1 00:00:15,912 --> 00:00:17,068 Brian: Welcome to The Rebooting Show. 2 00:00:17,068 --> 00:00:17,788 I'm Brian Morrissey. 3 00:00:17,808 --> 00:00:43,905 I'm very excited to be joined by Michael Wolf the ceo of Activate Management Consulting firm That is very prominent in I guess what it would be called the TMT space, but technology, media, telecom we see is today, but basically what, you know, we were talking beforehand about what I consider, you know, the information space and the content space, because, it is no longer just about media companies, media companies that are smaller part of this space. 4 00:00:43,905 --> 00:00:45,355 If you will, Michael, welcome. 5 00:00:45,755 --> 00:00:46,065 Michael: Yeah. 6 00:00:46,275 --> 00:00:53,008 it's interesting because the core media companies, in some cases they're thriving in some cases they're not. 7 00:00:53,408 --> 00:01:02,648 But what's interesting is you see so many people who are somewhere else in tech or retail or other places that want to be in the media business. 8 00:01:02,648 --> 00:01:10,628 Let's not forget that the great majority of the internet and is funded by advertising. 9 00:01:11,028 --> 00:01:13,388 You see, retailers. 10 00:01:13,788 --> 00:01:26,118 Now our media companies and so we, we calculate that this year the major retailers are going to sell about, about 50 billion worth of advertising. 11 00:01:26,518 --> 00:01:32,558 And, and we see that going up to about a hundred billion in the, in the next years. 12 00:01:32,878 --> 00:01:36,698 And so, and they're like Walmart, Amazon, Target. 13 00:01:36,828 --> 00:01:40,898 So many of them are now selling ads on their sites. 14 00:01:41,298 --> 00:01:42,948 And what's really fascinating 15 00:01:43,563 --> 00:01:45,143 Brian: And they have closed loop attribution. 16 00:01:45,163 --> 00:01:49,303 They've got buying data and, and it's pure margin for them. 17 00:01:49,353 --> 00:01:50,203 It ain't their business. 18 00:01:50,938 --> 00:01:51,288 Michael: Yeah. 19 00:01:51,458 --> 00:01:53,268 You know, what's fascinating. 20 00:01:53,268 --> 00:02:09,948 If you step back, the, the paradox of privacy with the big, big companies is that they're saying in the name of privacy, they're eliminating things like cookies and other and letting people opt out, but that brings more power to them. 21 00:02:09,968 --> 00:02:11,238 Less privacy. 22 00:02:11,593 --> 00:02:14,673 It puts, puts all people's data in their hands. 23 00:02:14,673 --> 00:02:17,503 But coming back to this issue about media. 24 00:02:17,723 --> 00:02:25,763 So we, we do have the retailers, the retailers are now buying their way into connected television, CTV. 25 00:02:26,143 --> 00:02:29,503 You already have Amazon doing so with fire stick. 26 00:02:29,903 --> 00:02:32,683 You have Walmart, which bought Vizio. 27 00:02:32,683 --> 00:02:40,652 Most people thought the reason why they're buying Vizio is because they're vertically integrating because they sell so many, so many screens. 28 00:02:40,922 --> 00:02:48,412 But in reality, part of it is, is being able to track what their customers are doing and having combined that with the data that they have. 29 00:02:48,792 --> 00:02:51,272 And you see other companies, you see companies outside the U. 30 00:02:51,272 --> 00:02:55,642 S., Rakuten, Mercado, and we're gonna, we're gonna see this continue. 31 00:02:56,042 --> 00:02:56,382 Brian: yeah. 32 00:02:56,652 --> 00:03:00,562 So my, my core question I want to, is media still a good business? 33 00:03:01,134 --> 00:03:04,034 New York magazine just had this, this, this big like package. 34 00:03:04,054 --> 00:03:09,924 And it, it was mostly focused on what I consider the sort of traditional media space, right. 35 00:03:09,984 --> 00:03:12,724 Of, of publishers and broadcast companies. 36 00:03:12,724 --> 00:03:15,284 And it's you get them in a room and it's woe is me. 37 00:03:15,454 --> 00:03:17,454 It'll make you like really depressed. 38 00:03:17,454 --> 00:03:17,724 Right. 39 00:03:18,034 --> 00:03:25,124 But the, you know, I go through your report and this is a thriving, growing space. 40 00:03:25,264 --> 00:03:29,564 It's just different now than like five years ago. 41 00:03:29,964 --> 00:03:30,144 Michael: Yeah. 42 00:03:30,154 --> 00:03:36,708 I mean, these, all of these people, they, it's not as if they just woke up and find that the world is different. 43 00:03:36,708 --> 00:03:54,098 They have, they've had lots of time and some of the companies have done a great job of starting to move into, into some of the other businesses that the, the most obvious one that of course is streaming, but broader licensing, all sorts of, of other areas. 44 00:03:54,208 --> 00:04:00,618 And like the, the traditional digital publishers that were text and editorial are now in video. 45 00:04:00,788 --> 00:04:07,738 So, so we're seeing that, but I mean, the industry, then to a large extent, there are parts of the industry that are, that are thriving. 46 00:04:08,138 --> 00:04:20,248 There are parts that are not the parts that the, the number of the cable programmers and cable television is enormously profitable business, but all of those cable programmers are going to have to manage down to a world. 47 00:04:20,618 --> 00:04:23,208 Where they have 50 million subscribers in the U S today. 48 00:04:23,208 --> 00:04:27,748 We, we show that they're roughly 70 million cable households. 49 00:04:28,118 --> 00:04:37,708 The it's going to go down to 50 million and we're going to have about 60 million people in the U S which we call with a little smile on our face, battleground households. 50 00:04:38,108 --> 00:04:42,348 Because those are the people they have broadband, but no pay TV. 51 00:04:42,348 --> 00:04:44,068 And that's who everyone's going to be fighting for. 52 00:04:44,468 --> 00:04:45,568 Brian: Yeah, I saw that. 53 00:04:45,568 --> 00:04:56,128 I mean, just a quick note because I wanted to get to that, but like, when, to talk about the, the differences, when you talk about it going, you know, to 50 million, that's also virtual pay TV. 54 00:04:56,478 --> 00:04:56,828 Right? 55 00:04:56,858 --> 00:05:07,538 Like, because YouTube is the new, is the new cable, provider, because you, you see that it, by, I think it's 2028, it's going to be basically the majority of virtual TV, right? 56 00:05:07,813 --> 00:05:08,133 Michael: Yes. 57 00:05:08,143 --> 00:05:12,013 It, it, it, virtual TV is still not picking up. 58 00:05:12,013 --> 00:05:16,523 So the, the virtual providers, it's, it's not just YouTube TV. 59 00:05:16,583 --> 00:05:21,643 it's of course, Hulu and, and, and there are a couple of others sling, but. 60 00:05:22,043 --> 00:05:25,393 those are not, they're really not offsetting the declines in cable. 61 00:05:25,573 --> 00:05:31,793 If anything, they're, they're just making it easier for people to get to their signal. 