Following a series of layoffs and cost-cutting measures, Qwilt has appointed Vito Palermo as its new CEO, with former CEO Alon Maor transitioning to a board advisory role. During my conversation with Vito over the weekend, he mentioned that he has been working hard on rationalizing the cost structure for Qwilt, a task that has been urgently needed. The company has recently secured additional funding from its existing investor, Digital Alpha, as it refocuses Qwilt’s offering and could potentially raise further capital in the near term.

While Qwilt is open to any acquisition that might be strategic for the company, Vito tells me his goal is to support Qwilt’s existing customers and expand the business over time. Qwilt has not yet disclosed its revenue numbers, but I expect it to reach $40-$45 million this year. The company has resized its workforce and now has over 100 employees. As Vito correctly pointed out in our conversation, Qwilt can’t survive focusing only on the delivery of video and large objects; over time, it must evolve into an edge compute platform for other applications beyond video.

Since its inception 15 years ago as a transparent caching provider, Qwilt has released no details on the health of its business outside of some high-level and generic network footprint numbers. Vito said that as Qwilt evolves, they plan to share metrics on its revenue, QoE, and other key metrics, providing the industry and its customers with a better understanding of the core business and the value Qwilt offers in the market. That will be welcomed by many who, for years, have asked me, “What’s the deal with Qwilt?” Providing some transparency into the business will go a long way with Qwilt’s vendors, customers and ISP clients.

I’ve condensed the key numbers from OTT platforms’ Q1 earnings into a list you can read in one minute. The data you need to know, without any fluff. If you are in the industry, you need to know the following:

– Comcast 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝟱𝗠 𝗣𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀, to end Q1 with 41M. Revenue of $1.2B, up 16% YoY, on an 𝗘𝗕𝗜𝗧𝗗𝗔 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝗳 $𝟮𝟭𝟱𝗠, down from $639M YoY. Comcast 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝟰𝟮𝟳,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗽𝗮𝘆 𝗧𝗩 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀, ending Q1 with 12.1M domestic video customers.
– Paramount 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝟭.𝟱𝗠 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁+ 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀, ending the quarter with 79M. DTC revenue of $2.01B, up 9% YoY, 𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝟲𝟮% 𝘁𝗼 $𝟭𝟬𝟵𝗠. Advertising revenue was 23.1% of DTC revenue.
– WBD 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝟱.𝟯𝗠 𝗗𝗧𝗖 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀 to end Q1 with 122.3M subs. DTC revenue of $2.65B, up 8% YoY, with 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 $𝟯𝟯𝟵𝗠 𝗮𝗱𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗘𝗕𝗜𝗧𝗗𝗔. Advertising made up 10.2% of DTC revenue.
– Disney 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝟭.𝟰𝗠 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗻𝗲𝘆+ 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀 (126M total); Hulu SVOD gained 1.3M subs (50.3M total), 𝗛𝘂𝗹𝘂 + 𝗟𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗧𝗩 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝟮𝟬𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀 (4.4M total); 𝗘𝗦𝗣𝗡+ 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝟴𝟬𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀 (24.1M total). DTC business and ESPN+ combined had an 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗳 $𝟯𝟯𝟲𝗠. Disney’s DTC ESPN offering will offer two plans: 𝗘𝗦𝗣𝗡’𝘀 𝘂𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀 $𝟮𝟵.𝟵𝟵 𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵 and its 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀 $𝟭𝟭.𝟵𝟵 𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵.
– Fubo’s North America 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝟮.𝟳% YoY to 1.47M. 𝗔𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝗼𝗳 $𝟮𝟮.𝟱𝗠 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝟭𝟳% 𝗬𝗼𝗬, due to Fubo dropping WBD and TVU networks.
– Roku’s Q1 total 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀 $𝟭.𝟬𝟮𝗕, 𝘂𝗽 𝟭𝟲% YoY; Platform revenue was $881M, up 17% YoY. Devices revenue of $139M, up 11% YoY. FCF of $298.4M, down 30% YoY. 𝗡𝗼 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝘀.
– Netflix revenue of $10.54B, up 13% YoY. FCF of $2.66B. Expects ad revenue to “roughly double” in 2025. Still forecasting full year 2025 FCF of about $8B. 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝗳𝗹𝗶𝘅’𝘀 𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝟵𝟰𝗠 𝗴𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗔𝗨𝘀, 𝘂𝗽 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝟳𝟬𝗠 𝗠𝗔𝗨𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿.
– EchoStar lost 380,000 DISH pay TV customers, of which 𝗦𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗩 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝘂𝗽 𝟭𝟵𝟴,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀. Sling TV ended Q1 with 1.89M subscribers.
* 𝗣𝗮𝘆 𝗧𝗩 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘃𝗠𝗩𝗣𝗗𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝟭.𝟳𝟱 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗧𝗩 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗤𝟭 (excluding YouTube TV and DIRECTV).

