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- [00:00]
A
Hey, man.
- [00:01]
B
Hey. How are you?
- [00:02]
A
I'm good, I'm good. You're back from London, right?
- [00:06]
B
Just off a plane from London, actually, into what is still being renovated apartment here.
- [00:12]
A
Yeah. I have to say, my background is neat. Yours is not so neat. It is just for this week, right?
- [00:18]
B
We'll see. We'll see how long it lasts. There are people constructing and electricians in the other room, so you might hear a bang or two. But I will say I slept in my own bed in my own apartment for the first time in seven months last night and it was wonderful.
- [00:31]
A
That must feel good. Awesome. Okay, cool. So new week, new episodes, guys. We're loving this thing, you know, more and more. Earning season is, you know, in full force. There's a few more coming. We're going to be doing one next week as well. Right, Evan, let's advertise that, you know, quickly, which is exactly same time, same place, next Thursday, 5pm CET.
- [00:53]
B
Yeah. And wherever you're watching this on LinkedIn, on Substack, on YouTube, we'll be in the same place. Hopefully my place will be more done by then. And I will say, for those of you who are uninitiated, if you're coming through either of our substacks or our linkedins, this is the Media Odyssey podcast. We're doing it live. That's Marion Renchette, I am Evan Shapiro. And we are coming to you live for I think the fourth time now or third or fourth time. And we're doing this during earnings season to do as live ish as we possibly can, reporting on earnings over the course of every given week. And this week we have a big passel of earnings to report on with some really big companies in particular sectors. Do you want to jump in?
- [01:37]
A
Yeah, absolutely. We, we, we're going to start with the letter A and go with Amazon, a small, a tiny American company with a tiny global footprint. So I have to say I was again, quite excited to have some, at last, some numbers about Amazon Prime. Right. So they hadn't given us a number for what, two years now? Yeah, we were at what, 200 million and they're claiming 315 million. So that was kind of, you know, my thing. There's not much else that we know. We still know very little, but at least we know that. And I think that says a lot about how their business is transforming. What, what was your, you know, initial takeaway from the numbers?
- [02:22]
B
Well, let me ask you, was there a breakdown of those subscribers with regards to. Because they, they, those are sliced and diced in very many ways. There are people who are just subscribers to video. People who are subscribers to. Most subscribers in the US are subscribers to the prime package, which includes free home delivery and video and some other stuff. But did they break it down any further than just prime subscribers?
- [02:44]
A
So they use the word viewer, right?
- [02:47]
B
Viewer, yeah.
- [02:48]
A
So that's what I read in the earnings call, a few things. To me, that's anyone who' you know, popped up using a lot of Amazon.
- [02:57]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [02:58]
A
And. But the reason why they're pushing that number. Right. And it's interesting that shift to. They've never been super open about subscriber count. Whether we're talking prime standalone or prime video. The shift to viewers is very much linked to, you know, the advertising play. And we'll speak to that. Right. So it's a way of saying, look at the big scale that we're having. This is not a perfect number. We don't know what is a viewer, what is an active viewer. But it's still good news to see, you know, a bit of an, an insight into, you know, the scale of Amazon Prime.
- [03:31]
B
Yeah, I looked, I looked. I'll admittedly you looked right at the video portion of the report. I was taking the larger enterprise view and specifically at the AI investment in context because Meta had announced these huge increases in investment in AI. Microsoft had done the same, Google had done the same. And they had all been treated in different ways based on the context of their overall earnings. In this case Amazon, their stock is down generally, but not necessarily bigger than the market. But the result, their stock and their market capitalization isn't up either. Despite the fact that aws went up 24%, that the advertising business is really just cooking, continuing, continuing at 20 plus percent growth. You're right that they did talk about Prime a lot and their subscriber growth was absolutely pretty impressive given how expensive their subscription stuff is. And their total revenue was up pretty well. Even their E Commerce, which has been one of the weaker parts of their business given how large a part of their business it is, had a really good quarter. Yet their stock is kind of meh in response. And the whole overall response to Amazon was met because their, you know, not doubling, but raising their AI investment, their infrastructure investment to $200 billion next year. And then you put that in context of net income of only 6% growth. That gives me some concern around this company. I look at Google and their set of metrics across the same thing and their investment in AI and I say that all makes Sense here. I understand the benefits of AI to aws, but so far it's not showing up necessarily in the same way for this company.
