
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 September 11, 2024, Rayburn is tracking key news updates from Edgio, DirecTV, NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV, NBC Sports, Crunchyroll and more.
Edgio files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in preparation for sale of business units or entire company
Edgio announced that it has voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. I expect the company to be delisted from the NASDAQ as soon as it can no longer maintain the minimum requirements to remain listed. This news does not mean the company is going out of business. Edgio will receive approximately $15.6 million in financing from Lynrock that, following approval by the Court, is expected to ensure that Edgio continues to operate like it is today and throughout the sale process and Chapter 11 case.
The purpose of the filing is so that Edgio can sell off part of the business it no longer wants or the entire company, which should allow for the continued operation of the Company’s business under new ownership. It wouldn't be an asset sale but a business unit sale or the entire company. There is a 40-day bid procedure process, and once all bids are in, the court will decide which is best for the company.
Edgio says they have recently engaged in discussions with several parties that could be interested in acquiring all or part of the company’s businesses and assets, and by using the Court-supervised sale process, they seek to get the highest or best bid for those assets. As part of this process, Edgio has entered into a "stalking horse" asset purchase agreement with its primary lender Lynrock, which has agreed to acquire assets of the company through a credit bid for $110 million of the existing secured debt held by Lynrock.
Whatever assets might be sold, Edgio says it is targeting the sale process to be completed in approximately 80 days, if not sooner. Edgio’s CEO shared a blog post of the news here.
NFL Sunday Ticket kicks off on YouTube TV
Another season of NFL Sunday Ticket kicked off with YouTube providing what looked to be a pretty flawless experience overall. Aside from the usual hiccups we expect to see, most appeared to be user issues (especially around properly setting/updating the viewing location) and viewers not understanding why certain games were blacked out or how multiview works.
The confusing part is that NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers can build any combination of NFL Sunday Ticket games with similar start times in a multiview using the "Build a multiview" feature, including NFL RedZone, if subscribed to NFL RedZone and NFL Sunday Ticket bundle. For users with a YouTube TV Base Plan, local games are available in multiview but only in limited, pre-selected combinations.
Overall, streaming of the NFL games looked good this weekend as I tested it across YouTube TV, Fubo, Paramount+, Sling TV, FOX Sports, and Peacock. For me, Fubo had the fastest startup times of any game on the Fire TV and Apple TV. Peacock seemed to have some audio issues for their Friday night game, which was the most common complaint on Twitter.
If you experienced any tech issues over the weekend, please drop them into the comments section on my LinkedIn post here.
NBCU’s Peacock NFL viewership
NBC Sports says the Friday night NFL Peacock exclusive game from Brazil averaged a Total Audience Delivery of 14.2 million viewers across both streaming (Peacock and NFL+) and local NBC stations in Green Bay, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia. NBC Sports says the concurrent device count for Peacock was 8.6 million, but note that doesn't equate to the exact viewership. It should be noted that the data is according to custom fast national live + same day data from Nielsen, and Adobe Analytics
NBC Sports says the streaming Average Minute Audience (AMA) for the Kansas City Chiefs and the Baltimore Ravens 2024 NFL season kickoff game averaged 4.6 million viewers via Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL Digital platforms. In the second quarter, NBC Sports coverage peaked at 33 million viewers across NBC broadcast and all digital platforms.
DirecTV’s poorly timed price bump
DirecTV is raising pricing on their DIRECTV STREAM service. Next month, the Entertainment package is going up by $7; the Choice package is going up by $6; the Ultimate package is going up by $10; and the Premier package goes up $5. Prices were last raised by $10-$19 per package in November 2023. Announcing a price increase in the middle of a dispute with Disney is a terrible decision when the dispute prevents them from showing the channels many people specifically sign up for—horrible timing on their part and a poor communication strategy.
Anime costs rising
Some interesting stats from Rahul Purini, president of Crunchyroll, who estimates that the average cost of producing anime had increased between 40-60% over the past few years due to the increasing pricing power of creators in Japan and a limited supply of animators. As a result, Crunchyroll and Sony are trying to co-produce shows and train more animators. Another stat released by Sony's CFO, "About 30% of PlayStation Network service customers watch anime, but only about 5% have Crunchyroll accounts.”
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 Insights & Intelligence is an opinion column. It does not necessarily represent the opinions of StreamTV Insider.