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📊 Read the MRI-Simmons Video Podcast Report: mrisimmons.com

Tim sits down with Emily Williams, Consumer Expert at MRI-Simmons, for a return visit built around fresh data from their annual podcast study — 10,000 US podcast consumers surveyed, weighted and projected to the total US audience. The topic: why the definition of a podcast is breaking down, why that's actually good news, and what the numbers say about where streaming, podcasting, and creator content are all converging.

Only 36% of podcast consumers still define a podcast as audio-only. In 2021, that number was over 60%.
The format-first definition of podcasting is collapsing — and Emily's data shows it happening faster than anyone expected. Today 13% of podcast consumers define a podcast as a video program on an app. Another 8% — roughly 7 million active podcast consumers — say they're not even sure how to define a podcast anymore. Emily's read: podcasting isn't losing its identity. It's becoming bigger than the format that originally created it.

• 1:26 – How MRI-Simmons surveys 10,000 US podcast consumers annually and what the study measures
• 3:00 – How the definition of a podcast has shifted: from audio-first to format-agnostic
• 4:47 – The 8% who actively consume podcasts but can't define what they're consuming

96% of podcast consumers still listen to audio. 89% watch video. Video isn't replacing audio — it's adding to it.
The winner-versus-loser framing the industry keeps reaching for doesn't match the data. Nearly three-quarters of podcast consumers — 74% — say video is an enhancement to audio, not a replacement. Two-thirds say they prefer to watch video when it's offered. And 53% say that when they're watching a video podcast, they ignore the video and just listen anyway. The availability of video matters more to consumers than the constant visual attention. They want the option. They don't always use it.

• 9:00 – Why video and audio are complementary formats, not competing ones
• 10:20 – Why 53% of video podcast viewers ignore the video while listening
• 11:30 – The multi-platform consumer: TV at home, audio in the car, clip on Instagram at night

Social media clips have officially replaced word of mouth as the #1 way people discover podcasts.
Up until 2024, the number one podcast discovery mechanism was a friend or colleague recommending a show. Starting in 2024, social media surpassed verbal recommendations. Today 44% of podcast consumers discover shows through social media — ahead of recommendations, app directories, online searches, and advertising. A two-hour episode generates dozens of short clips. Those clips circulate on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. The show finds the consumer before the consumer finds the show.

• 18:07 – How social media surpassed word of mouth as the #1 podcast discovery channel in 2024
• 18:30 – Why video creates the short-clip discovery engine that audio alone never could
• 19:45 – Why consumers discover the clip before they discover the podcast — and why that's lower friction

23 million consumers say podcast time is replacing streaming time. Netflix is paying attention.
Podcasts are not just another content category for streaming platforms — they are increasingly a competitor for the same hours. 23 million consumers say their podcast time is replacing video streaming. Another 32 million say it's replacing traditional live TV. Nearly 60% of podcast consumers say they find podcasts more engaging than TV. And 70% say they actively seek out other content from publishers once they find a program they like — TV shows, movies, live events, merchandise. That's not passive media consumption. That's fandom. That's why Netflix and YouTube are in a bidding war for creator franchises.

• 12:54 – Why streaming platforms see podcasts as a competitor for attention, not just a content category
• 13:30 – Why 55% of podcast consumers — about 50 million people — go to YouTube for podcasts
• 16:21 – Why streaming services acquiring podcasts are buying loyal audiences, trusted creators, and communities

By 2031, we'll stop asking whether something is a podcast or a TV show. We'll just ask whether it has an audience.
Emily's five-year prediction: the podcast-versus-TV distinction disappears. The relevant distinction becomes scripted versus unscripted. The future media landscape will be organized around creators, communities, and interests — not formats. Brands that create belonging and give audiences reasons to return will win. The format will be irrelevant.

