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Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with

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Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm

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Speaker 1: Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My

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Speaker 1: guests are Mark Hobick and Carolyn Finger of Illuminate. Illuminate

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Speaker 1: is a data and insights company that focuses on audience

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Speaker 1: measurement for the entertainment industry. It's a corporate sibling of Variety,

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Speaker 1: under the umbrella of our parent company PMC. Of Late,

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Speaker 1: Illuminate has gone hard on the business of measuring streaming

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Speaker 1: TV viewership. That's a lot harder than it sounds. Illuminate

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Speaker 1: executives crunch numbers all day, every day, but they also

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Speaker 1: stop every so often to produce long term reports to

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Speaker 1: give real insights into what's going on and how things

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Speaker 1: are changing in this very dynamic marketplace. The twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: four year end Film and TV Report was issued late

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Speaker 1: last month. It's linked in the show notes to this

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Speaker 1: episode and the Variety dot com story for this episode,

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Speaker 1: and as advertised, it is packed with insights. Mark is

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Speaker 1: executive vice president and head of Film and TV for Illuminate.

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Speaker 1: Carolyn is Senior VP of Consumer Success and Products for Illuminate.

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Speaker 1: The three of us have known one another for a

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Speaker 1: long time through many different jobs. I think that comes

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Speaker 1: through in this conversation. There is a lot of laughs

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Speaker 1: and a lot of shorthand from people who know and

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Speaker 1: respect each other a great deal. That conversation is coming

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Speaker 1: right up after this break, and we're back with a

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Speaker 1: conversation about the year in streaming TV with Illuminates. Markobick

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Speaker 1: and Carolyn Finger. Thank you so much for joining me.

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Speaker 1: This is fun because I've known you both for so

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Speaker 1: long and I know you both to be absolute aces

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Speaker 1: at what you do, so, dear listeners, you could not

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Speaker 1: get a better overview of what the streaming landscape has

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Speaker 1: wrought in twenty twenty four than these two. So thank

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Speaker 1: you for coming all the way up from the seventh FLOORA.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for having us. Yes, that was a full

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Speaker 2: disclosure that had to happen at each.

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Speaker 3: Other, Yes, one hundred percent. No, I've learned a lot

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Speaker 3: from both of you over the years. I would like

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Speaker 3: to start just by throwing it out to both of you.

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Speaker 3: What you know. You crunch the numbers all day long.

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Speaker 3: I know hourly you're looking at data, and you're refining

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Speaker 3: and really getting great insights and great information as you

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Speaker 3: took that step back and looked at the kind of

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Speaker 3: the long the long term of the year, As you

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Speaker 3: took that step back and looked at the landscape of

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, what top line what stood out to

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Speaker 3: you as surprising? What didn't you know by doing this

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Speaker 3: report from your day to day, hour by hour efforts.

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Speaker 2: For me, I think one of my kind of top

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Speaker 2: level takeaways is really when we look at the content output,

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Speaker 2: and we're looking at it on the TV side, streaming

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Speaker 2: and linear together, when we look at that, while we

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Speaker 2: saw a lessening of the decline year over year, we

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Speaker 2: still saw a seven percent drop and that really was

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Speaker 2: effect from the reverberations we're feeling from the strikes.

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Speaker 1: And you're talking about total volume, total content.

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Speaker 2: Of series premiers. Yeah, thank you. And you know, in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty three we saw a seventeen percent drop, So

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Speaker 2: a seven percent drop is an improvement in that we're

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Speaker 2: declining less quickly in terms of the number of series

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Speaker 2: premieers we're seeing, but very significant. One of the really

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Speaker 2: fascinating parts to the report is that while we see

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Speaker 2: a seven percent drop in the overall number of series released.

