Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties, weekly podcasts featuring conversations with
Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Speaker 1: Cynthia Littleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My
Speaker 1: guest is Adam Ware, vice president and General Manager of
Speaker 1: National Networks and Platforms for Sinclair Broadcast Group, where is
Speaker 1: knee deep in the streaming wars, but rather than global domination,
Speaker 1: he's fighting for AD dollars in local markets around the country.
Speaker 1: Sinclair is investing big in Stir, an AD supported platform
Speaker 1: that aggregates local newscasts and other content from Sinclair's nearly
Speaker 1: two hundred TV stations, where, who previously worked in distribution
Speaker 1: for Fox in its early days and for Barry Diller's
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties media ventures, shares insights from the experience of
Speaker 1: building Stir over the past two years. In our com versation.
Speaker 1: Adam Ware, vice president and General manager of Sinclair Broadcast
Speaker 1: Groups National Networks and Platforms Group, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. You're welcome. I think the podcast is
Speaker 1: now concluded with the length of my title, and I
Speaker 1: want to start by talking about one of the services
Speaker 1: that you've run, which is called Stir and it's a
Speaker 1: it's a streaming platform and a supported streaming platform. And
Speaker 1: why it was intriguing to me and I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to you today was that we have the press
Speaker 1: certainly is guilty of sort of shaping the streaming wars
Speaker 1: as certainly a global race, a global chase that is
Speaker 1: unprecedented in its in its geographical scope, and it is
Speaker 1: definitely one of the things that is changing the game
Speaker 1: for the the biggest media conglomerates. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that there isn't a you know, a ground game to
Speaker 1: be had in streaming in local markets. And that is
Speaker 1: where Stir and Sinclair with its many many stations comes in.
Speaker 1: Tell us tell us about Stir, which is, if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken, coming on about two years old, and tell
Speaker 1: us sort of all the all the elements that you
Speaker 1: have built in to stirre and tell us how this
Speaker 1: this AD supported business is doing in this you know,
Speaker 1: as we get here to the end of there is
Speaker 1: a it's a national service, and I think the line
Speaker 1: I like to use to explain it is it's streaming
Speaker 1: TV from your local TV station for free, so as
Speaker 1: opposed to being sort of this national service coming from somewhere. Uh,
Speaker 1: I would love that in a focus group, if I
Speaker 1: were to ask them where is stir made, they would go, oh,
Speaker 1: that's that's from Fox right or or Como in Seattle, like,
Speaker 1: that's my from my local TV station. So at the
Speaker 1: at the core, that was putting content that was uniquely local,
Speaker 1: front and center on a platform on a service. UM.
Speaker 1: Stir is not an afronym for anything. Ster literally came
Speaker 1: from two parts. One is the challenger side of it,
Speaker 1: like stirring it up, and the other part is as
Speaker 1: a mix of content, so stirring up the content. And
Speaker 1: at the core of this was local news as as
Speaker 1: a as a fundamental you know, uh, foundation of the service,
Speaker 1: complimented by other local programming, a complimented by the local
Speaker 1: syndicated hits that the stations owned and have the streaming
Speaker 1: rights to in their marketplace. Uh. And then go uh
Speaker 1: and build out a free service out of that, but
Speaker 1: not not an on demand service because at the core
Speaker 1: of this was a couple a couple of sort of
Speaker 1: key factors. The first factor was, Okay, do you have
Speaker 1: to have stations the top d M A s to
Speaker 1: make this work? And the reality is that when you
Speaker 1: look at where streaming is the strongest. It doesn't match
Speaker 1: up to the top d m A right, so UM,
Speaker 1: there's a there's Nielsen put out an interesting study last year.
Speaker 1: I think they analyze where are the strongest d m
Speaker 1: as for streaming? UM. The number one d m A
Speaker 1: for streaming I think is Austin. SE. Of that d
Speaker 1: m A streams, Cleveland watches the most amount per day
Speaker 1: on a streaming basis. UM. Austin and Salt Lake City
Speaker 1: are tied for number two among the meter markets for
Speaker 1: the most that owned streaming devices right now. New York,
Speaker 1: l A and Chicago are up there always because they're
Speaker 1: huge populations, but it's actually it's a different footprint when
Speaker 1: you look at streaming, and Saint Claire's footprint matched up
Speaker 1: really nicely with that. So Austin we have a pretty
Speaker 1: strong TV station in Austin, UH and Salt Lake City
Speaker 1: we have a pretty strong TV station in Salt Lake
Speaker 1: City and so on. So that served as the basis
Speaker 1: of the footprint for can we launch a national service
Speaker 1: that was locally targeted at scale and and appeal to
Speaker 1: markets where they were more likely to stream? Right? I
Speaker 1: think the second part of streaming is that um Nielsen,
Speaker 1: the same Nielsen study, I think the stat was somewhere
Speaker 1: around fifty or so. Uh watch traditional local TV news mhm. Right,
Speaker 1: So there's always assumption in streamers don't watch news at
Speaker 1: all and don't watch TV stations. You're watching short form
Speaker 1: content produced for five cents on YouTube. That's right, That's right.