• 21:19 – Emily's 2031 prediction: the end of the podcast-versus-TV conversation
• 21:45 – Why scripted vs. unscripted is the distinction that actually matters to consumers
• 22:10 – Why the future asks "does it have an audience?" not "is it a podcast or a TV show?"

📊 Read the MRI-Simmons Podcast Study highlights deck — free: mrisimmons.com
Connect with Emily Williams on LinkedIn · MRI-Simmons

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Pat Taggart, filmmaker and founder of Sky Blue Creative, to discuss his new documentary No One Died: The Wing Bowl Story — the 26-year history of Philadelphia's most chaotic winter tradition, and what self-distributing an independent film in today's streaming market actually looks like when the major players come calling with contracts designed to take everything.

A radio joke in 1993. 30,000 people in an arena by the end.

 Al Morganti threw out a throwaway comment on the air — the Eagles are never going to the Super Bowl, let's have a chicken wing-eating contest instead. Two guys at a folding table in the lobby of a Ritz-Carlton-caliber hotel. Two hundred drunk Philadelphians showed up. The hotel told them never to come back. The next year, 700 people showed up in an ice storm to watch year two at Mike Schmidt's bar on Market Street. It grew from there.

• 3:01 – How a passing comment on Philadelphia sports talk radio became a 26-year tradition
• 4:15 – Year one: a folding table at a hotel, 200 hooligans, and a horrified management team
• 5:39 – What the Florida Film Festival reviewer called "strangely heartfelt" — and why they were right

For 364 days a year, the participants were anonymous. 

For one day, 30,000 people knew their name.

 Landscapers, security guards, plumbers, mailmen. Wing Bowl gave regular people a moment that almost nobody gets — walking into a packed arena with 30,000 people on their feet screaming for them. The community that formed around it was a brotherhood and sisterhood that reunited every year. The chaos on the surface was real. So was everything underneath it.

• 5:54 – Why Wing Bowl was as much about community as it was about spectacle
• 6:46 – How Pat approached the tonal shift from harmless joke to massive cultural event
• 17:41 – The universal story: the little guy getting their shine, freedom of expression, a runaway train

A truck exploded in the parking lot. A man was attacked by dogs carrying grilled cheese. Someone ate three candles.

 The behind-the-scenes stories that didn't make the final cut are as good as the ones that did. Mitch Williams — the relief pitcher famous for giving up the World Series-winning home run to Joe Carter — parked his truck over smoldering tailgate embers and it blew up. A Wing Bowl qualifier was attacked by stray dogs on his walk to the studio because they smelled the grilled cheese in his backpack. One contestant's qualifying stunt was eating actual wax candles. Pat had 40 characters in the film and says he could have made another film with 100 more.

• 14:59 – The Mitch Williams truck explosion story that didn't make the cut
• 15:30 – The grilled cheese dog attack that almost got a guy disqualified
• 16:10 – The candle eater and the philosophy of finding the best collection of characters possible

Two of the largest production companies on the planet made offers. Pat walked away from both.

During COVID, major streamers were buying documentaries at massive multiples — seven figures for content that wasn't even exceptional, just available. The pendulum has swung hard in the other direction: $300,000 documentaries now selling for $30,000 because filmmakers have no leverage. Two major production companies approached Pat about Wing Bowl. Their contracts would have removed Pat as director, removed the producer, severed all financial and name attachment, and given them full narrative control. Pat said take it out of the contract. They said that's not our intention. He walked.

• 19:23 – Why the major streamers are now buying $300K documentaries for $30K
• 19:48 – What the production company contracts actually said — and why Pat walked
• 20:30 – The self-distribution decision: aggregator over distributor, creative control over upfront money

Self-distribution is more expensive upfront. It's also the only way to keep the film you made.

 Pat went through an aggregator instead of a traditional distributor to get the film on Prime Video, Apple TV, and YouTube. It cost more out of pocket. But the film that's on those platforms is the film he intended to make, and he's still attached to it by name and financially. His wife's cousin asked if it was on Fandango. It isn't. Discoverability in a world of infinite shelves is the next problem — and it's the same problem every content creator faces.

