With the majority of cable and satellite TV operators in the US having reported Q4 and 2020 earnings, combined, they lost at least 5.6M pay TV subscribers last year. That number includes lost streaming subscribers for Sling TV and AT&T. Operators WOW! and Mediacom have yet to report Q4 and full-year 2020 earnings, but as small as they are, they won’t push the numbers either way by much.

These pay TV losses won’t surprise anyone who follows the cord cutting trend, but what might surprise many is that vMVPD streaming services are not gaining the subs lost from traditional pay TV operators. Year-over-year, Sling TV, AT&T and Hulu all lost live subscribers last year. Fubo TV gained 229,211 subscribers and DAZN and YouTube won’t say how many subscribers they gained or lost in 2020. The fact live streaming services haven’t gained many subs isn’t surprising since all live service saw price hikes last year, with the average package comparable to pay TV starting at $65 a month. Make no mistake, live OTT is simply the new pay TV bundle. It can be called something else, but in reality it is priced like pay TV, bundled like pay TV, and has more restrictions than pay TV, with a limit on the number of concurrent streams from one account.

With all these hard numbers one has to ask the question, where are all these cord cutters going and do consumers really care about live TV anymore, outside of sports and some other specific big events? As viewers content habits have shifted to an on-demand world over the past few years, one could argue that without sports content, live streaming would be a thing of the past. The Grammy’s, Olympics, news and some other one-off events would still garner interest, but it’s clear that the live OTT services simply aren’t resonating with consumers in large numbers.

Live content is a different type of viewing experience and Twitch and other platforms like ESPN+, MLB.TV etc. are seeing some growth in consumption, but that content is targeting a very specific demographic, with specific content, and isn’t hitting the largest swath of the market. As an industry, the real question we have to ask is, what does the future of live video consumption look like and who’s going to control the market? In the near term, live TV via cable or streaming won’t be a linear experience as we think of it today.

Last week, I talked to various individuals tied to the current negotiations between the NFL and CBS, NBC, ESPN and FOX as it pertains to broadcast TV and streaming rights for NFL content. Currently, FOX has the NFC conference rights and AFC conference rights are with CBS. NBC has “Sunday Night Football”, ESPN has “Monday Night Football” and FOX and the NFL Network have “Thursday Night Football”. ESPN’s deal with the NFL expires after the 2021 football season and all the other broadcast deals run through the 2022 season.

While there’s a lot of speculation on which broadcasters might get more or fewer games in the new deals for broadcast TV rights, (“rumored” to be valued at $100B across all networks for 8-10 years), I’m more interested in what the NFL will end up doing with the “NFL Sunday Ticket” package. It’s well known that the current NFL deal with DIRECTV (AT&T), which runs through the 2022 season, will not be renewed. This makes sense since AT&T is trying to sell off the DIRECTV business and I’m told the NFL no longer wants the restrictions that come from distributing the package via satellite, which is completely outdated, as is the current streaming experience.

DIRECTV extended their current contract with the NFL in 2014 and as we all know, seven years later, the business models for the packaging and distribution of video content has drastically changed. This leaves a new platform to become the NFL’s partner on selling a streaming package to consumers, without any legacy restrictions. Multiple people I spoke with said that while talks are still in the early stages, Amazon looks to be in the lead for the new digital direct-to-consumer offering of what is currently branded NFL Sunday Ticket.

In 2020, Amazon signed a three-year agreement with the NFL to keep Amazon as the exclusive partner for live streaming Thursday Night Football games, 11 in total, and Amazon streamed an exclusive national regular-season game December 26, on Prime Video and Twitch. Sources tell me the NFL has been very happy with Amazon’s live streaming production of the 2020 NFL season, so it would be a natural fit for the NFL to extend their relationship with Amazon on a NFL-based streaming subscription product.

Of all the companies you would think of for such an offering, Amazon would make the most sense for the NFL since Amazon can put their marketing power behind it, already has subscriber’s payment info on file and has the resources to execute what would be a very complex video workflow on the backend. Prime Video and Twitch coverage of the NFL is already available to more than 150 million paid Prime members worldwide, and is in more than 240 countries and territories, so Amazon would give the NFL the widest distribution. I can easily imagine Amazon boxes showing up at my house printed with NFL Sunday Ticket promotions like we’ve seen Amazon do with content partners in the past (Minion boxes everywhere!).

