Experience state-of-the-art video coverage from David Bloom, Daniel Frankel, Bevin Fletcher and the StreamTV team, live from the StreamTV Live studio.
David Bloom:
Hey there, I'm David Bloom with Next TMT and my partner Dan Frankel. And we're also here with senior Editor Bevin Fletcher from StreamTV Insider here at the StreamTV Show, as we wrap up three days of pretty intensive programming, lots of social stuff, puppies, goats and bunnies among much else. A lot of really good programming, I think, this year. It's the biggest show in the show's history, in terms of both exhibitors and attendees, in a sparkling new venue that I think really added to the proceedings. And the food was pretty good too, so that's all a win. But I'd like to talk to you guys, Daniel and Bevin, about the highlights of the show that you guys each found that will stick in your memory. So Dan, let's start with you.
Daniel Frankel:
Well-
David Bloom:
While you still have a memory.
Daniel Frankel:
Yeah, it's sort of like Memento. I don't know if you saw the ...
David Bloom:
I forgot.
Daniel Frankel:
I think it's Christopher Nolan, isn't it?
David Bloom:
It is Christopher Nolan's first film, the one he broke through on.
Daniel Frankel:
Yeah, I can't make new memories about trade shows. It's a disability. No, I guess the theme of this show for me was I thought, it was on the first day, where Dave Bernath of Wurl talked about streaming hitting this plateau, specifically the fast business, where things had been growing explosively, it was a new business, revenue and subscribers were upticking, platforms were proliferating. And now the stage of maturity has happened, revenue is expected and growth isn't as easy, direct acquisition is slowing down.
David Bloom:
You're moving the market share around, you're not growing the pie?
Daniel Frankel:
Exactly. And that's sort of juxtaposed to something you mentioned in one of our earlier videos as we came in, David Zaslav, from Warner Brothers Discovery, announced they were splitting linear and streaming. Streaming isn't a mature business, but it's college age and it's moving out, it's on its own, and it's got to make its rent now. So I guess-
David Bloom:
And it has a chance to do that, and we'll see if what's left of the rest of the company that's going to head off, that is making its rent but is now having to pay for the debt stacked up in Zaslav's original program, if they can manage to pull that off, I think it'll be pretty interesting. But he won't care because he's going to let his CFO go run all of that. It says a lot, I think, about what their intentions are for the spinoff company, personally, and those aren't good things, but we know where it's going to play out, how it's going to play out, whether they want to believe that at CNN, for instance, or not. It's not going to be pretty.
Daniel Frankel:
So there's a moment of inflection. I think it'll carry over to StreamTV '26. I think that'll be a really interesting show next year, and these themes will just accentuate themselves over the course of the next 12 months.
David Bloom:
Okay. Bevin, what kinds of things stuck out in your head?
Bevin Fletcher:
Yeah. I mean, I think also, kicking off on the first day with Alan's talk about the end of that monoculture, where I think that impacts a lot of the things we see happening in this space with fragmentation, but there are people trying to come up with creative solutions and strategies to deal with the current environment. I mean, today I heard on a content distribution roundtable, Courtney, I'm forgetting her last name right now, I'm sorry, but Courtney from AMC Networks was talking about how this fragmented nature, they're actually able to find a series premiere doesn't really matter, necessarily, as much anymore because people are discovering it in different platforms in different ways. And then four months later, their newest series released in March, The Last Appointment, I think it was called, sorry if I got that title wrong, is doing bigger numbers four months later than it did in its original premiere, and that's by tracking trends on social, so where they can amplify and drive people to their platform. So it's kind of-
David Bloom:
You know, it's interesting that you talk about that. Last night when we were doing our wrap up newsletter for yesterday, I saw Evan Shapiro did six hours of programming with his media, Universe Summit, this show within the show, and I asked him a couple of things. And he was very typically Evan Shapiro, not Shapiro, sorry, Shapiro, but his key takeaway, that I thought was really on point, was everyone's a creator now. And what you just said about AMC, a smaller player that's always seemed ripe to get swept up by somebody because it's got a real-
Daniel Frankel:
We've been talking about it for years, yeah.