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Speaker 2: When we look at episode orders, the episode orders declined significantly,

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Speaker 2: so well we see this moderation of decline on the

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Speaker 2: series side. The episodes, we saw almost a twenty percent

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Speaker 2: drop year over year from prior year, and that trend

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Speaker 2: has continued now two years in a row. Was seventeen

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Speaker 2: percent in twenty twenty three and then almost twenty percent

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four. And that is the media companies

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Speaker 2: are really being more stingy with when they're doing series

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Speaker 2: or ordering series, just taking fewer episodes, and of course

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Speaker 2: that impacts our entire entertainment ecosystem for writers, producers, directors,

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Speaker 2: actors who really rely on those episodic orders.

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Speaker 4: I would say, yes, I agree, and also I guess

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Speaker 4: in the biggest picture to me, all of the sign

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Speaker 4: posts are looking towards kind of risk mitigation for the studios.

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Speaker 4: And what I mean by that is, you know, we

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Speaker 4: have these terrible strikes, so we have this huge reduction

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Speaker 4: in production, and.

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Speaker 3: That was the reasons for the seventeen for a large

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Speaker 3: part of the reason for seventeen percent in twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 4: Is that accurate, Yes, But then the strikes are over,

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Speaker 4: you know, happiness reigns again in the land. But no,

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Speaker 4: not really because then we're having these, uh, you know,

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Speaker 4: this contraction on corporate level where there there's kind of

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Speaker 4: fear about I think number one, there's a fear around

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Speaker 4: TikTok and what are they you know, can they invest

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Speaker 4: in all these shows? Who's the audience for shows? So

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Speaker 4: it's all kind of spelled out. They're trying to find

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Speaker 4: different ways to produce fewer things, have more things that

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Speaker 4: are part of a franchise or existing on peace, safer things,

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Speaker 4: safer things, you know, the limited series which we can

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Speaker 4: talk about. You know, all of these things are kind

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Speaker 4: of spelling a net loss I think.

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Speaker 2: In the entertainment ecosystem. Yeah, and I like your answer

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Speaker 2: kind of change mine, you know, but I think, you know,

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Speaker 2: risk mitigation, and through this study we really see what's

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Speaker 2: working and what's not working in terms of the risk

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Speaker 2: of mitigation strategies. But yeah, I agree with what you

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Speaker 2: said one hundred percent.

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Speaker 3: We did see in the report that the volume of

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Speaker 3: limited series has has definitely come down because people are

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Speaker 3: I think, because people are focused on those renewable resources,

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Speaker 3: and also people are spending money on sports as opposed

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Speaker 3: to spending you know, ten million dollars an episode on

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Speaker 3: a six episode series like gee, who could have seen

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Speaker 3: that that wasn't exactly sustainable, But so it seems like

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Speaker 3: a good idea at the time, exactly.

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Speaker 1: But is there is there any discernible, any any quantification

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Speaker 1: of like fewer series overall and an emphasis on shows

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Speaker 1: that they hope to renew, you know, a limited series

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Speaker 1: is limited until until it works and then yeah, right,

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Speaker 1: But is there any quantifiable that that you know, focusing

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Speaker 1: on fewer shows has better results because you know, you

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Speaker 1: can market more heavily to one show really really promoted

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Speaker 1: to be you know, really promoted to an audience as

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Speaker 1: like this isn't just a one off, but you know

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Speaker 1: you're going to want to watch Noah Wiley or you

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Speaker 1: know other people in these settings.

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Speaker 4: You know, I don't think we are evidence has seen that.

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Speaker 2: The thing I would say is that we do know

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Speaker 2: that P and A really matters, you know, promotion advertising

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Speaker 2: when we look at film, and this is a theme

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Speaker 2: I think throughout content that we're seeing is that you know,

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Speaker 2: to what you're getting at that if we have fewer titles,

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Speaker 2: are we able to kind of promote those more and

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Speaker 2: really get through the clutter and audiences can find that

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Speaker 2: the recommendation just govery is a huge issue for the streamers,

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Speaker 2: it's a huge issue for everybody because we have so

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Speaker 2: many choices of content.