62 00:05:32,193 --> 00:05:34,333 And, and here's one thing that's fascinating about it. 63 00:05:34,403 --> 00:05:37,803 There are a lot of people, and we've seen this in our research every year. 64 00:05:37,803 --> 00:05:44,553 There are a lot of people who continue to scrap, to subscribe to cable television. 65 00:05:44,603 --> 00:05:48,773 And at the same time, Are subscribing to virtual cable? 66 00:05:49,173 --> 00:05:50,463 Brian: I think they're just confused. 67 00:05:50,853 --> 00:05:51,793 Michael: No, no, I don't. 68 00:05:52,103 --> 00:05:53,073 I don't think so. 69 00:05:53,113 --> 00:05:57,763 I think that part of what it is is, and we've, we've gone out and done the research. 70 00:05:58,163 --> 00:06:04,273 Part of it is, is they, they believe that there are things that they can get on virtual cable. 71 00:06:04,673 --> 00:06:08,603 They also want to be able to access it elsewhere. 72 00:06:08,643 --> 00:06:19,113 And the, this, the individual networks have done a bad job of creating their, their, what is called TVE, services that they've been around 73 00:06:19,363 --> 00:06:20,403 Brian: The TV everywhere. 74 00:06:20,403 --> 00:06:22,983 Oh my god, they've been talking about that for 15 years. 75 00:06:22,983 --> 00:06:25,433 I keep getting older, they keep talking about the same thing. 76 00:06:25,763 --> 00:06:26,043 Doesn't 77 00:06:26,158 --> 00:06:39,328 Michael: but there are people who, and there are people who want other, they want Fubo, they want other things that are other types of services and programming that they can't get so easily on, on cable TV. 78 00:06:39,728 --> 00:06:46,778 Brian: but also if you just look at like the channel guide, think about like how long these companies have had to fix this. 79 00:06:46,788 --> 00:06:47,178 Right. 80 00:06:47,558 --> 00:06:54,008 And the reality is, to me, like a lot of media is just downstream of the tech because tech controls the interface. 81 00:06:54,008 --> 00:06:55,168 They're really good at it. 82 00:06:55,258 --> 00:06:55,808 Okay. 83 00:06:56,138 --> 00:06:58,098 They're really and they're going to control distribution. 84 00:06:58,158 --> 00:07:00,488 And that is the commanding heights. 85 00:07:00,658 --> 00:07:01,298 So, Thank you. 86 00:07:01,638 --> 00:07:02,368 You know, too bad. 87 00:07:02,368 --> 00:07:06,408 So sad for a lot of the traditional media companies that are downstream of that. 88 00:07:06,408 --> 00:07:09,698 But isn't that inevitable that they would be disadvantaged? 89 00:07:10,098 --> 00:07:21,548 Michael: I think that, part of, part of the challenge for them is these are companies that, that are publicly traded, they, they enjoyed very high multiples before. 90 00:07:21,948 --> 00:07:42,158 And even though they saw in, in different places, of course, the decline of cable television, which drove the valuations of all of these companies, they did see it near insight, but, but in some ways they've been, they've had to balance the need to, to really grow for their future. 91 00:07:42,158 --> 00:07:43,998 And at the same time, deliver cashflow. 92 00:07:44,398 --> 00:07:49,458 And in some cases, Deliver cash flow that can pay off huge amounts of debt that they've taken on. 93 00:07:49,858 --> 00:07:50,158 Brian: Yeah. 94 00:07:50,558 --> 00:07:59,961 one of the things that I noticed, from the big picture takeaways was, I started to wonder if we're at the upper bands of where we can time spent with media, right? 95 00:08:00,081 --> 00:08:02,321 I think you had it like a 13 hours. 96 00:08:02,821 --> 00:08:03,081 Right. 97 00:08:03,131 --> 00:08:05,891 And, but it's it's only growing nine minutes. 98 00:08:06,021 --> 00:08:06,401 Right. 99 00:08:06,681 --> 00:08:09,551 And then like, look, it's, it's a massive market. 100 00:08:09,571 --> 00:08:09,861 Right. 101 00:08:09,861 --> 00:08:13,981 So you know, when you back out nine minutes extra every year, yeah, that's 10 billion or something. 102 00:08:14,121 --> 00:08:21,441 So it's, it's not like, you know, peanuts, but at the same time, we only have so much time, people have only so much time. 103 00:08:21,786 --> 00:08:22,536 until the A. 104 00:08:22,536 --> 00:08:22,706 I. 105 00:08:22,716 --> 00:08:24,196 Does everything for us. 106 00:08:24,486 --> 00:08:27,506 we're gonna have to, like, not be consuming media at all times. 107 00:08:27,536 --> 00:08:29,276 So are we reaching, peak media? 108 00:08:29,656 --> 00:08:30,586 Michael: I don't think so. 109 00:08:30,656 --> 00:08:40,756 I think that what happened in the pandemic, one of the things that we show is that during the pandemic, that we, before the pandemic and the way we've measured them, we've been doing this for a decade. 110 00:08:41,156 --> 00:08:50,306 We, on average, calculated the average American was spending 12 hours and 24 minutes consuming technology and media. 111 00:08:50,306 --> 00:08:57,116 That's That it jumped up to 13 hours and 11 minutes, and it's largely been sustained. 112 00:08:57,516 --> 00:09:17,326 And we're forecasting that there's going to be, there's going to be more growth ahead, but we're also at the same time, we're, there's an average, there are people who might spend 30, 40 hours a week in video games, or the average amount of time that people are watching video average is five hours. 113 00:09:17,726 --> 00:09:24,836 But we know that there are people who come home and on a weekend and plop themselves down on the front of the TV set and they're watching every game. 114 00:09:24,836 --> 00:09:31,206 So these are averages and there are people who, who are super consumers. 115 00:09:31,216 --> 00:09:34,956 They're, they're spending 18 hours a day watching 116 00:09:35,231 --> 00:09:35,321 Brian: me. 117 00:09:35,321 --> 00:09:37,881 I saw the super consumers, you call them super consumers, I was like, 118 00:09:37,971 --> 00:09:40,441 is this the extremely online people super users? 119 00:09:40,491 --> 00:09:45,591 it's basically almost every waking hour and they're not sleeping that much on this 120 00:09:45,831 --> 00:09:48,781 Michael: So, yeah, so, they're spending every waking hour. 121 00:09:48,861 --> 00:09:51,981 They're, they're spending time with everything. 122 00:09:51,981 --> 00:10:01,241 They're going to more events, they're playing games, they're listening to podcasts, it's, it's overall, these we're seeing, this is, this is. 123 00:10:01,641 --> 00:10:10,381 This is a consistent theme and it's been going on for the longest time that we've been creating our technology and media report each year. 124 00:10:10,781 --> 00:10:18,181 And our work is based on huge amount of consumer analysis and it's triangular and it just shows this is what people are doing. 125 00:10:18,581 --> 00:10:34,518 Brian: So I want to drill down on a few specific areas, but before that, just give me, give, give me like, give me three winners in the current, you know, when you're going up to 2028, like what are like three areas that, are poised for strong growth? 