Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of the Strictly Business Podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is Rezazad, CEO of Studio seventy one. A
Speaker 1: company may not know by name, but chances are the
Speaker 1: young people in your life know the digital native stars
Speaker 1: and the Studio seventy one roster like Lily Sing, Roman
Speaker 1: Atwood and Rent and Link. They helped the company drive
Speaker 1: billions of video views online. We're building a business on
Speaker 1: all those eyeballs. Has never been easy, but Azad is
Speaker 1: a veteran of the digital video world who has steered
Speaker 1: Studio seventy one and some innovative directions that we'll talk about.
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming in, Reso, Thanks for having me. So
Speaker 1: let's do some level settings Studio seventy one. It's not
Speaker 1: as simple as just selling ads against video. No, there's
Speaker 1: a lot more to it than that. But um, we're
Speaker 1: essentially one of the world's largest distributors and producers of
Speaker 1: short form content, and so you'll see our stuff on YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and we are essentially a B two B brand, so
Speaker 1: you may be watching our content so like on YouTube
Speaker 1: every month, about one and three Americans watch an hour
Speaker 1: and a half of our content every month. Our brand
Speaker 1: does not follow. It's a lot of our partners or
Speaker 1: content or brands that are housed within sort of um
Speaker 1: our group. So we're some of those brands are world
Speaker 1: Star hip hop is a good example. You just listed
Speaker 1: a bunch that are you know, really powerful. I think
Speaker 1: you know, the Fine Brothers were producing a show called
Speaker 1: This Might Get So there's there's a bunch of content.
Speaker 1: It's coming from a lot of places. I mean, every
Speaker 1: month we're publishing a little over twelve thousand pieces of
Speaker 1: video content just on YouTube, and another when it's all
Speaker 1: sliced and diced, another thirty or forty thousand pieces across
Speaker 1: the rest of the web. Um So it's it's a
Speaker 1: huge volume of content that we're putting out there. So
Speaker 1: give me your sense of where we stand right now
Speaker 1: here in mid to late in this digital video ego system,
Speaker 1: which seems to me to be you know, pretty stormy weather.
Speaker 1: Absolutely like if you look at it in the the macro,
Speaker 1: it's all up and to the left, but when you
Speaker 1: look at it in yearly Micro's it's it's a very
Speaker 1: very tough business. Um I think a lot of our
Speaker 1: competitors and ourselves you know as well, have had to
Speaker 1: really level set what this business is. So I came
Speaker 1: from the you know, the management side of the business,
Speaker 1: as a lot of people who entered in from tech
Speaker 1: and other sort of traditional players of it. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: talk a bit about that because the history of TWODO
Speaker 1: seventy one is interesting. You started as a management company.
Speaker 1: We were the collective. There was a management firm. We
Speaker 1: had about hundred and twenty employees, and we represented Lincoln
Speaker 1: Park and Kanye West, a lot of music talent plus
Speaker 1: you know, mainstream actors like Emil Hirsch and Martin Lawrence
Speaker 1: and a bunch of folks like that. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: started with that foundation. So it was talent first, was
Speaker 1: the foundation, and the thesis of the business was that
Speaker 1: all this disintermediation that was happening. So when Michael Green
Speaker 1: started the company after the firm, it's like mid two
Speaker 1: thousand's and you know, the there was I think my
Speaker 1: Space was around. I think a lot of these earth
Speaker 1: platforms that we're talking about today we're just emerging, and
Speaker 1: it was clear that there was gonna be a way
Speaker 1: that talented people could go direct to consumer. Um, we
Speaker 1: thought it was going to happen in music. That's why
Speaker 1: we had such a large emphasis in music because of
Speaker 1: the disruption of Napster and iTunes and whatnot. Um. But
Speaker 1: the reality is, for us, it happened actually in digital video.
