Nielsen’s Woes Keep On Coming

As we enter the digital age, data is king. Without an adequate idea of what budgetary spend is bringing in return, no one can operate- be it content creators, streaming platforms, or advertisers. For decades, Nielsen has stood as the epitome of viewership data, but it is finding itself more and more hopelessly out-of-date. Enough so that it has even had its accreditation suspended. Yet, is there any viable alternative? Entertainment attorney Brandon Blake unpacks this critical conundrum for us.

Nielsen’s loss of accreditation would have been disastrous for them- if any alternative existed. Yet there isn’t. Of course, people threatening to leave Nielsen is hardly new, either- but for once, we’re seeing ongoing and sustained pressure, not a spat here and there. This is a new era, and it well could have been a move to a new service, if there wasn’t a notable gap in the market.

The main complaints against Nielsen are that they have underreported figures, and that the overall standards, size, and quality of their data has slipped. Big names, from Disney to ViacomCBS, have been quick to pile on the criticism in the wake of the accreditation loss.

On the practical side, however, nothing has changed. Nielsen will continue to gather and distribute data even past the September 20th loss of accreditation. We’ve seen no big names actually drop them, and no competitor has arisen to grasp at their legacy. Yet the overall marketplace, especially for ad-driven services, will demand better as time passes- a non-standardized solution will not do it.

Will Nielsen fall out of favor, and who will take over, or will they manage to claw their way out of another loss of trust? Proprietary measurement tools like the ones Netflix is using could have a market, but that secretive atmosphere is unlikely to cut it for ad-based businesses, who will want new and transparent standards and a common measurement tool.

For now, hoping Nielsen can mend its ways may be the best way forward. But without major reform, it shouldn’t simply assume the industry will wait on it forever. All it needs is one viable competitor, and the marketplace is wide open for one right now. It remains to be seen what will happen from here.

HBO Max Headed for EU Debut

As of October 26th, HBO Max will roll out through six key European territories, with 14 other anchor territories scheduled to receive the service from next year. As the U.S subscriber boom slows, we’re seeing more and more streamers turn to international markets to bolster their balance sheet. Entertainment lawyer Brandon Blake looks at the announcement in greater detail for us.

Entertainment lawyer- Brandon Blake

For now, HBO Max is headed to Spain, Andorra, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. Existing HBO España and HBO Nordic customers can sign over alongside new customers, as can those still enjoying the HBO Go service. There’s direct billing and partner subscriptions (mainly for the smart device market) on the table, too. We will only see detailed programming and pricing details revealed at the virtual launch event in October, however. This builds on the international expansion we’ve seen for HBOMax since June this year, when the service moved into Latin America and the Caribbean territories.

HBO has a long history of relationships with pay-TV and third-party distributors that may now hamper them as they transition to direct-to-consumer operation. Italy, Germany, and the UK will stay off the cards even through the extended 2022 expansion, for example. There’s a distribution deal with Sky in place which predates WarnerMedia’s entry into direct streaming. It’s scheduled to expire only in 2025, although rumor has it that HBO is currently seeking an earlier exit. Whether or not they can secure this may determine their European saturation and market reach at a time when almost every other streamer is also pushing for domination here.
The service will entice its European viewers with content like Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and TheBig Bang Theory, which could prove strong draw cards in the competition for subscribers. We will be watching the rollout carefully, and continue to report back on key developments as they emerge.

HBO Max and YouTube partner with Spectrum TV

Spectrum Guide will be rolling out both YouTube and HBO Max on eligible devices throughout their service areas, allowing them to be accessed centrally from the Spectrum TV platform. It’s yet another sign of the evolving digital landscape we now produce entertainment in, so we sought out Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer Los Angeles at Blake & Wang P.A, to break the implications down further for us.

Customers will now be able to tune directly to both streamers through eligible Spectrum Devices using Spectrum Internet. The HBO Max side of the deal alone will allow Spectrum customers access to well over 13,000 hours of WarnerMedia content, including subsidiaries like Adult Swim, Turner Classic Movies, and, of course, HBO. A subscription to the streamer will still be needed for viewers, but they can organize this directly through Spectrum if interested.