Some have suggested Google, Facebook or even Disney, with their ESPN+ offering might be interested in the deal, but Disney would not take it on, nor are they setup to handle it. Even for broadcast TV rights, Disney is being cautious. On Disney’s Q4 2020 earnings call they were asked about the NFL renewal and said, “first priority will be to look and say does it make sense for shareholder value going forward?” Disney still has a lot of work ahead growing and maintaining their own D2C offerings, so building out an entirely new D2C product with the NFL simply isn’t doable for them from a technical stack standpoint.

With respect to Google, Facebook and Apple, I don’t see the NFL Sunday Ticket fitting into any of Google’s current offerings and it would not make sense to try and bundle it in with any kind of YouTube TV or YouTube Music package. I’ve seen some suggest that bundling an NFL offering with YouTube TV would give Google a way to sign up more subs for their vMVPD service, but many wouldn’t be interested in the vMVPD offering and the additional cost. YouTube TV costs $65 a month now and YouTube just announced more “add on” features coming to YouTube TV for an additional unknown cost.

As far as reach goes, the last number Google has publicly given out on subscribers is that YouTube TV has 3 million paying members, a figure they gave out in October of last year and didn’t update during their earnings call in February 2021. YouTube TV launched 4 years ago this month and in that time hasn’t gotten much traction for the service. They look similar to Hulu, which ended 2020 with 4 million paying subs for their Hulu + Live TV offering, losing 100,000 subs year-over-year. The price of live services have all seen very steady increases and not gotten the number of subscribers many thought they would. We saw estimates from analysts and Wall Street firms suggesting Google would get 10 millions subs or more, for the then priced $35 YouTube TV service, within the first year of launch. One could suggest that YouTube could sell a lot of ads against the NFL’s content and share that revenue with the NFL, but that’s something Amazon could do as well. Amazon’s ‘Ads and other’ business did $21.5B of revenue in 2020.

Facebook and the NFL did a content agreement in 2017 which was renewed in 2019 and expired at the end of 2020. As part of the old deal, Facebook didn’t have any live games and provided game recaps that it placed on its Facebook Watch video-on-demand platform. Facebook had to pay an up-front fee for the content and then also split ad revenue with the NFL. In 2016, Facebook did show interest in acquiring rights for live streaming the Thursday Night Games that Amazon ended up getting, but five years later one has to wonder if live streaming of NFL games fits into Facebook’s content road map anymore. When it comes to Apple you have to throw them into the mix due to their reach, but to date Apple hasn’t done anything on the live side, or at scale with video. I know some will suggest they have a younger demographic the NFL wants and the ability to promote services through all the Apple devices and their ecosystem, but I’m not convinced it fits their content strategy.

Based on everything I hear from those closer to these deals than I am, Amazon is in the driver’s seat for the NFL’s new direct-to-consumer offering, although negotiations are early and still ongoing. I’m told that details around pricing for a new streaming NFL Sunday Ticket package and revenue splits have yet to be discussed and that discussions will move along once the NFL finishes the renewals with TV broadcasters. Whomever gets the NFL Sunday Ticket deal, the new streaming service is going to be an exciting product for consumers and will be a huge improvement on what is currently an outdated user experience. And if working with Amazon enables the NFL to bring the price down on a streaming service, which is what Amazon does with all products, the NFL would get a bigger audience, wider distribution for their brand and more revenue based on volume. My bet is on Amazon.

2020 was the year of unexpected changes, but it doesn’t stop there. Join me and Till Sudworth from NPAW — Nice People At Work, as we discuss how the streaming experience is changing in 2021. No pitches, no demos, just real-world information of what’s going to take place this year, all in 30-minutes. We’ll look at some of the new OTT services coming to the market, pricing and packaging changes, the latest in video workflow best practices and we’ll take your questions. Join us on Tuesday February 23, 1pm EST, you can register for free here.

[Updated Feb 11th: I’ve changed the original title of this post because while the company didn’t notify me of this, I see that Apptopia has edited the language in their blog post and has added the words “on mobile”. This makes it clearer that they are now only specifically talking to mobile devices. I still don’t agree with them using the term “new user”, since they don’t know if the user is new, and can’t track if the person even opened or used the app they downloaded, but at least they added some additional words to make it clearer.]

In a February 4th blog post talking about how many downloads Discovery+ had compared to other OTT services, Apptopia said, “During Discovery+’s first month live, HBO Max gained 3.4M new users, and Disney+ gained 3.6M. Peacock TV, on the other hand, only gained 1.9M new users.” These OTT related numbers they are giving out are not factually accurate as presented and are not “new users” of a streaming service. My private checks with some OTT services only confirms what is clear, the data and terminology Apptopia is using is flawed, with many non-existent definitions around the words they are using that’s adding confusion to the OTT market.