• 18:53 – Why Pat passed on Fandango and chose to stay on three major platforms
• 19:11 – The discoverability problem: you have to be in all the stores, on all the shelves
• 20:30 – What self-distribution via aggregator actually costs and what it protects

Connect with Pat Taggart on LinkedIn · pat@skybluecreative.com · wingbowlmovie.com

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Shawne Merriman, three-time Pro Bowler and CEO of Lights Out Sports TV, to trace the journey from defensive end to streaming architect — and unpack the 5G broadcast technology he's been quietly building for a year that could fundamentally change the economics of live sports delivery.

From the field to the production truck to the boardroom — how Shawne was taking notes the whole time.

 Shawne Merriman started asking camera operators questions during pregame warmups in San Diego. He went from NFL AM at 3 a.m. — the broadcast boot camp that became Good Morning Football — to Fox Sports, ESPN, the WWE Network, and MMA promotion. By the time he launched Lights Out Extreme Fighting on Fox Sports Regionals in the same timeslot UFC vacated, he had already spent years picking up intel at Fubo's offices, sitting in Pluto's LA suite when they had 12 employees, and watching the streaming industry build itself from the inside.

• 2:39 – Why Shawne was asking camera operators questions during pregame warmups
• 4:15 – NFL AM: the 3 a.m. broadcast boot camp that became Good Morning Football
• 6:14 – Pitching Lights Out Extreme Fighting to Fox Sports the day UFC left — and landing it

Programmatic alone doesn't work unless you're Pluto. Direct ad sales is how you build a real business.

 FAST looked promising — until Shawne ran the numbers. Programmatic revenue doesn't scale for a sports property unless you're already at Pluto-level monthly actives. The model that actually works: direct-sold ads anchored by live sports, with enough complementary content on the platform to create a trickle-down viewing effect when the game ends. It's the same math Paramount+ is running with the NFL and Landman. Shawne's running a version of it with LXF, Glory Kickboxing, World Poker Tour, and high school football.

• 9:17 – How Shawne learned the FAST business from the inside — including what programmatic actually pays
• 18:32 – Why direct ad sales is the only way to meaningfully grow revenue for a live sports property
• 20:47 – The trickle-down effect: why live sports is the top of the funnel, not the whole funnel

One signal to a million people. The 5G broadcast technology that could change live sports economics.

 The fundamental cost problem in live sports streaming: one million concurrent viewers means one million simultaneous CDN signals. Costs scale linearly with audience. Shawne has spent the last year and a half embedded with a company building 5G broadcast technology that flips that model — one signal delivered to millions via low-power tower infrastructure, with no congestion, no dropout, and built-in compatibility with the new chipsets coming to mobile devices. The announcement hasn't been made yet. But the math is already solved.

• 13:51 – Why CDN costs are the live sports streaming industry's biggest unspoken problem
• 14:54 – The 5G broadcast technology: one signal to millions, no congestion, no dropout
• 15:26 – How new mobile chipsets unlock billions of addressable devices as 6G comes online

DTC wins. The platforms that figure it out first take the long game.

Shawne called it three to four years ago: the streaming services that win long term are the ones that solve direct-to-consumer. Not because of price — most consumers will absorb a couple extra dollars. Because of experience. The navigational friction of jumping between Netflix, Paramount+, ESPN, and Hulu is the real complaint. Whoever solves the bridge — seamless access, unified data, direct fan engagement — owns the next decade.

• 11:00 – Why DTC is the only long-term winning strategy in streaming distribution
• 15:52 – How the closed network model lets platforms push products and rewards directly to viewers
• 17:06 – The math problem streaming is now in: responsible scaling, not growth at all costs

How high school football is paving the way for high school sports streaming.

