☀️ If Ads Are Streaming’s Future, Which Streamers Are Winning
Oscars audience barely tops 2023 / Final 2023 #cordcutting numbers / COMCAST sets new RSN biz blow
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LinkedIn here if ya like), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on TUESDAY, March 12, 2024.
Where just a public-service notice to start off today for anyone who drives a relatively new GM car and opted into its seemingly “just trying to help your driving!” OnStar Smart Driver program — yeah, the company is selling all of your driving data to car insurance companies to jack up your rates.
Yes, every quick acceleration or sudden stop is tracked, counted and attached to your name when sold to data brokers (and then onto insurers). According to this new NY Times piece, some other carmakers do at least a version of this as well.
And yes, this is all buried in a ‘terms and agreements’ document you likely one-clicked on — or it sounds like in some cases, your data was being sold even if you didn’t opt into it 😳. Nice one GM.
PLUS: The Oscars ratings growth seems to have stalled out, with this year’s show +4% over last year to 19.5 Million viewers. See what happens when you schedule the show around an overseas tour date for Taylor Swift? 🙄
Although from the amount of oddly optimistic headlines out there this morning emphasizing “highest ratings since the pandemic!” 🤔, you’d think +4% viewership was an amazing feat for a show that featured two true blockbuster movies (remember, last year was all about a movie that grossed $77 Million — I mean Avatar 2 was in the mix, but . . .).
Numbers of note:
Biggest audience was at 10 p.m. with 21.9 Million viewers.
The 7 p.m. hour numbers are not yet available.
Again, this show had no streaming home / was not available to #cordcutters (except for us keen digital antenna folk 🤜🤛).
2020 audience: 23.6 Million
2019 audience: 29.6 Million
2018 audience: 26.5 Million
BUT: The show was still the top dog of the 2024 awards-show season, topping the Grammys (16.9 Million), and about 5x of the Emmys.
Abbott Elementary kept about 1/3 of the audience: 6.9 Million viewers at 10:30 p.m.
So, kudos to the 48% of realists in the Wakeup poll from Friday, but 5%’ers, never stop being you!!
2ND WINNER!
An additional congrats goes out to Ankler subscriber Jordan Augustine, who also got 21 of 23 in the Oscar pool, after all final tabulations were completed 🥳. Enjoy sporting The Ankler hat around town, and uh, if your name pronunciation has any particular quirks . . . best to email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com before we record the podcast on Thursday afternoon!
AND: Today in Jon Stewart . . .
💻 THE MEDIA BIZ
If Ad Tiers and FAST Services are Streaming’s Future, Who’s Best Positioned to Win?
As U.S. paid streaming subscriber growth more or less plateaus — results from impending subscriber crackdowns excepted — the long-term 💰 key growth lever for the streamers will increasingly become advertising. You can only raise prices so many times (uh, in theory).
So, are all players here relatively on equal footing in this part of the business? Turns out, not even close. Let’s dive into the numbers to see what narratives are buried in the Q4 earnings reports, and the report cards on how each streamer is performing in this growth business . . .