Weekly Digest from the West
Jean-Baptiste Piron
Cultural Attaché I Attaché culturel I Québec Office Los Angeles
-Bob Iger got Disney into the streaming wars, so what happens once he’s gone? Between 2006 and now, Disney spent around $100 billion to become the unbeatable giant it is today, snapping up Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, BAMTech, and 21st Century Fox. While the acquisitions were made as the result of teamwork across a number of divisions, they were mostly led by two people: Bob Iger, who was CEO up until Tuesday, and Kevin Mayer, head of Disney’s direct-to-consumer division and the man in charge of all things streaming. Now, with Iger preparing to leave by the end of 2021, all eyes are on what comes next for Mayer. Mayer helped develop Disney’s current streaming landscape and was largely seen as the company’s heir apparent. So it came as a surprise to many when Disney announced its parks head, Bob Chapek, would be the next CEO. Mayer knows streaming better than anyone besides Iger — certainly better than Chapek, who’s never worked with the direct-to-consumer vertical. Disney needs to chart a smooth course as competition heats up, its global rollout continues, and it builds out Disney Plus, ESPN Plus, and even Hulu. But with Iger leaving and Chapek getting the CEO position, there’s growing concern around one big question: what happens if Mayer leaves? Disney’s streaming strategy is off to a strong start, but the company has already hit some major roadblocks. Production issues have affected a few high-profile original shows, executive changes are occurring at Hulu, product teams are still being integrated throughout BAMTech as teams work on ESPN Plus and Disney Plus and, perhaps most importantly, Disney Plus’ identity is still being formed. Iger and Mayer are the best people in the know on what comes next, but Iger won’t be at Disney in 22 months’ time. Disney’s new CEO doesn’t have experience with streaming, and it’s an area that Iger has routinely called the future of the company. It’s not a self-running, autonomous paradise yet, like many other parts of Disney have become. The first problem is building out a steady stream of shows for Disney Plus. One of Disney Plus’ most anticipated Star Wars series, an Obi-Wan spinoff, is facing major rewrites and delays. There were also rumors that Hawkeye, a series based on Jeremy Renner’s Avengers character, was facing production issues, although Disney representatives told me the show is still on its schedule. And outside of Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar originals, there are only three other scripted Disney Plus originals in development — a Proud Family reboot, a Turner & Hooch series, and a Mighty Ducks spinoff.
-AT&T TV launched to bundle smart TV, internet, and live TV: Right off the bat, let me tell you – you do not need a subscription with AT&T to get a smart TV experience at home. You can buy a device like an NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV for a one-time price and you’ll have a smart TV box to use for years to come. This device works with Android TV, which means you’ll be able to run all your favorite streaming services: Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Amazon Prime TV, etcetera. AT&T’s service, AT&T TV, they’ve jammed internet access in with the box, so you’re paying a subscription fee for live TV and some internet-based DVR space, as well as internet. The bundles are what AT&T wants to sell you the most – the more subscription they can get, the more services on which you’ll rely, the better. So for AT&T TV – the box and live TV, you’ll be starting at approximately $50 a month for 12 months with a 2-year agreement “if you buy as a standalone service”. That means you’re not packaging with internet access – and you probably won’t, since you likely already have internet access in your home, on its own. If you’re buying the internet access alone, 1 gigabit AT&T Internet, as they call it, also costs approximately $50 a month for 12 months (with a 1-year agreement, that is to say). AT&T’s big giant package cuts those costs down by $10 a month when purchased together. So they say “Customers can bundle AT&T TV and 1 gigabit AT&T Internet for just $39.99/month for video and $39.99/month for internet for 12 months with a 24-month TV agreement where available.” AKA you’re paying $80 a month for the smart TV box, internet access, and live TV access (cable, as you might call it), and some internet-based DVR space on which you can place data (recorded from the AT&T live TV service). ALSO note that this service is part of / was once DirecTV, in a sense – take a peek at the timeline below for more information on that transition. It’s been a wild ride so far already.
https://www.slashgear.com/att-tv-launched-to-bundle-smart-tv-internet-and-live-tv-02611748/
-L.A. Poised for Jobs Jump as Electric Vehicle Industry Surges Across State: Los Angeles County is cementing its position as the nation’s center of the electric vehicle industry, where some 118,000 jobs working on everything from car design to better batteries. The Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. said Monday, in its study on the industry, that L.A. controls 43% of California's massive EV industry. The growth helps the state compete with Michigan in what the LAEDC is calling a ? hometown industry." Looking ahead, economists predict the state's goal to have five million electric vehicles on the road by 2030 will help the state create more jobs. The LAEDC projects the number Californians working in the EV industry will rise from 275,000 in 2018 to 312,000 by 2023. ? There's no other ecosystem like this in the U.S., and we need to protect, support and build good policy to ensure this ecosystem thrives and continues to create great jobs," said Judy Kruger, Senior Director of Industry Development at the LAEDC. The report, which was funded from a sponsorship by Southern California Edison and others, also highlighted that the jobs pay well. The average annual wage for EV workers hit $80,900 in 2018, well above the average annual wage of $60,400 across all industries.