126 00:10:34,918 --> 00:10:35,978 between now and 2020. 127 00:10:36,378 --> 00:10:37,298 Michael: so a couple things. 128 00:10:37,298 --> 00:10:42,538 I think that we, we have the largest streaming services are at scale. 129 00:10:42,938 --> 00:10:46,678 And, and so we of course are going to see growth there. 130 00:10:47,078 --> 00:10:47,538 The. 131 00:10:47,863 --> 00:10:52,443 And that's going to continue and people are going to continue to subscribe to more services. 132 00:10:52,843 --> 00:10:59,713 We still forecast that people are going to either watch or subscribe to six services, six streaming services a year. 133 00:10:59,853 --> 00:11:01,553 Now they're going to churn through them. 134 00:11:01,903 --> 00:11:03,243 So that's one winner. 135 00:11:04,193 --> 00:11:05,103 Fascinating. 136 00:11:05,503 --> 00:11:06,853 Free is also winning. 137 00:11:06,863 --> 00:11:10,693 So we see Roku, I'm sorry, we see Tubi, the Roku channel. 138 00:11:10,948 --> 00:11:14,138 Brian: Tubi, I, I can't believe I would have never bet on Tubi. 139 00:11:14,288 --> 00:11:15,408 Like I, maybe that's me. 140 00:11:16,138 --> 00:11:18,288 Like a few years ago, I'm like, Tubi, really? 141 00:11:19,078 --> 00:11:20,008 What did Tubi do right? 142 00:11:20,408 --> 00:11:25,228 Michael: yeah, I mean, well, part of it is, is part of what happened is, what happened is Fox bought it. 143 00:11:25,628 --> 00:11:35,378 And so Fox could put the weight of their entire company, their ad sales force, their ability, not just to put their programming in, but to promote it, to run ads. 144 00:11:35,688 --> 00:11:37,538 it was a very, very smart deal. 145 00:11:37,778 --> 00:11:47,158 So free, if you wanted to be somewhere, it's going to be, in terms of the free services, it's going to be those three I just mentioned. 146 00:11:47,488 --> 00:12:06,658 Brian: Yeah, and, and it should say like ads, ads have, I mean, ads never count ads out, they are the cockroaches, they will always find a way, because like, when streaming started, I remember it was like, oh, well, only poor people will see ads, nobody's gonna, I pay to get rid of the ads, and guess what? 147 00:12:06,718 --> 00:12:09,218 Guess where, guess where the strongest growth is? 148 00:12:09,618 --> 00:12:10,938 In ad supported services. 149 00:12:11,023 --> 00:12:12,803 Michael: but, but see, but you're so right. 150 00:12:12,803 --> 00:12:21,393 And there's even more here, which is that all of the streaming services are going to lower priced ad supported tiers. 151 00:12:21,793 --> 00:12:32,463 And people look at it and say, okay, they're, they're raising their prices and for their best subscribers, and they're lowering their prices, they get more subscribers. 152 00:12:32,863 --> 00:12:33,973 Here's what's fascinating. 153 00:12:34,373 --> 00:12:41,893 When those lower price tiers with advertising, they're much more profitable on a specific subscriber basis. 154 00:12:42,293 --> 00:12:44,493 So to your point, don't count out ads. 155 00:12:44,863 --> 00:12:47,273 They were all in, they're all denied. 156 00:12:47,283 --> 00:12:51,483 I mean, Netflix for, for years denied it was going to get into advertising. 157 00:12:51,813 --> 00:12:57,513 But for Netflix, for Disney, for any of those services, the ad supported piece of it is advertising. 158 00:12:57,913 --> 00:12:59,243 is very, very important. 159 00:12:59,643 --> 00:13:01,333 And we already see Amazon. 160 00:13:01,733 --> 00:13:03,453 Brian: and you can make more money too. 161 00:13:03,663 --> 00:13:05,993 I mean, like incentives drive a lot of the market, right? 162 00:13:06,033 --> 00:13:15,643 I mean, so, I mean, having a lot of these services found that a, that their ad supported tiers, can actually be better than, than their paid tiers. 163 00:13:16,043 --> 00:13:16,343 Michael: Yeah. 164 00:13:16,383 --> 00:13:25,567 I mean, what I meant just now is that they're making more money on an average subscriber who's ad supported versus one that's just paying. 165 00:13:25,967 --> 00:13:40,997 And by the way, the other thing that's happening is they keep those subscribers longer because One of the challenges for all of these streaming services, really, probably Netflix is not included, is customer acquisition, customer retention. 166 00:13:41,337 --> 00:13:53,507 So, there are, Apple is taking the 30 percent keyboard tax or, or, or phone tax for you to, you to subscribe to one of those services. 167 00:13:53,907 --> 00:14:00,767 Amazon, which sells more of these services than anybody else, is taking as much as 40 percent in the first year. 168 00:14:00,777 --> 00:14:13,697 I mean, this is like you open a pizza parlor, and some guy shows up and says, I'm not gonna pay for the pizza, the sauce, the staff, or the cheese, but you're gonna give me 30 percent of all your revenue for a year. 169 00:14:14,107 --> 00:14:16,457 So, that's been a challenge, and those 170 00:14:16,642 --> 00:14:18,932 Brian: Sounds like a great business to be honest with you. 171 00:14:19,302 --> 00:14:27,390 Michael: well, it's, it's, look, it's, people, people always ask me who's winning and in this, and I always say Apple and Amazon. 172 00:14:27,400 --> 00:14:28,330 They said, what do you mean? 173 00:14:28,330 --> 00:14:33,770 And said like they're, they're, they're able to get the money, but other people are selling. 174 00:14:33,770 --> 00:14:34,760 Let's not, let's be clear. 175 00:14:34,760 --> 00:14:37,650 Verizon is selling streaming services. 176 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:40,630 There are lots of others who are going to sell as well as direct. 177 00:14:41,030 --> 00:14:41,350 Brian: right. 178 00:14:41,350 --> 00:14:47,820 But I get the sense from, from the support that, that consolidation is absolutely coming, in this, in this area. 179 00:14:48,220 --> 00:14:51,340 Michael: They don't, so there's two things that they don't have a choice about. 180 00:14:51,740 --> 00:15:00,790 They say, we're spending less on programming, but all you have to do is look at the number of hours of any of these services have versus Amazon Prime. 181 00:15:01,190 --> 00:15:08,460 And so in a lot of cases, people are indifferent to the library programming that they're watching. 182 00:15:08,460 --> 00:15:10,490 They just want to have it available. 183 00:15:10,490 --> 00:15:13,400 They want more of a, a passive experience. 184 00:15:13,485 --> 00:15:27,495 And, and, and I think that, that, that in addition to that, you've, you've got a moment where there are many of these streaming services that need to be larger, need more distribution, because they're not going to pay their way into it. 185 00:15:27,895 --> 00:15:38,725 So if you ask me to guess who's, who's going to merge with who, I'm not sure that the, the sort of accepted wisdom is correct. 