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Speaker 4: Because of the emphasis on completion rates in streaming. It's

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Speaker 4: it's just it's different. Things don't have the same kind

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Speaker 4: of breathing room that they once had with linear where

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Speaker 4: they were dropping one episode weak and you could kind

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Speaker 4: of see week to week. If you are in a

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Speaker 4: scenario where like Netflix, where everything is dropped all at once,

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Speaker 4: and maybe there is that initial m and a push,

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Speaker 4: but if it doesn't get that audience initially, then it's

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Speaker 4: much harder, I think, to get Yeah, so you know

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Speaker 4: it gives in, it takes.

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Speaker 3: That's a that's an interesting question. So if not naming

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Speaker 3: names or anything, but a six episode limited series drops

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Speaker 3: and if people do you see that, like if people

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Speaker 3: don't go to it, you know fairly soon to episode

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Speaker 3: one or two, like they're never going to go check

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Speaker 3: out They're certainly never going to go check out the

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Speaker 3: rest of it. But like it is it a time

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Speaker 3: sensitive thing, is what I'm saying. Like once at premieres,

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Speaker 3: they if you don't go to it, it's really hard

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Speaker 3: to get people to it a month or two later.

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Speaker 2: We see in streaming definitely the sampling and that those

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Speaker 2: first twelve weeks is really critical. And the other thing

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Speaker 2: that we know from the streamers and our discussions with

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Speaker 2: our partners is that that ninety percent completion rate is

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Speaker 2: very very important in order to get a second or

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Speaker 2: third season, order to get those multiple season orders. So

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Speaker 2: you know, we can see that in the data and

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Speaker 2: in the importance of it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's also important, you know, speaking of strikes,

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Speaker 4: you know, with the arrangements to get more residuals for streaming,

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Speaker 4: that time frame is kind of baked into that as

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Speaker 4: well as you know, the number of subscribers who are watching.

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Speaker 1: Does it follow? Do you think that as the streamer

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Speaker 1: is starting to realize that that, you know, maybe they're

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Speaker 1: not going to do a twenty two episode procedural, but

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Speaker 1: like Max with the Pit I believe is like fifteen

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Speaker 1: or sixteen episodes. Do you think that when we're talking

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Speaker 1: next year about about the twenty twenty five repart you

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Speaker 1: think episode council will start to inch up?

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Speaker 2: I hope.

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Speaker 4: So we did get I mean we you know, Channing.

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Speaker 2: Dungey actually made this announcement actually at Variety and in Tech.

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Speaker 2: I remember when she talked about the John Wells series

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Speaker 2: that they're bringing back, and they were very happy to

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Speaker 2: announce they were looking at twenty two to twenty three

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Speaker 2: episode orders. So I think there is that awareness of

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Speaker 2: this is an underserved type of content that we're just

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Speaker 2: not producing at the same volume that we are. So,

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Speaker 2: you know, our latest sort of feedback we've gotten from

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Speaker 2: the streamers when we've sat down with them has been

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Speaker 2: their focus is really looking at content with a global footprint,

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Speaker 2: not US centric content, and time will tell whether that

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Speaker 2: translates into more episodes or not. But I don't know

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Speaker 2: if they're seeing that quite yet at the streamers that

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Speaker 2: they need to be producing more episodes, because as the

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Speaker 2: data is showing us, they've in fact and cutting back

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Speaker 2: now for two consecutive years in terms of episode of orders.