AT&T did not break out the number of stand-alone HBO Max subs they acquired in Q4, nor new subscribers, and they didn’t break out any numbers for January of this year. Apptopia calls their numbers “new user growth”, but when I reached out to Apptopia for this post, the company confirmed they can’t measure a new user or a “paying subscriber”. I downloaded the HBO Max app two times in January both for new iPads I acquired, but I was already a subscriber to HBO Max. So clearly my downloads should not be counted as a “new user” like Apptopia says I am. You also have users who watch content via streaming boxes, (which Apptopia doesn’t measure) and might add the mobile app at a later time. These are not “new” users of an OTT service. You also have the instance where someone might get a new mobile phone and have to re-download their app again. All of these use cases, Apptopia defines them as “new users”. On their website Apptopia says they “estimate” first time downloads, but don’t say how they do that or give any details. Their entire FAQ page on methodology is vague with almost no definitions.

It should also be noted that in Q4 AT&T disclosed an updated number of HBO Max “activations”, but they define activations as a “download of the app”, that’s it. You don’t even have to open it or create an account, so an app download does not equal a paying or new customer, hence why AT&T is very specific (and correct) with their language. And yet, Apptopia is using language of “new users gained,” which is not accurate. It’s also the reason why when NBCU talks about Peacock TV they specifically use the term “sign ups”, as they note that a sign up does not equal a “new user” or “subscriber”. Apptopia told me that in the “mobile app industry”, a download is considered a “new user”. Peacock TV and HBO Max are not “mobile apps”, they are OTT services where mobile viewing is one of the many ways you can consume the service. Apptopia’s definitions, headlines and conclusions are flat out wrong.

Apptopia also says, “for engagement, the US app (Discovery+) averaged just shy of one million daily active users in its first month (990K), giving it a stickiness score of approximately 62% (stickiness = DAU/MAU).” In the post, Apptopia doesn’t define what a “daily active user” is so I reached out to the company who pointed me to a definition on their website that says DAU is, “the number of users who opened the app at least once in the last 24 hours.” The problem with that definition is that Apptopia is using DAU’s to also define “engagement”, and putting a “stickiness” score on an app, with a false definition of engagement. Anyone in the video industry knows that engagement is measured by watching video, not just opening an app. Apptopia told me, “we do not have the ability to determine what users are doing once inside the app,” and yet they still put out a “stickiness score”, even though they can’t see true engagement within the app itself.

Apptopia’s Tweet about their blog post says Discovery+ has, “more new users than HBO Max gained in its first month live.” That’s not even close to accurate since Apptopia doesn’t measure OTT services on smart TVs, Roku boxes, Apple TV or desktop web browsers. Saying how many “new users” an OTT service has, for the entire month, when they don’t measure anything on streaming media boxes is simply false. And nowhere does Apptopia use words like “estimate” or imply this is their opinion, they state these numbers as facts. I’ve also seen Apptopia previously use phrases like “streaming sessions”, but there is no definition to go along with it. What is a streaming session?

Apptopia says that because they provide data on more than 7 million apps, “it would be hard to match every industry’s and every company’s exact terms to our own.” That’s a lazy and terrible excuse. When you are giving out data, and selling it to others, the data is only as good as the methodology you are using AND your explanation of what it means. Any company that is going to use slices of their data to say one company/service is doing better or worse than another has a responsibility to use the right terms, with definitions and transparency. Apptopia is doing none of these things with the OTT data they are presenting.

For those in the OTT industry, analysts and members of the media that cover the space, please don’t use Apptopia’s data to describe the success or failure of any streaming service. It’s hurting our industry when the data is used and it creates confusion and false expectations in the market.

Note: I reached out to Apptopia’s CEO before publishing in the hopes of having a deeper conversation than I did with their Head of Communications, about Apptopia’s terminology and methodology, but I never heard back.

I’m testing the Super Bowl stream live across 25+ apps/platforms on Apple TV, Roku, Xbox, PS, Fire TV, iPad, iPhone, Samsung Galaxy Tab, smart TVs from LG, Vizio and Samsung. Follow this blog post for updates.

Updated Feb 9th: The Super Bowl streaming numbers are out and had an average minute audience of 5.7M viewers.

Updated 10:15pm: And that’s a wrap. Other than some issues CBS had with the CBS All Access app at the start, everything else looked good for me.