https://dot.la/electric-vehicles-boom-los-angeles-2645360911.html
-Tubi Free-Streaming Service Checks in to 30,000 Hotel Rooms: Tubi is taking its ad-supported VOD on the road. The free streaming service is launching directly on TVs in over 30,000 hotel rooms across the U.S., through a deal with Enseo, an in-room entertainment platform provider. Starting Tuesday, guests at participating hotels can watch Tubi’s lineup of over 20,000 movies and TV shows from over 250 content partners, including nearly every major Hollywood studio (with Disney a notable exception). The deal brings Tubi to guest rooms in over 20 hotel and resort brands, including Hyatt, Hilton and Hilton Garden Inn, Accor Hotels, Choice Hotels, Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, IHG, Millennium Hotels and Resorts, Renaissance Hotels, Omni Hotels & Resorts, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and Wyndham. The companies said the streaming service will be coming to additional hotels in the future. “Our collaboration with Enseo comes at a time where we remain focused on providing easy access to premium content for everyone,” said Andrea Clarke-Hall, Tubi’s VP of business development. The Tubi move into hotels expands its current distribution footprint, which includes Android and iOS mobile devices, Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV, Comcast Xfinity X1, Cox Contour, Amazon Fire TV, Vizio TVs, Sony TVs, Samsung TVs, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and the web. Meanwhile, Fox Corporation is exploring an acquisition of Tubi, in a deal worth over $500 million, the Wall Street Journal reported last week. Both companies declined to comment on the report. In December 2019, according to Tubi, its monthly active user base grew to 25 million (up from 20 million six months earlier) and total viewing time rose 160% to over 163 million hours watched. Tubi content partners include Warner Bros., Paramount, Lionsgate and NBCUniversal. In 2020, Tubi said its content spending will “exceed nine figures,” or more than $100 million, to expand on its current library. Last year Tubi pegged content spending at about $100 million.
https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/tubi-hotels-free-streaming-service-hilton-hyatt-1203522376/
-The 9 media companies industry insiders say are the hottest acquisition targets in streaming TV this year: https://outline.com/TdHEeg
-Twitter Is Testing Tweets That Vanish After 24 Hours: Twitter has launched a test of “fleets,” ephemeral tweets that self-destruct after 24 hours — a concept first popularized by Snapchat’s Stories. Twitter said the new format is for “fleeting thoughts,” which users may not want permanently nailed up as tweets. Fleets will disappear 24 hours after they’re posted, and there’s no ability for others to retweet, like or publicly comment on them. “One of the unique things about Twitter is that ‘what’s happening’ is fueled by people sharing their thoughts openly, through Tweets. But sharing your thoughts publicly can be intimidating!” Twitter product lead Kayvon Beykpour wrote in a post. “We’ve been listening to this feedback and working to create new capabilities that address some of the anxieties that hold people back from talking on Twitter.” The company is launching fleets first in Brazil, “one of the countries where people talk the most on Twitter,” the company said. Twitter will evaluate the test-run of fleets in Brazil before deciding to take it elsewhere. According to Twitter, an initial survey of users showed they would be more comfortable “sharing everyday thoughts” if they disappear after 24 hours. Like tweets, Twitter fleets are based primarily on text, but you also can include videos, GIFs or photos in them. Users’ fleets will appear at the top of their home page and visible to their followers. Other users can reply to a fleet via private direct message or with an emoji. Twitter is late to the disappearing-content game: Snapchat launched with the core feature of messages that delete after they’re viewed, and back in 2013 introduced Snapchat Stories that are viewable for 24 hours. Instagram launched a copycat in 2016 (a year after that Facebook itself did as well).
https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/twitter-fleets-test-tweets-delete-24-hours-1203523999/
-Roku is in talks for original programming, following the footsteps of Netflix and Amazon: Roku is kicking the tires on original programming as rivals such as Amazon look to stock up on exclusive shows for their ad-supported services. The company has talked with media and entertainment companies about producing original shows for the connected TV platform, according to people familiar with the matter. These conversations appear to be exploratory. Some producers who have discussed original programming with Roku have left those meetings without a clear idea of what Roku’s original programming plans are. Roku has not detailed in meetings with media and entertainment companies what types of programming the company would be interested in or how much it would be willing to pay for shows, the people said. “We aren’t creating any original shows and don’t have any plans to do so,” a Roku spokesperson said in an email without denying the talks. Roku could be using the conversations with producers as due diligence while weighing whether to commit to spend money on original programming. Original programming can be a big investment with no guarantee of paying off. “If you’re spending under $1 billion on originals, then you’re not really in it,” said one entertainment executive who has not discussed original programming with Roku. With new services like WarnerMedia’s HBO Max, NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Quibi set to debut over the next several months, the amount of programming available across subscription-based and ad-supported services is only expanding. That can lower the odds that any given show will break out and appears to have contributed to Facebook’s and YouTube’s reported decisions to lower their respective ad-supported services’ original programming ambitions.
