David Bloom:
Hey, everybody. I'm David Bloom with Next TMT. I'm here with my partner Dan Frankel, my often colleague Alan Wolk from TVREV, a co-founder of TVREV, and senior editor for Streaming TV Insider, Bevin Fletcher. We are here wrapping up the first day of this great StreamTV show with some of the highlights. Alan was in fact the provider or the programmer and honcho over a big chunk of it, a separate special sort of show within the show focused on Streamonomics. A cool name that I understand you want to credit somebody for, but talk about it a little bit.
Alan Wolk:
Yes. Streamonomics is actually, we learned, trademarked by ... what is it OWL?
David Bloom:
Well, it's OWL and Co., I believe, but it's Hernán López, a former Fox executive who also ran Wondery, the audiobooks company that sold to I think Amazon, and now he's a consultant. But he, like you, is skating the thin, sharp edge of technology innovation. And you were talking about a wide variety of stuff today. Talk about some of the highlights.
Alan Wolk:
Right. So we had a session called The Future of Streamonomics. So we started off, I gave a keynote called Life After the Monoculture: How to Survive the Dark Ages of Media. I gave a little presentation about the parallels between the fall of Rome and descent into the dark ages and the way the current media system exists, that we've lost any kind of centrality to it, we've got all these little fiefdoms, and then-
David Bloom:
So is David Zaslav like Claudius, or which emperor would he be?
Alan Wolk:
We're way past emperors. We're down to the Visigoths.
David Bloom:
Down to the Visigoths-
Dan Frankel:
We're in Constantinople.
Alan Wolk:
Yes, yes.
David Bloom:
So you guys liked it. What was it about what Alan said, right in front of Alan, that you liked that he said. So let's put you on the spot about what he said. What stuck in your all's heads that you all heard?
Dan Frankel:
Sure. Well, I think the [inaudible 00:02:17] of the discussion was that with the lack of a centralized state, i.e. big companies making content, distributing-
David Bloom:
Three networks or 50 cable networks or whatever.
Dan Frankel:
Right. Everything from currency to law and order, everything kind of breaks down. When it's decentralized, you have a bit of chaos, and what do we do now as an industry? Are we beginning to descend into a dark ages or can we govern this ourselves? Do I have that loosely correct?
Alan Wolk:
Yes, yes, exactly. That for years we had this monoculture where everybody sort of adhered to the same rules-
David Bloom:
Same water cooler.
Alan Wolk:
Right. And now-
David Bloom:
The same water cooler made a difference, it permitted the conversation.
Alan Wolk:
Right. And now there's not that, and there's all these little fiefdoms that don't really play nicely together or exist in their little bubbles, sort of the way medieval Europe did.
Bevin Fletcher:
And then-
David Bloom:
Well you know, it's interesting-
Bevin Fletcher:
I'm sorry-
David Bloom:
Go ahead.
Bevin Fletcher:
Advertising, he was saying. SNL used to make a whole business out of redoing commercials in skits, and now people don't see the same commercials.
David Bloom:
Well now, yeah, commercials are being made about their skits, I notice. Like the Californians is now a Volkswagen [inaudible 00:03:33], for instance, as they talk about all our vaunted freeways, which is I guess still a business for them, but no one else is doing that because no one else is talking to a broad array of folks who have some association with some of those characters, for instance. So going forward though, I'm curious what else you guys might've seen today that might've caught your ear. Bevin, what kinds of things stuck out for you?
Bevin Fletcher:
Well, I'll bring up one. It wasn't on the agenda, but I had a really interesting conversation with Deep Halder, the COO of Everyone TV, which is the organization that distributes Freely, which is a joint venture between major broadcasters in the UK like BBC, Channel Four. And they just signed a deal with Roku to distribute on their OS in the UK market, which Roku isn't that big in the UK, but he told me they think they have about half the smart TV device footprint for Freely at this point, and with Roku it'll expand to 60%. What's really interesting about Freely is that each of their distribution deals, they become the integrated default TV guide on the firmware level. So I think that would be really hard to replicate someone to do in the US, because he also seems pretty confident that that other 40% is just around the corner.
David Bloom:
Well, the Visigoths are definitely running amok in the United States, but you're saying in Europe, in England at least, that's interesting, that they could actually have that EPG kind of power, which is again a throwback, right, to five, eight, 10 years ago.
Bevin Fletcher:
But it also I think was interesting because it speaks a little bit to how much the public broadcasters invest in local content. And not everybody has a billion dollars like Netflix is putting into Spain to do localized content, and so it's hard to crack into international markets for US streamers.
David Bloom:
Absolutely. Dan, what kinds of things did you hear?