Speaker 1: And and the reality is I'm sure people are, but
Speaker 1: they're actually watching local TV news um. And so that
Speaker 1: became the basic fundamentals. Did we have the markets? Did
Speaker 1: we have a footprint that can make this work at
Speaker 1: scale in the right d M s? And the answer
Speaker 1: is yes, right, did we um? Did we have the
Speaker 1: right genres to work locally? Yeah? Right? And Stir features
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand hours of live local news a year. Uh.
Speaker 1: Did we have a corporate owner that was willing to
Speaker 1: invest uh and not look for an immediate r o
Speaker 1: I that year because streaming takes investment. Absolutely, because Sinclair
Speaker 1: as a history of that. All those ingredients went into start.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you how does it work with the
Speaker 1: station's how did the state? How do how does the
Speaker 1: monetization work? Does the monitors that you know, if if
Speaker 1: if the COMO six o'clock News gets you know, five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand views. How do they get Is there a
Speaker 1: process that they get credit for that? Or is that?
Speaker 1: Or do or do the stations like you know, they
Speaker 1: can sort of contribute their their news and their advertising
Speaker 1: to the greater good of the broader Sinclair Broadcast Group.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about how that works just on a
Speaker 1: business proposition with having that many stations contributing to this service? Sure?
Speaker 1: Sure so. Uh there's two parts that one part is
Speaker 1: that um, local O T T O T T revenues
Speaker 1: UH are exploding on a local basis. And and and
Speaker 1: that's just the sale of O T T inventory. Um,
Speaker 1: you actually get a higher CPM on a local basis
Speaker 1: than you would on a national basis. It's a similar
Speaker 1: between network and local spot right, the same sort of differences.
Speaker 1: And the TV stations are have sales teams on the
Speaker 1: street talking to local TV advertisers who want to be
Speaker 1: in O T T UH in this kind of the
Speaker 1: same way. Those same aviturs way back when wanted to
Speaker 1: be in cable. But back then the TV station wasn't
Speaker 1: selling cable, they were just selling their TV station. Well,
Speaker 1: now they're selling their TV station and they're selling O
Speaker 1: T T inventory and the conversations are within largely with
Speaker 1: endemic advertisers. Uh. Yes, in large parts about endemic advertisers.
Speaker 1: Um that want to now find campaigns across multiple platforms.
Speaker 1: But then you also see new advertisers. Um, I'll give you.
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example. Right, So in Bowie, Texas,
Speaker 1: which is located between Fort Worth and at Ardmore, I've
Speaker 1: I've actually been there a long time ago. I've been there,
Speaker 1: and the stations in Texas we have, we have stations
Speaker 1: in San Antonio, Austin, Abilene, to Oklahoma and so on. Uh.
Speaker 1: That client is a horse auction client, and that horse
Speaker 1: auction client was buying advertising locally to get people to
Speaker 1: show up to the auction. They were using Facebook Live
Speaker 1: as a means of streaming to those that couldn't get
Speaker 1: to the auction. All of a sudden, COVID hits unless
Speaker 1: people are showing up to the auction and the station
Speaker 1: while liking the client, while liking Facebook Live. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's okay, but what more can we do?
Speaker 1: We like, we like TV. We know TV advertising is
Speaker 1: really powerful, and so what the stations in in that
Speaker 1: territory did they met with the clients, they said, let's
Speaker 1: let's brainstorm about how we can take advente of STIR
Speaker 1: And so they came up with a really cool idea
Speaker 1: to make a seven channel out of it. And so
Speaker 1: there is a channel now called the Horse Shopping Channel.
Speaker 1: It's on stir. Uh. It features live auctions of horse
Speaker 1: auctions throughout a month, and then when that programming is
Speaker 1: it on, it features other sort of related content on
Speaker 1: that channel. And it is a completely paid for by
Speaker 1: the client channel. And so that client, that local client,
Speaker 1: instead of just buying thirty second commercials or using Facebook,
Speaker 1: they now have their own television channel. And I mean
Speaker 1: and the obviously the r o I is good enough
Speaker 1: for them to continue it, like did they see a bounce?