https://digiday.com/media/roku-talks-original-programming-following-footsteps-netflix-amazon/
-Coronavirus Sparks Virtual Innovation Across TV Industry as Long-Term Toll Looms Large: With French events organizer Reed Midem pulling the plug on MipTV for the first time since its formation in 1964, the realities of keeping businesses ticking in the face of a potential global pandemic are quickly emerging for the TV industry, with a range of contingency plans furiously in the works, including a drive towards virtual meet-ups and digital rights platforms. Most businesses were always going to send small contingents to MipTV because of a Palais-centralized reboot and pre-market business secured via U.K. Screenings and other events. However, the lack of a spring market will manifest in myriad ways — and points to more serious long-term consequences relating to the spread of coronavirus. Pamela Martinez Martinez, founder of Barcelona-based “Almost Fashionable: A Film about Travis” distributor Limonero Films, says the string of coronavirus-related event cancellations and postponements this quarter will be “disastrous” for boutique outfits. “As a small distributor, it’s key for us to have a presence at these events. We won’t be able to make as many sales or find as many new projects to represent from our office,” says Martinez Martinez. an McKee, CEO of the Singapore-headquartered firm, tells Variety: “The changes in the marketplace (mean) you need to move from a solely face-to-face deal structure where you’re doing a few high-value deals in person to looking at how digital can come in and complement that to give you the global reach you couldn’t otherwise get. “When the ability to do things the traditional way is removed, it could be the impetus for the industry to accelerate its movement towards doing (deals) online,” he says. Vuulr has seen an uptick in registrations from buyers who are self-isolating and following travel ban directives from their companies, but still needing to secure hours of content to keep business going.
-Google Is Opening a Stadia Games and Entertainment Studio in Playa Vista: LA is home to hundreds of video game companies, including Google. Late last year, the tech giant released Google Stadia, a video game streaming service that allows people to play dozens of major game titles without a console through their Chromecast, Chrome browser or compatible device. Now Google is expanding its Stadia footprint by opening up a dedicated Stadia Games and Entertainment studio in Playa Vista. Google says the new Stadia studio will focus on developing exclusive games, work on new gameplay mechanics and test out new ways for players to interact. The company doesn’t share specifics about what games it’s working on, but Google said in a blog post that it’s “listening to what gamers want and adding our own Stadia twists to create new IP and experiences.” The company is also actively hiring people to work on Stadia at the new Playa Vista location. It recently appointed Shannon Studstill, who's worked in the video game industry, to head the team as studio director. Studstill previously served as the VP of product development for Playstation and she’s worked on major game titles including the “God of War” franchise. “I’ve been a fan of Shannon’s for a long time, and have admired her award-winning work leading Sony’s Santa Monica Studio and the industry defining franchises like 'God of War' that have won fans all over the world,” Jade Raymond, the VP and head of Stadia Games and Entertainment, said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to welcome her to the Stadia family!” This Playa Vista studio is Google’s second Stadia Games and Entertainment studio. The first one opened in Montreal last October.
https://www.builtinla.com/2020/03/05/google-stadia-games-studio-playa-vista
-Amazon inks deal to stream New York Yankees baseball games on Prime Video: Amazon is expanding its sports media footprint with a new deal to stream New York Yankees baseball games this season. The Seattle tech giant will stream 21 Yankees games on Prime Video later this year. The live MLB content will be free for Prime members, but only available to those in the Yankees “home-team footprint”: New York state, Connecticut, northeast Pennsylvania, and north and central New Jersey. The games will be simulcasts produced by YES Network. Last year, the Yankees, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Amazon, and other partners acquired the 80 percent stake of the YES Network not already owned by the Yankees from Disney. The YES Network (The Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network) is the most-watched regional sports network, broadcasting games for the Yankees (MLB), Brooklyn Nets (NBA), New York City FC (MLS) and the New York Liberty (WNBA). Amazon has invested heavily in streaming media for several years via its Prime Video arm and is increasingly gobbling up live sports rights. It paid the NFL millions to acquire the streaming rights for Thursday Night Football and inked a similar deal for Premier League Soccer. Amazon also produces the All or Nothing sports documentaries available to Prime members and hired longtime ESPN executive Marie Donoghue in 2018.