- [05:21]
A
So that's a record number. Right. We've been covering earnings these last few weeks and this number of the AI investment has kept, you know, growing and growing. So we had the tiny apple at 15 billion and then we had what Microsoft over 100 meta was like close to 140. I can't remember exactly. This is 200. This is huge. The one thing I will say, it's
- [05:48]
B
not the biggest growth, but this is a bit of an AI, you know, dick swinging contest. You're absolutely right. And I think these companies are being punished in different ways in the market. Some are and some aren't. I don't think necessarily Amazon is handling this investment. I'm not seeing it in the bottom line the way that I might in a Google and even in a Meta at this point.
- [06:09]
A
Well, so if you look at their cloud business, if you look at this right, what I understand is that it is actually AWS is almost favored versus Microsoft Azure when it comes to cloud. And so all of that investment, to me it's paying back on that side of the equation, perhaps less so than a Google where it transpires across, you know, every single vertical. Well, I have to say though that you know, potentially AI in E commerce, as in they were saying that, you know, within five to ten years they will, you know, decrease the workforce, Right, Absolutely. Decrease the workforce with the advertising. They're pushing the agenda of, you know, AI will make, you know, targeting better, buying better, etc. Etc. So I, I'm not sure if I agree with you. One thing that I will say is that you've said at the top of the year that, you know, we were in a bubble and. But that bubble would burst this year and I'm going to say it again, I don't think it's going to happen this year. Right. I think, you know, the market is going to wait for 2026 and then at the end of 2026 we'll see what happens next year. But it's not going to happen right away. If you see the amount of money people are spending, I don't think that's the direction of travel.
- [07:27]
B
Heard the market seems to be leaning towards my point of view, which is there's a lot of fear around software and around AI in particular, hyperbole. If you looked at the prime number or the viewership numbers in the earnings report, I looked at one specific aspect which was AI. And in this case there's a big deal with Anthropic at the center of their AI strategy, which is a round trip. The reason why AWS is growing at the rate that it is is that it's contractually bound to based on investments Amazon is making in the large language platforms, model platforms themselves. So they're contractually obligated to get that investment coming back in or that, that those revenues coming back in through purchases of their cloud and infrastructure business. That's not a sound business model necessarily. And, and that's why at the center of this, I don't, I, I look at Google, who is buying and selling to themselves, and I don't think Amazon is as good a place. But I will say this, we need to move on or we're going to run out of time. So let's go to the next company, which is.
- [08:32]
A
Well, so do we want to keep doing oof, alphabetical order then that's taking us to. We got Roblox, we got Spotify, we got Sony. Which one do you want to do?
- [08:43]
B
We got Sony and Roblox at the same time. Is that okay?
- [08:46]
A
Yeah, that works.
- [08:47]
B
Okay, so in that case we've got this slide, which is the state of gaming today, at least from my perspective. So over the last week or two we've had reportings from Microsoft, Roblox and Sony and Nintendo. Sorry. And in each case they have major. These are, you know, four of the largest, if not three of the largest, the three largest gaming companies on the face of the earth. Right. And in Sony's and Microsoft's case, their gaming divisions in particular had really bad fourth quarters. That's a bad sign for a gaming company. Meanwhile, Roblox, which doesn't sell devices or things like that, had a mass massive year and a massive fourth quarter that said they still lost a shit ton of money. And Nintendo is still riding the high of Switch two, the fastest, perhaps the fastest growing console in history. We'll see. But so far, yes it is. And so I think this is an interesting statement on the state of gaming when you look at the earnings of these four companies.
- [09:54]
A
Yeah, minus four. I thought that was revenue. So it's on sales. The thing is that if you look at PlayStation, they haven't released a device in how long. When was PS5 launched the last time? Tell us in the comments. If you look at Microsoft, same thing. Right. So Switch two, fantastic roadblocks. I think it shows the future, although it's already here because it's platform first. Right. It is device agnostic. One thing that I will say with Roblox is that the limitation I see with this, this company is the fact that it is very web based first. Right. Everything is mostly happening on the web. I haven't seen how it works. Yeah. On the web and on mobile. At a moment in time where there's so much focus on TVs. Right. And having that TV experience, I think this company, what they're missing right now that YouTube has managed to bridge is to make that transformation of being a Web and mobile first platform to be 100% device agnostic. What do you think?