St. Francis vs. IMG Academy. Shawne has exclusive broadcast rights, drone production planned, fan engagement built in, and conversations underway with multiple networks and platforms. He produced the East-West Shrine Bowl practices live for the first time in the event's 100-year history. High school sports is the next frontier — and he's building the production infrastructure for it.

• 21:37 – The St. Francis vs. IMG Academy game: why Shawne expects it to be the most watched high school football game in the country
• 22:00 – Fan engagement as the core production principle: if fans feel connected, viewers follow
• 22:30 – The East-West Shrine Bowl: 100-year-old event, first-ever live stream practices

Connect with Shawne Merriman on LinkedIn · @ShawneMerriman on all platforms · Lights Out Sports TV

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Mark Stenberg, Senior Media Reporter at Adweek, to unpack the real ripple effects of Meta's $17 billion teen settlement — what it actually means for media buyers, whether YouTube gets dragged into the same restrictions, where youth advertising budgets go if mobile supply shrinks, and why the microdrama format might be the most interesting disruption nobody is talking about yet.

$18 billion sounds like a reckoning but it's only $1.2 billion a year for a company that made $60 billion last quarter.

 The coalition of state attorneys general asked for $200 billion. They settled for $12 billion cash plus a conditional $5 billion — spread over ten years. Meta's stock went up. The more interesting part isn't the number. It's the conditions: reduced notifications during school hours, dark mode after midnight, a two-hour daily usage cap for teens. And the conditional $5 billion only triggers if YouTube, TikTok, and Snap agree to implement the same restrictions — Meta's lawyers took hostages on the way out.

• 1:47 – The settlement breakdown: $12B certain, $5B conditional, $1B to the Texas AG
• 2:44 – The teen restrictions: notifications, dark mode, usage caps
• 7:09 – Why Meta's legal strategy was "if we're going down, we're all going down"

The media buy remains unchanged.
By and large, the answer from agencies is: we're establishing benchmarks and watching the next 6-12 months. The demographic affected is less than 1% of Meta's revenue. Teens don't have the disposable income of any other demographic. But if YouTube, TikTok, and Snap all get pulled into the same restrictions — and the entire social ecosystem adopts teen safeguards simultaneously — that's a different conversation entirely. The brands paying attention are the ones in fast food, gaming, and fashion.

• 3:35 – What media buyers actually said: benchmarks, not budget shifts
• 5:00 – Why less than 1% of Meta's revenue comes from this demographic
• 6:05 – Australia's under-16 social media ban and the broader legislative trajectory

YouTube is different but those differences are disappearing.
YouTube has never really been a social media company — it lacks the social graph, it's consumed more like television, and it's been more proactive on parental controls. But Instagram is launching Instagram TV. Microdramas are making streaming look like social. The distinctions that protect YouTube today are eroding. Mark's read: YouTube voluntarily adopts some teen-friendly policies to avoid bad press, but doesn't end up looking exactly like Meta.

• 9:16 – The CPM gap between YouTube mobile and YouTube on the living room screen
• 10:26 – Why YouTube's distinctions from social media are continuing to disappear
• 12:00 – Why YouTube lacking a social graph is one of its biggest internal challenges

The biggest creators are acting like media companies.
YouTube is paying creators to not talk to Netflix. Jay Shetty. Tom Segura. The talent wars are accelerating — and Mark wrote the cover story on it. The biggest YouTube channels are functioning as standalone IP. Spotify is a dark horse. Fast platforms and institutional capital are getting involved. In 12 months, Spotify will have video, YouTube will have podcasts, Netflix will have music. The platform distinctions we have today won't exist.

• 13:01 – Why YouTube is paying creators to stay off Netflix
• 13:36 – Mark's Adweek cover story: creators hitting an inflection point
• 15:00 – The talent wars: signing creators like unseen NBA prospects

Microdramas: the addictiveness of social scrolling plus the IP of Hollywood.
A company out of Tel Aviv is using AI to cut licensed Hollywood IP into five-minute, ten-clip highlight reels. A company out of Ukraine is building original IP for the format. The microdrama genre has been massive in China for years. Mark's thesis: if you combine mobile scrolling addiction with genuinely compelling short-form IP, that's a potential sea change — and the dominant player in that space hasn't emerged in the US yet.