YouTube, of course, is a little different from the average streaming service. It won’t carry a separate subscription cost by default, although there are premium tiers people can consider. It will instead allow users to access the hottest aspects of ‘social media video’ through their TVs, as well as allowing them to stream it in 4k through their TVs.

With Roku and YouTube still sitting very uneasily with each other, this does offer Spectrum TV a unique chance to gain some extra traction in the market. YouTube, particularly, has been a drawcard for the smart device industry, and is loosely considered an essential by many in the market. HBO Max has become an attractive on-demand service as well, with WarnerMedia finally able to play at the top tiers of streaming society alongside Netflix and Disney. As with Netflix, they’re also trying to further expand their originals market with new content, all to gain extra market position in a crowded environment

It’s a neat two-for-one deal from SpectrumTV, and one that will doubtless prove enticing for shoppers looking for great deals on compatible devices as we head into the year-end frenzy of gadget buying. Will it gain extra traction as an OTT internet TV service? That remains to be seen.

Oscar Digital Screening Room Now Open

While the Oscar season is once again coming up fast, we’ve yet to slide the delta variant and its many concerns into the rearview mirror. While last year’s need to swiftly adapt the Academy Award season to a world gone abruptly digital may have been slightly rushed, this year the Academy goes into planning a hybrid awards season with a wealth of experience. As the Emmy votes wrap up and Oscar season kicks off, we see the launch of the Academy Screening Room to help voters choose their picks. One of the best entertainment lawyers in Los Angeles and Oscar’s expert, Brandon Blake, lets us in on the details.

To the surprise of no one who weathered the shaky waters of 2020 and 2021 with us, the first 4 films to have their moment in the bright lights of the brand-new screening room are all from streamers. Namely:

Netflix’s The Mitchells Vs The Machines
Amazon’s Anette
The Tomorrow War(also an Amazon title), and
Coming 2 America (Again for Amazon, directly from Paramount)

This makes this year’s Oscar season the first to skip physical screeners altogether. Anyone looking to enjoy the AMPAS contenders for this year will have to head over to the digital screening room to take them in. It’s a feature of last year’s Oscar season that was well-received among Academy voters, and it nets the Academy at least $12500 (as of last season) per title from studios and distributors, too, so it’s easy to see why it looks set to become an integral part of the Oscar hype train going forward.

Where to from here for the digital screening room? Documentary contenders, which will not have entry charges, will be shown in a different section. Likewise, International Feature entries and special sections will be expanded on as the season heats up. We will, as always, be keeping a careful eye on developments as we get nearer to crunch time.

ViacomCBS directly tackles the Disney+ Market with Paw Patrol: The Movie

Is ViacomCBS attempting a gentle turf war with Disney? With the new Paw Patrol movie hitting the big screen, we asked entertainment lawyer Brandon Blake to unpack the ramifications for us.

Paw Patrol will be accompanied by a marketing campaign that’s stretched into 8 figures and 1,800 TV ads. Partnerships with over 200 companies will come to fruition, be it through tie-in toys or other products, including free trials of Paramount+. And none of it is accidental. ViacomCBS is openly gunning to cut in on some of the childhood streaming market by leveraging franchises like SpongeBob, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and iCarly as well as, of course, Paw Patrol. To date, childhood is an arena heavily dominated by Disney.

ViacomCBS has been somewhat lacking in the streaming wards to date, avoiding the game-changing revolutions we’ve seen at WarnerMedia and Disney. In fact, this marks the first time they will have a film released to streaming alongside a theatrical release this year, citing worries around the Delta variant and their young audience. The Paw Patrol campaign represents one of the largest they’ve ever distributed, too. It’s also the first time they’ve aggressively positioned Paramount+, the streaming service they fused from the CBS/Viacom merger, as part of those efforts.

It’s ambitious, at a time when consumer buy-in is not guaranteed and parental concerns about venturing out the home will be the highest they have been in ages. Unlike Marvel and other pieces, there’s a very limited audience pool for Paw Patrol and most of them are not the familial decision-makers. ViacomCBS can also only front 42 million streaming subs, in comparison to Disney’s 174 million.

Yet it’s only part of ViacomCBS’s many-pronged attempt to carve itself a latecomer’s streaming niche. We’ve seen them actively pursue organic growth as well as partnerships to echo the Amazon/MGM and Discovery/AT&T assets over the last few months, too, as well as the launch of their joint streamer, SkyShowtime, with Comcast.