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Speaker 3: And then let's talk a little bit more about comedy,

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Speaker 3: because I did notice it very very noticeable in the report,

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Speaker 3: all those nice color codings, very noticeable that CBS is basically,

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Speaker 3: I mean CBS is basically the only the really only

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Speaker 3: big brand broadcast or streaming that has a real big

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Speaker 3: comedy business. Netflix of course has a lot of comedies,

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Speaker 3: but in terms of elementary yeah, oh for sure, it's.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, oh absolutely, but I mean really, but just in

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Speaker 1: terms of in terms of volume, and you know, the

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Speaker 1: conventional wisdom for decades has been, you know, you can't

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Speaker 1: just have one comedy on an island. You've got to

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Speaker 1: have a you've got to have an environment. And CBS

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Speaker 1: still seems to be kind of the last that still

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Speaker 1: has that has that environment, although you know each network

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Speaker 1: does have a few, but CBS seems to be Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think comedy is really seen as very specific culturally,

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Speaker 2: and in a world where we're looking at global distribution

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Speaker 2: for so many of these titles, it's just a harder sell.

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Speaker 3: And interesting like Netflix has had a it's been a

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Speaker 3: buzzy hit. I haven't actually looked at the numbers, but

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Speaker 3: buzzy hit with National Treasure Ted Danson A Man on

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Speaker 3: the Inside, and that's a remake of a I can't

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Speaker 3: it's a I believe from Eastern Europe there was a

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Speaker 3: form of French. I think you're a French series or

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Speaker 3: remake and I wonder if that you know that, especially

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Speaker 3: as you know kind of it his play in the

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Speaker 3: Awards game. I wonder if that could be a model,

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Speaker 3: you know, see if streamers will see, like maybe take

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Speaker 3: the elements, the bones of comedies that are working in

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Speaker 3: other places and try to adapt them for us and

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Speaker 3: vice versa. I mean, that's not a new phenomenon, but

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Speaker 3: I wonder if there will be you'll see more of that,

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Speaker 3: because my goodness, we do need laughs.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 4: What I think may have helped fill in the gap

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Speaker 4: with comedy is maybe unscripted, even though we've also seen

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Speaker 4: unscripted yeah, declients, but yeah, I think things like Love

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Speaker 4: Is Blind or The Real Housewives, you know, I think

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Speaker 4: people laugh at yeah, a lot of those things as well.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes you laugh with, but sometimes.

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Speaker 4: You laugh at for sure.

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Speaker 2: And unscripted, I think is a really interesting thing for

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Speaker 2: us to talk about because we've seen where this you know,

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Speaker 2: during the strikes, unscripted was one of those things that

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Speaker 2: was protected. Yeah, but when we look at the actual data,

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Speaker 2: we had declines in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: four for unscripted year over year, we're looking at eight

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Speaker 2: percent drop and unscripted across broadcast, cable and streaming, And

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Speaker 2: I think what's going on there. My personal take is

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Speaker 2: that we have It's not that we've exhausted ideas, but

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Speaker 2: unscripted reality program in particular is so concept driven, and

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Speaker 2: you have got to have that innovation of concepts. And

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Speaker 2: if you look at the top show the unscripted shows,

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Speaker 2: you've got Love is Blind, Love Island, a lot of

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Speaker 2: shows around Connection is So Angry. Oh stopped me in

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Speaker 2: my tracks. If you wanted the talkings to you, I'm.

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Speaker 3: Sorry, don't go anywhere.

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Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more insights from luminates Markobick

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Speaker 1: and Carolyn Finger right after this break, and we're back

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Speaker 1: with the rest of our conversation about the year that

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Speaker 1: was in twenty twenty four with illuminates Markobick and Carolyn Finger.

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Speaker 4: It's hard to understand why unscripted is declined, but one

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Speaker 4: of the things, you know, speaking what you're saying Mark

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Speaker 4: about it's so format driven, all of those kinds of

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Speaker 4: just little snippets of schadenfreude like you can get on

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Speaker 4: short form content. Oh true, you know. I think maybe

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Speaker 4: some specific influence have kind of filled in.

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Speaker 2: I think social media is part of that fix of

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Speaker 2: seeing real people misbehaving or what have you, and that

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Speaker 2: is something that you can get on TikTok and for

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Speaker 2: now and Instagram in various places.

