ouYouTube has four priorities, with CTV at number two. Pluto TV gets into live streaming, bolstering the Paramount D2C ecosystem. AI Drake has implications throughout the industry. Listen on to learn more.
YouTube earnings and their implications (2:30)
YouTube’s ad revenue was down a little in Q1 2023, which is quite an achievement given the pullback in the advertising market. Subscription revenue did better, growing by 9%. The company laid out four key priorities: Shorts, engagement on CTV, driving subscription offerings, and making YouTube more shoppable.
The company said the strong growth in subscription revenue came from YouTube TV and YouTube Music. Since the last time the company executives gave us an update on subscribers, they said YouTube TV had 5 million, which must be significantly higher than then.
Pluto TV will stream Tony’s pre-event live (10:00)
Paramount Global’s Pluto TV will stream the 2023 Tony Awards pre-show live at 6:30 PM Eastern on Sunday, June 11th. Pluto TV’s Celebrity channel will carry the first round of Tony Awards and other “live and exclusive” content. Following the pre-show, viewers can tune in to the live main event on Paramount+ or watch on their local CBS affiliate (also available within Paramount+.)
The flexibility of FASTs made me think that they could replace broadcast TV. The BBC said it could shut down its broadcasts and move to an online-only model within ten years. Could the US broadcasters do something similar?
AI Drake brings up issues of fair use and creative ownership (19:40)
The Verge took a deep dive into the implications of an AI ingesting an artist’s music catalog and creating a new song in the artist’s style. The article looked at the implications for fair use and ownership rights and how Google could be negatively impacted, whichever side of the argument prevails.
I reviewed some AI projects I saw at NAB, illustrating what it means for an AI to “ingest” the content and then create a derivative work. However, the cases I discuss do not come into the domain of fair use as they operate with a closed set of content where the permission to use is implicit.
In the Newsbridge example, besides the usual voice recognition duties, the AI processes video to recognize objects such as faces and landmarks. With the enhanced metadata created by the AI, a producer can use natural speech and ask a question like “Show me Barak Obama playing basketball at the Whitehouse.” The enriched metadata allows the system to identify all the relevant videos and the exact places in the videos where President Obama is playing basketball at the Whitehouse.
Veritone was enriching video metadata with AI in the same way as Newsbridge. However, they suggested that AI could do much more and also create shows. Sean King, SVP, GM of Commercial Enterprise at Veritone, explained. He said that ChatGPT illustrates how AI can compose well-written and researched responses to questions. You can use the same approach to compose a show about, say, comics from the 80s. With a deep library of video clips annotated with AI-enhanced metadata, the AI can select video clips and string them together into a show. In this way, the AI can produce 20 or so versions of the show, and a human can then review them and pick the best one to take forward.
Netflix will invest $2.5 billion in K-drama production (29:50)
Netflix is making a massive investment in the South Korean video industry. The 10-fold increase in investment comes after its success with shows like Squid Game, The Glory, and Physical: 100.