Speaker 1: It has been so far, you know. I think part
Speaker 1: of how they measure their r o I is, you know,
Speaker 1: do we sell more horses? Right? That's one way. I think.
Speaker 1: The other is have they grown their brand? Have they
Speaker 1: enhanced their brand? Uh? And they have a business model
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of horse auctions out there. So
Speaker 1: part of their business model is to actually now be
Speaker 1: the conduit for other horse auctions who will then pay
Speaker 1: the end to be on this channel, right, so they're
Speaker 1: play a little broker. So as an example, that's a
Speaker 1: completely new type of advertiser that's buying this OTT inventory.
Speaker 1: And in that scenario, do the Texas stations have any
Speaker 1: piece of the horse auction channel or is that yes,
Speaker 1: Well theyn't have a piece of the channel, but they
Speaker 1: get a ship. They get a commission on the revenue
Speaker 1: because they were the people that execute the agreement. When
Speaker 1: the inventory is sold um on stir the state. If
Speaker 1: the station is selling the package to local advertiser, they
Speaker 1: will get their share of that package. If the if
Speaker 1: it's sold through programmatic, the station doesn't get that share
Speaker 1: because it's not the station did the local sales through programmatic.
Speaker 1: Um And then what we do is you have a
Speaker 1: second piece of this is that we also return. So
Speaker 1: that's the form of a commission. Then the other thing
Speaker 1: we do is our whole model is a revenue share.
Speaker 1: So any partner who's on our platform there as a
Speaker 1: station or it's a third party partner, based on their
Speaker 1: delivery and based on the revenue attached their delivery, they
Speaker 1: get the revenues from Star. So that is that is
Speaker 1: the second model for them. Um uh which I guess
Speaker 1: it is a way they're selling ads. But even if
Speaker 1: they don't sell an ad, they still get if they're
Speaker 1: not the ones selling the ad, they'll still get their
Speaker 1: share based on the popularity of programming. Most of your
Speaker 1: stations in addition to making the newscasts on STIR, if
Speaker 1: I go to Como or w j l A in
Speaker 1: d C, do most of them offer a live stream
Speaker 1: of a of a live newscast, Yeah, they do. They
Speaker 1: What the what again? Where they started? And this goes
Speaker 1: back to sort of again why they were sort of
Speaker 1: early in streaming. What they first did is they put
Speaker 1: the live stream on their website and um, people would
Speaker 1: watch it, but you know, it really wasn't the primary
Speaker 1: people were watching the live news. They were the primaryy
Speaker 1: they were watching live news was on television. Um. Then
Speaker 1: there would be a live stream in their local app,
Speaker 1: but again the local app really was used more for
Speaker 1: breaking news or weather or things like that. So what
Speaker 1: we did with the live news was, instead of just
Speaker 1: putting up a live stream of it, we said, all
Speaker 1: these stations do anywhere from you know, four to six
Speaker 1: hours of live local news a day, even more eight
Speaker 1: hours on the high end, live local news a day.
Speaker 1: Why don't we actually create a channel out of it.
Speaker 1: They're already on a channel right there. They have a channel,
Speaker 1: and then they're going to syndicated shows, and they go
Speaker 1: on through network shows and so on. They have a
Speaker 1: twenty four seven channel. Why don't we do the same thing.
Speaker 1: Why don't we do this seventy three times? Because we
Speaker 1: have seventy three stations that do all this local news
Speaker 1: as part of the lineup, And so we came up
Speaker 1: with the channel called the stir City Channel. And so
Speaker 1: the stir City Channel is a localized channel. It's in
Speaker 1: the first position on the platform, it's the first position
Speaker 1: on the EPG. It's powered by the station. So in Baltimore,
Speaker 1: it's it's stir City powered by Fox. In Seattle, it's
Speaker 1: you know, stir City powered by Como News, and the
Speaker 1: local news will run live on the TV station and
Speaker 1: on their stir City channel. Then let's use Seattle as
Speaker 1: an example. If they, let's say, have their morning news
Speaker 1: from five to seven am, and then at seven am
Speaker 1: they would go to Good Morning America. Well, on the
Speaker 1: stir City channel, we wouldn't go to Good Morning America.