186 00:15:38,735 --> 00:15:42,735 People talk about, the, a merger of paramount plus with. 187 00:15:43,135 --> 00:15:52,565 Whether it's max or with, with peacock, I'm just not sure who ends up because it's not clear that we got, somebody has to figure out what's the benefits. 188 00:15:52,575 --> 00:16:01,075 I mean, this is one of the things that people come to us about, which is looking at if we put two businesses together, what's the benefit, how much synergies are really, 189 00:16:01,320 --> 00:16:01,650 Brian: Yeah. 190 00:16:02,050 --> 00:16:07,160 But I mean, Netflix is as escape velocity in this, in this category, right? 191 00:16:07,560 --> 00:16:10,720 Michael: it is, but, but there's lots of room for others. 192 00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:17,190 And especially in a, in a, in a moment where people can produce, great original programming. 193 00:16:17,590 --> 00:16:24,110 Brian: and I guess somewhat unsurprising, but it's it's good to put figures against the traditional TV will continue to erode. 194 00:16:24,130 --> 00:16:33,950 I think you added to like time spent going from two hours, 39 minutes in 2022 to one hour and 41 minute in 2028. 195 00:16:34,350 --> 00:16:37,290 and pay TV households eroding 6%. 196 00:16:37,690 --> 00:16:44,340 Michael: yeah, I, but also what that doesn't capture, Is the fact that people are watching television in different ways. 197 00:16:44,350 --> 00:16:46,520 They're watching on a time shifted basis. 198 00:16:46,920 --> 00:16:54,950 a lot of the move to digital includes, the, the long form shows that they're watching on, on YouTube. 199 00:16:55,350 --> 00:16:57,820 and we're, we're, by the way, the media companies make money. 200 00:16:57,836 --> 00:17:24,845 If you look at the news category on YouTube, you see the largest news organization that is really on YouTube is, is not CNN, it's, it's, it's NBC News, and it's followed by Fox News, because there are a lot of people who get their news there, but there are a lot of people who get other stuff, there are people, there, there's a much younger audience, you would say they're not watching TV, but they're going on YouTube and they're stringing together the Jimmy Fallon's monologue. 201 00:17:25,245 --> 00:17:28,015 Because they want to watch it, but they just don't want to watch it on TV. 202 00:17:28,415 --> 00:17:30,025 Brian: is TikTok a competitor here? 203 00:17:30,045 --> 00:17:31,235 Is that a replacement? 204 00:17:31,285 --> 00:17:33,015 I mean, how do you think of these categories? 205 00:17:33,035 --> 00:17:35,665 Cause they've completely, they've completely blurred. 206 00:17:35,665 --> 00:17:39,505 I mean, you have, you have a great part in here about, about multitasking. 207 00:17:39,725 --> 00:17:45,355 And, I think it's hard to like truly understand, whereas there used to be these, I think it's the story of media. 208 00:17:45,355 --> 00:17:50,885 There used to be lines between these, these areas and those lines are all blurry or completely erased. 209 00:17:51,604 --> 00:18:00,224 Michael: Yeah, there, there are a number of activities that, that we call ambient and probably the one that's the most important is, is audio. 210 00:18:00,554 --> 00:18:05,924 So whether it's, it's podcasts, it's, it's recorded books or it's, or it's music. 211 00:18:06,324 --> 00:18:10,664 And so people, 22 percent of all time is spent now with. 212 00:18:11,064 --> 00:18:14,084 mainly music, but with the other forms of audio also. 213 00:18:14,084 --> 00:18:15,814 So you can do a lot of other things. 214 00:18:15,814 --> 00:18:20,104 You can drive a car, you can, you can run whatever you want to do. 215 00:18:20,114 --> 00:18:24,914 You're that audio is, is definitely a multitask behavior. 216 00:18:25,084 --> 00:18:29,284 but the, the activity, there are activities that are not easily multitask. 217 00:18:29,684 --> 00:18:34,354 And so PC and console video games, people have to be focused. 218 00:18:34,754 --> 00:18:42,834 when you look at, at TikTok and mobile games, they're definitely, they're like little stolen moments during the day. 219 00:18:43,234 --> 00:18:46,524 So TikTok on average is 51 minutes a day. 220 00:18:47,589 --> 00:18:49,849 the average user of attention. 221 00:18:49,849 --> 00:18:55,369 So that means somebody somewhere is, is getting little bites and they're not doing it all in one session. 222 00:18:55,769 --> 00:19:03,639 They may be walking around, they may be at the office or wherever they are and they're waiting for something and, and they go through tick tock. 223 00:19:04,039 --> 00:19:04,409 Brian: Yeah. 224 00:19:04,966 --> 00:19:11,846 I've talked with a couple of people about this, but a big increase in media availability is autonomous driving. 225 00:19:12,246 --> 00:19:20,716 We're going to have to have something to do and it's going to be media and it's not just going to be ambient, we're going to be able to, you know, there's screens everywhere and that they need to 226 00:19:20,806 --> 00:19:28,414 Michael: I, you, It's, it's, uh, when people, people are, but we already see when somebody is riding around in an Uber, Uber. 227 00:19:29,239 --> 00:19:32,369 they're looking when they're in a subway, they're looking. 228 00:19:32,399 --> 00:19:34,039 So, they're watching something. 229 00:19:34,059 --> 00:19:36,849 It's, it's not just listening, it's watching, it's playing. 230 00:19:37,340 --> 00:19:39,820 Brian: And that is going to be competitive for ad dollars. 231 00:19:39,900 --> 00:19:41,880 And like Uber is in the ad game. 232 00:19:41,930 --> 00:19:46,330 Everyone just like competition is everywhere. 233 00:19:46,330 --> 00:19:48,630 I like called it like omni competition. 234 00:19:48,810 --> 00:19:52,630 and that's why it's a growing business, but a really difficult business. 235 00:19:52,630 --> 00:19:56,160 But I want to talk about some of the difficult stuff and that's around the open web. 236 00:19:56,560 --> 00:19:56,900 Right. 237 00:19:56,960 --> 00:20:01,440 I mean, I believe in the report, it said digital publishers face existential risk. 238 00:20:01,460 --> 00:20:04,050 I think that was from, from Gen AI. 239 00:20:04,450 --> 00:20:12,960 but how much, how much of the, of the existential risk really falls to those who are reliant on text? 240 00:20:13,200 --> 00:20:30,980 I think in a position you don't want to be right now is you don't want to be, you know, You don't want to have your portfolio too exposed to text, particularly text that isn't behind a paywall that people can put down like ideally a corporate credit card for access to. 241 00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:39,269 Michael: Well, we're going to see the publishing and what I mean, publishing, I really mean, on digital publishing there. 