• 16:17 – Why microdramas are the format Mark is most interested in right now
• 17:00 – The Tel Aviv company cutting Hollywood IP into bite-sized streaming
• 19:14 – Quibi was six years early. The format is now arriving on time.

📰 Read Mark's piece: What Meta's Teen Settlement Means for Media Buyers
More from Mark at Adweek: adweek.com/contributor/m

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with David Dembowski, Streaming TV Architect, to break down the business of live sports streaming through the lens of the Five D's — Digital, Data, Distribution, Discovery, and Delight — and why a 62-second streaming delay during the Super Bowl is more than an engineering inconvenience. It's a business problem that touches every one of them.

Why a 62-second delay isn't a tech problem but a failure in customer delight.
 During Super Bowl 60, Stats Perform placed spotters inside Levi's Stadium and measured the gap between on-field action and on-screen delivery across every major platform. Streaming viewers waited up to 62 seconds. Peacock — the best-performing streaming platform — ran 48 seconds behind. Broadcast ran 19 seconds. When your most forward-facing digital platforms are creating a lag in the real-time experience, it shows up in the user experience, in sports betting, and in the ad product.

• 0:00 – The 62-second streaming delay stat from Super Bowl 60
• 1:39 – Why the gap between the game and the screen is a business problem across all five D's
• 19:08 – How latency directly impacts sports betting and prediction markets during live events

How The Five D's: Digital, Data, Distribution, Discovery, Delight drive Streaming TV Success
 David's framework for how publishers need to think about their transition from broadcast to streaming-first businesses. Digital first means foundational infrastructure — not just putting content online. Data means addressability, reach and frequency, targeting and measurement. Distribution means meeting the consumer on the platform they prefer. Discovery means universal findability. And Delight means none of the first four matter if the experience fails the fan.

• 1:39 – The Five D's defined: why delight is the one that ties everything together
• 4:05 – What digital first actually means: foundational infrastructure, not surface-level streaming
• 5:04 – Why organizational structure is the number one challenge for traditional broadcasters going digital

Why Walled gardens are coming down — and Peacock distributing on YouTube is the proof.
 For years, walled gardens meant social platforms. Now they mean content distribution channels. Peacock announcing distribution on YouTube is a generational shift — a legacy broadcaster meeting a younger audience where they actually live. David's read: organizations that understand the fundamental shift in consumption are tearing walls down. The ones that don't are watching Amazon double the NBA's national game count to 150 games and bring 30 new advertisers into sports who had never bought TV before.

• 10:47 – Why Peacock distributing on YouTube is a generational distribution bet
• 12:26 – How the NBA went from 75 to 150 national games by adding Amazon as a partner
• 16:14 – Who's winning in streaming: Amazon, Prime, and the Thursday Night Football model

Discovery is still broken.
 Apple TV does a Friday night MLB doubleheader. If your team is on Apple TV that night, you have to subscribe on the spot to watch it. That's not a discovery problem — that's a discovery plus access problem. Universal discovery is the next challenge publishers need to solve, and Fox's acquisition of Roku is the most interesting move in that direction: an operating system with massive household penetration layered with content that can now be promoted and surfaced across it.

• 13:15 – Why universal discovery is the unsolved problem for sports streaming
• 14:09 – Apple TV's MLB model and why access barriers compound discovery problems
• 15:24 – The Fox/Roku acquisition as a discovery and distribution play

What is 'Social Appointment Viewing'?
 Stadium seats are finite. Ticket prices are prohibitive. But the desire for shared viewing is growing — the World Cup proved it in neighborhoods, movie theaters, and bars globally. The relationship between live sports, sports betting, latency, and the dual-screen experience is the next convergence point David is watching closely.