Speaker 1: That's where we saw the biggest opportunity to sort of
Speaker 1: grow a business. And once we figured that out, UM,
Speaker 1: Michael was very clear, um in terms of let's let's
Speaker 1: make that our core sort of mission. So it was
Speaker 1: kind of like a pivot at birth. It was a
Speaker 1: pretty interesting pivot. Yeah, we've been the management firm for
Speaker 1: about six or eight years. Um, we identified that we
Speaker 1: were gonna there was this hyper growth opportunity. Took us
Speaker 1: about two years to sort of really unwind the management business.
Speaker 1: But that's essentially what happened. And fast forward to you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about the stormy weathers. How are you running
Speaker 1: a diversified business, talk about the different ways you're making money,
Speaker 1: because diversification it seems like if you don't do that today,
Speaker 1: you're dead. Um. So look, the irony is last year
Speaker 1: it was brand safety. This year, what you're seeing is
Speaker 1: the impact of all these O T T players that
Speaker 1: went out of business at the end of last year
Speaker 1: really sort of choking a lot of the economics of
Speaker 1: the ecosystem. So when you look at the business, it's
Speaker 1: you've got to have a very large, scalable advertising business play,
Speaker 1: which means you have to be good at media and
Speaker 1: packaging media as part of what you do. Branded content
Speaker 1: is an adjacent sort of business that that is, you know,
Speaker 1: rides alongside that, and those are big parts of what
Speaker 1: we do and where we've spent a lot of time.
Speaker 1: And then you have to understand I P UM and
Speaker 1: and content creation. UM. That's how we actually fell into
Speaker 1: the business was we co produced the Fred movies with
Speaker 1: Brian Robbins and then did the Annoying Orange and video
Speaker 1: game High School, so we started you know, I P
Speaker 1: was central to what we were doing. UM, what we've
Speaker 1: seen in the last year is a shrinkage of that market.
Speaker 1: So when Go ninety goes out of business and see
Speaker 1: so and watch a bowl and there's a much longer
Speaker 1: list than that, UM, you get contraction, which is sort
Speaker 1: of what we're seeing here. Last year the struggle was
Speaker 1: navigating through UM the brand safety issues that we're running
Speaker 1: havoc that I think still continue to sort of Yeah,
Speaker 1: talk about the ecosystem, talk about how studio seventy one
Speaker 1: encountered all that, my guesses, is a lot of technology
Speaker 1: at work now to make sure that marketers are protected
Speaker 1: when they're placing their dollars with you. We we built
Speaker 1: a tool called Studio seventy one context and so it's
Speaker 1: not just technology, it's technology and people. So when when
Speaker 1: you release, you know, we'll call it fifteen. And we're
Speaker 1: very focused today on YouTube media. I think that will
Speaker 1: change over time. Um, but when you're focused on on
Speaker 1: a platform like that, you have that much of a
Speaker 1: sort of a release schedule, you can't have a traditional
Speaker 1: standards and practices department. People go insane. So what we
Speaker 1: had to do is build technology that would actually avoid
Speaker 1: out videos that we know are not brand safe. And
Speaker 1: there's the parameters. I think the market in terms of
Speaker 1: just brand safety. Maybe this is the big topic is
Speaker 1: what is brand safety? Is the first thing that's that
Speaker 1: I think is unclear in this market. And so I
Speaker 1: think everyone's in agreement that hates speech and you know,
Speaker 1: things along that line, maybe overtly sexual pedophilia, you know,
Speaker 1: all the things that are just beyond the pale that
Speaker 1: that stuff is easy, but when you get into the
Speaker 1: rest of it is is you know the effort, Okay,
Speaker 1: how sexual can the content be? All that sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: And given the market swung so heavy in one direction,
Speaker 1: we decided to take attacked with context that we were
Speaker 1: going to make a sort of PG thirteen and G
Speaker 1: rated products. So it's very very safe, not unlike primetime
Speaker 1: network tv UM and in some cases maybe even less
Speaker 1: so like less edgy UM. And so what that product
Speaker 1: does through two means of technology and then people on
Speaker 1: the technology side, we take all the text data that
Speaker 1: comes off, including including closed caption, and then we use
Speaker 1: some image recognition software that Amazon and Google. We prefer
Speaker 1: the Google product where we scan all our videos for
Speaker 1: drug paraphernalia, guns and all the usual stuff. And this
Speaker 1: stuff works. The stuff work is is actually very accurate,
Speaker 1: but what drives the accuracy is actually people. So then
Speaker 1: we so we we discount a lot of stuff. So
Speaker 1: you say a bad word, there's guns, or there's something
Speaker 1: that we find objection able, you're already self selected out.