- [11:01]
B
Yeah, I think I agree. Yes. And everything you just said there, I think the major takeaway here is live gaming is super important. Most of the most profitable gaming is either mobile or live gaming. And in an era where mobile has to be a part of your gaming strategy, it doesn't have to be all of your gaming strategy, but it has to be a good part of it and it'll probably be more than half of your revenue. Both Roblox and Nintendo are mobile products. Nintendo in a very different way. But we can talk about that in a second. Microsoft and Sony are anchored to products that are anchored to the home. And that is proving problematic at this moment in time that the anchor to the old business, which Sony has done enormously successful and Microsoft has failed at the Xbox is a failure. It's a failure compared to.
- [11:55]
A
I don't know about that, but yeah, I trust you on that one.
- [11:58]
B
When you look at the numbers long term compared to the Nintendo consoles and the Sony consoles, it's not even close to close. Xbox doesn't come anywhere close. And so comparatively speaking, it's always been third place at best, by the way. And then on the second hand, it's now a drag on that business because the Activision acquisition that Microsoft did for, what was it, $70 billion, is 75% live gaming. And that's not really a console business, that's a cloud business. That's a subscription business. Sony and Microsoft need to lean into their gaming subscriptions if they're going to transform for this moment.
- [12:39]
A
I think I completely agree. And on the back of that, because we focus on devices and platform. But last week Ubisoft, which is, you know, a French company but very much a global company, announced a billion dollar of, of losses. They're going to be cutting staff, they're closing studios, they've decided to actually cut some existing games, some new projects, some of the existing IP, talking about Prince of Persia, etc. And it's a mismatch, right, because these guys have been investing so much money but the cycle is so, so long. And in the meantime you have platforms like Roblox where people are, you know, creating their own games or you know, you have traditional players creating games within a matter weeks and months. And so clearly there's a two speed ecosystem right now. So I will say Roblox needs to be not just mobile first etc. But TV too. Somehow I don't know how that can work out given that you're very much in the making of things. It's much more lean forward than most of the gaming experiences you see with others. But I agree that Sony, Microsoft and even Nintendo to some point have a Switch. I'm still not buying, you know, games online. I'm not using the subscription, I'm not being pushed, you know, and I'm not being ecosystem. Yeah, yeah, it's very old school in the way the business is doing and it was fine for a long time because this was a cash cow. But as you were saying, you know, the market is struggling now.
- [14:19]
B
They have a very differentiated model. First of all they have an incredible library of IP which makes money in the movies as well as on their console. Right. This is Nintendo. Yeah, so they, they, but they have a very old school model. When they release a console their year is great. When they don't, their year sucks. Next year this time we will be having a very different conversation about Nintendo. I've been tracking them for a long time. The other thing to know about Roblox, two things. One, you're right, that is a creator economy model. And, and, and as are a lot of the, the larger live playing Fortnite is to a certain extent as well. And I'll talk about them in a second. But in particular Roblox paid out a billion dollars or more to creators in 2025 that said they've never been profitable. They've never been profitable and I don't know if they ever will be profitable. Lastly, one thing here. I have these friends who just did a survey. They're called Giq or not a survey they do. They had their data company and they focus on gaming. And they gave me a study that showed that 65% of all in game advertising is generated by Roblox. It's not that huge market but in the marketplace of in game advertising, Roblox is the only one hyper focused on it right now. And that to me is an enormous upside that I don't think anybody other than them is really as focused on Fortnite is the. Is the other largest player. But I think Roblox is one last thing. Their audience has also aged up by. As the audience original audience has aged they've aged up to a much more 18 to 45 year old audience than they were. And that's what I think part of that is the advertising business.
- [16:06]
A
Well so that's interesting because they release data right on. So they, they are doing something that I like but as a parent and I think let's see if they're not getting, you know punished but you know, very proper age verification and they during those earnings they actually gave the actual numbers of how you know that audience of. We're talking about 144 million daily active users. This is a number that I love. We only get monthly on the streaming side. So I love that they're sharing daily. That shows the habit. Right. So 144 million and you're looking at 35% are under 13 then 13 to 17. 38% over 18, 27%. This is still a company that's a
- [16:53]
B
huge shift from a couple of years ago.
- [16:55]
A
Yeah, yeah, they, they. Yeah, absolutely. So that's one thing they will need to figure out to be sustainable, you know, long term. Right.
- [17:03]
B
Which is.
- [17:04]
A
Well in China I don't think you can play hot box anymore because they saw that they were spending, you know, too much ET so below 13 that is still a lot of, you know, those players and it could be that actually those are those who are playing the most maybe under 17. I would.