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Speaker 1: Right, yeah, no, it's it's really interesting another you know,

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Speaker 1: in the continuing with the down trend here animation also,

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Speaker 1: I saw you know, big decline, and you would have

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Speaker 1: thought that that would have been.

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Speaker 3: A little more strike resilient from that impact.

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Speaker 4: But well, for the I think sag aren't the many

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Speaker 4: of those actors in stories, so I'm assuming that's why

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Speaker 4: they weren't able to do that. But also it does

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Speaker 4: seem as though from a production standpoint, there's so much

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Speaker 4: competition for access to animation studios and the production timeline

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Speaker 4: is so much longer that that could maybe have played

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Speaker 4: a role as well.

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Speaker 3: And then say, time we have seen animated features, they've

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Speaker 3: had some real home runs. So maybe it's just kind

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Speaker 3: of a world. You know, we've all known that, you know,

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Speaker 3: Fox for whatever reason kind of has that magic magic

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Speaker 3: wand on the adult animation, and virtually everybody else that

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Speaker 3: has tried it, virtually everybody else has really has really struggled.

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Speaker 3: So it really does seem like it's a you know,

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Speaker 3: a feature, a feature animation for family audiences and and

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Speaker 3: you know, it just doesn't translate to two series anymore.

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Speaker 3: I wanted one thing that really also in the report

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Speaker 3: stands out. You do beautiful job of kind of laying

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Speaker 3: it out Star Wars fatigue people. I mean, it's very

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Speaker 3: it's very clear, and that's you know, that's got to

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Speaker 3: be a concern for Disney because that lucasfilm that has

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Speaker 3: been a real, real pillar of their strategy there. Now

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Speaker 3: as soon as we say that, they could have a

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Speaker 3: show that comes out, you know, comes out next month

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Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, we're not talking about it.

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Speaker 3: But both on the feature side, that's been very well

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Speaker 3: documented and on. But the viewership declining for season twos

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Speaker 3: and things is really significant.

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Speaker 2: I think the franchise fatigue is really interesting. That's one

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Speaker 2: of my favorite parts of the report as well. You know,

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Speaker 2: when we look at some of the biggest franchises in streaming,

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Speaker 2: franchises are incredibly important to the streamers in particular because

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Speaker 2: this issue of really having a universe that people can

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Speaker 2: access relatively quickly. But if we look at Lord of

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Speaker 2: the Rings, the Rings of Power season one, which was

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Speaker 2: released in twenty twenty two, the twenty twenty four second

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Speaker 2: season did not perform nearly as well. Similarly, for Marvel,

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Speaker 2: we know that Agatha all Along, which I personally really enjoyed,

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Speaker 2: and Echo performed under twenty twenty three releases, Low Key

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Speaker 2: Season two and Secret Invasion.

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Speaker 4: And it really.

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Speaker 2: Speaks to the importance of franchise management for these media companies,

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Speaker 2: and if they are spread too thin, if they're doing

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Speaker 2: too many things that are not really focused on these franchises,

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Speaker 2: you can get to a place where you're just not

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Speaker 2: going to get the same result. And it's unfortunate something

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Speaker 2: like The Rings of Power again really enjoyed it. Fifty

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Speaker 2: eight million dollars per episode. They've spent almost a billion

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Speaker 2: dollars off the two seasons that have been released thus far.

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Speaker 4: Beautifully shot.

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Speaker 2: I know you have some thoughts about.

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Speaker 4: For me, it was you know, I'm a nerd. I

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Speaker 4: you know, I love my Hobbits. It just somehow it

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Speaker 4: was too densely plotted for me or something, which is

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Speaker 4: that's saying a lot after reading the two towels.

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Speaker 3: Yes, one of the starkest pages in their report is

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Speaker 3: the share of original viewing chart. I mean, it makes

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Speaker 3: it Crystal Claire. Not that there was much doubt, but

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Speaker 3: you know, now we have the pie charts. If there's

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Speaker 3: a pipe chart, it's official. There's Netflix and there's everyone else.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: For original streaming content to share, Netflix to share is

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Speaker 3: sixty three point five percent. Literally the rest of the

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Speaker 3: competition combined doesn't even come out for originals for originals,

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Speaker 3: which you know, which is such a huge part of this,

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Speaker 3: such a huge part of the marketplace.