Updated 7:28pm: Some users of the CBS All Access app specifically reported having trouble logging in right around kickoff, but I don’t know what percentage of people it impacted. Wasn’t a video problem specifically but an issue with the app. I had it running on an iPad and Fire TV but wasn’t impacted. CBS has confirmed the issue has now been resolved.

Updated 6:41pm: Super Bowl stream is looking good across CBS All Access app, CBSSports.com, Yahoo! Sports across Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV and Apple and Android tablets. As you can see from the photo above, the latency across the devices varies based on hardware and app. I have 13 streams running across all devices and so far they all look good.

Updated 6:04pm: The content delivery networks (CDNs) doing the video distribution this year are Fastly, Verizon Media and Amazon Web Services (CloudFront).

Updated 5:40pm: As a refresher on previous Super Bowl streaming numbers, the 2020 Super Bowl stream by FOX had a 3.4M “average minute audience” across all digital properties (including Verizon, NFL, Yahoo and other properties). The 2019 Super Bowl stream by CBS had a 2.6M “average minute audience” across all digital properties (including Verizon, NFL, Yahoo, Tumblr, AOL and other properties). The 2018 Super Bowl stream by NBC had 3.1M “concurrent streams” across all digital properties.

Updated 5:29pm: The max bitrate for the Super Bowl stream, depending on the device you are using, will be 9Mbps. Due to the pandemic and CBS having to do so much remotely, there will be no 4K or HDR variations of the stream.

If you have any Super Bowl streaming issues today with the video or apps please email me at dan@danrayburn.com and I’ll send your feedback directly to the CBS tech team. Make sure you update both the app the device OS you are using as most problems can be fixed simply by doing that. If you have a problem, please include all details when you reach out to me including device, model number, device OS, app, app version and internet connection.

My 2020 Super Bowl post is here and my 2018 Super Bowl post is here.

I’ve seen a lot of speculation over what’s currently taking place with the delivery of TikTok traffic as it pertains to third-party CDNs as well as TikTok’s own DIY efforts. So in an effort to clear up some of the confusion, here are some details on what’s happening. TikTok has been working on their own DIY CDN to deploy hardware they own and operate inside third-party networks. So far they are early in their efforts with some deployments in specific countries, but they are still in the process of rolling it out and expanding their footprint. In September of last year TikTok said it plans to hire about 3,000 engineers over the next three years, mostly in Europe, Canada and Singapore. So while they haven’t gotten their DIY CDN to mass scale yet, we know that is ByteDance’s goal for the delivery of TikTok content.

Around the end of Q2 2020, TikTok changed their approach to delivering videos and other content and moved to a model that relied on what looked to be almost two dozen different providers globally, large and small. When the changed happened, you could see this from public trace routes in various countries. This change was driven by politics due to the Trump Executive Order and was not driven by any kind of performance or capacity problems with the CDNs they were using. Fastly and Akamai were two CDNs that had a large volume of TikTok’s delivery traffic in various regions of the world and at different volumes. For example, we know Akamai was doing a lot of delivery for TikTok in India, where the application has since been banned by the government.

While it doesn’t seem like TikTok will be banned in the U.S. for now, the Biden administration has said they will continue to “hold China accountable” on technology-related topics, though final decisions around its stance on TikTok and other telecom issues have not yet been made. Since the start of the new year, third-party CDNs have started to see some additional TikTok traffic come to their network, in specific countries. This is not an indication that TikTok is going to default back to third-party CDNs, but is a sign that they may once again rely on them more as they continue to build out their own CDN. Even if TikTok had not made the change in their strategy in the second half of last year, it was only a matter of time before they started moving to more of a DIY model in 2021. So while some think the TikTok change was unexpected, we all knew that going DIY was coming sooner than later. It’s also important to note that not all DIY customers move 100% of their traffic to their own CDN platform, especially when they have such a global audience. So even with TikTok’s DIY CDN growing over time, they still might rely on third-party CDNs in specific regions.

There has also been some speculation that if Oracle and Walmart were to get a combined 20% stake in a new company called TikTok Global that, “TikTok will likely move its video to Oracle’s cloud computing platform.” Oracle does not have their own CDN offering as part of their Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) platform and I would not envision them building out a CDN just for TikTok. As part of the proposed deal it was announced that Oracle would host all U.S. user data on its cloud platform, but that’s not the same as delivering videos. Other cloud based services like origin storage and compute could potentially be moved to Oracle, but one would expect that Oracle would use a multi-CDN strategy of third-party CDNs for video delivery, like all large video customers have adopted.

