The Bulletin Edition 19
From The Desk of
And we are back! After two whole weeks, one of which I decided to take the week off to relax and recuperate, this week’s edition of The Bulletin is almost a double issue. As always, the whole purpose of The Bulletin is to give you a quick overview of the week with some key topics, developments and thoughts that I think you would appreciate and benefit from in some way, either with your work, personal or your own thought leadership. I am sometimes asked why I didn’t include this piece of news or that announcement. The truth is, I can’t include everything as I don’t have the time. However, I also trust that as informed readers, you are also reading the daily industry news as well. For me, this week’s edition serves me as much as it serves you as after a break I was in dire need of catching up on what’s been happening in the real world.
I also believe something more regular like a daily news brief would become too demanding for my editorial time and wouldn’t allow any space for me to sit back and think about the week’s news, resulting in something akin to just link posting. That said, a few other developments came about on my week off. You will see a new “Podcast” link in the menu on this site and now every quarter, I will sit down with my west-coast-based friend Eric Lapointe, to have an informal chat about industry developments and other topics. I also became a part of Colour Bars Collective last week, as one of their mentors, advising entry-level professionals in the entertainment industry on areas such as thought leadership, career and business development. A big thank you to them for this opportunity.
As ever, thank you all for your support and words of encouragement and I wish you all the success for your coming week [C]
The Weekly Dispatch
The Golden Globes
Many of you may have missed it in a fleeting moment however the Golden Globes came and went with streaming services hoarding up awards like no tomorrow. Netflix came in big with The Crown and The Queen’s Gambit helping the service reap record nominations. With 6 of the 11 television awards under its belt and Amazon and Apple winning one each (with Apple’s very first award), it was clear that the streaming services completely dominated the wins in the small screen categories.
Disney came out on top winning the most prestigious award, being the best dramatic motion picture, for “Nomadland,” and more notably, the film’s director Chloe Zhao became the second only woman to win the prize.
With many theatres closed for the past year, big Hollywood production shuttered or slowed, it was inevitable that the smaller screen would be the core focus of the awards. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens next year when hopefully big picture production will have roared back into life.
Nielsen and Roku
This week it was announced that Roku would be buying Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising unit, including all the technology that would allow advertisers to better target specific audiences. While Roku initially launched as a streaming device or OS company, the 51 million active Roku accounts have given it a boost to shift more to reap the benefits of better-targeted advertising and viewer analytics. Roku will be able to generate revenue from viewers watching the Roku original channels and could sit inline with recent reports that Roku could be looking at developing its own original content. Estimates put ARPU increasing by 50% this year compared to 2020 with this new Nielsen deal. Nielsen’s stock rose as much as 29% on extended trading after the announcement.
Paramount Plus launches
“Just stick a “plus” sign on it and launch,” seems to be the mantra for the last 12 months. In a marketplace already crowded with many other services, this week Paramount launched their Plus service in the U.S., Canada and 18 countries in Latin America. Some say the timing is too late, others think the familiarity of the content could bode well for the service particularly as the consumers demand nostalgia and familiar content continues to grow amongst a sea of unknown originals on other services.
Upon launch, the service bundles together news, sports and a wide range of new original series, well-known and popular franchises and some blockbuster movies. With over 30,000 films and TV episodes on offer, the service pulls from the ViacomCBS portfolio of brands including, MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, CBS, Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures.
Square to acquire Tidal
Well, this came as a surprise. At an acquisition cost of $297 million, this week it was announced that Jack Dorsey’s company Square will acquire the Jay-Z run music streaming service Tidal.
Square, the payment processing platform announced a significant majority stake in Tidal, with Tidal operating independently within Square. Much chatter was travelling back and forth all week on why Square would be interested in buying a music streaming service. According to Square, the acquisition will increase its “purpose of economic empowerment” to musicians. Square plans to expand on this with additional tools and systems to help artists develop their careers, increase their fanbase and apparently find “financial freedom.”
The deal certainly turned some heads not only in the industry but on Wall Street as well. As covered in Protocol, Square announced Monday that it has just been approved as a bank, rather than just a payment processor. Could this be a link up to grab the reins on some financial muscle to indeed compensate artists better? Or just a way for Dorsey to become more involved in financial services that are now seen more as being lifestyle choices for the younger generation than simply stuffy and outdated traditional banks. The banking industry is in need of a shakeup and the younger generation wants to be defined by who they bank with, and they want well-known and respected figures behind it.
