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 …
We round out our 2014 snapshot of the poster-baby of the Reality TV Boom, Leftfield Entertainment: Which networks are buying? And where is the growth? The #’s speak for themselves: A 900% +/- increase in networks served over 5 years. Notably a shift from reliance on Pawn Stars and A+E Networks, which was achieved through organic development by Leftfield …
Money Matters: Finding Finance Workshop MIPDoc, April 5, 2014. Bo Stehmeier, Off the Fence, and Peter Hamilton. After our packed workshop, Bo Stehmeier graciously recapped his important ‘rule of thumb’ for establishing the co-pro, pre-sale or acquisition value of a program in a given market. This was the topic that generated the most discussion in the Q&A …
Discovery Communications’ President & CEO David M. Zaslav sat down with me at last week’s MIPTV for a one-on-one conversation about his company’s strategy and prospects. He defined Discovery as ‘the #1 platform media company in the world’ with ‘just one strategic goal – to build market share worldwide.’ Mark Hollinger runs the international business …
Scale matters! And who could believe the financial scale attained by the non-fiction television sector since the launch of Discovery Channel in the mid ‘Eighties? We analyzed the ‘Enterprise Value’ of leading non-fiction channel groups in a recent post. Here is a chart that captures that preliminary analysis. Discovery vs A+E Its very interesting that …
Just how valuable is the US nonfiction channel sector? The “financial scale” question came to mind when I read last week’s announcement that Qatari-owned Al Jazeera had acquired Al Gore’s Current channel for $500 million. Current was a failed talk and news network with an ‘independent’ or liberal voice. Its average prime time audience in …