Catherine Zhang, Vice President, Content Service, Partnership, at TCL discusses the latest news and innovations at the StreamTV Show 2025.
David Bloom:
Hi, there. I'm David Bloom, Next TMT. I'm here at the live studio at the StreamTV Show with Catherine Zhang, vice-president of content and partnerships for TCL, the world's biggest TV maker, and United States' second biggest.
Catherine Zhang:
Yes.
David Bloom:
So still got room to grow.
Catherine Zhang:
Yes.
David Bloom:
Which is good. You guys are here at the show. What brought a TV maker, a prodigiously big TV maker, to a streaming show?
Catherine Zhang:
So there's always saying CTV is the new cable now, so brought us as the second-largest TV manufacturer of the North America and Start 2023 is the biggest one worldwide. We have a lot of TV buyers, means we can reach out to in US over 40 million TV households and worldwide even more. So this is a chance we can deliver the content to our users to millions of American families now.
David Bloom:
Now, how does this work for you all? You do not have your own operating system. You use some big ones, right?
Catherine Zhang:
Not yet, yes.
David Bloom:
Not yet. Oh no, that's a very interesting word you just used, yet. But right now you're working with other TV OS operators.
Catherine Zhang:
Yes.
David Bloom:
But you are getting content, you're getting deals with advertisers, you're setting the predicate for the possible addition of your own. This is a really big opportunity for you all, right? Because margins are so tight in the TV business.
Catherine Zhang:
Yes. Yes, definitely. That's why another reason we want to get into this software industry because TCL is over 42 years old brand and majority of our profit comes from the hardware. So in the software, especially streaming business in the North America, we are a little bit late compared with other OEMs, but we also learned a lot based on their best practice.
David Bloom:
And their mistakes, no doubt, right?
Catherine Zhang:
Yes. So we grew very, very fast. In the past two years our streaming service had over 100 times of growth on the user base and also on the viewership-wise. So we are finally here. We got a majority of the premium content, but we're still looking more, better content and also we start to talk with those big advertisers so they're not just like cable linear, we're like social media, they're CTV and hey, TCL is the second biggest CTV brand in the states.
David Bloom:
Your service though is TCL Plus or not?
Catherine Zhang:
TC LTV Plus.
David Bloom:
TV plus.
Catherine Zhang:
Yes.
David Bloom:
And that is essentially you provide fast channels and some on-demand content as well.
Catherine Zhang:
Yes, it's pre-installed on all of our devices in North America and we have all advertisement-based content, fast category, and also advertisement video on demand.
David Bloom:
Okay. So what's the opportunity at this point? Because it feels like, as you say, you're a little bit behind, you're catching up. How big do you think you can get though with 40 million households? That's a pretty good number, right?
Catherine Zhang:
Yes. So we are number two in the hardware sell, so it makes sense we can be number two at least in the streaming business here in the states too. Yeah.
David Bloom:
So what's a win for you all as you continue to grow and build out this service? What's a win? What do you hope to achieve in the next year or so?
Catherine Zhang:
For us, we are now just like a content service app. So we're considering, compared with other fast streaming apps, we want to keep growing. We rather reach to a hundred times growth, but still there are a lot of potentials ahead of us and the bigger potential is once we have our own OS and then it's going to be 20 times, 30 times growth. So a huge potential and I think that's why we already have a lot of premium content partners. They're not just like want to work with us for this year, next year. They want work with us five years, 10 years.
David Bloom:
And your company's been around a long time. It's not like they're going to go away.
Catherine Zhang:
Yes. Over 20 years here already. So yeah.
David Bloom:
So this is the next big step for the biggest TV maker in the world.
Catherine Zhang:
Yes.
David Bloom:
So it feels kind of important to me. I look forward to seeing what you guys do Catherine. I'm David Bloom with Next TMT. I'm here with Catherine Zhang, the Vice President of Content and Partnerships for TCL as they expand their reach in the streaming world. We're at the live studios here at StreamTV Show and thank you for being here, Catherine.
Catherine Zhang:
My pleasure.
David Bloom:
Back to you guys.