Daniel Frankel:
Hello. I'm Daniel Frankel, publisher and co-founder of Next TMT, and appearing today on behalf of StreamTV Studio.
And I'm pleased to be with Mike Keyserling, who's the chief operating officer of one of the leading virtual pay TV services, Philo.
Hey, Mike.
Mike Keyserling:
How's it going? Thanks for having me.
Daniel Frankel:
I'm glad to have you here. So it's been a while since I checked in with Philo. I'm remiss. Tell us what's going on.
Mike Keyserling:
There's actually quite a bit going on. Philo launched back in 2017, a virtual MVPD, an entertainment focused service, and it's $28 a month, so a little bit lower cost. It's a cable alternative.
Daniel Frankel:
Right. I can't get my ESPN with Philo.
Mike Keyserling:
Can't get your ESPN. So basically, we don't have sports and broadcasts. We're kind of a great option for people that that content's not as interesting to them, but we have like the Paramount Networks, Warner Brothers, A&E, AMC, Hallmark, things like that.
Daniel Frankel:
So if you cut the cord because of sports and the costs that are associated with that, you're a great option.
Mike Keyserling:
Exactly. We're a terrific option. But this year, this is probably one of the most transformative years that we've had. We've recently launched a bundle, an embedded bundle in our product. AMC+ is now part of the core product of our service-
Daniel Frankel:
[inaudible 00:01:28] Walking Dead and Walking Dead Part 2, the Walking Dead.
Mike Keyserling:
And the Mad Men history, you can watch all of that and it's included in that $28 product. We've also really launched in a major way our fast service earlier this year, and that has grown like gangbusters. So we're pretty excited about that. And really what that is ushering in is sort of a new phase for the company, which is really trying to build this unified product experience, which has a platform that's Fast, but then has the ability to upgrade into different pay TV offerings, including our main core bundle.
Daniel Frankel:
It's a very cost-effective way to give your audience a lot of options. Simple, stay in the app and find everything you want.
Mike Keyserling:
100 percent. That's exactly right. Yeah. We're approaching FAST a little differently. I think there's a bunch of FAST platforms out there that have already reached scale that have just a ton of content on them. We're being a little bit more curated. We're trying to look really closely at what resonates with our current subscribers, but then also open the aperture a bit. There's more and more great contents making its way to FAST, so we want to be able to have that at home. But if you're watching an old season of Love after Lockup on FAST and we have the new season on our core product that's $28, we want to make it as easy as possible for you to upgrade. So it's really about opening up the funnel on the top and being able to have more people come in and then being able to be able to upgrade efficiently and really meet people where they are because at the end of the day, you're going to have certain subscribers that your product may be great for them while Love After Lockup is on, but when it's off, maybe they want to churn or go check out something else, but we want to be able to have a free platform that they can always come back that has great content at a obviously good price point.
Daniel Frankel:
Makes sense. Now you're here later today at 5:00 at StreamTV Show speaking about bundling and partnerships. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about what you have planned.
Mike Keyserling:
Yeah, that's right. So obviously bundling is one of the hot topics of 2025. We're approaching things a little differently. I kind of already mentioned it a little bit where we've got AMC+ embedded in our bundle, the AMC+ ad-supported version. We had already had the AMC Linear as part of our service, but we've added AMC ad-supported. You're going to see us continue to do that. You'll see more content and more of these S-Five DTC services included in our bundle, and we think that that makes a ton of sense for everybody. While the linear business broadly, it has some secular declines, it's still a great business. It has great margins, it has super high engagement, and it has millions of subscribers that like to watch content in that forum. But the world of streaming is here to stay. That's not going anywhere.
So we really want to bridge the gap for those subscribers and we think the best way to do that is to bring some key services, the ad-supported version as part of our base package, contents ingested, it's all there, it's all one place, and we just think it'll continue to add value. Honestly, we think it's great for companies like AMC or those that want to participate. It's great for us and ultimately I think it's really good for subscribers, most importantly.
Daniel Frankel:
Now you've been in the business a while, you've observed the subscriber behavior change over time. Going back to 2017 when Philo first entered the market or when you joined it to now, what do you see as the biggest evolution in terms of acquiring subscribers and serving them? Is there a way to answer that?
Mike Keyserling:
Oh, yeah, that's a great question. I think that honestly, just the technology for how you can acquire subs has just gotten so much more intelligent, and I think that we're still kind of using the similar platforms that we were using back then. We market a lot on social. We spend a lot on performance marketing where you can have direct attribution, you can understand what your cap is going to be, and so whether that's Facebook and Instagram or Google, those platforms have just gotten dramatically more sophisticated over time. Which this year, I think one of the bright spots for us is we've become very efficient in our ability to acquire subs at a lower cost. And then also, I think you have maybe search and social as your core platforms, but then you obviously, like CTV makes a ton of sense for us, these are subscribers that are already on those platforms. They've already embraced streaming technology, so it's obviously a much lower hill to climb for us.
Daniel Frankel:
Great. I'll be there at 5:00. I look forward to hearing more about it. Again, this is Mike Keyserling. I'm Daniel Franco on behalf of StreamTV Studio. Thanks for tuning in.
Mike Keyserling:
Thank you.