As recession fears mount, Comcast becomes the latest to deliver a bleak earnings picture, with its streaming service Peacock stuck firm on 13 million subscribers, despite spending over $2 billion a year on content.
Hosts Janice Min, Tatiana Siegel and Sean McNulty discuss what that might mean for its future and what to expect next on the earnings front (Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Lionsgate will report their results in the coming days, and the New York Times and BuzzFeed are on deck amid the ever-shrinking digital ad spend).
Also on today’s episode, Netflix gives a limp green light to more of The Gray Man, and lands the opening movies for the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival. But are those slots cursed?
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These streamers don’t behave like consumer companies — they want only to chase awards and industry prestige. They announce their new programming in industry trades, spend tons of money on industry events, concentrate their outdoor marketing along routes favored by their top executives (or rivals), and are singularly obsessed on getting attention from the industry. But they really wonder why no one pays attention.
Oh, there is one big exception, of course: They spend money on Comic-Con. Because that’s where “consumers” are … even though 70% of SDCC attendees are industry-types.
They have to start acting like real consumer companies, spending against consumer eyeballs. It’s no wonder NBC is failing worse than the others, but they’re all doing this. Their marketing and PR teams have zero awareness of how to build a consumer-driven campaign that results in actual consumers buying the product.
It’s sad.