Will they be able to leverage Nickelodeon’s childhood appeal to secure some of the Disney+ market? Only time will tell, but we will be watching closely.

Disney+ heads into Asian territories

We’ve looked in greater depth at the stir surrounding the Quarter 3 Disney earnings this week, but with so much news for investors to drink in, one exciting addition to the Disney+ slate could be easily overlooked. Luckily, we have Brandon Blake’s expert eye watching the entertainment business news for us. Here’s everything you need to know about this new Disney development.

Disney+ will be expanding into Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea as of November 2021. The existing Japanese streaming service will also be expanded with greater general content from October. Alongside their existing presence in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Indian subcontinent, as well as New Zealand, this will catapult their Asia-Pacific market share to new heights.

What’s driving the sudden expansion? The existing Disney+ services have been incredibly well received by viewers seeking ‘diverse entertainment content’ who are ‘drawn to (their) portfolio of brands and franchises’, in the words of Luke Kang, the president for their Asia Pacific services. In hard figures, there’s been booming subscriber growth in the area. For Thailand, Disney+ has topped app store charts since its June launch. For Indonesia and Malaysia, it’s a leading SVOD service. Demand is high, and they would be foolish indeed not to leverage it.

While we don’t have any further firm facts on the matter, we’ve been promised full details will follow soon. Disney+ currently operates in 61 countries and offers services in 21 languages globally. In addition to the North American and European markets, it also has a thriving Latin American presence and the booming Asia Pacific division to capitalize on.

While Disney was a relative latecomer to the streaming market, in its short existence Disney+ has become a dominant part of both their balance sheet and brand strategy, with the company reforming around streaming and digital formats earlier this year. Expansion into the Asian market will doubtless serve them well over time. This entertainment lawyer will be keeping a careful eye on further news for the expansion. Of course, we’ll keep you in the loop when it does.

Roku reached 55 million active users

This week we see Roku reveal that 1.5 million new active accounts have been added during the second quarter, bringing the overall total to 55.1 million active users. All the same, their balance sheet shows a slight decline in growth as we emerge into the post-pandemic landscape. Entertainment attorney Los Angeles Brandon Blake looks deeper into what these numbers could mean for future growth.

Overall net revenue for Roky topped out at $645M for Q2, with $338M of that as profit. Yet we also see player gross profit fall off badly, with a 180% year-on-year decrease and a $6.7M hole in their pockets. Streaming hours also lagged behind Q1 by 1 billion hours, although when the overall total was 17.4 billion, that’s not all that bad in context.

The driving factors for the decline are also logical. Out-of-home entertainment has been a big focus for people in developed countries as vaccine programs lead to the easing of pandemic restrictions. A broader dip in streaming and overall TV hours is being seen across the board, and even the Roku CFO noted this. Overall, streaming hours on active accounts appear to be leveling out at 3.5 hours a day, similar to Roku’s own pre-COVID levels and suggesting a solid entrenchment in the market that should continue to deliver well.

More positively for their bottom line, monetized ad impressions have doubled year-on-year, indicative that mainstream marketing has finally noticed the potential of streamers. Roku itself also added the Quibi library to their own, rebranded as Roku Originals, and Roku seem very happy with the acquisition. With 8 shiny Emmy nominations for Roku Original shows, it’s hard to argue. Intriguingly, stats suggest that many of the users coming on board for the new content are first-time viewers, too, suggesting a broadened market appeal through the acquisition.

Overall, while there is some slackening on the pandemic boom, Roku’s balance sheet and future profile are looking strong.

WarnerMedia and Dish finally iron out their differences

It’s only been two and a half years, but we’ve finally seen TV giant, Dish, and WarnerMedia hash out their differences over HBO. Here’s what our resident entertainment lawyer, Brandon Blake, has to say about the issue.

We’ve finally seen a joint statement issued that HBO will return to Dish, bringing HBO Max with it. This new carriage deal sees an end to a bitter dispute that has been raging since November 2018. And, in addition to the HBO and Cinemax linear channels, the company can now sell HBO Max for its subscribers, too. In fact, a discounted $12 launch offer will be in place to entice new subscribers to bite.