242 00:20:39,329 --> 00:20:40,699 They're they've learned the lessons. 243 00:20:40,699 --> 00:20:42,689 They learned the lessons of what happened. 244 00:20:43,114 --> 00:20:43,964 with Google. 245 00:20:43,974 --> 00:20:48,404 They've learned those lessons, and so they're moving much more aggressively. 246 00:20:48,404 --> 00:20:51,344 As you saw, News Corp is now suing perplexity. 247 00:20:51,684 --> 00:21:03,489 You're you're going to see more of this because they don't want They don't, they want to be able to be in a position where somebody it's the AI is, is taking from a human being. 248 00:21:03,499 --> 00:21:05,229 The AI didn't write the article. 249 00:21:05,309 --> 00:21:08,309 The AI didn't do the investigation or the point of view. 250 00:21:08,619 --> 00:21:10,169 And so they're right. 251 00:21:10,169 --> 00:21:14,669 I, but, but at the same time, they're like, there's other businesses. 252 00:21:14,679 --> 00:21:31,674 I mean, certainly the music business with all of the music clones is, is also a So there are going to be parts of these businesses that are going to be challenged, but I think there they have enough time to get ahead of it. 253 00:21:31,704 --> 00:21:40,734 Yes, we've got very large, we, we've got very, very large audiences or users for each of the dedicated search platforms. 254 00:21:41,014 --> 00:21:47,514 I'll tell you where it's also may not be an existential threat, but it's definitely a threat is with. 255 00:21:47,899 --> 00:21:48,719 Web search. 256 00:21:48,889 --> 00:21:55,109 So if you think web search, this is if you want to know where the web search is a 300 billion business. 257 00:21:55,109 --> 00:22:02,869 But if you want to know where it's going to, where the web goes, it's so much of it's driven by web search. 258 00:22:02,869 --> 00:22:04,449 It's what you see, what you buy. 259 00:22:04,849 --> 00:22:07,599 It's really the, the, the critical piece of it. 260 00:22:07,749 --> 00:22:19,919 So what we're, we're seeing is there are already 15 million people in the U S who are using a dedicated AI platform to start their web search and we're forecasting 261 00:22:20,054 --> 00:22:21,924 Brian: GBT or perplexity. 262 00:22:22,324 --> 00:22:22,954 Michael: Exactly. 263 00:22:23,284 --> 00:22:40,984 Anthropic, whatever it might be, but that's where they're, they're starting and it's, it's not, it's hard, it's not hard to understand because they, there's very deep penetration of these, these services and people have seen the answers may be more useful. 264 00:22:41,384 --> 00:22:51,904 It's a different, the answer, and of course, both Bing and, and Google are building in the AI into your answers, but, but people are now establishing a new habit. 265 00:22:52,304 --> 00:22:56,024 Brian: Yeah, it's funny because you, this is how fast this world works. 266 00:22:56,024 --> 00:22:59,954 Like you, you, you talk about legacy search services, which I love. 267 00:23:00,144 --> 00:23:00,804 It's guess what? 268 00:23:00,814 --> 00:23:03,104 Like the newcomers always become legacy. 269 00:23:03,164 --> 00:23:07,274 You know, like I think about legacy digital publishers and they're like, wait a second. 270 00:23:07,274 --> 00:23:08,504 Weren't we the disruptors? 271 00:23:08,574 --> 00:23:09,744 Like it seems like yesterday. 272 00:23:10,144 --> 00:23:12,284 Michael: Yeah, it, it, it, it's, I, I 273 00:23:12,474 --> 00:23:15,204 Brian: But won't, won't, won't Google just adopt that? 274 00:23:15,234 --> 00:23:19,074 I mean, they've got Jenna AI overviews in a portion. 275 00:23:19,084 --> 00:23:20,694 That's going to grow next year. 276 00:23:21,064 --> 00:23:25,581 They have so many advantages, these, Google can make so many mistakes. 277 00:23:25,651 --> 00:23:29,161 They can make so many and it, it, it doesn't dent them. 278 00:23:29,281 --> 00:23:36,161 do you see this as a real threat to the dominance that Google holds over basically all of the internet? 279 00:23:36,561 --> 00:23:39,931 Michael: I, I don't see it as a threat to the overall dominance. 280 00:23:40,331 --> 00:23:44,551 What I do see is lots of new players who are nipping at their heels. 281 00:23:48,066 --> 00:23:59,796 The, the need for Google to continue to grow, to maintain its stock price, the, the need for Google to literally take, take away margins from, from businesses. 282 00:23:59,796 --> 00:24:03,546 It's not such some, it's not just the big retailers, it's not just Nordstrom. 283 00:24:03,946 --> 00:24:05,606 Or, or, or target. 284 00:24:05,666 --> 00:24:15,326 It's also the, the guy who has a restaurant who, or a car dealership in town and needs to pay for Google and Google continues to get more expensive. 285 00:24:15,686 --> 00:24:25,386 So it's, it's different than the, the battle between being in Google being from Microsoft, of course, because. 286 00:24:26,046 --> 00:24:37,496 because my Google controls the business, but you only have to have a percentage point of search move to another place and it, and it, it is a challenge for them. 287 00:24:37,896 --> 00:24:47,636 Brian: Yeah, I mean, people talk about Bing as some kind of like embarrassing failure, like Bing is like a big business compared to like most particularly publishing businesses. 288 00:24:47,646 --> 00:24:49,566 You can lose at search and you still win. 289 00:24:49,966 --> 00:24:52,386 I mean, that's how great the search market is. 290 00:24:52,786 --> 00:24:59,626 Michael: I've never seen a media business, which is more profitable, than, than search engines. 291 00:24:59,976 --> 00:25:08,726 And especially as you get to a point where these two, these are dominant services, but It's hard for anybody. 292 00:25:09,006 --> 00:25:12,066 It's been hard for anybody to compete with him, but, but let's not forget. 293 00:25:12,466 --> 00:25:14,136 All of these things go in cycles. 294 00:25:14,536 --> 00:25:19,246 So the people were the innovators later become the, the legacy with it. 295 00:25:19,256 --> 00:25:23,506 There was a point Yahoo in public at a hundred billion dollars originally. 296 00:25:23,846 --> 00:25:27,986 And before that, let's not forget, it was called Dave and Jerry's. 297 00:25:28,376 --> 00:25:30,386 Guide to the, to the world wide web. 298 00:25:30,786 --> 00:25:36,386 And so there's nothing technology does not stop when somebody gets rich. 299 00:25:36,786 --> 00:25:37,086 Brian: Yeah, 300 00:25:37,281 --> 00:25:39,651 Michael: got to expect that somewhere along the way. 301 00:25:40,051 --> 00:25:42,021 There's nobody expected. 302 00:25:42,051 --> 00:25:42,741 Tick tock. 303 00:25:43,071 --> 00:25:45,351 It's it's really driven. 304 00:25:45,751 --> 00:25:46,821 look at what's happened. 305 00:25:46,821 --> 00:25:47,901 Instagram. 306 00:25:47,901 --> 00:25:50,681 Instagram is now a video service, YouTube shorts. 307 00:25:51,081 --> 00:25:51,691 Definitely. 