Speaker 1: So in theory, what what the people that are working
Speaker 1: for us, since a team of about twenty people are
Speaker 1: looking at are things that we think our brand sake,
Speaker 1: but we don't. Peter doesn't know yet. And so we
Speaker 1: have about twenty twenty sort of data points that we
Speaker 1: try to add and and can try to contextualize, so
Speaker 1: like contextualizing a gun. So there's a radar gun, there's
Speaker 1: a NERF gun, and then there's a handgun that's been
Speaker 1: used in a violent act, all very differently different um
Speaker 1: sort of outcomes in terms of brand safety. And so
Speaker 1: the people are trying to train the computers what those are,
Speaker 1: and hopefully they're selecting more and more stuff that's just safe.
Speaker 1: So before we traffic in an add a person looks
Speaker 1: at that's our final sort of step in the brand
Speaker 1: safety process. And I would imagine this technology has got
Speaker 1: to be table stakes at this point, for it is
Speaker 1: table stick and and the interesting thing is there's not
Speaker 1: that many companies that have the video scale we have
Speaker 1: in the data we have that could actually execute or
Speaker 1: create something like that. UM. So it's so we're not
Speaker 1: the only ones with the product, but I think we're
Speaker 1: one of one of two or one of three with
Speaker 1: this type of tool in the market. But you're making
Speaker 1: money in other ways besides advertising. I mean, even e
Speaker 1: commerce I'm hearing is becoming part of the mixed for
Speaker 1: you guys talk about that. So look, some let's just
Speaker 1: talk about the core of the business. Right. It's these
Speaker 1: talent that the talent that's creating this content. So wherever
Speaker 1: there's an engaged audience and wherever there are people that
Speaker 1: care about something, there's an opportunity, if done right, to
Speaker 1: market and create merchandizing or ancillary product around around that.
Speaker 1: And so we've been taking advantage of that opportunity for
Speaker 1: some time. UM, we've kind of found an interesting you know, niche.
Speaker 1: We've gotten very good at the collectible space, which is
Speaker 1: not how I anticipated our business evolving. We have um,
Speaker 1: we have a we have a channel called Guava Juice
Speaker 1: where we sell toy boxes every quarter. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we've sold almost three or four hundred thousand of these
Speaker 1: boxes over the last few years, and you know, we've
Speaker 1: done very well with that. We just put out a
Speaker 1: mobile app with them that we're about to you know,
Speaker 1: announce a fairly large license probably you know, a deal
Speaker 1: around so so that that business has gone very well,
Speaker 1: but it's very much um. He speaks to a very
Speaker 1: young audience, and these are toys every quarter than they
Speaker 1: get in a box. UM. We have a we have
Speaker 1: a talent called Sanite and Happiness, where a year and
Speaker 1: a half ago we did a kickstarter with them we
Speaker 1: did over three million in sales um and that has
Speaker 1: that the success of that it was it was a
Speaker 1: card game, has led us into a number of sort
Speaker 1: of gaming opportunities. So just this past month, uh, there's
Speaker 1: a very famous sort of indie video game called The
Speaker 1: Binding of Isaac and we just we just completed a
Speaker 1: massive kickstarter there. We did raised two point six million
Speaker 1: in thirty days and we expect that to have a
Speaker 1: fairly long distribution life in retail in a bunch of
Speaker 1: other places. So we've actually gotten more collectible. I thought
Speaker 1: we would have been package goods or T shirts. Our
Speaker 1: business has grown in a in a in a different
Speaker 1: niche and it's but it's an unpredictable business. It's hit
Speaker 1: driven and therefore our hits have been in this space
Speaker 1: and so that's why you know it's defined that way today. Also,
Speaker 1: I mean you're working with influencers, which from you know,
Speaker 1: obviously we've seen them amass some great audiences, but not
Speaker 1: without a real struggle. There's lots of sort of industry
Speaker 1: anecdotes about how difficult it can be to work with
Speaker 1: town like this, how do you insulate yourself? Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, let's just talk about this talent versus others. Right, So,
Speaker 1: the original thesis of the collective is that disintermediation is
Speaker 1: going to allow creative people to go direct to consumer.
