The Dan Rayburn Podcast

This week we discuss the holy grail of the streaming media industry, a single platform to aggregate streaming media services. With new Discover and Universal Watchlist functionality from Plex and news from Verizon about its +Play platform to centralize subscription services, we debate what might really happen in the market. We also cover some streaming viewership numbers from March Madness, the ne...

This week, we discuss the complex streaming sports-licensing business and the challenge sports fans now face in finding and consuming games from MLB and the NFL. With both leagues pursuing exclusive streaming-only distribution deals, many consumers will now need cable or cable-like bundles to access all games. With MLB on Apple TV+, Peacock, ESPN, TBS and some RSN services, it's getting to be...

This week, we debate the real impact password sharing could have on streaming services' revenue and ARPU. We also try to decipher confusing data from the antenna on the conversion rate from free trials to paid subscribers. We question who’s watching AVOD services when so much of the content is old and not exclusive to any single platform, and discuss the potential financial impact on OTT serv...

This week, we preview some of the speakers and content at the NAB Show Streaming Summit, taking place April 25-26 in Las Vegas. Hear what companies like Netflix, HBO Max, Paramount+, Disney, Fire TV, FOX, MotorTrend, La Liga, DAZN and others will be discussing, along with some of the main topics that will be covered in the program. We also discuss how industry conferences have changed since the pa...

This week, we discuss the Apple-MLB deal and debate the importance of sports streaming to Apple TV+'s content strategy going forward. We also highlight what the deal might mean for other sports streaming companies, such as Sinclair’s DTC service, which will have go-fenced games from some MLB teams, and we discuss the difficulty consumers have in finding sports content from a single league on...

For this special edition of my podcast, I sit down with Limelight’s CEO, Bob Lyons, to discuss the details of their acquisition of Edgecast from Apollo Funds in an all-stock deal valued at approximately $300 million (1x Edgecast revenue) and rebranding the combined companies as Edgio. We also discuss the current state of the CDN market, including the competitive landscape, pricing trends, the expe...

This week, we highlight HBO Max's entry into the live sports market, with the news that it will broadcast more than 20 U.S. Men’s and Women’s National Soccer matches each year. We also discuss what Disney’s new ad-supported subscription for Disney+ might look like when the option launches in late 2022. We also break down AppLovin’s acquisition of CTV platform Wurl for $430 million, based on p...

This week, we break down the 70,000-subscriber losses at Sling TV in Q4, the $4.3B injection into DAZN, and the upcoming soft launch of the Bally Sports RSN streaming service. We also cover the key numbers you need to know from FuboTV, which ended 2021 with 1.13M subs and Discovery, which wrapped up 2021 with 22M D2C subs. We also discuss what’s behind so many streaming vendors slashing revenue gr...

This week, we break down the confusing streaming numbers given out by NBC Sports from the Super Bowl and cover what you need to know about revenue growth, profit/loss, market cap and revenue guidance based on earnings from Roku, Paramount, Fastly, Akamai and Brightcove. We also call out Phenix for their bogus ultra-low-latency claims around the Super Bowl and the narrative they are pushing with th...

This week, we break down earnings from Disney, including the new subscriber numbers and ARPU they announced for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, while also noting a $593 million loss in their D2C business in Q4 2021. We also detail earnings at Vimeo, along with some major problems in their business and multiple changes they announced regarding their go-to-market strategy. Other news highlights include rev...

This week, we break down earnings from Amazon, Meta and Alphabet, including Amazon's disclosure of revenue from its fast-growing advertising business, AWS's 40% revenue growth, and Amazon raising its Prime membership fee. We also cover Apple’s negative impact on Meta’s business, estimated at $10 billion in 2022, and YouTube's ad revenue of $8.6 billion, up 25%. We also cover Brightc...

This week, we break down Q4 earnings data from Comcast, Verizon, Apple, AT&T, and Charter and discuss pricing and bundling trends in OTT services. We also highlight new subscriber numbers reported by Peacock TV and HBO Max, as well as the latest pay TV loss numbers reported by cable operators. We also debate the global TAM for streaming media households, estimated by Netflix at 600-800 million...

This week, we break down Netflix's Q4 earnings after the stock dropped over $100 the next day, also setting new 52-week lows for stocks from Disney, Roku and fuboTV. We also discuss the proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, announced on the same day that the DOJ and FTC announced plans to update and modernize merger enforcement guidelines, which could mean more...

This week, we talk about industry challenges with churn and retention and highlight some of the major problems with the methodology used to compare services. We also discuss Netflix's recent price increase and its potential impact on subscriber growth. We also cover the recent sports licensing deals, including news that ViacomCBS secured the exclusive rights to stream English Premier League s...

This week, we break down the latest HBO Max/HBO subscriber numbers just released by AT&T and question how the industry should define subscriber growth. While 73.8M sounds like a big number, the service had 61M at the end of 2020 and won’t have day-in-date releases this year. We also debate some of the latest “estimates” released on vMVPD subscriber growth and highlight the challenges faced wit...

This week, we discuss how the industry gushes about video advertising growth, without really addressing the problems around personalization, measurement, formats and low CPM rates. We also discuss the growth of AVOD services and question how many can exist when they offer essentially the same thing — a bundled package of free networks with a lot of old movies, TV shows and syndicated programming....

This week, we discuss the problem with Nielsen's reporting and how the industry should define churn and retention; the importance of HBO Max and Disney defaulting to a single video stack; how some vendors are overestimating their valuations; and why Roku and Google's dispute isn't over. Companies and services mentioned: Roku, Google, Disney Streaming Services, Hulu, HBO Max, NFL, ES...