FOX has released new technical details on its 2025 Super Bowl stream, including the rebuffer rate (0.5%), percentage of viewership in 4K (28%), peak CDN capacity (135 Tbps), and where it invested in its video workflow architecture.

At the 2025 NAB Streaming Summit, Mayur Srinivasan, SVP of Digital Video Platform at Fox Corporation, did a tech presentation on Super Bowl LIX Streaming Insights, highlighting how FOX prepared for the event and discussed low-latency, multi-CDN selection, API optimization, mitigating potential failures, load testing, the critical role of real-time monitoring and how it worked to scale Tubi across 29 client platforms. This is the first time any broadcaster has released this level of detail for its Super Bowl stream, and Mayur tells me he released it in the hope that other broadcasters will also share these details in the future.

You can see Mayur’s video presentation here and download the slides here.

Google has been pretty quiet about its Media CDN offering, but that’s changing as the company has signed multiple large M&E customers and added more capacity and new functionality. The company has allowed me to disclose that Google Media CDN has over 100Tbps of egress capacity and growing. Not to be confused with Google Cloud CDN, which is for web acceleration, Google’s Media CDN service leverages the same infrastructure that YouTube uses to serve its global users.

Google’s Media CDN service targets customers with high-volume media and large file downloads, as well as support for live streaming when it makes sense. Google’s support for live video prioritizes customers who commit to a specific level of sustained traffic. This is a smart business decision since even the largest live events when measured by concurrent users, don’t drive much revenue but consume a lot of network capacity. Google targets customers prioritizing low latency for live, high origin offload for VOD, and maximum throughput for downloads. For VOD, Google says their cache hit ratios average ~98.5-99% and for live, ~96.5-98.5%.

Google Media CDN leverages Google’s edge network, which is present in over 3,179 locations worldwide and offers origin protection by default. This doesn’t mean that Google’s Media CDN service is deployed in 3,000 locations, but the Media CDN team can add capacity across specific locations based on customer needs, leveraging Google’s massive network footprint. Google Media CDN also supports edge programmability, enabling custom logic for services like header manipulation, token authentication etc., directly within the request path.

Later this quarter, Google Media CDN will add Flexible Shielding, enhancing flexibility for customers with centralized origins serving global audiences. This service allows customers to configure specific shield node locations for optimized performance and offload. Customers can also add Google’s Cloud Armor service for WAF and DDoS protection at the edge. Google Media CDN offers near real-time logging and metrics integrated into Google’s Cloud operations suite (Cloud Logging, Cloud Monitoring) and provides ready-to-use dashboards. Its metrics include server-side metrics (TTFB, TTLB, Cache Status, Origin Latency) and client-side insights via full support for CMCD.

Google shared a list of client names using their Media CDN for streaming and software downloads, but I don’t have permission to mention most of them. I previously disclosed that WBD uses Google Media CDN in their multi-CDN deployment, and last week, Google added a testimony with MLB on their use of Google Media CDN, which you can see here. Google already has relationships with large M&E customers using Google’s Cloud stack, so over time, I expect its Media CDN offering to be added into the mix for customers using a multi-CDN approach for streaming and large object downloads.

Varnish Software has launched a new private CDN offering called Ora Streaming with its long-time partner, Intel. Fully managed by Varnish, with direct access to the resources that develop Varnish Enterprise, the proprietary version of Varnish Cache that has enhanced performance, security and functionality. Ora Streaming Inc. (incorporated in Delaware) is 100% owned by Varnish Software AB (registered in Sweden), the parent company in the Varnish Software group. Initial use cases for Ora Streaming are live and VOD video streaming, large file delivery, and web and API traffic, although the primary commercial focus will be video.

The new solution is based on dedicated bare metal servers and contracted capacity, not shared, for content delivery on infrastructure owned by major carriers/ISPs. Ora Streaming and Intel have formed a strategic partnership with several global tier-1 ISPs and regional tier-1 carriers targeting regional content providers. Ora shared the names of nine carriers with me, but they only have permission to share the names of Lumen and Telekom Malaysia at launch. The tier-1 ISPs have a leveraged position to help establish a dedicated peering capacity with last mile carriers. Ora Streaming’s strategy is to continue developing carrier-neutral footprints augmented with regional tier-1 ISPs.

