The Entertainment Strategy Guide to 18-October-2019
Netflix Earnings, the SWfK, a Most Important Story Round Up and More Data/Privacy
Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy Newsletter! My favorite reads, listens, socials and more to keep you informed on the business of entertainment, with links to my recent writing on my website and elsewhere.
For all the skepticism I throw at Netflix, I don’t doubt their size or influence. Really, their biggest accomplishment of the last decade is replacing CBS as the (professional) video source of choice for Americans. (Youtube may be bigger for amateur/social video.) Thus, when they have an earnings report, everyone pays attention, including me, which’ll be the theme of this newsletter.
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The Best of the Entertainment Strategy Guy
“‘Hurry Up and Wait’ for the Streaming Wars: Netflix’s Q3 2019 Earnings Report” at my website.
Netflix earnings reports are about the most “click-baitey” thing I write. But they draw readers like moths to a flame because it’s both a popular platform and contentious business issue. (Past articles I’ve written on Netflix this year include here, here and here at Decider.)
“Most Important Story of the Week: The SWfK (Streaming War for Kids) Explained…” at my website.
Nominally, the most important story for me was the Disney+ Twitter/Instagram barrage on Monday, but I used that as an excuse to ponder kids programming in general. First, it’s fascinating the different decisions on “owning, buying or renting” programming in this space. Second, it’s also fascinating that Amazon Prime Video is getting out of the kids originals business right as Walmart hops in. That and three fun data points to start your week.
Twitter Threads
As I said, Netflix was on the brain, so my biggest thread of the week went to that:
Meanwhile, the fascinating tidbit that Netflix is “10% of TV viewing in the US”—see huge!—got me comparing that to a previous Netflix earnings report in this thread:
Finally, HBO Max is renting Studio Ghibli films for their service. Hmmm.
A “Most Important Stories” Round Up
Here’s a new feature for this week’s newsletter. Some weeks when the news feels slow, I wonder if my take on the most important story jives with the rest of the media observers I follow. This week, Netflix was the closest thing to consensus top story.
KCRW’s The Business - South Park in China ; Netflix Q3 Earnings Report
KCRW’s Screengrab - The Battle for the Kids (Partly my inspiration for the week as well.)
TV Top 5 - First cancellation of broadcast season, Apple TV+, Netflix Earnings
Axios Media Newsletter - High debt levels of entertainment companies.
The Streaming Wars Newsletter - Netflix earnings; kids streaming wars links (Also, Kirby is taking questions for a future newsletter.)
TV Rev - AT&T Raises Prices (I had missed this story initially, but it’s a good find.) & Quibi/T-Mobile start a partnership.
PARQOR SVOD Newsletter- Netflix big bet on kids programming; South Park impending licensing sale
Hollywood Torrent Newsletter - South Park impending licensing sale; Netflix Earnings
(Let me know what you think of this feature.)
The Best of The Rest
(These are the best reads, listens, newsletters, or social conversations I came across last week.)
Long Read of the Week - “The Creators Of Pokémon Go Mapped The World. Now They're Mapping You" by Cecilia D'Anastasio and Dhruv Mehrotraby in Kotaku.
The history of every successful company on the internet will soon be: “Start company. Become successful. Collect all your customer’s data. Get in trouble.” The latest in this line is part of this great investigative journalism Cecilia D'Anastasio and Dhruv Mehrotraby in Kotaku. It tells both a detailed history of AR/mapping/gaming via Niantic and a cautionary tale about our data.
Other Long Read - “Inside Apple's Long, Bumpy Road to Hollywood” by Lesley Goldberg and Natalie Jarvey
Last week was an in-depth look at Disney, and now it is Apple’s turn in the spotlight. I would emphasize the “bumpy” parts of the article, mainly because Apple is having to figure out how to build an entirely new business from the ground up. My working theory is that even seasoned executives—like the ones in charge of Apple—don’t realize how much the machinery of a giant studio like Sony kept/keeps productions moving.
Other Long Read - “The T-Mobile / Sprint merger should be stopped, say antitrust experts” by Nilay Patel in The Verge
This is more of an opinion piece—it quotes antitrust experts who disagree with the merger—but one I agree with. It’s also the most skeptical take I’ve seen on Dish Network actually being able to make a viable competitor in the cellular landscape.
Non-Entertainment Read - “What economists have gotten wrong for decades: Four Economic Ideas Disproven by Reality” by Jared Bernstein in Vox
Beyond the policy arguments in this piece, I appreciate any article that challenges conventional wisdom. If even these four widely held by economists beliefs can be wrong, how confident should we be in many of our own predictions?
Non-Entertainment Listen of the Week - The No Dunk Podcast (formerly The Starters)
If you’re a basketball fan, you probably listened to The Starters nee The Basketball Jones. Well, add another “nee” because the group just joined The Athletic with a new podcast. While it is a smart decision by The Athletic to immediately boost their podcast business, I just wanted to celebrate this podcast being back in my life.
Twitter Threads of the Week
Is everything on the internet fake? Maybe. But is Tik Tok the most fake? Maybe.
Agree with Twitter follower MasaSonCap that the earnings report really was just the tip of the Netflix story for the next few weeks.
(If this email was forwarded to you, and you’re wondering who I am, The Entertainment Strategy Guy writes under this pseudonym at his eponymous website. A former exec at a streaming company, he prefers writing to sending emails/attending meetings, so he launched his own website. You can follow him on Twitter or Linked-In for regular thoughts and analysis on the business, strategy and economics of the media and entertainment industry.)