What sparked the debate, however? AT&T, the parent to Dish’s competitor, DirecTV, acquired WarnerMedia, leading to accusations that they were using HBO as a ‘weapon’ against Dish. Refutations, of course, were fast to come. The carriage dispute pulled headline attention at the time, mainly due to the accusations against AT&T, but it’s hardly the first time we’ve seen Dish play hard and mean with their programmers. Yet this one blew up in their face. Alongside the loss of Spanish-language icon Univision at roughly the same time, subscribers fled Dish en masse over the quarters that followed.

Despite some bravado at the time, implying that they didn’t need HBO and saw it as a loss-leader, it’s clear it was in Dish’s best interests to settle the dispute. Especially with a multi-billion dollar deal covering 5G and mobile network services signed with AT&T just last month. While there’s no official tie between the two deals, it’s hard not to imagine that it had some bearing on the recent settlement.

Whatever the reasons, Dish customers will now be able to re-access HBO through their subscription, as well as enjoy the additional access to HBO Max offerings.

FTC weighs in on heavyweight entertainment mergers

With two mega-media mergers on the table- WarnerMedia with Discovery and Amazon’s takeover of MGM- FTC scrutiny was a given. Today our resident entertainment lawyer, Brandon Blake, breaks down what we know about Federal approval for both deals.

Amazon.com’s proposed $8.5B deal seems to have raised some hackles with the FTC, reportedly having received a second request to review the merger. Typically, this will vastly extend the deadline faced before a ruling is made. In June, we saw Amazon strike back, asking that the FTC Chair, Lina Khan, be removed on an antitrust basis, citing conflict due to research she has conducted as well as previous advocacy stances. It’s worth noting that the FTC already has an investigation against Amazon open as an overall part of its current Big Tech probe.

In sunnier news, AT&T seems to have a smoother road ahead. Their megamerger with Discovery, as well as the selling of a 30% stake in the pay TV business to the private equity firm TPG, seems set to close faster than originally thought. The regulatory review process for the Discovery merger is set to take about a year, with no problematic aspects yet reached in the process and the deal described as ‘straightforward’. Current hopes are that the deadline suggested for security clearance will prove conservative enough to see the matter resolved faster. On top of some pure speculation about AT&T’s future partnership with DirecTV, things seem to be looking up for the group finally

While the Amazon merger seems doomed to languish under the FTC probe a little longer, should both deals go through it will undoubtedly create some new key players in the media and entertainment landscape. It will be intriguing to see how these new tech-media companies influence the industry as a whole going forward. As always, we will be there to help you understand it all.

ViacomCBS and Charter reach a new agreement on carriage deals

‘Tis the season for carriage deals. Today our resident expert entertainment lawyer, Brandon Blake, takes a look at the newly announced carriage deal between ViacomCBS and Charter, following hot on the heels of Universal’s multiple content deals this month.

Cable giant Charter Communications has now unveiled a multi-year distribution agreement for ViacomCBS’ full suite of networks, including broadcast, news, sports, and entertainment networks. Despite this announcement, the financial details and precise terms have been kept under wraps. That said, we do know that it also covers licensing for ViacomCBS’ streaming services, including Noggin, BET+, Pluto TV, and, of course, Paramount +, allowing for future distribution to Charter’s Spectrum customers. Addressable media and advanced advertising are also included under the deal.

As with Universal, the going hype seems to be offering these brands’ extensive brand portfolio to a wider audience, in turn pulling in new people with a wider choice of content to enjoy. Charter has placed further emphasis on flexibility and adaptation, hoping to keep up with the broadening digital TV trends as well as stay competitive and attractive to advertisers. With the content consumption landscape changing as fast as it is, diversifying their options is probably a smart idea, as is the added flexibility this agreement should bring both entities in the business arena.

It’s certainly an abrupt volte-face to the previous renewal cycle, which predates the reunification of Viacom and CBS in late 2019. Then, we saw quite tense rhetoric from Charter and Viacom, despite their eventual agreement. It has become a feature of ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish’s tenure, however, to see frayed distribution relationships repaired across the board. CBS, before the merger, last had a far less contentious renewal with Charter in 2018.

While we have yet to receive full details on the deal, this will be one to watch as we go ahead into the new cycle.