Speaker 1: We go to other programming, and so Stir actually programs
Speaker 1: out a seven channel. It's very much like an it's
Speaker 1: a network. It's the ster City network with local affiliates
Speaker 1: that put in their live local news. And the reason
Speaker 1: we did that was because we believe so firmly that
Speaker 1: linear was the way people wanted to consume uh, streaming
Speaker 1: video that so much so that there wasn't even we
Speaker 1: knew it was happening, but the industry couldn't figure out
Speaker 1: a term for it. Right, it was called a VOD
Speaker 1: So so if you had a linear a what what
Speaker 1: what is that? And sure enough Pluto was in the
Speaker 1: linear business, Zumo was in the linear business, Stirs in
Speaker 1: the linear business, Peacocks in the linear business. And on
Speaker 1: every road who channels now in the linear business. The
Speaker 1: record Netflix in their own way, is in the linear business.
Speaker 1: They're testing a linear channel, right, I think of France. Uh,
Speaker 1: and an auto play from one episode to the next
Speaker 1: is a linear experience, right, It's sitting on the couch
Speaker 1: doing less work, someone curating something for you and and
Speaker 1: uh And so ster City became the embodied and how
Speaker 1: we were going to take this live local news and
Speaker 1: put it into a ster City just for clarification. If
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in UM St. Louis and I pull up STIR,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get a St. Louis focused stream of information,
Speaker 1: or I will get a pastiche of different Sinclair newscasts
Speaker 1: from around the country. In St. Louis, you will get
Speaker 1: a mixt right um. In Austin you will get a
Speaker 1: local news okay, and and that's dependent on where you
Speaker 1: have Staying Okay, go where we have news affiliates. So
Speaker 1: that's actually the next sort of phase for US now
Speaker 1: is to add affiliates and markets where we're not in UH.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's multiple affiliates in markets where we're in
Speaker 1: right um or or filling markets where we're not in UH.
Speaker 1: That either comes from partnering with a Stay and we
Speaker 1: are in pretty advanced talks with a couple to have
Speaker 1: them come on join a STIR affiliates filling in some
Speaker 1: of the bigger markets. Um Or it comes from producing
Speaker 1: your own news in the market. So in Ohio, for instance,
Speaker 1: we have stations and Cincinnati Columbus, so we don't have
Speaker 1: a station in Cleveland. But the idea of using that
Speaker 1: infrastructure to produce a news that would be relevant for
Speaker 1: people in Cleveland or Ohio. That's clearly a path. Do
Speaker 1: you have any national sales layer on this? Do you
Speaker 1: like do old fashioned like barter? You know, you bundle
Speaker 1: all the inventory that you have from your stations and
Speaker 1: try to sell it to National spot buyers? Do you do?
Speaker 1: Is that a factor? So there's yes. So there's multiple
Speaker 1: pieces to it. Like one first pieces is local sales
Speaker 1: staff going into local advertisers selling the equivalent of local
Speaker 1: spot uh um O t T inventory. They're either selling
Speaker 1: stir or they're selling inventory that we've purchased from Broku
Speaker 1: for instance. UM that isn't in anything we own, but
Speaker 1: it's we're in a better position to sell that inventory
Speaker 1: than Roku is, and so we're arbitrary in a local newscast. Right,
Speaker 1: it could be in you know, a cable networks app
Speaker 1: for instance. UM, if they have inventory, we're in a
Speaker 1: better position to sell it locally and take advantage of that.
Speaker 1: So there is local spots sales, then there is National
Speaker 1: spots sales, and that National Spot sales goes through a
Speaker 1: company that we have that's called Compulsor t T. And
Speaker 1: what that does is we go to advertisers in New
Speaker 1: York that are interested in buying TV and O T
Speaker 1: T in San Antonio, and we we go to that
Speaker 1: agency with a package, and that agency then goes by
Speaker 1: the market and that follows the spot you know, traditional
Speaker 1: national spot business. It applies out to T as well.
Speaker 1: Then there are advertisers that want to buy the whole
Speaker 1: the whole country, want to buy just just one ftprint,
Speaker 1: want to buy the platform and so on and uh.
Speaker 1: That can come in the form of a sponsorship of
Speaker 1: a channel or of the platform, or they own their
Speaker 1: own channel like the horse Shopping channel is a national
Speaker 1: channel as an example. UM. And and because we're linear,
Speaker 1: because stir City is actually programmed day date and time,
Speaker 1: it fits into a network format. So we can actually
Speaker 1: sell a schedule to an advertiser based on a network
Speaker 1: basis because it's day, date and time. What is your
Speaker 1: what is your most important metric? Is it? I'm guessing
Speaker 1: it's at this point it's not just raw viewership? Is
Speaker 1: it engagement? Is it time spent with the programming? Like
Speaker 1: what what do you look to measure your growth? Um?
