Back in 2019, in a CNBC interview, Spotify Co-Founder Daniel Ek described Spotify’s bold ambition: “It is really about expanding our mission from just being about music to being about all of audio and being the world’s leading audio platform.” Ek expanded on that vision at the 2022 Investor Day, stating Spotify had moved “from…
Amazon and YouTube won Upfront Week. That is the simple version. The longer version involves legacy media spending irrationally on content that does not drive retrans, at least three companies pretending they have Amazon’s full-funnel advertising capabilities without the closed-loop attribution to back it up, why the narrative that sports moving to streaming is anti-consumer…
The US wireless incumbents are nervous, and this week they showed it. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon announced this morning that they plan to pool spectrum for direct-to-cell service, an agreement in principle with no agreement behind it. The FCC, separately, cleared EchoStar’s spectrum sales to AT&T and SpaceX earlier this week. We read the JV…
The narrative that streaming is making the NFL unaffordable has become a talking point for politicians and regulators. The data tells a completely different story. Yes, NFL games are now spread across more services than ever. But streaming competition has splintered the old cable bundle, giving consumers the ability to pay only for what they…
Cogent is struggling to execute on every part of its business. Without operational improvements that get Cogent back to sustained free cash flow, the equity story increasingly will rely on asset-sales. We are cutting our price target to $12 from $17 and maintaining our Sell rating. Wavelengths, the high-margin growth product that was supposed to…
Paramount is set to hold its first quarterly earnings call since topping Netflix’s bid to win the WBD auction. Given the in-process acquisition, which will likely limit what Paramount can say specifically about WBD integration plans, we thought it would be more useful to lay out four big-picture topics for management to address: 1) How…
Netflix launched Clips today (link), short-form vertical video content within its mobile app, joining Disney+ (Verts), ESPN (Verts), Peacock (Clips), Paramount+ (Clips), and CNN (Shorts). We believe the strategy behind almost all of these products, including Netflix, is dead wrong and misses the far larger opportunity in mobile vertical video content. Last November, we highlighted…
Revenue growth is hard to find in US Connectivity, and only two names in our coverage are positioned to deliver it over the next 5 years: T-Mobile and AT&T. T-Mobile has the price, the brand, the network, and the spectrum. AT&T has the only bundle worth owning, anchored by the country’s most aggressive fiber buildout…
The strength and consistency of Meta’s advertising growth illustrates how important AI has been to optimizing ad targeting following the disruptions caused by Apple’s IDFA/ATT privacy changes back in 2021. Meta continues to expand the use cases for its heavy AI investment across its core products, enabling ad buyers to generate the creative used in…
Q1 2026 earnings marks a major milestone for Roku, with the company surpassing 100 million active accounts and beginning to break out platform revenue into advertising revenue and subscription revenue (as we detailed in our March 10th lightning here). Heading into Q1 2026 earnings, we thought it would be helpful to lay out five key…
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