How did Amazon Prime Video vault to the top of the chart in ad-tier subscribers? Is Disney’s DTC progress sustainable? Get the answers and much more in this week’s podcast!
Over the last couple of weeks, many of the top companies in the streaming TV market have announced their first quarter 2024 results. The combination of earnings documentation and investor calls provides unique insight into the streaming industry’s progress. This week’s podcast examines Disney, Amazon, Fox Corporation, and WB Discovery results to understand the strategy and progress of services and brands, including Tubi, MAX, Disney+, ESPN, and Prime Video.
Top News Stories (1:00)
Prime Video now has the most AVOD viewers (10:30)
New survey data from Hub Entertainment Research shows that Prime Video has the highest proportion of users watching ads of any of the top SVOD services. We compare Amazon’s rollout of the advertising tier to its Prime Video users, to Netflix and Disney+’s approach. We also explain how the different approaches impacted the number of people who watched ads.
Disney’s earnings results were full of surprises (20:50)
We look at four primary areas illuminated by Disney’s Q2 2024 (fiscal) results:
- How the Disney+ 8 million subscriber increase in the US and Canada was due to one wholesale agreement
- The early arrival of DTC profitability and whether it can be sustained
- What the ESPN distribution strategy will look like after the ESPN flagship DTC service launch in November 2025
- The three-pronged strategy to improve Disney+ engagement and how it compares to the Netflix approach.