- [17:20]
B
So there were a number of problems that this business faced a couple of years ago. Most notably predators on the platform and a lot of bad things. And then if not predators, inappropriate content reaching miners all over the world. And it became a major issue for them simultaneously they were freaking out over the fact that their demographic was aging. It seems to me that within the last year they've decided to lean into the aging of their audience and turn it much more right and, and turn it into a much different by the way older people spend more and good ad business. It's a really good ad. The kids ad business sucks. So they're going to create two different experiences. One for kids and one for adults. And the kids one will be, you know, kids stuff. The monetization will be probably pay as you go to a certain extent at some point. But that's again we're talking about an evolving ecosphere here that I think Microsoft and Sony aren't necessarily 100% on board yet. We'll See if Nintendo is a year from now. I also think Nintendo should buy Roblox. This chart to me says hey Nintendo, go buy Roblox. You belong together. You can't play Roblox on Nintendo Switch right now. That's a mistake. That is an error in both companies judgments.
- [18:35]
A
I don't know how you can make a. Yeah, I mean it's a platform nested in another platform. So it's very.
- [18:41]
B
Oh, but it's an IP machine. Roblox is an IP machine. It's a universe.
- [18:46]
A
Yeah. So a subset of Roblox should be turning, should be minted as IP and be taken on, you know, third party platforms and well, and devices.
- [18:56]
B
I think we'll start to see that happen. Anyway, let's go on to our, I think our last company, although we have.
- [19:02]
A
I have one thing I want to talk about Sony, regarding Sony and just take two seconds to look at, you know, because overall it's not a great quarter for these guys.
- [19:12]
B
No.
- [19:12]
A
And looking at. I want to, I want to ask a question, I want to ask you a question. What I'm seeing that the movie side of their business is minus 11%. They're saying it's weaker theatrical, etc. I want to re ask the question that, you know, these last few years what we've heard is Sony made the right choice. They decided to stay a content studio and not do D2C like the others. Do we think that this, you know, premise still stands.
- [19:40]
B
That's a great question, especially in context of all what's happening in the industry right now. I think there were a lot of us, myself included, who said that that wound up being a great choice. I think it was a little bit more by accident than people give them credit for. But I think this is demonstrating how hit driven the business can be. And as one of the only true independents left out there, the shrunken market of independence has created less demand from that sector. And so their business is suffering overall. Worldwide orders for, for television series went down 15% in 2025. The only sector that grew in television orders, film and television orders. So both of their sectors was low to medium high production value, which is not what Sony does. Sony only does big high end productions both in reality, nonfiction and in fiction and television film. They are, they are, you know, a notable studio. So they'll probably bounce back from this there. And you know, their music business on the other hand, which is a much less driven business now. They're actually being driven almost entirely by library at this point. Their, their music Business went up almost 13% in 2025, driven by, I think the next company we can talk about really quickly, Spotify. So you know, they, the, the pictures and the television business, they don't really have that great a library business. They have a very hit driven business, especially in the television.
- [21:22]
A
Love it. So let's move on.
- [21:24]
B
Last company that we're gonna talk about is Spotify. A company that I used to love to hate. Now I hate to love mostly because I think their CEO is not a very nice person. I'll go on the record and say that. Or not. Not see anymore. He's now the chairman. But I think the big takeaway on Spotify, first of all, streaming is now the music business. Streaming and live performance.
- [21:52]
A
Yeah, I was about to say exactly.
- [21:54]
B
And now for a performer though, pretty much just live because you're not getting paid a lot of money unless you're Taylor Swift from Spotify or Apple or the rest. And the music streaming business has been a very difficult business, a very expensive business to be in. Spotify spent a lot of money on podcasts. I don't know if that really ever paid off. Their music costs go up every single year. And I don't think a lot of people understand that 2024 was the first time they were ever profitable.
- [22:19]
A
No, people know that. People know that. And one of the reasons why they were not right is because I started my career in the music business and you know, on every single stream, you know, there's, there's not a lot left. Right. There's not a lot left. It's not a high margin business, you know, considering how the deals are structured with the major studios.