Ora Streaming’s current global capacity is an aggregate combination of edge bare-metal and egress capacity available for deployment across all its global partners. The approximate global peak capacity is 30-35 Tbps, which can increase to 50 Tbps based on availability. Those numbers are aggregate capacity available through Ora’s partners at a given time but not deployed Ora capacity.

Varnish says its initial customer target is streaming providers in North America, Europe, East Asia, Japan, Australia and South Africa. The company says Ora Streaming becomes economical for customers at a minimum delivery of 20 PB/month and that they have identified 250 target accounts in its target markets that fit this profile. Customers pay a fixed monthly fee based on capacity with no additional cost for egress, traffic or overage fees. In addition, edge compute workloads are included in the fixed monthly fee so customers can execute programmable workloads like ad insertion, log management, and traffic shaping directly at the edge. The company’s website says Ora Streaming has a lower delivery cost, but they didn’t discuss pricing with me, and it’s unknown what they are comparing it to.

As Ora is based on Varnish Enterprise, an extensive library of Varnish VMODS can tailor the private CDN to specific customer requirements. In addition, the Varnish Configuration Language (VCL) can be used to its full extent, without limitation, which differs from other Varnish-based CDNs, where VCL is restricted to avoid noisy neighbors or even outages on the shared platform. Ora Streaming launches with a lot of functionality tied to access control, connection encryption, content protection and connection authentication. Ora Streaming is currently in preview mode by invite only.

Varnish and Intel will speak at the NAB Streaming Summit on privately managed CDNs, discussing enabling real-time configuration and supporting advanced use cases such as ad insertion, ad stitching, watermarking, and custom log generation at the edge. You can see more details on that session here.

For the final NCAA March Madness game available on Max Saturday March 29th, I did a quick test of the stream across nine platforms and looked at the quality of the stream, encoding bitrates, key moments feature and CDNs used. It was an excellent experience with fast startup times, no rebuffering and a great picture quality across all the devices I tested.

For Max’s encoding bitrate ladder, the SDR stream maxed out at 10Mbps and the HDR stream at 8Mbps. They used HLS and DASH, sharing the same underlying CMAF media segments. Chunked encoding came in at 3.2 seconds, and the stream was delivered via Amazon CloudFront, Akamai, Fastly and Google Media CDN. Warner Bros. Discovery doesn’t break out streaming viewership after live events, so it’s unknown what the AMA or concurrent stream count was. I would not expect the stream to have broken into the top 20 largest streaming events of all time, meaning less than 10 million concurrent viewers. Live streams of March Madness were available to all Max subscribers in the US, with Max having pulled live streaming from its ad-supported tier on March 30th. B/R Sports and CNN content are available at no additional cost to subscribers in its standard and premium tiers.

Individual games offered Dolby Vision, Atmos and a key moments experience functionality where you could jump to the best plays on both live and replay. Max was the only service that offered March Madness with Dolby Vision. Video startup times were all under 2 seconds, with some under 1 second, depending on the platform, with Roku always being the slowest for every streaming service I’ve ever tested. I did not do any streaming latency testing when compared to OTA, as CBS is the only network offering OTA, and Max doesn’t carry CBS games.

Max offered a multiview experience for March Madness, which they first introduced doing its NASCAR Driver CAM coverage. It was without the leaderboard and enhanced with the ability to enter and exit the full-screen view of individual views from within the multiview. Users could double-click on any of the displayed feeds, allowing the selected game to expand into full-screen mode, effectively switching to that game’s direct feed. The multiview option was accessible across all platforms, while the capability to expand a multiview feed to full screen being available on desktops and all CTV devices. I didn’t get a chance to test multiview since there was only one game left on Max, but I did previously write a little about Max’s NASCAR multiview functionality last month.

In calendar Q4 2024, Max gained 6.4 million subscribers, bringing its total to nearly 117 million. CEO David Zaslav said Max is on track to have “at least 150 million subscribers by the end of 2026.” For full year 2024, WBD’s DTC business turned a profit of $677 million, compared to a 2023 profit of $103 million.

I tested the stream via Max’s apps on LG, Samsung, Vizio and TCL/Roku TVs and streaming devices, including Apple TV, Roku Stick, Fire TV Stick, MacBook (browser), iPad and iPhone. I tested via two ISPs, Verizon and Optimum, at half-gig speed. All devices were connected via ethernet, except iPads and iPhones, which were connected via Wi-Fi. Devices used included Roku Streaming Stick 4k (3820), Apple TV 4K (A2843), Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (M3N6RA), Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max (K3R6AT ), LG OLEDs (55C9AUA), Samsung TV (QN65S90CAFXZA), Vizio TV (V4K55M-0801) and Roku TCL TV (50R4A4).