Amazon Fire TV lands in Jeeps
Hit the road Jack because Amazon’s Fire TV platform will be available in Jeep’s 2022 Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer SUV models. This will be the first automaker to have built-in Fire-TV support. The in-car connectivity will allow passengers to co-watch or watch individual shows and films on their own devices. Stellantis has the full press release.
Disney Star Launch
To think that I have already started using Star before I even had a chance to write about it and the most wonderful aspect of browsing through the content on Star? FAMILIARITY! Content I actually have heard of and want to watch or want to watch again. No more 25 minutes of scrolling through original series or original movies that no one has ever heard of.
Disney Star has launched and is available for any existing subscriber to Disney Plus. Star already appears alongside Marvel, Pixar and all the other franchises however due to the older demographic nature of the content you have to have a passcode lock enabled. Disney said the new service is aimed at adults, families and older teens. Walt Disney Shares rose shortly after the announcement and launch and continued to rise the day after.
There has always been the notion that Disney Plus was “for kids” and that apart from Star Wars and Marvel there wasn’t much else there to keep families without children from paying the subscription fees. Star may have plugged the hole by adding another string to its bow with familiar TV shows and films, many of which have never been seen on other streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon. Natalie jarvey, writing for The Hollywood Reporter, explores this strategy further, with the notion that with Disney on track to surpass Netflix in terms of global sub numbers by the end of 2024, adding Star will only demonstrate even more value to subscribers looking for something other than the traditional Disney fare for a younger audience.
The full list of content currently available on Star can be viewed on this PDF from Disney.
Netflix launches fast laughs and auto-downloads
Well, Netflix has been busy again since I have been away with a number of announcements making the press over the past two weeks:
Auto-downloads - Netflix has announced “Downloads for You,” a new feature that will automatically download films and TV episodes that they think you will like. The feature is only available on Android for now and has settings to manage storage space (and I hope WIFI only) It is an interesting move as I know from experience getting into the car on a long journey when my kids were younger and realizing I had not downloaded any content to their iPads or when I used to take… transatlantic trips and had to contend with the inflight entertainment system that never seemed to work in my seat.
The launch of Fast Laughs - Mutters of “Tik Tok” and “Quibi” were abounding this week as Netflix announced a new mobile-only tab called Fast Laughs, with comedy clips streaming in an almost Tik-Tok-like feed. The content is displayed in full-screen vertical video mode, autoplay and lets users share their favourite clips with their friends directly and also on social media. Netflix says the section will provide up to 100 curated clips a day. An interesting move but clearly the main strategy is to just have another feature that will make sure Netflix subscribers continue to engage with the app and keep paying the monthly subscription fee. If there comes a point where continually raising the monthly subscription price without adding any perceived value to the service becomes a sticking point with existing Netflix subscribers, adding new features like Fast Laughs could become more common.
Discussed
As always, Discussed covers a few notable topics that came up this week during my interactions on social media and in communication with colleagues that I think are worthy of sharing. The discussions are cross-industry but as you will find, we are all merging into this digital world now where retail, home, entertainment, fitness and travel are all starting to morph together. Hopefully, my notes and observations below will get you thinking and any additional contribution to the topics is always welcome so please get in touch.
Hyper-personalization: For businesses and subscription companies, finding new customers is one thing, keeping them is another. However, finding and connecting with the most valuable customers is already the next big focus on customer acquisition. From exclusive access and individual tailored goods and services to personalized products, all these new offerings are opening up a whole new realm of consumer data, much of it with the consumer more than willing to trade for something in return. Tomoko Yokoi, writing for Forbes, puts together a very insightful piece on how to get started in hyper-personalization and how companies such as Nike and Netflix have already seen much success in this space.
Virtual concerts won’t replace real ones, they will just become another medium: A very interesting topic (and then an article) came up earlier this week on whether virtual concerts will replace in-person concerts and live streams or will become an entirely new medium that will stand on its own and compliment the others. Many virtual concerts can’t be replicated in person or even live-streamed simply because of the nature of the fan integration, platform, format and social interaction. Midia Research analyst Mark Mulligan was quoted this week as saying:
“Live Streamed concerts will be a long-term part of the music market, not just a lockdown stopgap, but for them to fulfill their potential, there needs to be an understanding that virtual events are a new video format, not a new live format.”
Once the vaccination rollout gathers steam and in-person events slowly roll back in, will consumers want to dig deep into their pockets for (more than likely more expensive) in-person tickets, live stream tickets and virtual tickets? There will be only so much money to go around.