- [22:43]
B
Yeah, and, and, but this, they have, they have found a way to lower costs mostly through bloodletting of staff. And they have, you know, continued to grow their user base on the paid end especially. And they're getting, you know, they've been raising prices. They didn't see any increase in churn from a, from an increase in price at all. Basically zero drop off of subscribers. And crucially, I think they have the greatest example of what I call the affinity economy. I think they have the greatest piece of social media marketing in history called rapt. And this year they amped it up with ages and things and other things like that and it became the greatest social media Mark. You and I both posted our, I think our wrapped, we emulated it on our feeds. So they are crushing it right now on all aspects. The only thing they're not doing well is advertising sales.
- [23:44]
A
Yeah. Speaking of Wrapped. Do you know that this was the idea of a trainee, of an intern?
- [23:50]
B
You have told me that before, yes.
- [23:52]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who did not get credit for this, which is quite fascinating. How old were you? I was 21 this year on my wrapped.
- [24:01]
B
I think it was 71 was my wrapped, which is basically my age. So that's.
- [24:05]
A
Yeah, I don't understand how they went about this, but 21, given that I'm 46. Yes. I'm saying it out loud is fine. So one thing I will say about the advertising piece, I do not get it. I don't understand how. How hard. So my question is, is it because audio advertising is and tricky, hence why they're investing so much in podcasts and they're saying that in terms of consumption, it's been plus 90% on a video podcast. Is it. Is this why they're moving and putting so many efforts on video? Because they just don't know how to monetize audio? But it's not just them, it's more the market itself.
- [24:45]
B
I think whoever came up with their video strategy, I'm going to give them a lot of credit for thinking this way. But the deal with Netflix makes their entire video strategy pay off immediately, right?
- [24:56]
A
Yeah.
- [24:56]
B
So not many people realize this, but the number one podcasting platform on Earth is YouTube. A billion people watch YouTube on TV for podcasts every month. That's just on TV. So it's about a third. A third, A third between Spotify, Apple and YouTube. But YouTube leads and then the other two are mostly audio. And the video component has been growing. Spotify got into that business, I think, to exactly all your points. But they now have a deal with Netflix which makes it, I think, probably break even day one. If not, you know, in the black day one based on, you know, the. Com. Hopefully Netflix is selling those that inventory for them. Although Netflix is also not great at selling ads, let's be honest.
- [25:39]
A
So not as bad as. As Spotify, if you look at the numbers. Right. Because we're looking at what, plus, plus 4% of revenue growth and subscription revenue grew 14%. So no, I think, anyway, I think,
- [25:53]
B
I think Spotify's ad sales was down 4% year on year.
- [25:58]
A
For me it was maybe. Well, I, I looked at the quarter. So could be that you're on your. It is, yeah.
- [26:07]
B
Fourth quarter. Fourth quarter on fourth quarter. Fourth quarter is the best ad sales quarter of the year.
- [26:11]
A
They're at 4%.
- [26:14]
B
Down 4%. That is a, that is a bad story. That said, they're crushing it. They have the the least churnable subscription in all media. And that's a major accomplishment. Two things. One, does anybody have any questions? Put them in the chat right now and we'll answer them. We do want to try to be mindful of everybody's time. And two, as you're putting your questions, that for anything we just said, or why my apartment looks like it's just been moved into. In the chat, I want to remind you that Maren and I are both going to be at Stream TV Europe in Lisbon in April. Lisbon in April is probably the greatest phrase in the history of words. You're going to want to be there. The content's going to be amazing. Marian has a whole day of programming that she's doing. We've got ITV doing a case study on Love Island. We've got ZDF doing their case study on how they went digital. We've got Banijay doing a case study on how they're going to direct to consumer. We've got a case study on Eurovision, the world's first song contest. There's an early bird. Go ahead, Marianne.
- [27:17]
A
I have one. I'm releasing, in partnership with RTL at Alliance, the biggest survey on video behaviors across Europe and it's 18 markets plus. We're comparing with the US, China and Saudi Arabia. So this report is coming out pretty much at the same time as Stream tv and you'll get to have me and someone from RTL at Alliance speaking to that because there's the narrative and then there's the numbers. But yeah, let's go back to the early birds.
- [27:48]
B
Well, first of all, Christine Carr PS5 was released 2020, November 12, 2020. There's an early bird special for Stream TV which ends tomorrow at midnight and there's a code that gets you an additional 10%. SME 10, which is on screen if you're watching and if you're listening to this later. SME10, stream TV Europe, go sign up now. Thank you for that, Christine. Joe Redfern, Roblox is said that Roblox is actually mobile first, which as not a Roblox player. I don't know that I would have known that. And that's.