• 17:58 – Watch parties and social appointment viewing as a growing trend
• 18:43 – The World Cup and Love Island as proof of concept for shared viewing experiences
• 19:08 – How latency becomes a critical problem when sports betting is on the second screen

Connect with David Dembowski on LinkedIn

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Giovanni Galvez, from SyncWords, for a special webinar replay recorded live — including a real-time demo where SyncWords translated the State of Streaming broadcast into Spanish, French, and German simultaneously while the conversation was happening. The topic: how platforms are using live localization to reach the 80% of the world that doesn't speak English — and how much audience they're leaving on the table by not doing it.

Did you know that 80% of the world doesn't speak English? It's the viewership cliff your team missed.

 Streaming platforms are spending billions on sports rights and then broadcasting those events in a language 80% of the world can't follow. SyncWords' data shows the drop-off happens fast — within the first few minutes of a stream, when a viewer realizes the audio isn't for them and bails to find another outlet. Language isn't a nice-to-have accessibility feature. It's a churn lever.

• 1:17 – Telemundo had to publish a correction to their first-round World Cup viewership data — and why language is the context
• 2:03 – Giovanni's origin story: growing up in Washington D.C. translating Knight Rider for his family in real time
• 12:07 – Where drop-off actually happens in a live stream and why language is a primary driver

Why is 'live localization' an entirely different technical problem than subtitling a pre-recorded show?

A live stream has to be ingested, transcribed, translated via LLM, formatted for broadcast-standard caption protocols (608, DVB, WebVTT), synchronized to the video, and delivered — in under a few seconds, in multiple languages simultaneously, with the emotional tone of the original speaker preserved. SyncWords has been solving this for over ten years, and Gio walked through every layer of the gap live on air.

• 3:28 – What SyncWords actually does: closed captioning, live translation, voice dubbing, and live sign language
• 5:33 – The technical gap: LLM output, broadcast codec standards, HLS delivery, synchronization
• 7:12 – Why live dubbing is interpretation, not translation — and why the synthetic voice has to carry the emotion

Jewelry TV launched a new Spanish-speaking market 24/7 without adding a new team - find out how.
One of SyncWords' clients runs a 24/7 English-language home shopping channel. SyncWords takes that live feed and delivers it in Spanish — subtitles and voice dubbing — in real time. The brand built a whole separate Spanish identity around it. The operational lift to enter a new market went from building a production team to pressing go. That's the ROI case: test a market with existing content before betting the farm on it.

• 9:07 – How Jewelry TV built a Spanish-language brand on top of an automated English feed
• 9:48 – Reaching a new market without new operational lift
• 10:50 – How WWE uses market-specific commentators for major markets — and why automation is the entry point for everyone else

76% of people prefer to shop and spend in their native language.
 A California university added Chinese subtitles to its commencement live stream and saw viewer numbers spike — and announced they'd expand to more languages. A single house-of-worship event ran 80 simultaneous language outputs for the first time ever. The tier-one creator economy is just starting to apply this. When a Spanish-speaking viewer hears their favorite sport called in Spanish for the first time, they don't leave. They want to know what else they missed.

• 13:38 – Language as a churn lever: how localization keeps viewers engaged
• 14:17 – University commencements, house of worship, and the 80-language live event
• 15:21 – How The Chosen built global language communities using local scholars — and how SyncWords makes that available to anyone

The live demo: this podcast was being translated into Spanish, French, and German the entire time.
Gio revealed mid-episode that he had connected the State of Streaming live stream to SyncWords' system at the start of the session. The entire conversation was being translated and streamed in three languages simultaneously — without Tim knowing. The demo wasn't a setup. It was physics.

