast episode, we discuss all the numbers and provide insights into what the deal could mean for Brightcove's future.Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

Episode 114: This week, we detail all the misinformation after Netflix's live boxing event, the danger of not checking sources, and who you trust for news. We discuss the current state of Netflix's business and how the company is playing the long game - chess over checkers. We also highlight the latest content news from JioCinema, MLB, Sling TV, Disney, Amazon, NBA and Hulu. Finally, we focus on the latest broadcast TV news, which includes Comcast's decision to spin out its NBCU cable assets and DirecTV abandoning its acquisition of Dish assets.Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we detail all the important numbers from Q3 earnings tied to profitability, capex spending, MAUs and subscriber additions tied to streaming services from Paramount, Tubi, AMC Networks and Vizio, along with infrastructure players Vimeo, Brightcove, Akamai, Fastly and Cloudflare. We also discuss the latest content news from UFC, The Tennis Channel, Netflix, Sky and FOX and highlight CDN Medianova's round of funding. Finally, we break down the impact of the Fed's interest rates on your job and your employers' ability to borrow capital and expand their workforce, invest in R&D and launch new products and services versus not being able to afford interest payments and doing layoffs. Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, I recap all the streaming subscriber and pay TV numbers from Q3 earnings and profit and loss financials from Roku, Fubo, Peacock, YouTube, Sky, Verizon and others. I also highlight cloud services revenue from Amazon, Microsoft and Google, with AWS hitting a record $100 billion in revenue for the past 12 months. I discuss why Instagram lowers video quality for unpopular videos and disagree with their statement that people interact with videos based on their content, not their quality. I detail the report that Disney's exclusive NFL game on ESPN+ peaked at only 1.8M viewers and Roku's decision to stop reporting quarterly updates on streaming households and, by extension, ARPU, beginning with Roku's Q1 2025 earnings results.- Peacock added 3M subscribers, but 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘁 $𝟰𝟯𝟲𝗠- Fubo's Sports FAST channel 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 in Q3- Verizon, Comcast and Charter 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝟳𝟮𝟳,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗽𝗮𝘆 𝗧𝗩 subs in Q3- AWS hit $𝟭𝟬𝟬𝗕 𝗶𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 for the past 12 months- As Amazon builds out for AI, it 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘁 $𝟮𝟮.𝟲𝗕 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗲𝘅, up 81% YoY- The average Roku household streams 𝟰.𝟭 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗮𝘆- Since 2020, Meta's Reality Labs unit has an operating 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝗳 $𝟱𝟴 𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻- 𝟯𝟱% 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 spent on YouTube watching the Olympics was on TV screens- Sky UK had an 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝗳 £𝟮𝟮𝟰𝗠, nearly doubling its 2022 loss of £111M- Samsung says it has 𝟴𝟴𝗠 𝗠𝗔𝗨𝘀 for its Samsung TV Plus FAST service- Fubo had a 𝗻𝗲𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝗳 $𝟱𝟰.𝟳𝗠 in Q3, up from a net loss of $25.8M in Q2Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we discuss the key takeaways from Netflix's earnings tied to its upcoming first-party ad tech platform, subscriber gains in the quarter, and its latest reported engagement metric of two hours a day per paid membership. We also cover the latest news from the messy world of RSNs, including the new report that Peacock will begin offering NBC-owned RSNs in early 2025 and the terrible launch of the Gotham Sports App by YES Network and MSG Networks. In basketball news, we detail the new player features coming to the NBA League Pass for the 2024-25 season that will allow users to watch up to four games simultaneously with multiview, and we highlight WNBA Playoffs viewership stats from ESPN. Finally, we discuss how using AI to generate a podcast equals poor results since it is not authentic, won’t resonate with listeners and doesn't build a relationship with the audience.Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we discuss DirecTV’s plan to launch a FAST platform and how it might benefit its brand even as it joins a crowded market of FAST services. We also highlight why it’s smart for Apple to make Apple TV+ content available to as many viewers as possible via its deal with Prime Video, which will go live as a Prime Video channel later this month. We provide some of the new details released by ESPN's president about their ESPN app due to launch in 2025, which will offer multiview, sports betting capabilities, fantasy data, advanced stats, and ticketing and merchandise. Finally, we discuss the merger of JW Player and Connatix, which shared no details on the deal, making it unclear what the short or long-term value might be for the combined entity.Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor: Integrated Digital SolutionsPodcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we discuss what could happen to DTC services Sling TV and DIRECTV STREAM if the planned deal for EchoStar to sell Dish to DirecTV gets approved. We also highlight the news that Skydance is in talks with the NFL to purchase the NFL Network and the latest on Diamond Sports Group's decision to release all but one of its MLB contracts in the hopes of getting approval for its bankruptcy reorganization plan. We detail Paramount Global’s decision to drop Nielsen as its main viewer measurement currency in certain instances, with Paramount saying that in some cases, Nielsen's fees already exceed the total advertising revenue of the network being measured.We detail the misconceptions about Netflix and Amazon’s advertising businesses and discuss why Prime Video is expected to add more ad inventory to Prime Video while not changing its plans to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. Finally, we give out some numbers tied to the news that Comcast will deploy Qwilt’s open caching platform inside its network at hundreds of locations over the rollout, with the first locations going live in the next 1-2 months.Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor: Integrated Digital SolutionsPodcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we recap news from IBC about using cloud-based compute services for video workflows, encoding optimization, AV1/codec adoption, live encoding use cases, and AI's potential impact on encoding platforms. We also give updates on the Venu/Fubo lawsuit, price increases for NBA League Pass, the upgraded Roku Ultra device, Google rebranding their FAST channels, and some viewership numbers from Peacock. Finally, we discuss some interesting statements from Netflix regarding their ad tier, the NFL games on Christmas and how they view one-off sporting events versus full seasons.Companies mentioned include Akamai, Amagi, AOM, ATEME, AWS, Bitmovin, Brightcove, CDN77, Disney+ Hotstar, Dolby, Edgio, Harmonic, iSIZE, Neilsen, Netflix, NETINT, NVIDIA, THEO Technologies, Visionular, WaveOne, YouTube.Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor: Integrated Digital SolutionsPodcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, I break down news related to the start of the NFL season, including audience figures from NBC Sports, ESPN, and Amazon, as well as my testing of NFL streaming on Peacock, YouTube TV, Fubo, YouTube TV, Paramount+, Sling TV, and FOX Sports. I also review the most recent information regarding the Venu Sports injunction appeal expedited hearing, for which the opening brief is due this week. The specifics of the distribution agreements between Disney and DirecTV, as well as WBD and Charter, are also discussed. In conclusion, I address Edgio's filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, how the procedure works, and the potential results for the company and its business lines. I also address several misunderstandings around the filing, what it means overall for the CDN industry and what the outcome could be.Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we detail the latest updates surrounding the Paramount and Skydance merger, the Fubo and Venu Sports pretrial conference on September 12 and the NBA asking New York’s Supreme Court to dismiss Warner Bros. Discovery’s matching rights lawsuit against the league. We highlight the report that Amazon no longer plans to invest $115 million into Bally Sports, Diamond Sports Group agreeing to honor its legacy TV agreements with most of its NBA and NHL partners and Disney's decision to close all its TV Everywhere apps later this month. Finally, we break out the new multiview options for NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers, Twitch's plans to raise the cost of new Tier 1 and gift subscriptions and why Netflix’s stock price hit a three-year high in August.Podcast produced by Security Halt Media