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Speaker 4: I think Netflix defines an audience differently than all of

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Speaker 4: their competitors, except for maybe Prime, but you know, Prime

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Speaker 4: is there to feed the Amazon machine and does that

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Speaker 4: pretty effectively. You know, Netflix is looking I don't think

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Speaker 4: they're looking at like an audience. I think they're looking

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Speaker 4: at kind of the world, and so they don't feel

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Speaker 4: as though they have to have something that fits into

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Speaker 4: a particular brand. I mean that's just my you know,

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Speaker 4: kind of armchair thing. I feel like Apple TV they

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Speaker 4: have a more boutique kind of a pro coach to

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Speaker 4: TV and a more boutique audience. True, but bless them

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Speaker 4: for it, you know, I would say, like, for me,

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Speaker 4: the big surprise in some ways is Max. I don't

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Speaker 4: want to pick on anybody, but I'm you know, I

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Speaker 4: remember that a certain CEO was brought in from the

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Speaker 4: cable world, and there had been a lot of success

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Speaker 4: with a lot of unscripted franchises, and the brands have

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Speaker 4: been a bit diluted, and HBO has always been speaking

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Speaker 4: of boutiques. So there just isn't enough there to propel

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Speaker 4: its audience share. But I think to me, in some

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Speaker 4: ways they're the most vulnerable of all of these.

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Speaker 2: My my takeaway is that when we look at the pie,

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Speaker 2: what's really interesting. I think Netflix and Prime sort of

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Speaker 2: we expect to see those in one and two, but

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Speaker 2: that we see from an original content perspective, Paramount Plus

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Speaker 2: is in third position, and Apple TV is in fourth position,

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Speaker 2: followed by Who and then Disney Plus. It's really interesting

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Speaker 2: because you think of Disney Plus and all of the

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Speaker 2: content there, but just from an original title perspective, they

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Speaker 2: just haven't released that many titles in twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and Prime is you know, Prime is second at

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Speaker 1: eight point five percent, Like I just that's sixty three

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Speaker 1: that's sixty three point five percent.

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Speaker 4: Is very overwhelming.

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Speaker 3: It is interesting, and you know, following along that in

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Speaker 3: terms of other surprises, it was a surprise to me

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Speaker 3: and I watched this stuff and cover this stuff every day.

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Speaker 3: It was a surprise to.

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Speaker 1: Me that Fool Me Once was Netflix's top title based

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Speaker 1: on the Harlan Coben book. And I know he has

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Speaker 1: a massive and I believe, you know, maybe not worldwide,

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Speaker 1: but it has international fans, and I got to believe

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Speaker 1: that that fandom, yeah, helped helped drive and he's a

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Speaker 1: very well established author with a real a really specific

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Speaker 1: brand of storytelling. But you would not I would not

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Speaker 1: have cited that as the number one did that? But

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Speaker 1: I know that you've crunched the numbers on a week

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Speaker 1: you know, daily and weekly basis. But did that in

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Speaker 1: that year end sense? Did that really? Did that stand

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Speaker 1: out to you as kind of a surprise that that

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Speaker 1: would at year end that was the big show. Now,

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Speaker 1: as I understand, Squid Game may have knocked it off

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Speaker 1: its perch now that now that it's been out for.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, for tea English language also.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, we're only doing ro only measuring English language

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Speaker 2: in this particular study. So you know, Fool Me Once

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Speaker 2: they also had the benefit of premier in January first,

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, it had the whole year. And what's

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Speaker 2: interesting is when we look at that top ten list, yes,

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Speaker 2: seven of those titles are Netflix. But when we look

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Speaker 2: at the other three with them that top ten land

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Speaker 2: Man on Paramount Pair plus Taylor Sheridan, Yes, you love this.

