ROKU sends shockwave thru Streaming video Ad biz, -26% stock dropAn AMAZON PRIME vs NETFLIX $$ numbers comp / Inside THE GRAY MAN 1st weekend #s / Alan Horn joins WBD to advise ZazMornin! This is Sean McNulty and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on FRIDAY July 29, 2022. Where let’s send our Friday morning coffee toast ☕️ out to Norman Lear, who reflected on turning 100 years-old this week in the NY Times (he’ll also have a 2hr special on ABC in Sept btw). So Norman please tell us you have coffee every day so we know the 497 studies that come out every year about coffee and longevity are true… 🙏 Although I found this insight from his piece (among many other gems) something to keep in mind about encouraging real life longevity:
PLUS: Here’s your TORONTO FILM FEST lineup, including many Sept & early Oct movie releases as per usual… but also quite a few which won’t hit theaters or streaming until well into November 🧐:
Also makes me wonder - between VENICE & TIFF’s hearty lineups this year… What’s going to surprise drop at TELLURIDE over Labor Day? (maybe Alexander Payne’s next pic?). Any thoughts - email me seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com ALSO: I join Janice & Tatiana on The Ankler Hot Seat podcast 🎙to talk through:
The pod will be added this morning - Subscribe at SPOTIFY or APPLE or wherever you listen and you’ll get it as soon as it’s up! AND: Good news!! This is one of those full free WAKEUP editions for all Ankler subscribers 🙌. Happy Friday! I mean - like I could keep new BEYONCE behind a paywall… Here’s the link to BEY’s new album on SPOTIFY. Plus new the new MAGGIE ROGERS album plays me off at the bottom today. IN THIS EDITION
📽 THE SILVER SCREENA look at “The Gray Man” numbers on ‘opening weekend’While I ignore minutes streamed ‘news’ (if you’ve listened to me on The Ankler podcast… I’ll save you the rant), the one piece of data that NETFLIX reveals actually does have one use: comparing the popularity of films that are roughly the same length. It’s not perfect by any means - it assumes an “everyone finished the film” caveat, and that no accounts watched a movie twice - although this part is likely much less of a factor on an ‘opening weekend’. AND: NextTV kindly did a comp on what NETFLIX released for “The Gray Man” opening weekend vs. other major films in the past year. I’ve added some running times for deeper analysis, and again - “Viewers” assumes everyone watched the full movie. While that’s not entirely accurate of course, this is the only thing NETFLIX gives out… so it’s the best we can do. These are global #s:
ALSO IN MOVIES
IN THE HOLLYWOOD EXECUTIVE SUITE
📝 IN OTHER WORDS…
📺 THE TV SETJUST 3 THINGS
💻 THE MEDIA BIZknow that #medianerd 🤓 passed out 😵💫 after hitting send today.He’ll catch you on Wednesday & definitely for Streaming report #SuperThursday next week.ROKU stock plummets 26% as Advertiser pullback hits streaming video Ad sales marketHey let’s start with the good news eh? (ok I really gotta cut down my time around Canadians) THE NUMBERSROKU Q2 USERS: 63.1 Million, +1.8 Million in Q2
ROKU Q2 REVENUE: $764 Million, +18% vs a year ago
AAAANNND: Wall Street problem #2 - they pulled their previously stated financial guidance for the rest of 2022, and here we are. ROKU noted that their Advertising Revenue did grow in Q2… just not as much as they were anticipating, and they missed their stated guidance. Hence the 26% stock drop. WHAT’S GOING ON HEREROKU noted they got a #PersonalBest $1 Billion in Upfront Advertiser cash this Spring… but their Ad Revenue is still heavily skewed to Scatter buys (along with a smaller Programmatic sales component) for their ROKU CHANNEL AVOD service & other Ad sales on the ROKU streaming platform.