https://www.geekwire.com/2020/amazon-inks-deal-stream-new-york-yankees-baseball-games-prime-video/
-Quibi Sets 50-Show Launch Slate: Short-form streamer Quibi has set its initial lineup of shows for its April 6 launch — and it’s a long list. The mobile-centric platform will debut with 50 shows, tilted heavily toward unscripted content and what it calls "Daily Essentials" — short news and sports programs, talk shows and advice shows. It has four scripted shows — or ? Movies in Chapters," as each will have a total run time roughly equivalent to a feature film, with episodes running under 10 minutes apiece. Founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, Quibi plans to launch 175 shows and 8,500 separate pieces of content during its first year. That works out to about three hours of content per day. Users will pay $5 per month for a version of the service with advertising or $8 monthly for an ad-free version. Quibi is offering a 90-day free trial to users who sign up before launch The company has raised $1.75 billion in funding to date. Users will be able to watch Quibi programming in either portrait or landscape mode on their phones, with a technology called Turnstyle enabling seamless transitions if a user turns their phone from horizontal to vertical or vice versa.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/quibi-sets-50-show-launch-slate-1282877
-Flipboard TV wants to save the news from YouTube: Flipboard, the popular news aggregation app, wants to curate the news you watch, as well as the news you read. The company today (March 6) unveiled Flipboard TV, a $2.99-per-month service that features videos from more than 100 news publishers, including Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, and Variety. Along with Quibi, the soon-to-launch subscription mobile video platform from Dreamworks founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, Flipboard TV seeks to cash in on what’s been clear for a while: People are on their phones a lot, and it’s mostly to watch videos. Nearly 60 percent of mobile traffic came from video in 2019, according to a study by Ericsson. To capitalize on that, Quibi is trying to be a Netflix for your phone, offering 175 original series and 8,500 individual programs in its first year—including daily news shows from the BBC, Telemundo, NBC, and CTV News in Canada. Flipboard TV, on the other hand, won’t offer original programming; instead, it’ll serve as a home where you can watch ad-free news videos from its partners. Which begs the question: Will people be willing to pay $3 per month for an app that curates news videos that are already available online? Even if you’re not actively seeking it, the news has a way of coming to you in 2020, whether it’s a Democratic debate recap teasing you from your Twitter feed or a local news clip auto-playing as you scroll through Facebook. According to Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, that’s exactly the problem. The internet is over-saturated with videos. “There’s so much video out there, and a lot of people just never discover it,” said McCue in an interview with Quartz. Meanwhile, news publishers have invested millions in churning out video journalism, a move that dates back to the “pivot to video” experiment—encouraged by promises of returns from Facebook—that began in 2015. From recipe tutorials to high-budget mini-documentaries to three-minute explainers, there’s a wider range of news video content than ever.
https://qz.com/1813708/can-flipboard-tv-save-the-news-from-youtube/
-Revenge Of The AVODs: Why Big Media Orbits Pluto TV, Xumo & Tubi: While most in the media business look left and focus on the increasingly frenetic subscription video on demand (SVOD) streaming wars, other media giants now relatively stealthily look right. Foregoing SVOD March madness, they instead focus on ad-supported video on demand services (AVODs). In a frenetic February, Comcast acquired AVOD Xumo for more than $100 million and Fox reportedly is in talks to buy Tubi (another longtime AVOD) for over $500 million (Comcast also reportedly now eyes Walmart’s Vudu which operates an ad-driven tier). This follows Viacom’s acquisition of AVOD Pluto TV for $340 million in 2019. Amazon (via IMDb TV - were you even aware of that one?), Roku and many others now also play the AVOD game. AVODs, in other words, have become streaming video’s “flavor of the month.” Whereas 2019 may have represented the year of the SVOD – where major new SVODs entered the stage (Disney+ and Apple TV+) or announced imminent plans to do so (AT&T’s HBO Max and Comcast’s Peacock) – 2020, at least so far, represents AVOD’s great revenge. Long cast aside as “also rans” amidst a field of sexier SVODs, AVODs’ patience is now paying off. And AVOD investors find returns in the hundreds of millions of dollars to be plenty sexy. A $500 million deal with Fox for Tubi would be just fine for investors who paid in a mere $30 million or so over time. The increasingly crowded – many believe downright overrun – SVOD playing field drives this new AVOD gold rush. After all, the SVOD space – about which I regularly write for Forbes – now boasts a bevy of behemoths led by reigning champ Netflix (with 167 million paying subscribers worldwide). A veritable SVOD goon squad of even more deep-pocketed (and far more resilient) players are hellbent to take Netflix down (not to mention each other), including Amazon Prime Video and all the SVODs mentioned above. In this hostile environment, many rightfully question whether new SVOD players can break through, break out, and scale significantly at this point. Daunting, to be sure. Perhaps even downright frightening.