308 00:25:52,001 --> 00:25:54,761 So, but tick tock keeps growing tick tock. 309 00:25:54,811 --> 00:25:59,666 We're forecasting that tick tock is going to have a lot of advertising in the next couple of years. 310 00:26:00,066 --> 00:26:08,581 Brian: But you, you also, it seems like you think that social video is not going to, so you have social video hitting a bit of a wall. 311 00:26:08,981 --> 00:26:10,221 Michael: Well, it's slowing down. 312 00:26:10,851 --> 00:26:11,181 Brian: Yeah, It's 313 00:26:11,411 --> 00:26:11,861 Michael: Absolutely. 314 00:26:12,241 --> 00:26:13,381 It's slowing down in the U. 315 00:26:13,381 --> 00:26:13,661 S. 316 00:26:13,681 --> 00:26:18,801 Because and what I mean slowing down, it's just the amount of time that that people are spending with it. 317 00:26:19,201 --> 00:26:21,261 But it's still at very high levels. 318 00:26:21,661 --> 00:26:26,941 On average, tick tock at 51 minutes on average YouTube at 51 minutes. 319 00:26:27,321 --> 00:26:30,301 you start going through this Instagram at 30. 320 00:26:30,341 --> 00:26:35,201 You start seeing that these businesses are are really saturated. 321 00:26:35,606 --> 00:26:37,656 Brian: so with tick tock, are they hitting? 322 00:26:37,686 --> 00:26:40,006 Is there a risk of them hitting a ceiling? 323 00:26:40,086 --> 00:26:49,176 Because, you know, the short form video, at least the figures that you have, you know, there's, there's less, you forecast, a slowdown in the growth of consumption. 324 00:26:49,576 --> 00:26:57,796 Michael: that, that is very likely the, well, where tick tock is likely to go is longer videos already. 325 00:26:58,176 --> 00:27:01,776 They, they have ways of keeping people on the site. 326 00:27:01,776 --> 00:27:09,176 One of them is, is going part one, part two, part three, part four on some of the most engaging video. 327 00:27:09,756 --> 00:27:14,106 And they're going to just give people the ability to do longer video. 328 00:27:14,506 --> 00:27:17,416 And we should expect to see that. 329 00:27:17,816 --> 00:27:20,336 we, I would suspect that they're already testing it. 330 00:27:20,736 --> 00:27:26,266 And, and, and this game is all about engagement and engagement will come from somebody else. 331 00:27:26,276 --> 00:27:30,476 As the market goes down, you're going to see that, that they're going to move share. 332 00:27:30,876 --> 00:27:32,576 Everybody's going to try to do so. 333 00:27:32,976 --> 00:27:43,536 Brian: So one, something that stood out to me and it's just stood up like in general is the resilience of live events and if not just resilience, just like growth of them. 334 00:27:43,796 --> 00:27:49,976 And it's interesting cause I, I almost feel like there's these two counter narratives are just realities, right? 335 00:27:50,016 --> 00:27:55,876 Of, you know, people are spending more time like immersed in their own sort of personal media bubbles. 336 00:27:55,876 --> 00:27:57,026 Cause you can now. 337 00:27:57,426 --> 00:27:57,636 , right? 338 00:27:57,816 --> 00:28:05,466 But then at the same time, there is like a very vibrant live events, you know, sector, that, that you highlight in the report. 339 00:28:06,056 --> 00:28:08,486 are how are, how do you square those two things? 340 00:28:08,986 --> 00:28:12,656 Michael: The people, a couple of things have happened in the last years. 341 00:28:12,946 --> 00:28:20,746 One is people were cooped up at home during the pandemic and they were hungry to go out and do things out of their homes. 342 00:28:21,146 --> 00:28:32,826 Second of all, they're going out not just because they want to see an artist perform or they want to go to a theme park, but they also want to, it's a, it's a social environment. 343 00:28:32,956 --> 00:28:46,676 Even if they're people they don't know, it, it does become social because they are going to an event, most of the time, not by themselves and going with either with a partner or a small group. 344 00:28:47,076 --> 00:28:57,976 And And then finally, it's, it's being able to experience something together and feeling like you're, you're going to a concert, you're with all these other people. 345 00:28:57,976 --> 00:29:02,876 It's there's people don't just go because they want to Taylor Swift because they want to hear her music. 346 00:29:03,276 --> 00:29:09,256 They, they want to be in her orbit and they want to be around other people that are Swifties. 347 00:29:09,656 --> 00:29:10,646 Brian: Yeah, for sure. 348 00:29:10,866 --> 00:29:15,126 and finally I have to, any podcast has to talk about podcasting, right? 349 00:29:15,156 --> 00:29:19,256 So, you have that, podcast advertising will grow. 350 00:29:19,656 --> 00:29:20,096 From 2. 351 00:29:20,096 --> 00:29:22,496 3 billion, this year to about 3. 352 00:29:22,496 --> 00:29:24,756 1 billion in 2028. 353 00:29:25,076 --> 00:29:29,246 I mean, podcasting is one of those things that, man, it just keeps going. 354 00:29:29,476 --> 00:29:31,096 It never, it never took off. 355 00:29:31,146 --> 00:29:32,606 It was never a rocket ship. 356 00:29:33,006 --> 00:29:35,746 but it keeps, it keeps going and going and going. 357 00:29:35,756 --> 00:29:43,911 And I don't know, I don't, What do you, how do you like assess like the, the podcast market? 358 00:29:44,011 --> 00:29:57,311 I mean, it never became this like massive media form, but then when you look at what's going on in the presidential election, like we're in the like last couple of weeks and it's like dueling podcast appearances. 359 00:29:57,711 --> 00:30:07,631 Michael: There's podcasting has grown very quickly, but we are at 130 plus million users or audience listeners. 360 00:30:08,031 --> 00:30:10,171 And it comes back to what I said earlier about audio. 361 00:30:10,401 --> 00:30:15,051 It's definitely an ambient, it's a, an activity you can do with everything else. 362 00:30:15,051 --> 00:30:19,761 I mean, the challenge has been not the interest in engagement. 363 00:30:19,971 --> 00:30:21,361 It's been the money. 364 00:30:22,731 --> 00:30:27,671 It's not, it's not that great because it's really only the top podcasts. 365 00:30:27,861 --> 00:30:37,611 It's the top 30 that really are able to make money because they can attract advertising and they can consistently get large groups of listeners, but there's 366 00:30:37,796 --> 00:30:43,966 Brian: you said like half, half the listening goes to the top 25 shows out of 4. 367 00:30:43,966 --> 00:30:44,326 2 million. 368 00:30:44,986 --> 00:30:46,986 I mean, that's a power law. 369 00:30:48,367 --> 00:30:51,357 Michael: Yeah, and by the way, it doesn't have to be the same. 370 00:30:51,747 --> 00:31:01,827 There are people who come into this, but, but it comes down to this is, you could argue it's the long tail, but of, of programming, I don't like the word content. 371 00:31:01,937 --> 00:31:07,407 I think it makes everything seem sort of vanilla, but it's people have deep interests. 