So the nature of most ROKU Ad sales is relatively short term, and thus can be easily cancelled… and that’s what’s happened in Q2. Essentially - this is the Streaming Video version of what’s happened at SNAP, META etc. WHAT’S AHEADWhile ROKU is still confident in their long term biz fundamentals… like the rest of the economy - lotta clouds on the horizon at least thru Q3 and Q4. ROKU doesn’t know how this is gonna shake out, so they made that move to pull their financial guidance for the rest of the year, which… Wall Street hates. SNAP did a version of this as well (they declined to issue Q3 guidance) and got a similar Street reaction. ROKU also announced… say it with me, a hiring slowdown and spending cutbacks. They’ve cut back spending -10% in Q2, plan another -10% in Q3, and plan to cut back -25% in Q4.
WILL THIS SPREAD TO THE STUDIOSPARAMOUNT+ and HBOMAX could add some color to this next week… but they’re still primarily subscription based services - HBOMAX especially.
But HULU is really the streaming service to watch, with a significant, longtime Streaming Advertising business that will tell us something about the US Ad biz and economy. Especially as their business is entirely US only. They’re up on Aug 10. Along with DISNEY+ of course, who will definitely be asked about this too… as they plan to launch their Ad-supported version in Q4. But again, they’re part of a much larger Ad buying network (ABC, FX cable networks etc) to help tie sales deals into… which is really the core of the issue here:
SO: Much like NETFLIX’s big fall in Q1… ROKU is still the industry leader here by far and will be fine, especially once their international expansion really begins to take hold. But it’s likely gonna be an especially rough few quarters ahead, with a good thought held for a quick-ish economic reecovery in 2023. IF YOU FOUND THIS Wakeup #medianerd 🤓 BREAKDOWN HELPFUL:A) Here’s a button to share it B) I’ve done similar ones for Ankler subscribers over the past week on: AND: I will be doing them for PARAMOUNT+, HBOMAX, the NY TIMES, DISNEY+, STARZ / LIONSGATE and more starting later next week for subscribers only in the weeks ahead. So if ya like - here’s the way to get em: CHARTER joins COMCAST in blanking on Q2 Broadband subscriber additionsOk technically they added 38k. Although due to the ending of a gov’t subsidy… the country’s #2 Broadband supplier is actually -21k subscribers for Q2. This compared to a +400k gain a year ago. Yeah this is a Q2 surprise really. It was expected to slow given the pandemic boom in wfh but… Zero growth is bad. Real bad.
REVENUE still grew 6% vs last year, so the money is still coming in… BUT: Cable TV bundle cord cord cutting also increased to -226k in Q2. This is essentially 2X as bad as any recent quarter they’ve had, also matching COMCAST’s huge “growth” in loss too.
They also have that crazy TEXAS lawsuit judgement against them of $337 Million, and an additional… $7 Billion added this week (pending appeal). But we’ll put a pin in that for now. VERIZON Fios also posted weak Broadband Q2 adds (+36k) and their usual loss of TV subs (-86k). ALTICE you’re up next on Wednesday. Look Q2 is never great for Cable companies historically… but this is particularly bad. THE NUMBERS:
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR HOLLYWOOD Not a lot per se… especially in regards to Broadband. But the huge losses in Cord Cutters means the Cable TV universe seems to be shrinking more rapidly, and shaky at best as we sit on the cusp of a recession. Could just be a bad quarter… or could be a trend, but eyebrows are definitely now raised. This means less monthly carriage fee money to Cable Networks, and a smaller base of audience for them to put ads in front of, meaning potentially lower advertising $$. So for the PARAMOUNT’s, NBCU’s and WBD’s of the world that still have a ton of cable networks, this isn’t great news. Coming at a time where they’re already losing hundreds of millions on their Streaming services (well NBCU and PAR at least). AMAZON loses money for 2nd Quarter in a rowNot a lot of HOLLYWOOD news from the real-life version of Buy n Large #wall-E, but here’s your big numbers. Q2 REVENUE:$121 Billion Q2 LOSS:$2 Billion
WHY IS AMAZON LOSING MONEY?