- [28:21]
A
And that's why I think web and mobile. But which one is bigger Mobile? I guess then I'll trust Joe on that. She's a. She's a specialist.
- [28:30]
B
So Jo's going to have to give us our answer there. Christine Carr also has 10%. What are your thoughts on the Amazon AWS layoffs coming this year, including this January I think honestly that's how Amazon is using AI most right now, to reduce staff. They have been doing it ever since they started introducing AI to the enterprise. They saved thousands of years of human staff time in recoding their platforms using their own large language model internally. There's. So I think, you know, that's where they're most applying it. Not necessarily as a business product.
- [29:12]
A
I love it. We're starting to get people giving us recommendation for Lisbon. Fraser says Brooklyn Cafe in Lisbon has the best coffee. Okay, we'll go check it out. But you should come, Fraser. I don't know where you are based, but you know, you should come. You should come spend time with us in Lisbon.
- [29:27]
B
And Vanessa Sawyer, she says wrapped is so clever. It's taken off with other brands and other platforms. Ripple effect has been huge. Vanessa, what was your age? Tell us if you, if you dare. Frazier, Wait. Brief rundown, please. On Spotify, Netflix deal unless already covered.
- [29:43]
A
We covered it. But what can we say about that deal? You said it right. I think Spotify spent a buttload of money and on its own knowing that it's an audio platform first and foremost, despite the fact that they want to be more hybrid. Being on the biggest platform in the world video wise makes the most sense.
- [30:02]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I would say, I think the heartbeat of that deal was with the ringer and Bill Simmons. His podcast launched already. Your big bet for the year, man, was that podcasts on Netflix would fail if memory served. True.
- [30:16]
A
Absolutely. And I said that again recently. Yeah. With people with Netflix people in the room. I stand by this. I stand by this. We'll see. No, no, no. It's a gut feel in the sense that I don't think it works too. Number one, I think the type of deal they're making is very 2016, if not 1996, because it's this exclusivity thing where because they're on Netflix, they can't be on YouTube. So I think this is a lose, lose deal long term. I don't like that. I think it's very short sighted. So that's one. So I think that's going to hurt those, those podcasts. Number two, let's see how the product evolves. But right now the Netflix product is really not built for appointment TV and regular viewing like this and we tend to binge watch stuff and I, I, you know, I watch and listen to podcasts and it's, that's, that's not how I do it. But again, it's just me. So let's see. In a year's time. Because unlike you, Unlike you, I. I'm okay being wrong.
- [31:21]
B
I'm okay being wrong. Just not in front of other people.
- [31:24]
A
Yeah, well, exactly.
- [31:25]
B
So, but, but I will say, you know, Howard Stern, I think, proves your model incorrect to a certain extent. He just renewed for what, his 25th deal with SiriusXM. And I think both of them would argue that it's been very successful for them over, over time. You know, a bunch of others have done similar type deals that have been very lucrative for them and they've been very happy about it, whether or not from an audience standpoint it accrues to them over time. We'll see. But I will be interested to see. I mean, to me, it's obvious. Netflix has to have more daily touch points. They have to have more weekly touch points. And then you look at the deal that they made in your Motherland, France, with TF1. That's all about that, no?
- [32:11]
A
Yeah, absolutely. It's one of the draws that TF1 brings. Its, you know, broadcast TV channel. So you'll have linear feeds within Netflix France, and they have a very deep library of content. We're talking 30k assets. And it's a mix. It's not just French content. People, you know, don't you worry. But there's a lot of, you know, great stuff in there. And it's a way of, I, I'm not sure, you know, what, what's the deal in the background, but it's a great way to have local content with limited investments.
- [32:44]
B
With TF1, you get talk shows.
- [32:47]
A
Yeah.
- [32:48]
B
Tremendous amount of news programming as well.
- [32:50]
A
Soaps.
- [32:51]
B
And in this case, I think the, that what you have to realize that for a lot of the world, watching a podcast on television has replaced the talk show, has replaced daytime television. New York Times did a great piece about three weeks ago about how YouTube has replaced daytime TV. And that's what Netflix is. Netflix is chasing YouTube so badly, it's a little embarrassing. But they're hiring Ms. Rachel Sidemen, all the podcast, all the YouTubers that they get. The Spotify deal is about that for them, trying to steal the podcasting Crown from YouTube. And so the definition of premium television, especially when it comes to things like talk shows or news, in part because of COVID the bar of production quality has lowered. And Bill Simmons in the United States, he's not as notable in your territory as he is here. He's a notable personality here. And for a certain consumer, I don't think it's about subscription. I don't even think it's about retention. I think it's about ad impressions for both companies.