Speaker 1: That thesis when it plays out in video or in
Speaker 1: music or in any other sort of form, essentially you
Speaker 1: end up with a creative class that has not had
Speaker 1: to go through all the steps and all the collaborations
Speaker 1: that they that would normally they would normally go through
Speaker 1: to be successful. Meaning Roseanne Are does not exist without
Speaker 1: ABC putting her on TV and so on, right, Um,
Speaker 1: And so therefore there's a standard there hell too that
Speaker 1: when ABC canceled the show, it's gone and all of
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. On the endverse, Beauty Pie can
Speaker 1: go around saying whatever he says, Disney can't cancel him, right, right,
Speaker 1: so Doesny was their impact? Absolutely? But but but you
Speaker 1: know he's able to continue on. And so in a
Speaker 1: world without those business consequences for behavior, you definitely have
Speaker 1: um challenges in sort of managing and working through that.
Speaker 1: That being said, when you when you really want to
Speaker 1: the sort of the cream sort of rises to the top.
Speaker 1: The reality is those that are super successful, and I
Speaker 1: know we use beauty pies an example. The reality for
Speaker 1: the most part is that the top layers is a
Speaker 1: fairly professional class because they have been over the last
Speaker 1: five years working with brands, delivering on time, creating content
Speaker 1: for third party platforms, taking notes and all of that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. I think where the where the tension
Speaker 1: is is where the biggest tension is when the expectation
Speaker 1: of the partner is not in line with the reality
Speaker 1: of the talent. The partner being any at any third
Speaker 1: party right. And so a TV example would be, well,
Speaker 1: we're broadcast, we should have these rights in deal making,
Speaker 1: or we should be able to control this because we
Speaker 1: do with all our other on air talent, or however
Speaker 1: that may be. The reality is you don't get that
Speaker 1: control because as somebody who's built a massive opportunity outside
Speaker 1: of you, or a brand that thinks they're making a
Speaker 1: commercial when what the talent thinks is a brand of
Speaker 1: content deal meaning you're coming into my show, you're coming
Speaker 1: into my environment. I'm the one who's sort of going
Speaker 1: to be lending you my credibility in the segment. That's
Speaker 1: where a lot of the friction is um in in
Speaker 1: in managing this sort of market place. In the branded
Speaker 1: content side of things. It seems like a lot of
Speaker 1: people in the industry are complaining about how chaotic that
Speaker 1: is with regard to representation of this talent. So many
Speaker 1: different people claiming to speak for you know, influencer X.
Speaker 1: How do you deal with that? Oh, it's that. So
Speaker 1: that part of the market is very high growth and
Speaker 1: barrier to entry is almost zero, right or very limited,
Speaker 1: So we we have whereas on the media side, on
Speaker 1: the content side of the there's there's just much higher
Speaker 1: barriers to entry. So it's very confusing. On two sides.
Speaker 1: You've got I think a buyer market that has not
Speaker 1: figured out who owns the football and in media or
Speaker 1: in creative, in strategy and PR, there's firms that actually
Speaker 1: own the capability and the expertise and the market knowledge.