Dan Frankel:
I thought it was interesting, I talked to a couple of people who are trembling from YouTube. I talked on this couch to Dave Bernath, who is the general manager of the Americas for Wurl, the CTV ad tech company. As I mentioned to you, I knew him from a previous life, the E-Entertainment Basketball League, where he and his brother were like the Hanson brothers. They were a terror.
David Bloom:
So did they wear broken glasses and then hip check everybody into the stands?
Dan Frankel:
Oh, his brother was a beast. He was like Rodman. And Dave hit a reliable, consistent mid-range jump shot. Like college level serious, it was good.
David Bloom:
Good to know. Fascinating for our listeners.
Dan Frankel:
As we get on in our age, it turns out he knows a lot about CTV advertising, which I didn't know.
David Bloom:
It didn't come up on the court.
Dan Frankel:
But it came up here, and it turns out having a company that consumed 12%, 15%, 18%, depending on what your market share numbers are for connected TV viewership in the United States, that's a big problem if you're [inaudible 00:06:40] trying to be an ad-supported streamer.
David Bloom:
How do you get seen when one in six sets of eyeballs is over on YouTube, basically? Do you go over on YouTube or do you find your own way and your own platform you can control?
Dan Frankel:
Well, after Amazon filled the market with inventory, you have YouTube now filling the market with inventory.
David Bloom:
Yeah, you've got YouTube and Amazon, and now Netflix is getting much more aggressive, right, and trying-
Alan Wolk:
We don't know where Netflix's ad-supported subscribers live.
David Bloom:
Right.
Alan Wolk:
Because they give global numbers, and those global numbers include Mexico and Brazil.
David Bloom:
Right. Yeah, they've already rolled it out to a number of countries beyond the United States, so it's sort of hard to know how that's working and what kind of ARPU they're getting out of that and all the rest, right?
Alan Wolk:
Yeah. And again, the assumption is if it was a good number in the US, they'd have told us.
David Bloom:
Right. I think that's a safe assumption. Netflix has many fine qualities, but reticence about their victories is not one of them.
Alan Wolk:
Yes.
David Bloom:
So yes, we could anticipate, were they winning, they'd be talking about it.
There were some keynotes today. Adam Lewinson from Tubi-
Bevin Fletcher:
Yeah. Actually he used your monoculture reference.
Alan Wolk:
Really?
Bevin Fletcher:
Yeah. He said he felt it was a shift from peak TV era to personalized TV era, where niche content is really coming about and driving engagement for their platform anyway.
David Bloom:
And Tubi can actually do that because they have how many fast channels? I mean, it's crazy.
Alan Wolk:
Actually Tubi, yeah, they claim 90% of their viewership or so, give or take, is on demand.
David Bloom:
On demand.
Dan Frankel:
Monoculture is yours?
Alan Wolk:
No, I didn't make that up.
Dan Frankel:
Oh, okay.
Alan Wolk:
But I guess he referenced my talk or he referenced-
Dan Frankel:
Oh yeah, yeah, because peak TV was mine and John Lankroft stole it. Remember. There's a big story there-
David Bloom:
I want to give credit when credit is due, always, [inaudible 00:08:44], and we have a lot of credit seekers here, just like Netflix.
Dan Frankel:
I just want justice. I'm not petty.
David Bloom:
Justice does not exist in this world. You should know this by now. But that being said, I had a couple of interesting interviews. One was with Trey Kennedy, who is one of those YouTube and TikTok creators who is a comedian, has created content that has gotten millions and millions of views, and now he's worked his way up and he has a concert tour this fall, he has an hour-long special on Hulu already. He's making that jump, and I think this is going to be more and more common, from content creator on the social media side who gets very sophisticated about using data and knowing his audience. And he comes with an MBA, which is more than most comedians, and he's able to think about this stuff in some interesting ways. But he's shown what's possible.
The other I think really fascinating interview I did, and this is one for the books, was with Just Earl and the Earl Sports Network that I'm told is going to be really big after Earl learns everything he's going to learn by being here at the show. And I think that's definitely going to be a segment for folks to look forward later in the week.
Dan Frankel:
Pulling off the handlebar mustache is-
David Bloom:
Pulling off the handlebar mustache is always an achievement, and I say that as somebody who had a mustache for far too many years and now-
Bevin Fletcher:
Bring it back.
David Bloom:
No. The dodo maybe comes back, the mustache on David never comes back, just to be clear. With that, I think is probably for the best that we wrap this up for the day, day one at the StreamTV show. I'm David Bloom with Next TMT and my co-founder Dan Frankel, TVREV co-founder Alan Wolk, and StreamTV Insider, senior editor, Bevin Fletcher. Back to you guys.