The Dan Rayburn Podcast

This week, we detail all the numbers you should know from Disney and Paramount's earnings and the comments made by executives during the earnings calls. We discuss the latest subscriber numbers, DTC operating income, ARPU, content spending budgets, Paramount ending free trials and the upcoming Paramount+ price increase. We also debate what Disney's CEO meant when he said that short-form...

This week, we detail Amazon's confirmation that it has begun blocking sideloaded apps on Fire TVs it deems used for piracy, in an effort to restrict users' access to pirated content. We also discuss ITV's confirmation that it is in talks with Comcast-owned Sky about a potential acquisition of its broadcast business, valuing the company at £1.6 billion. We review the latest financial...

This week, we detail Netflix's plans to offer live, dynamic ad insertion (DAI) for NFL games on Christmas and why this is a significant development for the industry. We also debated their new ad viewing definition and the announcement that ads on Netflix now reach more than 190 million MAUs globally. We break down the latest developments on the YouTube TV and Disney Carriage Dispute and how b...

This week, I detail Netflix's Q3 earnings, its new interactive ads rolling out this quarter, and discuss its current use cases for GenAI. I also cover the upcoming Max price hikes and the latest WBD acquisition rumors, focusing on the numbers that matter most —revenue, debt, and financial metrics. Also discussed is the new NBA season, with the NBA back on NBC for the first time since 2002, Pr...

This week, we highlight my review of Amazon's new Vega OS-based Fire TV Stick, which claims to offer "remarkably fast app launches,” but when tested against the Fire TV Stick Max, I found there was no difference in speed. We also detail all the news from Apple regarding its deal with F1, Apple's services chief discussing how Apple approaches the live sports business and Apple's...

This week, we highlight all of the comments from Netflix's co-CEO regarding its upcoming release of five Party Games designed for connected TVs. We also detail his remarks on why Netflix doesn't bid for an entire season of NFL games, why Netflix doesn't want to acquire WBD, the impact of their new UI/UX and why trying to copy YouTube is the "dumbest move" a company can mak...

This week, we highlight the stocks of WBD, Disney, Roku, Paramount, Apple, Fubo, and others that have increased by at least 25% over the past six months, with WBD leading the way at 112%. We detail all the latest news related to Peacock, Max, FOX, Fubo, Disney, Versant, Prime Video, the NBA, and YouTube TV, as well as rumors that Yahoo is in advanced talks to sell AOL to Bending Spoons. Finally, w...

This week, we highlight the balance sheets of WBD, Netflix, and Roku, including their market capitalizations, debt, cash, and profit and loss statements, as we examine some high-level merger rumors in the industry, where no one seems to be considering the financials. We also discuss Disney's DTC price increases and the ridiculous comparisons about Kimmel's monologue viewership numbers be...

This week, I highlight where the hype lies in AI, where the opportunities lie, and why an "AI-first native strategy" by vendors is the wrong approach. I also explain the importance of AI use cases that boost efficiency versus those that are more disruptive to a given industry, and how AI is truly upending the news media industry. I detail the new financial details released by Versant Med...

This week, I cover the viewership stats from YouTube’s exclusive NFL live global stream, breaking down what the numbers really mean, since many in the media misreported them. I discuss the challenges that the NFL, FOX and ESPN say they have in working with Nielsen, which once again announced it is changing the way it measures viewership, a change that is devoid of impartiality and transparency.  I...

The OpenMOQ Software Consortium has launched as a new effort among vendors and content owners, focused on advancing MOQ-based technology through open-source software. The consortium is tasked with developing high-performance software that will enable the next generation of media contribution, distribution, and playback. OpenMOQ is a collaborative effort to accelerate development, enhance interoper...

This week, I cover the launch of Fox One and ESPN Unlimited, which appeared to go smoothly, with few user issues reported. I detailed the news of the week, including price increases for Apple TV+ and BritBox, the launch of a new $20 bundle from Sling TV, and news from Netflix, YouTube, MLB, Fubo and NBC Sports. Finally, I discuss the expected upcoming layoffs at Paramount and their implications fo...

Marty Kagan, co-founder and CEO of Hydrolix, joined me for a detailed conversation about the importance of delivering better end-user QoE through real-time telemetry and the challenges of CDN observability. Marty highlights why more hot data is crucial for AIOps and the challenges that M&E customers face today, including the need to discard data due to storage costs. Marty presents a compellin...