372 00:31:07,807 --> 00:31:26,611 They're going to listen to you, they're going to listen to, think about some of the other podcasts, they're going to listen to somebody who's got a very fine point of view on something, and they want that insight, and they, or want to hear stories, they want to hear information in a way, and narratives that they're not going to get some other way 373 00:31:26,677 --> 00:31:26,997 . Brian: Yeah. 374 00:31:26,997 --> 00:31:37,857 I think podcasting, I've been trying to work it out, but like they, podcasting in some ways is benefits from being downstream because it's downstream of you know, news. 375 00:31:37,857 --> 00:31:38,247 Right. 376 00:31:38,277 --> 00:31:45,797 But like it is, it, so the costs can be like, can be lower, but because it's very like human. 377 00:31:46,197 --> 00:31:48,537 driven, like it's a very personality driven medium. 378 00:31:48,597 --> 00:31:57,827 Like you either the, you know, you either like the, the, the, the viewpoint of, of Joe Rogan or whatever the host is, or you like the dynamic between, between the hosts. 379 00:31:57,917 --> 00:32:09,812 and I also think that podcasting because it has had such a discoverability issue, like it, it hasn't been able to be growth hacked as easy as other forms of digital media. 380 00:32:10,212 --> 00:32:11,402 That's my working theory. 381 00:32:11,802 --> 00:32:14,112 and I think people kind of like gravitate to that. 382 00:32:14,262 --> 00:32:15,757 It's just a little, it's got a little, 383 00:32:15,757 --> 00:32:29,394 Michael: I think there's another, I totally agree with you that there's another reason why the only the top podcasts are making money and are getting the revenue and, and, and the, part of it is as advertisers don't know what to make of it. 384 00:32:29,794 --> 00:32:40,092 And so you see the that's the most effective are people that are direct to consumer brands and those are the people that, that really find it useful 385 00:32:40,452 --> 00:32:47,458 . And they're just, so it may be small amounts of money going around it's a habit that is to stay. 386 00:32:47,658 --> 00:32:55,561 it's spending almost two and a half hours a day, listening to audio, it's not just then are going to be a big part of their daily diet. 387 00:32:55,961 --> 00:32:56,561 Brian: Yeah. 388 00:32:56,961 --> 00:32:57,281 I don't know. 389 00:32:57,291 --> 00:33:15,881 I don't want to tell the advertisers how to do their business, but I just think that the obsession with performance marketing and being able to put everything on a spreadsheet and like closed loop attribution, everything, sometimes you miss things like The branding from, from, podcasts like has to be tremendous because people are immersed. 390 00:33:15,911 --> 00:33:19,831 I know it's like an ambient media, but like they have a connection to it. 391 00:33:19,941 --> 00:33:28,781 And I just know just when you talk, if you have a podcast and you talk to someone who listens to your podcast, like it's qualitatively different than other media formats. 392 00:33:29,101 --> 00:33:43,081 There is something about the human voice and I don't know if this is just a measurement issue or whether, you know, it's probably a combination of things, but I think the fact that it's like a DR medium kind of is weird because you can't click on anything. 393 00:33:43,081 --> 00:33:45,861 It's a pain in the ass to like actually take an action. 394 00:33:46,261 --> 00:33:51,335 You're like, what, like running and then you're going to pull over get your phone out and do something, buy 395 00:33:51,470 --> 00:33:53,927 Michael: well, I mean, I totally agree with you. 396 00:33:54,327 --> 00:34:19,260 It's a very personal . is also, let's not forget, a lot of the ads, these are not like radio ads, a lot of them are really spoken or explained by a host, which it adds a lot more credibility to the advertising and in some, and, it's no different than what we're seeing across YouTube, which is there are a lot of people who have large audiences and they're sponsored in the case of podcasts. 397 00:34:19,660 --> 00:34:31,340 The extent to which you've got a personal connection with the host and the host is a person who is, who is talking to you about the product, but that's more upper funnel and it's more brand. 398 00:34:31,340 --> 00:34:38,110 A lot of perform marketers as they get to the where performance marketing, it gets, it's very expensive for them. 399 00:34:38,420 --> 00:34:41,270 Then podcasts, a great place for them to be. 400 00:34:41,670 --> 00:34:41,990 Brian: Yeah. 401 00:34:42,390 --> 00:34:50,100 And the final thing is on the podcasting front is, I mean, you expect more media companies to move to subscription models. 402 00:34:50,110 --> 00:34:54,140 I know you cited like the Economist and, and the Times is, is gone. 403 00:34:54,140 --> 00:34:55,660 I don't know about the time, how the Times 404 00:34:55,670 --> 00:34:58,743 Michael: But they're just they're just raising their paywalls even higher. 405 00:34:59,143 --> 00:34:59,493 Brian: yeah. 406 00:34:59,893 --> 00:35:06,813 is that because the ad market is not as robust here, or is this just the direction of travel for most, digital publishers? 407 00:35:07,297 --> 00:35:20,673 Michael: I think that they there's a general belief and in most cases, they're correct that they are not capturing the full benefit of their editorial and, and especially in digital publishing business where. 408 00:35:21,073 --> 00:35:23,853 The advertising gets to be more difficult. 409 00:35:23,943 --> 00:35:26,943 The open web has less advertising. 410 00:35:26,977 --> 00:35:30,360 And so they know they can get money from scriber. 411 00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:33,320 And when you've got a subscriber, they tend to be more loyal. 412 00:35:33,720 --> 00:35:52,736 And the, publications or the digital publishers that are increasing or moving to, to different kinds of subscriber models, value the programming or the editorial and at the same time from an advertiser perspective, they are the people that advertisers are the most interested in. 413 00:35:53,136 --> 00:35:57,896 Brian: Yeah, sadly, newsletters did not make the cut for this report, unless I missed them. 414 00:35:58,416 --> 00:36:01,896 Michael: No, we can't, we can't cover everything. 415 00:36:02,206 --> 00:36:02,866 one, one 416 00:36:02,881 --> 00:36:05,281 Brian: Someday newsletters will get on the report. 417 00:36:05,625 --> 00:36:13,608 Michael: there are a number of things that I'd like to cover This is a huge amount of work every year, and our team begins in January. 418 00:36:13,978 --> 00:36:25,617 They choose the topics they, there's usually some skepticism, so everybody started off wondering about spatial computing and later on really dove in. 419 00:36:25,690 --> 00:36:33,984 And, and agreed with that, the iPhone moment spatials iPhone moment is, is within sight that we're going to have it in the next couple of years. 