David Bloom:
Yeah, for years. It's got a really nice library of stuff, and they still do good work, they've got several niche streaming services. But that pattern you talked about with that show getting big four months later feels a little bit like, yes, this is more like a social media world than 2015 broadcast and cable television, right?
Bevin Fletcher:
Right.
David Bloom:
This is the way. There's an audience out there, that audience comes to it in lots of unexpected ways. Stuff gets cross promoted and talked about over here, and somebody checks it out over there and they talk about it with their friends, and all of a sudden, look, you've got a nice little hit here, but what even counts as a hit has changed. And I think that that's going to be a fundamental shift for the entire industry in thinking about what counts as success. You could probably build a business. I mean, I always look at, I've been watching YouTube for a very long time, and YouTube economics are really interesting. They now have thousands of people with at least a million subscribers. It used to be if you were a millionaire on YouTube, that was a big deal. There weren't that many of them. You knew most of them, right?
Daniel Frankel:
YouTube inflation.
David Bloom:
Yeah. Well, but it's not inflation, it's just that it's, A, swallow the world, but B, it's that they can all find a way to make a living if they can keep pumping out content and keep connecting with their audience and diversifying into merchandise and cosmetics or other kinds of products that they might endorse and that are branded in their names. They can get into other things beyond just that, but that becomes the spear tip for them. And I think that is where whatever we want to call this, since we're post-Hollywood, and Dan has been vigorously, vigorously lobbying for that.
Daniel Frankel:
We've moved beyond geography, David.
David Bloom:
We are beyond geography in so many ways. Dan has, in fact, been disembodied. He's now a virtual being. He's the next Megan.
Daniel Frankel:
Listen, I just want to share it. It doesn't mean I own it.
David Bloom:
There you go, I think that's fair, but the reality is, though, how we define success, how we build sustainable businesses. Laura Martin who spoke this morning, I'd like to get into that in a minute, but part of her point is Wall Street looks at everything here and goes, "There's nothing here." Unless you're either following the Amazon way or the YouTube way, you don't matter. But Laura's point, and it's fair as far as it goes, but you don't necessarily need to be a big, multi-billion dollar, hugely-capitalized media company anymore. You can be a business that makes a nice living and takes care of a set of audience that cares about what you do. Maybe that's enough for a lot of folks that don't need to be ringing the bell at the NYSE. What did you see? You saw some of Laura's talk today.
Bevin Fletcher:
Mm-hmm. I mean, I thought it was interesting. She said that she thinks people definitely need to take into consideration not only YouTube and Amazon, but TikTok and the other kind of social platforms of the world, because how Wall Street sees it, anyway, is what's monetizable is time spent, and that's where younger users are spending their time.
David Bloom:
Engagement is everything.
Bevin Fletcher:
And she said basically advertising and subscription revenue streams aren't enough, everyone should also have a commerce and a data stream revenue stream. And we are seeing some people come out with data as a service, and I think everyone's trying to play in the commerce space if they can.
David Bloom:
Yeah. I don't see that being done successfully as they need to.
Bevin Fletcher:
Right. I mean, Amazon's kind of ...
Daniel Frankel:
Something immature.
David Bloom:
Amazon's [inaudible 00:08:32] because it was a marketplace first.
Daniel Frankel:
Right.
David Bloom:
And then they glommed some video on there, and then they glommed an ad component onto it, so they did it kind of the opposite way of Hollywood. But it's interesting to think, to me, about where this goes, if it's not going to be Amazon or YouTube, the social media component. Again, everybody's a creator. How do you think about things? It's a different world for these folks who are used to creating in traditional forms. And I also, they weren't invoked often here, and Laura didn't talk about it, Netflix's share prices are now close to $1,300 a piece, and it has hit on all cylinders in the three years since they did an abrupt about face, took in advertising, started cracking down on passwords, got into the video game space, got into live experiences and live events that they cover like football games and one of the Paul brothers getting punched in the face.
Daniel Frankel:
Yeah, they fly about the weather. I think they operate on such a high plane that they're not accessible to anybody here, so they're just not part of the conversation.
David Bloom:
You don't think they're relevant in any way?
Daniel Frankel:
Oh, I wouldn't say that at all. I just think that-
David Bloom:
To anybody down on the ground?