Speaker 1: Organic downloads and usage versus us buying them? Um uh
Speaker 1: churn you know how many are we keeping and how
Speaker 1: how how how deep are they getting into the service?
Speaker 1: So are they spending not just that they spending a
Speaker 1: lot of time, but are they doing a lot of discovery?
Speaker 1: And when you say churn in an ad supported environment,
Speaker 1: do you mean just engagement? Like if they go for
Speaker 1: like you would cull churn, if they don't touch the
Speaker 1: aft for a week or two or something like that, correct,
Speaker 1: they stop using it, Yeah, which is which is quite common, right,
Speaker 1: turn and turn in the subscription part or in the
Speaker 1: ad supporter part is fairly significant. And um, you'll see
Speaker 1: people in the marketplace, you know, having campaigns in rocou
Speaker 1: store or Prime Video or whatever, uh or in the
Speaker 1: fire TV app store weekly. Right, they're constantly refreshing the churn.
Speaker 1: They're not just growing, they're refreshing the churn. And um,
Speaker 1: that's one model you know where you're you're throwing tons
Speaker 1: of money against something and you're bringing in tons of
Speaker 1: viewers and keeping them for some part and then hopefully
Speaker 1: getting them to watch a little bit more, a little
Speaker 1: bit more, but most a lot of them are going
Speaker 1: doesn't leave. That's the nature of what's happening right now.
Speaker 1: There's a tremendous amount of sampling going on, so so
Speaker 1: as as an example of what happened with COVID, Right,
Speaker 1: everyone all of a sudden was at home. People were
Speaker 1: looking for alternatives to Netflix. Right, Netflix was no longer
Speaker 1: altern they were looking form. That was Jimmy Kimmel's joke, Right,
Speaker 1: It was like I watched I finished Netflix last last night. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: So you had people then sampling like crazy, and if
Speaker 1: you were free, they sampled even more. And so the
Speaker 1: key question for us is we always sort of knew
Speaker 1: that that would be sort of a moment in time
Speaker 1: and what would now what would happen after, not meaning
Speaker 1: after COVID ended, but meaning after you So that spike
Speaker 1: of people looking for alternatives, we knew it would settle.
Speaker 1: And the question for us is would we go back
Speaker 1: to where we were they just come and leave, or
Speaker 1: would we maintain some percentage of it? So for us,
Speaker 1: going back to the metrics that we cared about, we're
Speaker 1: sitting now. The peak for us was somewhere in May
Speaker 1: June forty five days I would say of late May
Speaker 1: through early July was the peak. And um, they were
Speaker 1: downloading us for all sorts of reasons, and we weren't
Speaker 1: buying anything. We had no media running during that time
Speaker 1: we had we were showing up in stores, listings and
Speaker 1: things like that, and so they were downloading us for
Speaker 1: local news. They were downloading us because it was free
Speaker 1: TV and we had all this sampling. We got to
Speaker 1: this peak. And when that happens, your session time tanks.
Speaker 1: So on average we're at about forty minutes or so
Speaker 1: per session time. You bring in tons of downloads, your
Speaker 1: session time is going almost some drop because you've got
Speaker 1: people click and gone basically. And and now I would
Speaker 1: say we started to drop posts then and then in
Speaker 1: August September, in October we've settled out in at a
Speaker 1: certain level. End results were about a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: higher than we were pre COVID. Can you give me,
Speaker 1: can you give me any kind of a ballpark of
Speaker 1: what you're what that aggregated audience is sure, so you
Speaker 1: know we're doing it about forty minutes session time. We
Speaker 1: have about six million, a little bit over six billion
Speaker 1: downloads of three and a half million of them are
Speaker 1: are active. Um. That dates back from January one through
Speaker 1: uh not that not yes, I haven't done yesterday yet,
Speaker 1: but the day before yesterday. Um, And we're in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood of you know, somewhere over a million monthly uniques. Um. Again,
Speaker 1: that will fluctuate. You'll see it go signficalarly higher, you
Speaker 1: see it go below somewhere. So I would say somewhere
Speaker 1: in that range right now, um, which if you go
Speaker 1: back and look where Pluto and Zumo and the others
Speaker 1: were with with far less competition after two years, um,
Speaker 1: we're right in line based on our understanding of where
Speaker 1: their numbers were back then. And where does that in
Speaker 1: terms of your plane has would you say the pandemic
Speaker 1: the conditions of the pandemic hav acceller are you like
Speaker 1: ahead of ahead of war you expected to be at
Speaker 1: this point because yeah, yeah, like eighteen months ahead, so
Speaker 1: with no marketing money, right, so we we we really
Speaker 1: have yet to turn on the marketing part. And the
Speaker 1: marketing part really comes in two ways. It's it's us
Speaker 1: going in and spending money in the stores, but it's
Speaker 1: really the local stations promoting us. And the local stations
Speaker 1: have been promoting us a little bit as relates to
Speaker 1: go to stir to watch your local news, because they're
Speaker 1: also promoting their app, they're also promoting their website they're
Speaker 1: also quoting Tonight on their own news on the station,
Speaker 1: and then we just rolled out their syndicated programming. So
Speaker 1: in Baltimore again, I think they own the rights to
Speaker 1: Judge Duty, Family Feud and maybe maybe Wheel in Jeopardy.