Speaker 1: In branded content, it could be the brand, could be
Speaker 1: the creative agency, it could be the PR firm, it
Speaker 1: could be some specialist. So so the fact that the
Speaker 1: by side is so fractured is one problem. Because r
Speaker 1: o I, which is what every CMO talks about when
Speaker 1: they have to ask for budget and all that when
Speaker 1: you when you disperse sort of the expertise across a
Speaker 1: bunch of agencies, you end up with with people who
Speaker 1: don't have the same measurement, the same expectation, the same
Speaker 1: quality control, the same standards. So the BY side needs
Speaker 1: to fix itself, I think first before the cell side
Speaker 1: organizes itself and the cell side is everything goes right,
Speaker 1: it's whoever gets the client first, and what the challenges
Speaker 1: on the for the talent is. You know, some version
Speaker 1: of pricing is all over the place, multiple people representing you,
Speaker 1: and when you go back to the sort of the
Speaker 1: perception problem that this talent may be difficult to work with.
Speaker 1: Um nothing like a mismanaged representative in the market to
Speaker 1: sort of further that to cement that reputation. And so
Speaker 1: I in talent needs to take a little bit of
Speaker 1: control in this at the moment, and I think the
Speaker 1: BY side needs to to sort of clean itself up,
Speaker 1: which I think over time, as things grow, um, it
Speaker 1: will have to. So you're hopeful then for change. Well,
Speaker 1: look two years ago it was a billion dollar business.
Speaker 1: You know now that they're saying it's two and a
Speaker 1: half billion, and it's growing at you know, pretty fast,
Speaker 1: um kigers and these are you know, McKenzie and analysis
Speaker 1: of the market. I think at some point cmos are
Speaker 1: gonna go. You know, I can't put fifty million to
Speaker 1: work and get like a PR response, a creative agency response,
Speaker 1: and a media response for the same problem. This is
Speaker 1: not and so I think everyone needs to figure out
Speaker 1: what is it and how are they going to measure it?
Speaker 1: And once that happens, I think I think the cell
Speaker 1: side will also clean up. Because today anyone can get
Speaker 1: to anyone through any door. I think that there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of vetting going on. What's also interesting about
Speaker 1: Studio seventy one is your ownership structure. A number of
Speaker 1: international companies have stakes, and you talk about how that
Speaker 1: came to be and how that positions you in the market. Right,
Speaker 1: So this business is whether you like it or not,
Speaker 1: or want it to be or not as global. Um.
Speaker 1: When we talk about I think we're now at nine
Speaker 1: and a half billion views, that six of them do
Speaker 1: not happen in the United States, UM and so, and
Speaker 1: when people complain about monetization of digital, one of the
Speaker 1: realities is the US market actually even just Google on
Speaker 1: their own does a decent job doing it. It's when
Speaker 1: you add the UK, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, all
Speaker 1: the Brazil, other parts of Latin America where where there's
Speaker 1: where those numbers just are smaller because the economies and
Speaker 1: a number of other factors. And so our thesis was
Speaker 1: if we partnered in local markets with UM law large
Speaker 1: sales houses who also had a lot of content that
Speaker 1: was applicable in short form UM, we could build a
Speaker 1: really interesting global footprint that would lift all boats UM
Speaker 1: and so we partner would proceed in UM. There there
Speaker 1: are the controlling shareholder in the business Germany. In Germany
Speaker 1: they're the leading one of the leading broadcasters of not
Speaker 1: the leading broadcaster in Germany and UM they were going
Speaker 1: along that sort of similar path UM. And I think
Speaker 1: what's interesting about the model is it's in Germany. In
Speaker 1: the US, I'm very I'm very digitally native UM with
Speaker 1: with few exceptions in Germany. Half my content is actually
Speaker 1: mainstream prime time television and and day parts and news
Speaker 1: and a whole bunch of other stuff. But cut down
Speaker 1: to short form, cut cut down to short form, that's
Speaker 1: exactly right. So it's it's the voice in short form,
