Episode 135: Disney Layoffs; Sports Streaming News; BBC Low Latency Trial; Wowza Makes AI Tech Acquisition

This special CDN focused podcast details the latest on delivery pricing and industry trends. I discuss delivery commits, QoE measurement, DIY deployments, HD HDR bitrates, and the impact of vendors exiting the market. I also cover how content owners perform capacity planning at the ASN level, leaching, latency, and why multicasting and P2P won't positively impact the industry. The data comes from my CDN pricing survey, as well as hosting panels and private events at the NAB Show Streaming Summit in April, which included OTT platforms, content owners, broadcasters, sports leagues, and others.Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we highlight all the sports news from Peacock, Pac-12, ESPN, Optus Sport, Amazon, IMG, and NASCAR, detailing viewership stats and new licensing deals. We also cover the recent layoffs at Disney, the BBC's low latency live streaming trial, and the current ad loads of Max, Prime Video and Peacock. Finally, we cover some vendor news, including Wowza's acquisition of AI tech company AVA Intellect, and discuss some recent data I collected on the use of AI in the streaming video workflow.Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we cover a lot of news, stats and numbers across WBD, Disney, Netflix, YouTube, MGM, Amazon, F1, DAZN, NFL, Verizon, Starz, Roku, TikTok, Apple TV, Premier League, JioHotstar, Paramount and other sports and OTT services. We also discuss the changes taking place at Qwilt, including the appointment of a new CEO, the assets of Phenix Real Time Solutions being put up for auction, and Bending Spoons' plans for Brightcove’s product roadmap. Correction: About 14 minutes in, when discussing WBD, I said Disney+ when I meant to say Discovery+. My apologies for the confusion.Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we cover the news from the Upfronts, with Netflix and Amazon announcing updated ad-tier user numbers, YouTube disclosing ad conversions on Shorts, and some of the new ad formats coming to OTT platforms. We also detail the upcoming DTC offerings from ESPN and FOX, as well as YouTube's plans to stream an exclusive NFL game for free in September. Finally, we highlight Charter's announcement of its plans to acquire Cox Communications, Warner Bros. Discovery's rebranding of Max to HBO Max this summer, and Sony's announcement of updated subscriber numbers for Crunchyroll. Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we highlight the key Q1 earnings numbers from Disney, WBD, Paramount, AMC Networks, Altice, EchoStar, Vimeo, Kaltura, Akamai, Fastly and Cloudflare. We detail the numbers tied to DTC subscribers additions/losses, profitability, bundling, capex and content spend, and the impact of earnings on stock prices. We also break out the 1.73M cord cutters across pay TV providers and vMVPDs, along with sports news from MLB, NFL, MLS, FanDuel Sports Network, JioStar, Disney and Comcast.Correction: Disney has not announced a spinout of its linear assets.Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we detail Roku's revenue growth of 16% YoY, with the number of streaming hours growing by 5.1B hours YoY. We also highlight Roku's announcement that more than a third of streaming households in the U.S. streamed monthly from its content row in Q1, with a total of more than 125 million people every day. We detail Fubo's earnings, with North America subscribers declining 2.7% YoY to 1.47M and a net profit for the quarter of $188.5M, due to the positive impact of the Venu Sports litigation. Finally, we touch on revenue numbers tied to AWS and Harmonic, some new TikTok data, and why Nielsen's new Gauge chart tied to ad-supported streaming services is flawed and misrepresents the streaming market. Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we detail Comcast's Q1 earnings, including Peacock's sub gains, thanks to the Charter bundle, with revenue up 16%, on an EBITDA loss of $215M, down from $639M YoY. We also cover all the pay TV losses from Comcast, Verizon, and Charter in the quarter, as well as Comcast's worst broadband losses ever in a quarter. We highlight MSG Networks deal with its lender JPMorgan that allows the RSN to avoid bankruptcy, and the NFL's Commissioner stating that he expects the NFL to return to scheduling a Christmas Day tripleheader in the future. Finally, we discuss Max's password sharing crackdown, YouTube's announcement of 20 million videos uploaded daily, and Twitter having been found guilty of patent infringement relating to streaming technology involving Vine and Periscope. Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we detail Netflix's Q1 earnings, including its free cash flow, content spending, and 2025 guidance forecast of $43.5-$44.5 billion. We highlight all of Netflix's comments around its ad tech platform, Netflix Ads Suite (NAS), and why Netflix says owning the tech stack is foundational to its long-term ads strategy. We also mention Netflix's comments about video podcasts and why it doesn't see YouTube as a competitor, saying Netflix is a "better service for a certain class of creators and certain types of storytelling." Finally, we cover the latest sports news from the NFL, Formula 1, MLB, and ESPN, and funding and acquisition news from FloSports, Hydrolix, Touchstream, and Simply TV.Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

For this special podcast, Mark Donnigan and I recap key takeaways from the 2025 NAB Show in Las Vegas, discussing what we heard on the show floor and in sessions. We detail the NAB’s attendance numbers and the impact I saw on the number of attendees due to the uncertainty in the financial market. We also highlight the many different metrics that exhibitors, sponsors and attendees use to determine the success of shows. We discuss what messaging we think worked best from vendors and key points made by speakers and presenters around CDN, AI, CTV, niche OTT services and where we see the need for improvement in transparency across the industry. Podcast produced by Security Halt Media

This week, we highlight DIRECTV's expanding RSN bundling options, which cover 18 MLB, 16 NBA, and 10 NHL franchises and the addition of Max Basic with Ads to its MyEntertainment Genre Pack. We also highlight the MLB TV streaming outage on opening day, JioHotstar's announcement that JioHotstar now has over 100 million subscribers, and Netflix's news that it is now streaming HDR10+ content for AV1-enabled devices. Finally, we detail the launch of EdgeCast Cloud Services from Parler Cloud Technologies and Bitmovin's news of reaching free cash flow in 2024, with 2025 revenue expected to be in the $30M+ range.Podcast produced by Security Halt Media