In Friday’s post, I shared how the Netflix commentariat circled around three causes of Netflix’s subscriber slowdown: Covid recovery means less hours viewed. Competition from Disney+, HBO Max and others. Free, advertiser-supported AVOD services are attractive alternatives to the SVODs. Join my special Live Q&A webinar Bloodbath at Netflix: What’s Next for Producers? Tuesday April 26 …
Investors hammered Netflix‘s market value by $50 Billion last week, and by around $130 Bn since November. There’s a complex web of dynamics at work here. Let’s pick them apart, and see if we can come up with Takeaways for the documentary/unscripted community. Fickle Investors: Market analysts are a small, fickle bunch, and they tend …
“When you look at the entertainment war for attention and you realise that there are seven trillion-dollar Death Stars – Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Tencent and Alibaba – all with unlimited resources and diversified revenue models, you understand why scale is the most important thing,” says Evan Shapiro, producer, media commentator and creator of …
Discovery Inc. is in the midst of laying off hundreds of employees. A radical headcount reduction is central to Discovery’s current campaign to eliminate $US hundreds of millions in costs in 2020. I hear that the layoffs and other cuts affect all of the company’s activities, from corporate to programming, and from new hires to …
Discovery’s CEO David M Zazlav earned $128 million in 2018 That’s according to an executive compensation analysis published in today’s New York Times. Mr Zazlav’s 2018 payday was ranked #2 among all U.S. public companies. It was exceeded only by Elon Musk’s TESLA package ($2.8 billion). Context Discovery’s producers typically earn 10% of the …
Dr John Morse heads the consumer research firm Byron Media. He is a highly-respected industry veteran with a deep specialization in viewing behavior. He describes how, until recently, we relied on well-established processes and research firms like Nielsen, COMSCORE and BARB to accurately calculate how many viewers watch a particular program, and what type of …
Discovery must be in play after AT&T’s recent takeover of Time Warner with its Warner Bros, HBO and Turner programming assets. The newly combined Discovery Scripps venture is valued at more than $34 Bn. That is a stratospheric achievement for a company that forged its initial connection with viewers via off-the-shelf acquisitions like Australian lizard-specialist Harry …
Tasty is enjoying a meteoric rise driven by its low budget, fixed-camera cooking format and Facebook distribution. It is a Case Study in how viewing on Facebook is hurting leading cable channels like the Food Network, and in turn, damaging Discovery‘s valuation. Hands & Pans: Tasty is a BuzzFeed division that produces and shares content related to comfort …