Speaker 1: the voice of Germany in short form or Germany's next
Speaker 1: top model, or you know shows you haven't heard of
Speaker 1: like Galileo, which is their science show, or their news
Speaker 1: shows and stuff like that, and we bundle that with
Speaker 1: the best of the sort of digital creative community and
Speaker 1: sell that as an ad package. Um and so over
Speaker 1: that that business model we sort of you know, are
Speaker 1: exporting from Germany into France with t F one and
Speaker 1: to Italy with media set And is there further growth
Speaker 1: expected there? Can we see yet more partners that get
Speaker 1: expected in fairness a lot more speed. The turnover in
Speaker 1: broadcasters globally has been pretty pretty astounding, I mean in
Speaker 1: the executives executive turnover at the top where we were
Speaker 1: having our discussions, so I I would expect in the
Speaker 1: next year or so we will have further announcements along
Speaker 1: that way. But what we've done in the interim is,
Speaker 1: I mean in Germany in particular, we've really doubled down
Speaker 1: on that concept. We're we're delivering you know, half the
Speaker 1: reach on most of the shows in terms of monetize
Speaker 1: herble impressions on most of the shows. And I think
Speaker 1: we're really trying to figure out this notion and it's
Speaker 1: not it's not Studio sevenyone, it's it's Studio sevenyone really
Speaker 1: is part of the proceedings sort of entertainment vertical, trying
Speaker 1: to figure out the concept of you know, one reach number, right,
Speaker 1: so a single currency for total reach on a on
Speaker 1: a on a on a program, and and and so
Speaker 1: if if, if we're successful in really achieving that as
Speaker 1: a market standard, we believe a ton of AD dollars
Speaker 1: are going to flow into the to the proceeding ecosystem
Speaker 1: beyond just broadcast and oinos. I thought of your company
Speaker 1: when I saw the news recently on what happened with
Speaker 1: Awesomeness TV, because you guys essentially emerged from that same
Speaker 1: corner of the ecosystem what was known as multi channel networks.
Speaker 1: So many of those companies like your own have certainly
Speaker 1: you know, evolved or pivoted since then. What did you
Speaker 1: guys do right that they apparently, given what you see
Speaker 1: a drop from valuation to sale price, that is not
Speaker 1: a company that I think took a good turn. How
Speaker 1: did what went on here? When you lose Jeffrey Katzenberg
Speaker 1: and Brian Robbins, That would be one big check. It's
Speaker 1: just given how much value those two generated for that business,
Speaker 1: and they were shed when Comcast. I don't know the timing,
Speaker 1: but but but the that departure was clearly not good
Speaker 1: for the business. And you know, I don't know Jordan
Speaker 1: all that well, but I just think he had big
Speaker 1: shoes to fill in that in that role. And I
Speaker 1: think secondarily, they were a little different than us from
Speaker 1: the perspective of that was a digital media brand and
Speaker 1: a production business. So they really sold production as their
Speaker 1: core capability. Um. They didn't have the scale that we
Speaker 1: we have at all um, and so they didn't have
Speaker 1: the diversity so as as go ninety and others leave
Speaker 1: the market, I think it left a big hole in
Speaker 1: in there in their business plan, and I think that
Speaker 1: was that was really I think that was very, very
Speaker 1: challenging for them to navigate out of. But you guys
Speaker 1: have a production arm as well, you do some long forms,
Speaker 1: some scripted, how is that going? We're seeing the same
Speaker 1: trends that that is a tough market for companies like
Speaker 1: ours today. I mean, I thought that for a while,
Speaker 1: the conventional wisdom was, Oh, there's Netflix, there's Amazon, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be Apple. So many buyers wanted his long form scripted,
Speaker 1: maybe not scripted. Is it not that simple? It is,
Speaker 1: but but our cork. So if you think about what
Speaker 1: was the core competency of what we sold and what
Speaker 1: the opportunity was for us on the production side was Look,
Speaker 1: when we did the Fred movies, those were massive hits
Speaker 1: on Nickelodeon. That was a pretty big franchise that was successful.