HOW ABOUT ADVERTISING REVENUE - ANY SLOWDOWN? Eh… not really. AMAZON is still in a growth spurt in Advertising revenue - people still wanna sell on AMAZON PRIME. Growth was +18% vs a year ago. Granted that’s down from 25% in Q1, and 33% in Q4. AMAZON PRIME (ish) revenue“Subscription Services” revenue was $8.7 Billion, or about $700 Million more than NETFLIX. This technically also includes things like AUDIBLE, AMAZON MUSIC etc… so one could argue AMAZON PRIME itself and NETFLIX make very close to the same amount of money. Although PRIME’s shipping costs are just a wee bit higher than NETFLIX’s. WHAT’S AHEAD?AMAZON Q3 looking at 13% - 17% Revenue growth, and either flat Revenue wise, or in the black up to $3.5 Billion. AWS cloud service is booming (unlike rivals GOOGLE & MICROSOFT) - Revenue +33% in Q2, and should continue. That plus WALL STREET always loving a rosy projection, $AMZN stock was +13% last night. APPLE continues to make a lot of money… and say nothing about their Hollywood businessAh, the return of the most useless earnings call in the media industry. Ok yes granted they’re a tech company, but with what they’re spending in HOLLYWOOD and the MUSIC biz, a little clarity would go a long way. Or even just answer “Hey, what’s a definable marker of financial success for APPLE TV+?” But alas, with these numbers… not too many questions asked. Or more like answers given. Q2 REVENUE$83 Billion. In 3 months. Although this is just 2% growth vs. a year ago. Q2 PROFIT$19 Billion. In 3 months. In case you’re wondering how they’ve written so many APPLE TV+ checks in the past 9-12 months. Although this was -$2 Billion vs. this time last year. SERVICES GROWTH Their “Services” line Revenue (APPLE TV, MUSIC, App Store, iTunes, etc) was up $2 Billion vs. this time last year, to $19 Billion.
“Services” are now basically half the size of their iPhone business, and well over 2X any other 2 categories combined (Mac sales, iPad, Wearables/accessories - all of which had lower revenue vs. a year ago). ALSO IN MEDIA
Get The Wakeup as part of your subscription to The Ankler:Hits your inbox weekdays by 8:30am (ish) East Coast time🏦 STOCK NOTESCOMCAST -9%
CHARTER -8% ($435.58) #thanksComcast ALTICE -5% ($10.58) #thanksComcast META -5% ($160.72) 👩💻 THE FSS FEED:(new Stuff to Watch this weekend, Friday - Saturday - Sunday)👓 WEEKEND READS
🎧 WEEKEND LISTENS
FRIDAYONLY IN THEATERS:
STREAMING:MOVIES
SERIES
TV:
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
🎥 TRAILER HOUSENETFLIX “Blonde” movie trailer - Really great spot! Kudos NETFLIX marketing - PREMIERES FRI SEPT 28 NETFLIX “Locke & Key” Season 3 trailer - PREMIERES WED AUG 10 HBO “Los Espookys” Season 2 teaser trailer - PREMIERES SEPT 16 NETFLIX “Indian Matchmaking” Season 2 trailer - PREMIERES WED AUG 10 🎧 PLAYING ME OFFHere’s the new MAGGIE ROGERS album “Overdrive” - link on SPOTIFY And I was digging the title track this morning - paired excellent with CHARTER earnings report reading fwiw. Plus “Overdrive” is a good analogy for my brain at this point. If you need some new tunes: Email me anytime at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com or connect here on LINKED IN. -SEAN MCNULTY @theseanmac on TWITTER @TheWakeupNews on INSTAGRAM ICYMI
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ROKU sends shockwave thru Streaming video Ad biz, -26% stock drop
July 29, 2022
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