Welcome to the latest installment of Dan Rayburn's Streaming Insights & Intelligence, a weekly insights column on StreamTV Insider where the industry analyst puts facts and figures to the news you need to know about. Join the discussion on LinkedIn and check back each week as he unpacks key industry happenings.
For the week of August 14, 2024, Rayburn is tracking key news updates from NBC, Netflix, Akamai and more.
X live stream
As expected, the live stream of Elon Musk's conversation with Donald Trump on X isn't working for many.
I don't know what percentage of users are having problems, but X has never scaled successfully for any large live-streaming event. Elon Musk claims a "massive DDOS attack on 𝕏" is causing it to crash. No third party has yet to verify that as the problem, so I would not take that statement as fact. Elon also said they "tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier today.”
The interview started with Donald Trump congratulating Elon for "breaking every record in the book" for the "millions" of people. The day after the event, Elon Musk reported that the audio stream had 1.2 million concurrent listeners. For reference, Twitch has more concurrent users 24x7 every day, with video.
NBC Sports says the Team USA Men’s Gold Medal Basketball win was the most-streamed event of the Paris Olympics across NBCU digital platforms, with an average minute audience (AMA) of 2.7 million viewers. Across TV and streaming, the game peaked at 22.7 million viewers from 5-5:15 p.m. ET.
Netflix has picked CBS Sports to produce their NFL games on Christmas this year.
The one-year deal doesn’t include the on-air talent, which Netflix hasn't yet announced. CBS will receive promotional spots in Netflix’s streaming of the games for its programming. It will also have advertising inventory in the broadcast coverage of the games in the local markets of the competing teams.
News Corp is considering selling Foxtel, its Australian cable TV and streaming business.
CEO Robert Thomson stated that an examination of the News Corp business units "coincided recently with third-party interest in a potential transaction involving the Foxtel group. We are evaluating options […] with our advisors in light of that external interest." According to Reuters, a possible deal would see it divest from a high-overhead asset that has had difficulty adjusting to the streaming era. Along with Telstra, News Corp holds a minority stake in the Foxtel Group. The streaming services Kayo, Binge, and the recently launched Hubbl are all part of the Foxtel business.
Fastly is laying off "approximately 11%" of its global full-time employees as part of a restructuring effort.
The filing states, "The Company expects that the headcount reductions, including related cash payments, will be substantially complete by the end of the fiscal year ending December 31, 2024." At the end of 2023, Fastly had 1,207 employees.
Reuters reports that Cisco will cut thousands of jobs in a second round of layoffs this year.
The number of people affected could be similar to or slightly higher than the 4,000 employees Cisco laid off in February and will likely be announced as early as Wednesday with the company's Q4 earnings.
EchoStar Q2 2024 earnings
Lost 104,000 pay TV subs (linear) and gained 80,000 Sling TV subs to end Q2 with 2M Sling TV subs.
The company ended Q2 with 8.07M video subscribers, including 6.07M Dish and 2M Sling TV subscribers.
Broadband net subscribers decreased by approximately 23,000, leaving the company with 955,000 Broadband subscribers at the end of Q2.
EchoStar's CEO says they are in "constructive discussions to address necessary financing.”
Akamai Q2 2024 earnings
Revenue of $980 million, up 5% YoY, GAAP net income of $132M.
Security revenue was $499M, up 15%; Compute revenue was $151M, up 23%; Delivery revenue was $329M, down 13%, all YoY. Security and compute revenue represented 66% of total revenue.
Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities were $1.9B. Full-year 2024 revenue guidance of $3.97B - $4.01B.
AMC Networks Q2 2024 earnings
Ended the quarter with 11.6M Domestic streaming subscribers, up 5% YoY, on streaming revenue of $150M, up 9% YoY.
Overall, domestic advertising revenues decreased 11% to $149M due to linear ratings declines and a challenging ad market and Domestic Operations revenues decreased 7% to $538M, YoY.
Affiliate revenues decreased 12% to $172M, primarily due to basic subscriber declines.
International revenues decreased by 9% to $90M, YoY.
Dan Rayburn is an analyst in the streaming media industry, with regular TV appearances on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and Schwab Network amongst others. He is conference Chairman for the NAB Show Streaming Summit in Las Vegas each year, and his streamingmediablog.com website is one of the most widely read sites for broadcasters, content owners, OTT providers, Wall Street money managers, and industry executives. He also has a podcast at danrayburnpodcast.com. He can be reached at [email protected]
Dan Rayburn’s Streaming Analysis & Insights is an opinion column. It does not necessarily represent the opinions of StreamTV Insider.