Speaker 1: That was that was the early days of what became
Speaker 1: Studio seventy one. I think a lot of people thought
Speaker 1: that was gonna there was gonna be a lot more
Speaker 1: of that translation where this creator class adds a lot
Speaker 1: of value for O T T is they can drive
Speaker 1: tons of subscribers and engagement in those ecosystems, and so
Speaker 1: that was that was a core capability of ours. What
Speaker 1: has happened when a lot of the market entrants just
Speaker 1: decided that you know, folded their their tents over the
Speaker 1: last year, the other buyers aren't looking for that in
Speaker 1: the same volumes. So it's just our capability is still there.
Speaker 1: It's very applicable where we've actually transferring into businesses like podcasting,
Speaker 1: where we know we can generate audiences and have people
Speaker 1: engage with our content in a pretty pretty interesting way.
Speaker 1: But I think Netflix isn't dying to do a bunch
Speaker 1: of influencer content would be the answer to that. I
Speaker 1: don't know that Apple is um and so they're gonna
Speaker 1: do it in smaller amounts. So I think it just
Speaker 1: makes it more challenging. So what instead of being a
Speaker 1: unique player or one of a small group of people
Speaker 1: who can execute in this realm, we're now in a
Speaker 1: long list of producers selling projects, which makes I think
Speaker 1: the world infinitely more difficult. So we're talking about giants
Speaker 1: like Netflix and Amazon, but we should really spend more
Speaker 1: time on the giants you deal with on the ad
Speaker 1: support inside. You mentioned you're still very YouTube center centerance company,
Speaker 1: so you know, give us the status check on them.
Speaker 1: But Facebook, Snapchat, how are these partners evolving? So so
Speaker 1: let's let's let's just take YouTube. YouTube is obviously continues
Speaker 1: to grow and user engagement because I think at some point,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's two billion monthly people. It's
Speaker 1: quite a few people. At some point. I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's gonna be more users on the platform at
Speaker 1: an exponential growth. But the watch time people, the amount
Speaker 1: of time people are spending on that platform continues to
Speaker 1: grow in a very very healthy way. And so if
Speaker 1: you want to reach as an advertiser eighteen to thirty
Speaker 1: four year old demos and below right we'll call it
Speaker 1: twelve to thirty four, I think you're gonna be hard
Speaker 1: pres us finding video inventory of that scale UM on
Speaker 1: other platforms. I think it's just going to be very,
Speaker 1: very very challenging UM. So they're for all for for
Speaker 1: the long term, they're looking great. And for us, there
Speaker 1: are great there are best partners. That relates to that.
Speaker 1: They're ad technology is really good, their content claiming technologies
Speaker 1: incredibly you know solid. So it works for business like
Speaker 1: us to be on a on a platform like that
Speaker 1: where we're seeing other growth in video that we're like
Speaker 1: super excited about, areas like O T t um we are.
Speaker 1: We've been publishing a ton of apps, not not a
Speaker 1: single We're not focused on a single brand because that
Speaker 1: that just wouldn't fit into our business model. But we
Speaker 1: have like sixty or seventy apps, for instance in Roku,
Speaker 1: ranging from family entertainment to gaming entertainment, animation and things
Speaker 1: like that, and we've seen a pretty pretty heavy pickup
Speaker 1: and not only ad revenue but viewership on that platform,
Speaker 1: same with M with Amazon Fire UM and and other
Speaker 1: sort of connected devices UM and, so we expect to
Speaker 1: be selling more media UM through that platform, you know,
Speaker 1: towards the end of this year and next year. So
Speaker 1: we see high growth for us in monetizing O T
Speaker 1: T traffic UM and probably like we did on the
Speaker 1: YouTube side, will be part of it will be our
Speaker 1: own distributed content, and part of it will be third
Speaker 1: parties so long as it sort of hits that youth
Speaker 1: culture topic. UM. Facebook doesn't allow us to monetize advertising
Speaker 1: where we're the seller. We do have brands on the platform.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, some are doing well, some are
Speaker 1: not doing well. I think it's very much hit or miss,
Speaker 1: by the way, not similar to YouTube. I just think
Speaker 1: they're not as advanced as it relates to video and
Speaker 1: video monetization. But we we have high hopes for them
Speaker 1: to sort of really get that right over the next
Speaker 1: year or two, which I would assume they will. UM.