Speaker 1: I forget, it's all four those shows are now available
Speaker 1: on and on demand basis in Baltimore on Stir, and
Speaker 1: they're only available on Stir. Was that a fight with
Speaker 1: those distributors to get those rights? Did you? Did you
Speaker 1: have to write a bigger check for those rights? I'm
Speaker 1: not going to comment on the terms of an agreement, right,
Speaker 1: but suffice it to say that that I think everybody
Speaker 1: walked away quite happy. Um and if anything, it was
Speaker 1: a natural evolution of the partnership between you know, syndicators
Speaker 1: and the station group first started. Sorry, sorry, just to
Speaker 1: get very geeky syndication. Does you know Barter is a
Speaker 1: part of all big syndication shows. Does the Barter component
Speaker 1: continue into the into the Stir telecat you know, the
Speaker 1: Stir simulcast. Absolutely, it's not a Stir simulcast you said
Speaker 1: on demand, it's an on demand a stir a stir
Speaker 1: in pattern play because I like using the word in
Speaker 1: pattern versus the word simulcast. A stirt in pattern play
Speaker 1: is next, so we have the we have the rights
Speaker 1: to do that as well. The first step of this
Speaker 1: was to roll out catch up viewing. So is it
Speaker 1: like the next day you can get the next day's
Speaker 1: episode midnight? I think ye. So yeah. Is there any
Speaker 1: tension for the stations in terms of in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, having the potential to have what you call
Speaker 1: an in pattern telecast at you know? At the same time,
Speaker 1: is there is there a gut level of I don't
Speaker 1: want to let my signal out beyond my you know,
Speaker 1: linear station, or are your general managers like they're looking
Speaker 1: at the future and saying we've got to get We've
Speaker 1: got to be in here too. So I think, um, so,
Speaker 1: I think just two parts. That one is I just
Speaker 1: think as a company, we're looking sort of at allways
Speaker 1: of district lution of of our station and the programming
Speaker 1: on our station and uh and then in particularly we're
Speaker 1: looking at our signals as a as a method of streaming,
Speaker 1: because that's really what ATFC three DONA is about. Next
Speaker 1: gen TV is the next generation of a broadcast signal.
Speaker 1: It's all about streaming. So all of that is consistent thinking,
Speaker 1: right as a as A as someone who's on the line,
Speaker 1: you know, selling day in, day out, inventory and so on,
Speaker 1: so a general manager, general sales manager and so on.
Speaker 1: I think there's always a nervousness about seeing your programming,
Speaker 1: even though it's on something else you may own. There's
Speaker 1: always a nervousness that it in some way will hurt
Speaker 1: your primary way they're viewing, which I get. But the
Speaker 1: reality is if they're not going to watch you over there,
Speaker 1: they're gonna watch someone else over there right right, and
Speaker 1: and that's what's happening. People are moving that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I gave you some stats from Nielsen, right, there's so much,
Speaker 1: so much. The viewing is now going on either on
Speaker 1: an only O T T basis, or on a O
Speaker 1: T A basis, or a combination of O T T
Speaker 1: and streaming, UH and cable. But it's it's the viewing
Speaker 1: is no longer dominated by one single input, and you
Speaker 1: need to be in all of them. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Please leave us a review at Apple Podcasts. We love
Speaker 1: to hear from listeners. Be sure to tune in next
Speaker 1: week for another episode of Strictly Business.