- [33:52]
A
But I think in any case, the product needs to change. You mentioned our stern and serious. Sirius is an audio platform churning video the other way around, making sure that you have the right product, the right platform, where people tend to come in and watch two, three episodes at once or a movie in one go. Having them build that habit of turning it on just like, you know, like daytime they would with daytime tv. I think there's a lot of work to be done on that. And yes, the content will be important, but then it's also a matter of discoverability. And right now. So I haven't seen podcasts here, you know, popping up in any shape or form. But as you know, we have a content discovery problem. So it's great to add all of those new things, but if you're not adapting the product and the platform. Platform. Yeah, yeah. And you know what, what, what is it going to do to your business? Not much. Netflix should do one thing that I'm sure YouTube is doing. If Netflix. Well, they should do this one thing that YouTube is doing. If you look at the Netflix interface, it is pretty much the same across the entire deck. If you want to look like tv, then you need to think in day parts. And so your platform should be showcasing different things at different moments of the day. I will share in the comments. Somehow I've read a study from Roku and they show how the day is split and what people are interested in. It is fast focus. But I think this would apply for a number of things. And so that's what Netflix doesn't do. It is the same look and feel and content being pushed at any point in time during the day.
- [35:32]
B
Yeah, I think your comment about the product is absolutely correct and I think you're going to see a dramatic shift in product and all the major premium streaming products. I think you'll see a massive shift over the next 24 months. All of them are adding mobile vertical product. Every single one of them is going to add a vertical product. That's going to have to change the entire operational aspect. Like if, if you expect that you're going to grow to 25% mobile usage, vertical usage over the next five years, you have to dramatically shift your product, both content wise and then obviously technologically speaking. But then to turn this around for a second, I think everybody admits now that podcast video podcasting is going to be a major part of the living room experience. Video experience, both vertical and horizontal by the way this deal between Spotify and Netflix says to me that, um, that they admit that they're not going to do television and they're going to basically outsource that to Netflix for a fee for the IP license. And by the way, this is also Netflix admitting we can't do podcasts. We've tried and we don't want to do it. And it's a, it's a nice meeting in the middle. I think they should buy each other. Um, you know, that's a great.
- [36:51]
A
You end up buying.
- [36:52]
B
But that's.
- [36:52]
A
I thought you said Netflix Disney should buy Spotify. No. Did you? Oh, no, no, it was. You didn't do something like this.
- [36:59]
B
That was a while ago. But, but I mean if, if Netflix took its focus off of buying Disco Brothers for a second and focused on buying Spotify for about the same price by the way, or ish, they have a much more complimentary product that extends the lifeblood of every subscriber and increases their arpu. Day fucking one. Day one. It's a, it's an additive. It's a zero turn business almost overnight. Whereas adding HBO Max does. I don't think it gives you anything more than a lot of debt. A shit ton of debt and a ton of headaches.
- [37:30]
A
I don't see this Netflix and Spotify thing. And about Netflix, I haven't seen them doing podcasts. I think what I'm thinking is they're spending time doing licensing deals. They will learn and then they will do what they've done is that they're going to be able to do it themselves. And I will buy the Netflix podcast venture when they actually build a flywheel around their IPs. I think I trust them more on doing that than on just, you know. Yeah. Anyway, we'll see, we'll see in a year's time. But it was awesome.
- [38:01]
B
To your point, they definitely need to update that product if they want to become a daily touch point. If they want to become tv, they're going to really have to update that product.
- [38:09]
A
They don't want to be tv, but
- [38:11]
B
they have to be TV and mobile now too. This was great. Thank you for doing this. Once again, Stream TV Europe, we're both going to be there. We're going to be doing one of these live on stage with some kick ass guests which will go out afterwards. Stream TV Europe. Look it up online. SME10. Is that it? Yeah, is the code.
- [38:29]
A
That's my code. Streaming made easy SME.
- [38:31]
B
And thank you all for watching on whatever platform you're on. We love you on substack, LinkedIn, YouTube. We're going to be back in this place again next week. 11 Eastern, 8aM Pacific, 4pM GMT, UK. Thanks, everybody.
- [38:48]
A
Cheers.
- [38:49]
B
Cheers.