Speaker 1: Instagram TV is super interesting. We're seeing a ton of
Speaker 1: engagement there. Again, not monetized today, but we really like
Speaker 1: the platform. And on Snap you know, Snap is is
Speaker 1: by invitation only, right, so we've been like the guys
Speaker 1: in the and I had to describe us like, you know,
Speaker 1: the guys outside the nightclub, like please get me in, um,
Speaker 1: But we're finally getting it. So we were just you know,
Speaker 1: starting to produce a channel with world Star Hip Hop
Speaker 1: um for for Snap So that'll be our first foray
Speaker 1: um in there. And you know, again another very highly
Speaker 1: engaged environment. Um. Despite all the monthly active user issues
Speaker 1: and all the growth issues that are in the public market,
Speaker 1: when you really get down to it, there's just the
Speaker 1: people that are on that platform are consuming a ton
Speaker 1: of content. So it's a good place for us to be.
Speaker 1: So I mean one last question. These issues that you
Speaker 1: just cited, uh, any that we haven't talked about yet
Speaker 1: that are notable that you're saying anyone who's in the
Speaker 1: digital content game right now is focused on Well, look, Um,
Speaker 1: if you think about what I think is going to happen,
Speaker 1: then the question is who When you're starting to see
Speaker 1: what Viacom is doing, you know they bought who say
Speaker 1: they bought vid Kan They've got awesomeness. Now, Um, I
Speaker 1: think you're gonna see consolidation in this space, um, just
Speaker 1: because of of all the issues and the variable sort
Speaker 1: of we've discussed UM and I think that's you know,
Speaker 1: definitely the drum that is beating the loudest in the
Speaker 1: market is that this business you know, you know, look,
Speaker 1: we talked about nine and a half billion viewers views
Speaker 1: a month and all the stuff. The reality is we're
Speaker 1: we're very small when compared to any media company. Right,
Speaker 1: We're in the hundreds of millions of revenue, not not billions,
Speaker 1: and so you know, in order to have scale in
Speaker 1: the market where you're dealing with giants, we gotta get
Speaker 1: a lot bigger, and still it will be relatively small
Speaker 1: to add the services are brand partners need the services
Speaker 1: our talent, you know, partners need and to to service
Speaker 1: the market. The markets, there's gonna be fewer but larger businesses.
Speaker 1: And they may be inside companies like a Vicom, or
Speaker 1: they may be um, they may be independent that that
Speaker 1: that I don't know. But you're sizeable enough where you
Speaker 1: yourself at Studio seventy one could be an acquisition target
Speaker 1: or do guys, I well, we already have we already
Speaker 1: been acquired, we already have partners. The question is how
Speaker 1: do we get bigger faster? Is really the question I
Speaker 1: think we have as as we get into this space,
Speaker 1: and we'll see how that plays out in the coming year.
Speaker 1: Thanks Reside for coming than for having me again. That's
Speaker 1: been another episode of Correctly Business. Tune in next week
Speaker 1: from more interesting conversations with some of the brightest minds
Speaker 1: and media. Let us know what you think of the podcast.
Speaker 1: Either drop a comment to the iTunes store or send
Speaker 1: us an email at podcasts at variety dot com. There