I think the biggest potential opportunity for third-party CDNs to get additional revenue from the delivery of TikTok related content would be if the deal with Oracle and Walmart went through. Based on the latest data I saw, TikTok had over 100M users for their application just in the U.S. alone. So far we haven’t gotten any information from the new administration on when or if that deal will happen, or what any new requirements might be needed for it to take place. But if that deal were to come to fruition, I would estimate that it would be good for third-party content delivery networks.

Between all the craziness on Wall Street and the number of earnings in the past few days, it’s been a busy week to say the least. With earnings from NBCU, AT&T, Verizon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Charter, along with news from Sling TV, Peacock, YouTube and others, there’s a lot that’s taken place. I’ve broken down all the earnings, news and concise takeaways at the links below to try and make it easy for everyone to catch up on what they may have missed:

• Vimeo’s Business Detailed In IAC’s S-4 Filing: Revenue from first 9 months of 2020 of $199.4M, with a net loss of $44.8M. Has 1.5M subscribers who pay an average of $214 per year ($17.83 a month). See my blog post for the full details: http://bit.ly/2M8v5E1
• Some clarity on Vimeo’s $300M raise. The report by Reuters that they raised $150M on a $2.75B valuation is NOT accurate. Vimeo did a $200M raise at a $5.2B pre-money valuation and a second raise of $100M at a $5.7B pre-money valuation.
• Comcast Q4 2020 Earnings: Lost 248,000 pay TV subs in the quarter, total loss of 1.4M pay TV subs for the year; 33M “sign ups” for Peacock TV in U.S.; Revenue of $103.6B for the year, a decrease of 14.9% y/o/y. More details: http://bit.ly/3r3eRur
• NBCU says Peacock TV brought in $100M in Q4 revenue and that losses on Peacock TV are estimated to be $2B for 2020/2021. Peacock TV has 33M “sign ups” as of this week. CEO says, “Peacock remains primarily an advertising play”.
• AT&T Q4 2020 Earnings: Ended the year with 41.5M combined HBO Max and HBO U.S. subscribers but didn’t break out how many are just HBO Max subs. Lost 617,000 DirecTV and AT&T TV premium video subscribers (27,000 were the AT&T TV streaming service). More details and a chart that breaks down HBO Max subs more here: http://bit.ly/2YtpLxi
• Verizon Q4 2020 Earnings: Lost 72,000 pay TV subscribers. Total pay TV losses for all of 2020 totaled 298,000 subscribers, which was 7.2% of all pay TV customers. Verizon ended 2020 with 3.8M pay TV subscribers. More details: http://bit.ly/2YrvjZf
• Sling TV raises pricing by $5 a month for new subscribers with their base plan now starting at $35 a month. Sling says they are being “forced to raise prices because the television networks keep charging us more.” Customers now receive 50 hours of free DVR storage, an increase from 10 free storage. More details: http://bit.ly/2M8CZ08
• Apple Q4 2020 Earnings: Total revenue of $111.4B, up 21% y/o/y, Services revenue of $15.7B, up 21% y/o/y,; iPhone revenue of $65.5B, up 17% y/o/y. Revenue from China of $21.3B, up from $13.5B y/o/y. More details: http://bit.ly/3afvRaa
• For those that got free Apple TV+ accounts from buying an Apple product, Apple has extended subscriptions for free until July. They were due to roll over to paid accounts in February.
• Verizon CFO: “As the early cohort of Disney+ customers have come off of the initial free 12-month period, more than two-thirds have maintained their subscription, either through their Verizon direct billing relationship or by opting into one of our newest Mix & Match plans with the Disney bundle included.” More details: http://bit.ly/3orVzgx
• Facebook Q4 2020 Earnings: Total revenue of $28.07B, up 22% y/o/y; Monthly active users of 2.8B, up 12% y/o/y; Daily active users of 1.84B; Warns Apple iOS changes could hurt business. More details: http://bit.ly/3akq9UB
• Charter Q4 2020 Earnings: Lost 66,000 residential pay TV customers; but ended the year up a total of 19,000 residential pay TV customers, totaling 15.6M residential pay TV customers at year’s end. More details: http://bit.ly/3oEJBAB
• YouTube is introducing clipping, the ability to make short clips of live streams or videos with a small group of creators. YouTube blog: http://bit.ly/2YtBwUE

If you have questions on earnings or news, and what the key takeaways are, I’m happy to chat at any time. 917-523-4562 or dan@danrayburn.com