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Speaker 4: I can't believe it's out in the world.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, but even among the Taylor Sheridan shows, it

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Speaker 3: wasn't among the most talked about, which is interesting because

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Speaker 3: the interest that that chart, there's a gap between like

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Speaker 3: the cool factor and buzz factor. And of course we

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Speaker 3: are in a bubble, we are in the creative community bus.

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Speaker 1: But I didn't hear so many people talking about it,

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Speaker 1: but obviously America and Canada. Yeah, there's kind of.

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Speaker 4: Like the People's Choice Awards. You know, it doesn't line

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Speaker 4: up usually with the oscars, but it does tell you

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Speaker 4: about what the broader audience is responding to.

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Speaker 2: And keep in mind that Landman didn't not all episodes

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Speaker 2: had been released by the time we got to the

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Speaker 2: end of the year, So we're doing that without all

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Speaker 2: episodes being available, which is a tremendous accomplishment.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he is, Taylor sharedon got to give to him.

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Speaker 4: He is tapping into some fortant. I mean, he just

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Speaker 4: I mean, you know, John Ham like has great cast

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Speaker 4: and has enough like there's a great balance of absurdity

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Speaker 4: and yet truth. Somehow that's what's.

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Speaker 2: Any Tulsa King is number five in the list.

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Speaker 3: So with that's off, Yeah, let's close out our discussion

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Speaker 3: here with the subject of a topic that is kind

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Speaker 3: of appropriate to the world that we're living in right now.

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Speaker 1: Horror. Yes, but there's a lot of interesting data in

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Speaker 1: there about how it's a clear box office driver and

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Speaker 1: it is also, you know, very efficient box office because budgets,

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Speaker 1: you know, versus like a blockbuster movie or even a

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Speaker 1: big animated feature like they can you know, they can

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Speaker 1: really do horror on a beer budget and get champagne

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Speaker 1: box office.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Well, horror is one of those genres

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Speaker 2: that has a built in fan base that is very

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Speaker 2: committed to showing up and seeing those titles in theaters,

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Speaker 2: and they're also reliably profitable, and that's a heady combination. Now,

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Speaker 2: when we look at the budget for a film, we're

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Speaker 2: typically looking for box office to be two point five

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Speaker 2: times the budget for it to really be considered a success,

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Speaker 2: and then anything above that can lead to a runaway hit.

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Speaker 2: When we look at the top ten highest grossing horror

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Speaker 2: films from twenty twenty four in their budgets. What's interesting

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Speaker 2: is that we see things like the Substance. The production

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00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 2: budget on that was seventeen million dollars and a bit

435
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 2: more than that, the box office was over seventy seven million,

436
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:25,440
Speaker 2: So just a tremendous success. And we see that again

437
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:31,240
Speaker 2: and again. Alien Romulus also highly profitable, A quiet Place

438
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 2: Day One very profitable. So it's just the gift that

439
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:36,720
Speaker 2: keeps on giving these two and the Substance.

440
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 3: Nobody on the planet, on the surface, even with Demimore,

441
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 3: nobody on the planet would have said, yep, that's going

442
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 3: to get five Oscar nominations. That also was really was

443
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 3: really telling. But great work is great work is rewarded. Actually,

444
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 3: I really want to close with a question that tacks

445
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 3: back to the way things work. I'm still I still

446
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:03,119
Speaker 3: have a harder time wrapping my head around millions or

447
00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 3: billions of minutes viewed versus old fashioned ratings and share

448
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 3: what do you think in terms of from your experience

449
00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 3: as researchers, the focus on minutes versus ratings, which were

450
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 3: you know, translated by demographic and everything they were.

451
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 1: I think it was just what I grew up with.

452
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:26,679
Speaker 1: But what is do you think is tracking the minutes viewed?