Daniel Frankel:
It's just so, when you go from something like this, it's just very hard to interact with that business and it's, in its own way, kind of insular.
David Bloom:
Well, but I think there's lessons. I just find it interesting that the most successful streaming service that basically doesn't use UGC, that is a global company in 190-plus countries, that has billion-dollar investments and production in, I don't know, four dozen different countries now, that they didn't get talked about much here, and I'm trying to gauge-
Daniel Frankel:
You know another company that didn't get talked about enough, and I think Bevan mentioned it, TikTok.
David Bloom:
Right.
Daniel Frankel:
Which a lot of discussion about YouTube and the emerging Gen Z consumer.
David Bloom:
Well, it's certainly been, up until all the tariff stuff, a very successful way to drive a lot of sales of cheap Chinese-made things.
Daniel Frankel:
And that might be the reason, that there's so much uncertainty with the tariffs.
David Bloom:
There's so much uncertainty with what that means for the Chinese e-commerce sites like Shein and Temu, but also all those influencers selling stuff on TikTok. I'm not clear that TikTok is making profits. They're making money. I'm not sure they're yet making profits, because they're still in that process of getting to the point where they-
Daniel Frankel:
What do they spend their money on?
David Bloom:
It takes a while to service all those different videos and optimize and stuff.
Daniel Frankel:
So the technology cost of running that platform are that high?
David Bloom:
Yeah, only to get it launched and marketing and all the rest. So I mean, I think it's going to get there. It's certainly been an engine for the music business, for books, for goodness sakes, book talk is gigantic. So there are lots of opportunities to start thinking about how you monetize your long-form programming, or longer than 60-second programming, on a place like TikTok. And I, again, look forward to seeing more of that next year here at the show and when it goes to Portugal, and I also am looking forward to seeing more of Earl in Portugal.
Daniel Frankel:
Well, I've got to say, and all of us have been to other, I won't mention their names, it's not polite, but other sort of institutional trade events that have been around for a long time and are connected to sort of media platforms that have been around a long time and are giving way to new ones, and these shows haven't been as great as adapting their brands to these sort of new constituencies. And every year you go and there's less people and you talk to the exhibitors, oh, but we're better engagement, then we had this and that, but you had 20,000 less people, 50,000 since before the pandemic, so to be around new life and growth and vitality has been such a refreshing thing. This has really been an exciting show. I've really enjoyed it.
David Bloom:
Yeah, I've certainly enjoyed it as well and enjoyed having the newest member of our pod, Bevin, join us and celebrate her birthday while working her butt off.
Bevin Fletcher:
Well-
David Bloom:
So thank you for that.
Bevin Fletcher:
And thank you for bringing me into your little sphere here and getting to learn from you guys. It's been a pleasure.
David Bloom:
All right, well-
Daniel Frankel:
Yeah, once you get in, it's hard to get out, you know? It's a-
David Bloom:
Yeah, right. I mean, we call it a pod for a reason.
Bevin Fletcher:
Is it a blood pact?
David Bloom:
A little bit like that.
Daniel Frankel:
There's no ceremonies or anything.
David Bloom:
And you presume that we have blood, but that being said, I think probably a good place for us to head on out. It's been a great show. We really appreciate our fantastic crew of Matts and Zachs getting us wired up and looking beautiful.
Daniel Frankel:
To Matts and Zachs.
Bevin Fletcher:
Yay.
David Bloom:
Thank you guys so much - maybe we'll get you on camera one of these days - and everybody at Questex and the StreamTV show for making this such a great experience.
Daniel Frankel:
Hear hear.
David Bloom:
And the hotel here, too.
Bevin Fletcher:
And Next TMT.
David Bloom:
The Gaylord Rockies Resort has been actually a very nice place. I was a little wary coming in, and I've been quite happily surprised. So I think all around it's been a great experience, and I hope the exhibitors and the attendees have had as good experiences as we've had. With that, I think I'll wrap it up. I'm David Bloom with Next TMT, my partner Dan Frankel, and our newest pod member, senior editor at StreamTV Insider, Bevin Fletcher. Thanks for everything, and we look forward to seeing you next year.