Netflix’s global subscriber base continues to expand but it sees growth slowing. Meanwhile streaming dominates the Emmys, PwC highlights the opportunity with ads, and Ligue 1 soccer rights go down to the wire.
Netflix now has 277 million subscribers worldwide
[Variety]
Netflix added just over 8 million subscribers in Q2 2024, close to double what Wall Street expectations had forecast. That now gives it a total of 277 million worldwide as it looks to close in on the magic 300 million number. Its revenue is also up 17% over the last quarter at $9.56bn, generating a net income of $2.15bn versus $1.49bn a year ago.
Netflix’s stock price, however, was actually down following the announcement. There are two main reasons for this. First, the latest figures mean that it has managed to add 50 million subscribers since it first implemented its password-sharing crackdown. This is way in advance of its own predictions, but the company is nearing the end of the number that can be converted to paid subs. Partly as a result, it predicts that growth in subscriber additions is going to slow down.
Reason two is that the ad side of the business has scaled more slowly than many expected. The company says that “building a business from scratch takes time.” Also: “The near-term challenge (and medium-term opportunity) is that we’re scaling faster than our ability to monetize our growing ad inventory.”
Members on ad-supported plans now account for over 45% of all signups in Netflix’s ads markets. But as it searches for that scale it says it’s building an in-house ad tech platform, which it will start testing in Canada this year with the aim of a broader launch in 2025.
One last snippet: the company has also started testing a simpler and more intuitive homepage UI that it hopes “will significantly improve the discovery experience.”
Streaming dominates 2024 Emmy Award nominations
[Deadline]
It is Emmy Award seasons again. Last year’s ones were delayed by the Hollywood strikes and only took place in January this year, so the 2024 edition has come around super fast.
Streaming is the big winner once more. Netflix has taken top spot this year with the most Emmy nominations. And FX has surpassed HBO and Max to move into second place. Netflix secured 107 nominations, FX got 93 (its most nominations ever), and HBO/Max received 91.
In fact, it is FX’s best performance ever, beating its previous high of 56 nominations set in 2016. Two of its shows alone combined to beat that number, with Shōgun getting the most of any single program this year with 25 nominations and The Bear following closely behind with 23. Most of FX’s viewing takes place on Hulu, where The Bear exclusively runs in the US, making these Emmys once more a streaming-dominated affair.
Apple TV+ got 72 nominations, and the first traditional networks appear in a joint fifth place, where both ABC and CBS are garnering 38 each.
HBO/Max’s relatively lacklustre performance (it dominated last year’s nominations with 127) is mainly down to some of its bigger ticket shows coming to a natural end, while others were delayed significantly by the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes.
It is worth pointing out though that if you lump all the Walt Disney Company’s channels together it is in the lead by a long way; ABC, FX, Disney+, and Hulu combining for a massive total of 183 nominations.
This is the list of Top 10 nominations by program:
25 Nominations
Shogun
23 Nominations
The Bear
21 Nominations
Only Murders In The Building
19 Nominations
True Detective: Night Country
18 Nominations
The Crown
17 Nominations
Saturday Night Live
16 Nominations
Fallout
Hacks
The Morning Show
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
15 Nominations
Fargo
13 Nominations
Ripley
11 Nominations
Baby Reindeer
Palm Royale
PwC’s future trends in the global media industry
[PwC]
Analyst Price Waterhouse Coopers has released its latest report looking at the development of the global entertainment industry and as ever there are some fascinating data points and insights. Despite notable economic headwinds, total global revenue rose 5% to $2.8 trillion in 2023 and will continue to grow at 3.9% CAGR up to 2028. By that point, total revenues will top $3.4 trillion.
PwC breaks down the opportunities that growth presents into three categories: advertising, consumer spending, and connectivity. And it says the biggest of the three is advertising. By 2028 the amount spent globally on advertising will be almost double what was spent in 2020.
Targeted advertising spend on Connected TVs, in particular, is going to double in a short space of time, rising from $20.5 billion in 2023 to $41.2 billion in 2028. The report cites increasing experiments with shoppable TV (buying products directly from ad spots) as a key component of this. Its reasoning is that as viewers watch more short-form content on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, advertisers need to experiment with ways of reaching them that transcend the 30-second or 60-second ad slot.
One interesting point is its forecast that while OTT subs will rise from 1.6bn to 2.1bn, global ARPU will barely budge, only rising from $65.21 in 2023 to $67.66 in 2028. This, it says, is driving the pivot towards AVOD. It says that AVOD revenues will show double-digit growth over the next four years, rising 14% a year to hit $57bn by 2028, 28% of global streaming revenues.
The combined total is a very healthy $200bn and is divided as follows.
Last minute rights deal for France’s Ligue 1 soccer
With just over a month to go until the start of the new soccer season, the French football league (LFP) finally inked a deal with DAZN and beIN Sports for coverage of its domestic Ligue 1 matches until 2029. The two will pay a combined €500m a season to screen all of its matches, with international rights and Ligue 2 games as well adding another €200m to make a €700m total.
This is a long way from the €1bn it hoped to raise when the rights first went on sale in the fall. The worry is that some of the smaller French clubs might find themselves sin financial difficulty as a result.
A streaming option has always been likely ever since Canal+ decided not to bid in the latest round of packages. But it wasn’t the only option on the table. The LFP also had an offer from Warner Bros. Discovery that would have seen an LFP channel debut as part of its Max offering in France on the table. It has also been actively investigating the launch of its own D2C service.
The last is especially interesting. That would have made it the first major European league to go D2C and meant it would have to go from a standing start to establishing, marketing, and streaming games in under one month. That’s a tall order, even with today’s excellent sports streaming options.
The LFP estimated that its own offering would earn €578 and gather two million subscribers in its first season. Some clubs thought this was optimistic and voted for the DAZN/beIN deal and the guaranteed income instead. But there is a get-out clause that can be triggered in 2027 and there is a very good chance that that is not the end of the investigation of D2C options for the LFP and many other European sporting properties.