453
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:29,160
Speaker 1: Is that a better measure? Is that a more accurate

454
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 1: yardstick or is it just a different form of you know,

455
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 1: it's just a different form of ratings.

456
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 2: I am very passionate about this, you know. So I

457
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:44,159
Speaker 2: think minutes watched is a really it's a really inaccurate

458
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 2: way of measuring success because it rewards longer form content.

459
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 2: So comedies, which traditionally are shorter, are always at a

460
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 2: disadvantage in that world. If we're just talking about television

461
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 2: the real way, and this is the streamer are coalescing

462
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 2: around this as well. A more accurate measurement of success

463
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 2: is views, and that is simply taking the total minutes

464
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 2: watch and dividing that by the runtime. And that's something

465
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 2: that we actually provide through our SPM product, But our

466
00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 2: rankings are still measured based off of minutes watch. So yeah,

467
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:23,919
Speaker 2: I hear you.

468
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, It's kind of like, you know, the news used

469
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:31,440
Speaker 4: to be packaged in a very specific way, and you

470
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:34,239
Speaker 4: only kind of saw the news that was presented to you,

471
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 4: and now it's like we see, you know, the ticker

472
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:39,640
Speaker 4: tape of everything in real time. And I think that's

473
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 4: kind of what minutes is where you can see everyone

474
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 4: who's tuned in for one minute and you know, decided

475
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 4: to click on something else.

476
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 1: What's the holy grail that you as researchers that you

477
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 1: can't get your hands on, but you'd love to In

478
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 1: terms of data, data about shows, data about viewing, viewership, engagement.

479
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:03,199
Speaker 4: It's first party data, it's party data. It's what we

480
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:03,760
Speaker 4: all want.

481
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: Listen up, streamers, Yeah.

482
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,199
Speaker 4: Listen up. And you know I will say, you know,

483
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:10,400
Speaker 4: there is a light at the end of.

484
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 2: The tunnel because I'm not at liberty to kind of

485
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:15,480
Speaker 2: talk about those companies, but we are in active talks

486
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,640
Speaker 2: with certain streamers to actually share first party data. And

487
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 2: that is if you had asked me two years ago

488
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 2: when we were first building SBM, if this were a possibility,

489
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:28,919
Speaker 2: I would have told you they're never going to share.

490
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:31,439
Speaker 2: But I do believe that a day in the future

491
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:34,640
Speaker 2: we will have first party data and that will change everything.

492
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:37,639
Speaker 2: Will really have transparency there, and that'll be good.

493
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 4: For the industry. And I would say, on top of that,

494
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 4: accurate demographic data based on kind of all devices, because

495
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 4: we don't really have a great line of sight on

496
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 4: who's watching everything and how they're watching it, and that's

497
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 4: the secret to getting the young.

498
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 1: I would like to throw in there that I'm always

499
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: I've always enjoyed looking at regional data. You know, what

500
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 1: is the.

501
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,080
Speaker 3: Southwest watching versus what is the Northwest? And that that

502
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 3: just seems to be more and more elusive, elusive, or

503
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 3: it just won't you know, they won't, they won't divulge it,

504
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 3: and that.

505
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 4: It is now like Southeast Asia.

506
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 1: Right exactly, Let's narrow it down a little bit.

507
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 3: But yeah, well, this has been a fun, fun conversation

508
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 3: with two people who know their stuff right and left

509
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 3: and upside down and backwards. Thank you so much. I

510
00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 3: really appreciate it. I really appreciate all your work and

511
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 3: the you know, ability to bring some sense of what's

512
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 3: you know, what's actually going on out there. We don't

513
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 3: have to just take their word for it. Thank you

514
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 3: so much for legend.

515
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 1: Thank you, thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us

516
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 1: a review at Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. We love

517
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 1: to hear from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com

518
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: and sign up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter,

519
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: and don't forget to tune in next week for another

520
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Speaker 1: episode of Strictly Business.