Are streaming algorithms ruining everything?: If you have read a few previous editions of The Bulletin you will follow my opinion that the streaming service recommendation engine is already broken. Recommendation engines should be based on my watching history but more importantly, they should establish some baselines before I even start using the service. No tick box for horror or reality TV shows, tick box for documentaries, action films and nostalgia TV. No tick box for Fantasy or stand-up comedy, tick box for British TV and Classics. And yet, I still get recommended with an entire swim-lane of shows and movies I will never watch. Martin Scorsese joined my team this week saying that algorithms treat the consumer as “a viewer and nothing else” and damage the art form and only provide suggestions based on individual or collective viewing habits. This form of “nudging” can be very helpful especially if you are presented with a sea of originals (such as on Netflix) that are unfamiliar. However, as a general rule, should we bring back behind-the-scenes human-curated collections instead? What’s wrong with the good old “Rolling Stone Magazine” styled “Top 10 music movies of all time?” or “Top 10 perfect winter Sunday afternoon movies” that have actually been watched by the curator? Too subjective or could an algorithm do better?
Will cable-TV just disappear?: Altice CEO Dexter Goei explained to CNBC this week why he thinks that cable and wireless will eventually merge in the U.S., and why it’s only a matter of time before cable TV becomes extinct. “Everything is going to be IP-based, and then the question is because everything is IP based, and you have so many different choices...what the cable bundle is doing today is putting together everything that’s available in the OTT world and providing it to you in a good format for you to be able to guide yourself through lots of different options in the way you watch television. It’s only a matter of time. Name me one person under 30 years old who has a cable video connection.”
A stark reality for anyone who thinks that despite recent news that cord-cutting losses are starting to slow in the U.S. and Canada and may level out at around 76 million or so paying cable subs, they won’t be around forever. A new generation, new devices, new ways to consume. The cable industry could indeed be extinct in 10-15 years’ time.
Why Amazon Prime Video doesn’t need to compete with anyone: This question has been put around a number of times and even could be asked about Apple TV+. Why do both companies not seem to care much about their streaming services? In short, they aren’t trying to win the streaming war with Disney and Netflix. It’s that simple. Brandon Katz, writing for The Observer, delves a little deeper into the reasoning behind both companies being quite happy to be the tortoise instead of the hare.
Niche doesn’t mean a small or even savvy audience: After trying to help my parents navigate through the menu of streaming services on their OTT stick device, I realized that there could be a great opportunity for a new SVOD platform targeting the 50+ audience. Yes, much content can be streamed elsewhere but now we are seeing that consumers want all their content in one place, curated and easy to navigate. I know my parents would welcome factual entertainment, reality shows, travel, food and cooking, gardening, a healthy lifestyle, news but all suited to their age demographic (think 65 and up) and all in one place (with a remote with large buttons!) This week Poland’s National Broadcasting Council awarded a channel license to “Silver TV,” which is aimed at the 50+ audience, focusing on entertainment but also informative programming around healthy living and an active lifestyle. Perhaps that should be my new project. I am sure advertising and brand tie-ins would jump at being able to focus on this growing and affluent demographic.
On Point
392 million - the current OTT streaming subscriber base reach in APAC (SpotX)
$1 billion - the rumoured amount Amazon is set to pay for NFL streaming rights (WSJ)
60 - the number of physical stores Disney is shuttering across the U.S. as a shift to eCommerce. This represents 20% of its 300 retail stores (Disney)
170,000 - the number of tickets Live Nation sold in 3 days for 2021 summer outdoor festivals in the UK, signalling confidence in vaccinations and reopening (Variety)
11 million - the number of subscribers to the SVOD Discovery+ service, end Jan 2021 (Discovery)
70% - the percentage of Swedes who watch online video on a daily basis (Mediavision)
$14.1 million - the box office opening weekend results for Tim Story’s “Tom & Jerry” (Warner Brothers)
60,000 - the number of songs uploaded to Spotify every day. They also announced last week that they will be launching in 85 new markets that have a total population of over 1 billion (Spotify)
74% - the percentage of viewing on a TV set, still being the dominant device for watching shows and movies in 2020 (MipTrends)
$15.16 - the maximum amount consumers are willing to pay, per title, for premium VOD (Omdia)
Quote
“The more and more and more thing — who was that good for? We are ravenous content monsters, but isn’t it nice to have it be chiller and have some time to get to catch up on something?”
Willa Paskin, a TV critic at Slate and a host of its “Decoder Ring” podcast commenting on the upside of production slowdowns during the pandemic, and the fact that consumers had less to watch.
Quote
“The consumer is probably more impatient than they’ve ever been before, particularly since now they’ve had the luxury of an entire year of getting titles at home pretty much when they want them. I’m not sure there’s going back.”
Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Bob Chapek on his belief that there have been fundamental changes in people’s attitudes towards watching movies at the cinema, implying that these trends will more than likely continue after the global pandemic passes.
Productivity
Some of us have passions, hobbies or activities where we get so involved we lose all sense of time, place and even awareness of our surroundings. Musicians get completely lost in playing music. Athletes enter their “zone” and find the right balance that enhances their skills, performance and longevity. Perhaps you haven’t yet found that passion or hobby that takes you completely away from your surroundings. In this week’s productivity piece, James Wallman shares his tips in this video on how you can find and access your own flow state.
Visual
(click for larger image)
Diversion
As always the Diversion section of The Bulletin takes you completely out of the streaming narrative, yet hopefully provides you with some insight, education or just a diversion that makes you think “I didn’t know that” or “that’s really interesting, how could that apply to my own business or industry?” This week as it’s a double week we have two diversions for you.
Rethinking closed captions
In the short film above, Berlin-based artist Christine Sun Kim rewrites closed captions, an extremely important feature for over 430 million people worldwide with hearing loss. How does someone who is deaf or HOH know what a “violin” sounds like? or “footsteps on the street?” It’s certainly something to think about.
Mexican Grill Chipotle launches menu themed makeup and a range of clothing
There is no doubt the global restaurant industry has taken a battering over the past 12 months due to the pandemic with many restaurants and fast-food chains having to reinvent their menus, their locations, pivoting completely or just closing up shop.
Chipotle, the American Mexican Grill chain popular with remote workers, a large college group cult-following and pretty much anyone else who doesn’t dwell too long at burger joints, has launched not only a range of branded leisure wear (for those working from home and studying from home) but also a makeup collection that mirrors in colour and tone the in restaurant food menu. It is safe to say in times like this every food brand needs to find different ways to tap into their core audience and fan base, especially if you can’t find a way to do it through their stomachs.
And Finally
Memmo Me
Over the past year musicians, celebrities, actors and creatives have all been finding ways and platforms that help them better engage with their fans, often through direct support and exclusive access, particularly on platforms such as Patreon and Cameo (which is US-based only)
Memmo Me launched last year and now with a new round of $10 million in funding, plans to go big with both a global and localized celebrity personalized message offering. There must be someone in your life who would appreciate a personalized video message from Joseph Gannascoli aka “Vito” in The Sopranos, or a famous NFL or NHL player.
U.K. magazine The Big Issue launches a documentary SVOD service
When I lived in London in the late 1990s, someone standing on a street corner calling out “Big Issue!” was a very common sight. The Big Issue is a weekly entertainment and current affairs magazine sold directly on the street that provides homeless people in the UK a legitimate income. Over 200 million copies of the magazine have been sold since its launch back in 1991. This week it was announced that the magazine has teamed up with the digital distribution platform Alchimie, to launch a documentary and factual-focused SVOD channel “The Big Issue ITV” (TBI TV)
With a subscription price of GBP 3.99 a month, the service will pull on Alchimie’s 60,000-hour library and will cover culture, social activism, finances, geopolitics, health, technology and the environment, all topics that mirror the printed magazine’s focus.
Subscription coffee takes the next step
Following on from my previous post, a few issues back on my new printer and the ink subscription service, my latest addition to the world of subscription economics is a coffee bean delivery twice a month. The only challenge is that with a backfill order that ran out before my next one was due (so I ordered an additional bag) and then five bags of beans turned up in one delivery. I’d rather have too much coffee than wake up and realize I’ve run out but how could coffee companies know exactly when I will run out? This week I came across “Bottomless,” an interesting subscription model that provides you with a wifi-connected scale. You choose your choice of coffee beans and the first delivery comes with the digital scale. After each cup, you place the bag on the scale and the company knows how much you have used and when to send you the next bag. Already laundry detergent companies are teaming up with washing machine vendors to do exactly the same thing.
Fireside, the next generation of podcasting?
A quick one to round of this week’s edition. Sneak peeks came out this week of Mark Cubans new app Fireside, which aims to deliver the next generation podcast platform. As a hybrid between what looks like a social network, project management system?, Spotify Anchor and Clubhouse, Fireside aims to take away the often one-directional approach to podcasting being lean back listening. Fireside sees value in bringing the listener into the debate, the community and the platform. Very interesting indeed and The Verge covers the beta service in more detail here.
This concludes this week’s edition of The Bulletin. If you would like further details on anything mentioned or have questions or suggestions that you would like to discuss on email or to schedule a call, please drop me a note.
Cheers and thank you for your support and I wish you all the success for your coming week.