420 00:36:34,384 --> 00:36:38,894 And there are areas that, that we haven't covered this year that we'll cover in future years. 421 00:36:38,904 --> 00:36:42,994 Messaging, and more so than practically anything else 422 00:36:43,394 --> 00:36:48,234 Brian: I like the spatial computing part because I was like, first I was like, I'm not even sure if I know exactly what it is. 423 00:36:48,234 --> 00:36:54,354 And I was like, Oh, this is like a broad category for all the VR I think VR needs to leave behind VR. 424 00:36:54,534 --> 00:36:57,524 I think the branding of VR is just tough now at this point. 425 00:36:57,524 --> 00:37:09,074 I mean, Apple, I think you're going to have to soon ask at an Apple store, they're going to keep the, like that vision pro behind the counter because I've noticed like it keeps shrinking in prominence in the store. 426 00:37:09,474 --> 00:37:11,014 and they're like, Oh, let's just forget about 427 00:37:11,029 --> 00:37:14,801 Michael: they just announced that they're going to stop production of the current model. 428 00:37:14,921 --> 00:37:16,925 They have enough inventories. 429 00:37:16,925 --> 00:37:18,881 So that really means they're not giving up. 430 00:37:19,281 --> 00:37:27,501 And if anything, they're going to produce a low, it's been the Apple strategy, which is to go out with a high price product. 431 00:37:27,641 --> 00:37:32,151 And you can see they did that with monitors So will they win? 432 00:37:32,201 --> 00:37:32,501 Yeah. 433 00:37:32,501 --> 00:37:41,722 I mean, we believe that the device that wins going back to what you were just saying is not a VR device and it's not even, but you can call a pass through device. 434 00:37:41,722 --> 00:37:45,518 It's not like the, the vision pro or medical quest. 435 00:37:45,918 --> 00:37:49,028 it's more about which, which have a camera in front. 436 00:37:49,428 --> 00:37:50,798 It's more of the pass through 437 00:37:51,204 --> 00:37:52,284 Brian: I explained pass through. 438 00:37:52,684 --> 00:37:55,464 Michael: is see through devices like a regular set of glasses. 439 00:37:55,864 --> 00:38:01,004 You can wear them all the time and Snap Speckles is getting there. 440 00:38:01,064 --> 00:38:06,024 It hasn't been released to the general public, but developers are, are working with it now. 441 00:38:06,424 --> 00:38:07,394 Brian: Okay, cool. 442 00:38:07,514 --> 00:38:08,344 that was all on my list. 443 00:38:08,344 --> 00:38:14,264 We didn't get into the video games, which will, it will depress my other podcast co host, Alex, because he's into video games. 444 00:38:14,779 --> 00:38:18,818 any other sort of things that stood up to you that's different from, from previous years? 445 00:38:19,218 --> 00:38:22,204 Michael: I'm just trying to think about what's, the difference. 446 00:38:22,204 --> 00:38:27,244 I, I, I think it, well, you don't want to talk video games and, let me just think for a second. 447 00:38:27,294 --> 00:38:38,730 Brian: I just feel like they're like a massive category that almost is, I don't want to say it's overlooked, but it almost has always operated parallel to the overall media industry, but 448 00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:42,300 Michael: yeah, we could talk a little bit about sports and. 449 00:38:42,310 --> 00:38:43,490 Brian: Oh yeah, sports. 450 00:38:43,890 --> 00:38:50,410 But I mean, is sports, like sports has, has, has had such a moment because it is the last thing that's keeping up live TV. 451 00:38:50,620 --> 00:38:51,260 At least that's my 452 00:38:51,505 --> 00:38:54,975 Michael: Well, it's been the last thing, but it's now moving to stream. 453 00:38:55,375 --> 00:38:58,275 So you look at the deals that the NBA has done. 454 00:38:58,702 --> 00:39:01,872 a lot is going off of television into streaming. 455 00:39:02,272 --> 00:39:02,552 Brian: Right. 456 00:39:02,902 --> 00:39:03,972 But a shared experience. 457 00:39:03,972 --> 00:39:05,312 You do not have shared. 458 00:39:05,712 --> 00:39:10,082 Shared experiences have been atomized away. 459 00:39:10,432 --> 00:39:20,772 And so everyone watching the same thing, I don't care if it's on a computer, on a watch, on a phone, on a streaming pay TV cable, whatever is kind of unique. 460 00:39:20,952 --> 00:39:21,892 It's unique now. 461 00:39:21,952 --> 00:39:26,892 I mean, there's no whatever, however many people watch the mash finale that are like, that's gone. 462 00:39:26,902 --> 00:39:27,502 It's not coming back. 463 00:39:27,782 --> 00:39:29,262 Michael: Yeah, but that's been declining. 464 00:39:29,662 --> 00:39:31,682 That's been declining for years and years and years. 465 00:39:31,712 --> 00:39:37,379 I mean, I, we look at this years ago, we'd see the same thing, which is the audiences. 466 00:39:37,379 --> 00:39:40,759 It's, it's not, not everybody's converging on the same thing. 467 00:39:41,159 --> 00:39:50,849 Brian: But sports is also, it's It has such a, a cultural resonance that is, is kind of, to me, it's it's one of the last bastions of truly mass media. 468 00:39:50,959 --> 00:39:58,379 I mean, and it's not necessarily mass like it used to be, but this is something that cuts across like lots of demographics. 469 00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:03,499 It is, you know, it has cultural resonance, compare it to like video games. 470 00:40:03,499 --> 00:40:10,119 I always, I always say this to Alex, Yes, like video games have like complete, you know, cultural resonance in that. 471 00:40:10,519 --> 00:40:15,849 However, it's a large niche to some degree where I don't think sports is the 472 00:40:15,849 --> 00:40:17,319 Michael: mean, if you've got 3. 473 00:40:17,319 --> 00:40:20,723 6 billion people globally who are, playing video games, 3. 474 00:40:20,783 --> 00:40:23,047 6 billion global gamers. 475 00:40:23,447 --> 00:40:25,132 then it's hard to ignore it. 476 00:40:25,142 --> 00:40:27,232 And a lot of people just forget about it. 477 00:40:27,559 --> 00:40:34,003 we believe that most tech companies will end up buying the major video game companies. 478 00:40:34,115 --> 00:40:41,509 the amount, what it would take to buy out these companies is really one day's volatility for any of those huge companies. 479 00:40:41,882 --> 00:40:45,482 Brian: I mean, that's why I like the order is technology and then media. 480 00:40:46,352 --> 00:40:46,942 Michael: Exactly. 481 00:40:47,292 --> 00:40:47,992 Exactly. 482 00:40:48,072 --> 00:40:49,012 Brian: All right, Michael. 483 00:40:49,232 --> 00:40:49,492 Thank 484 00:40:49,552 --> 00:40:50,962 Michael: This has been such a pleasure. 485 00:40:51,092 --> 00:40:52,022 Really a pleasure. 486 00:40:52,422 --> 00:40:52,922 Brian: Thanks again.