It’s comical to see the press writing about how WBD needs to spin off their dying linear TV businesses, considering the WarnerMedia/Discovery merger that closed just over two years ago (April 8, 2022) dramatically enlarged WarnerMedia’s dying linear TV business by combining it with Discovery’s dying TV business. The merger pitch was that combining Discovery’s…
Here are our 11 key questions for Netflix management on Thursday’s Q2 2024 earnings discussion (our Q1 2024 questions can be found here). 1) Will Exiting Xandr Exclusivity Open up the Advertising Spigot? Beginning in Q3 2024, you are no longer exclusive to Xandr. How should we think about the impact of moving away from Xandr…
Our post yesterday, Free TV is Soaring Led by YouTube, Tubi and Roku Channel, Why Not Pluto?, has generated a provocative question: who owns connected TV streaming traffic? You cannot watch Tubi content outside the Tubi app, whereas Pluto distributes its linear feeds both within its own app across all major connected TV platforms and…
Back in September 2023, when Disney/ESPN/ABC networks went dark across Charter subscriber households, Charter laid out its vision for the “Future of Video” (screenshot embedded to the right and full deck here). When Disney and Charter finally reached an agreement, Charter was able to add Disney+ into its ~9.5 million Charter Signature Select subscriber video…
Welcome to the Twelfth Edition of the LightShed Earnings Scorecard, our stats on the quality of earnings calls. This quarter we listened to 75 companies talk for 64 hours. That was thankfully 2 hours less than last quarter. Unfortunately, prepared remarks still accounted for ~40% of time. AI interest continues its climb Artificial Intelligence remained the…
Paramount (formerly known as Viacom) was the first legacy media company to recognize the opportunity in free, ad-supported online streaming, acquiring Pluto in 2019 (see our post, The Rise of Free TV aka Cable TV Without The Bills). However, looking at Nielsen’s Gauge, which tracks monthly share of TV time spent, Pluto has stagnated and…
We do not believe anyone will outbid Skydance for Paramount, given the high price being paid, the deep pockets of the Ellison family to go higher if forced by another bidder and most importantly, the complexity of the transaction that requires the unilateral support of Paramount’s current controlling shareholder, National Amusements (aka the Redstone family).…
I have been using my iPhone to iMessage over a satellite and it’s performing better than I expected. Consumers may utilize this new functionality much more than most believe. Terrestrial wireless coverage has holes Westchester County in New York, like many suburbs across the US, suffers from numerous coverage holes in the wireless networks. In…
Whether or not President Biden continues his reelection campaign following last week’s disastrous debate, it is impossible not to think about TMT sector implications of Trump returning to the Oval Office next year. 1) Consolidation: The DoJ, FTC and FCC have all taken a hostile approach toward TMT M&A over the past few years, in…
Great algorithms require a tremendous amount of varied inputs to train on. Think of the best algorithms, such as TikTok, YouTube or Instagram. Each has over 1 billion monthly users who spend tens of minutes, if not hours per day watching a massive array of content, which creates incredible signal for the algorithm (how long…
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