Endeavor was not a successful public company. Investors were interested in buying UFC (and eventually TKO). However, there was little interest in the amalgamation of assets that created “the Endeavor flywheel.” It was hard to model or understand the trajectory of those assets, and investors questioned how well they truly fit together. Ultimately it worked…
Here are our nine key questions for Netflix management on Thursday’s Q3 2024 earnings discussion (our Q2 2024 questions can be found here). 1) Will There Be a 2024 Price Increase? Given the success of Netflix’s October 2023 price increase in what ended up being a rather weak period for content, due to the aftereffects of…
Welcome to the Thirteenth Edition of the LightShed Earnings Scorecard, where we evaluate the quality of earnings calls. This quarter, we tracked 76 companies, adding Tesla. We track the length of an earnings call’s prepared remarks, the preferential treatment of Buy ratings, the rising popularity of AI and, of course, which analysts congratulate management teams…
In the past week, EchoStar has solidified its nationwide spectrum portfolio with the FCC, addressed its upcoming November debt maturity, and extended its operational runway by over two years. This move provides the needed time for EchoStar to demonstrate its ability to build a competitive wireless business. The FCC component Last week, the FCC approved…
We attended yesterday’s 2024 Snap Partner Summit. We were excited to see the company showcase a unified content feed (what they are calling Simple Snapchat), having spoken about the concept for the past couple of years. While Snap management was unwilling to commit to a launch timetable, we sense they would not have demonstrated what…
In the most recent episode of Brand New (embedded below with key timestamps), hosts Marisa Thalberg and Steven Wolfe Pereira interviewed LightShed’s Rich Greenfield. The podcast explores the challenges of navigating a rapidly evolving media landscape, where traditional mass-reach advertising is being replaced by more personalized digital marketing strategies. Brands are finding it increasingly difficult…
The Sphere Experience has been the biggest swing factor in SPHR profitability every quarter since the building opened. Concerts have been predictable. Investors know the number of concerts and prices ahead of the quarter and virtually every show sells out (or close). Exosphere advertising has been in a fairly tight range (outside of Super Bowl). …
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Verizon is close to finalizing a deal to acquire Frontier, a company that provides fiber and DSL-based internet services across markets reaching 15 million homes, a 50% increase to the 30 million homes passed by Verizon. This acquisition represents another step towards the inevitable convergence of fixed and…
Legacy media companies have relied on the multichannel bundle for decades, leveraging the power of live sports and news to support their full portfolio of broadcast and cable networks. Legacy media companies effectively forced distributors to carry all of their major networks in their most widely distributed channel packages. While smaller bundles certainly exist, programmers…
Late Friday evening, the NBA filed a motion to dismiss WBD/Turner’s lawsuit, in which Warner Bros. Discovery hopes to force the NBA to allow Turner to match Amazon’s media rights distribution agreement. The NBA’s motion to dismiss leans heavily on WBD/Turner’s failure to match the exact terms of Amazon’s agreement (see the long list of…
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