This week, we detail Paramount Global's seven-year deal with TKO for the rights to stream UFC fights, the impact on ESPN+ and UFC's approach to move away from PPV to expand its audience. We also discussed the new Disney and Fox bundle launching on October 2nd, which combines ESPN+ and Fox One for a discounted rate. Additionally, we explain why not all pay TV customers will have free acce...

This week, we detail all the news from Disney's earnings, its proposed deal between ESPN and the NFL and the launch of ESPN's new DTC service this month. We also discuss the impact of Disney's decision to no longer report paid subscribers or ARPU numbers for Disney+ and Hulu, and to cease reporting ESPN+ numbers as of next month. We also discuss all the essential numbers from Q2 ear...

This week, I outline the key numbers you should know regarding subscriber gains and losses, as well as the profitability of D2C businesses for Peacock, Roku, Paramount, Sling TV, and Fubo. I also cover revenue growth from cloud providers Amazon and Microsoft and break out capex for Meta and the hyperscalers, which total more than $250 billion this year and are driven by AI-related infrastructure....

This week, we highlight the details surrounding the MLS commissioner's disclosure that MLS Season Pass is averaging 120,000 unique viewers per match on Apple TV, representing a nearly 50% increase from 2024. For earnings, we cover Q2 ad revenue on YouTube, up 13% YoY, and Alphabet's plan to increase capex in 2025 to approximately $85 billion, as well as cord-cutting numbers from Charter...

This week, we highlight the key numbers and comments from Netflix's Q2 earnings, covering financials, ad growth, live-event strategy, competition, AI, and content strategy. We detail the financial metrics tied to revenue, free cash flow, debt, and estimated full-year 2025 revenue guidance. We discuss all the comments from Netflix's management team regarding measuring household engagement...

This week, we highlight Disney's new content bundling deals with Charter and ITV, as well as Paramount's new agreement with DIRECTV. We discuss Amazon's investment in AI to help remaster SD content into HD, and what we think the impact of AI can be in the video streaming workflow. We also discuss why the media is getting it wrong when they suggest that Google has won the living room...

This special CDN-focused podcast details the latest on delivery pricing and industry trends. I discuss delivery commitments, QoE measurement, DIY deployments, HD/HDR bitrates, and the impact of vendors exiting the market. I also cover how content owners perform capacity planning at the ASN level, leaching, latency, and why multicasting and P2P won't positively impact the industry. The data co...

This week, we highlight sports news from Peacock, Pac-12, ESPN, Optus Sport, Amazon, IMG, and NASCAR, including viewership stats and new licensing deals. We also cover the recent layoffs at Disney, the BBC's low-latency live streaming trial and the current ad loads on Max, Prime Video and Peacock. Finally, we cover some vendor news, including Wowza's acquisition of AI tech company AVA In...

This week, we cover a lot of news, stats and numbers across WBD, Disney, Netflix, YouTube, MGM, Amazon, F1, DAZN, NFL, Verizon, Starz, Roku, TikTok, Apple TV, Premier League, JioHotstar, Paramount and other sports and OTT services. We also discuss the changes taking place at Qwilt, including the appointment of a new CEO, the auction of Phenix Real Time Solutions' assets, and Bending Spoons&ap...

This week, we cover the news from the Upfronts, with Netflix and Amazon announcing updated ad-tier user numbers, YouTube disclosing ad conversions on Shorts, and new ad formats coming to OTT platforms. We also detail the upcoming DTC offerings from ESPN and FOX, as well as YouTube's plans to stream an exclusive NFL game for free in September. Finally, we highlight Charter's announcement...

This week, we highlight the key Q1 earnings numbers from Disney, WBD, Paramount, AMC Networks, Altice, EchoStar, Vimeo, Kaltura, Akamai, Fastly and Cloudflare. We detail the numbers tied to DTC subscribers additions/losses, profitability, bundling, capex and content spend, and the impact of earnings on stock prices. We also break out the 1.73M cord cutters across pay TV providers and vMVPDs, as we...

This week, we detail Roku's 16% YoY revenue growth, with streaming hours up 5.1B YoY. We also highlight Roku's announcement that more than a third of streaming households in the U.S. streamed monthly from its content row in Q1, with more than 125 million people streaming each day. We detail Fubo's earnings, with North American subscribers declining 2.7% YoY to 1.47M and a net profit...