• 15:58 – Gio reveals the broadcast has been live-translating since the start
• 16:28 – Screen share: watching Tim speak German subtitles in real time
• 17:29 – What's coming at IBC Amsterdam: next-generation subtitle standards and one-click live translation for any language on earth

Connect with Giovanni Galvez on LinkedIn · SyncWords

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Read Josh's most recent piece on State of Streaming here 👈

Tim sits down with Josh Stein, Founder of Attention Capital, to unpack why capital markets keep mispricing attention, what makes an audience durable enough to finance, and why the creator economy is the next private credit boom — whether Wall Street knows it yet or not.

Some attention compounds. Some decays. The difference is what's financeable.
Josh spent the first decade of his career in investment banking at Bear Stearns and leveraged finance law at Cahill Gordon — then spent fifteen years applying those dark arts to media at Vice, Univision, and Guillermo del Toro's Murata Studios. The aha moment came early: help Dr. Phil build two New York Times number one bestsellers using the same infrastructure private equity uses to underwrite a cash-flowing asset. That's the thesis that became Attention Capital.

• 1:10 – From a speeding ticket outside Schenectady to pricing attention like an asset class
• 3:30 – Bear Stearns, leveraged buyouts, and what Wall Street taught Josh about building media businesses
• 6:00 – The pro bono moment that split the atom: finance discipline meets the creator economy

What makes an audience durable? They show up unpaid, unprompted, and predictably returning.
Most viewership is noise. Durable audience is the audience that comes back without being paid to, without being prompted by the algorithm — and does so predictably enough that you can model it. If you can model it, you can finance it. That's the entire framework in one sentence.

• 8:40 – What durable audience means and why most viewership doesn't qualify
• 9:32 – The difference between algorithmic traffic and a community that comes back regardless
• 10:42 – Why predictability is the bridge between audience and credit

AQS: the Attention Quality Score does for attention what Nielsen does for viewership.
Attention Capital's underwriting framework scores audience across three pillars — durability (does it return unpaid?), cohesion (is it a community or a collection of random people?), and conversion (does it reliably generate cash?). It's not analytics. It's underwriting. The question isn't what happened — it's whether Attention Capital gets paid back.

• 11:13 – How AQS differs from Nielsen: underwriting vs. analytics
• 12:57 – The four-quadrant framework: deterministic, stochastic, qualitative, quantitative
• 13:06 – Why these aren't venture bets — they're SMEs with three to five years of operating history

The capital is for the hoodie company. And for getting off the hamster wheel.
A creator with a durable audience and a brand deal is one missed deadline away from a crisis. The capital Attention Capital deploys isn't for the content — it's for the third and fourth lines of business the audience can support: the studio, the podcast, the merch line, the holding company spine that transforms Tim Rowe into Tim Rowe's company. That's the exit multiple inflection. That's the point.

• 15:03 – How the capital conversation actually starts: a time problem, not a money problem
• 16:00 – Growth capital for the third line of business and professionalizing the org
• 23:22 – Why a creator with three to five years of operating history is a boring, high-margin SME that can't walk into Chase

TKO/WWE quit trying to be Netflix and made $2B.
Building and maintaining a streaming platform is a pie-eating contest — win and your prize is more pie, more capex, more customer service, more churn. TKO solved it by owning what they're best at and selling the rights four ways: Netflix gets appointment viewing, NBCU gets cord-cutter repellent, ESPN gets anchor events, Paramount+ gets live differentiation. Brilliant business. Simple business. $2B in twelve months.

• 17:55 – Why TKO's distribution strategy is a masterclass in IP, audience, and distribution
• 18:30 – What streaming services each got from the WWE deal and why it works for all four
• 20:15 – Does the Paramount/WBD deal close? Josh's read.

YouTube-native filmmakers are building durable audiences that translate to the box office.
Talk to Me. Backrooms. Obsession. These aren't anomalies — they're physics. Build a durable audience around a specific type of content, then serve it to them in a new window. They show up. Josh's thesis: horror is the easy proof of concept. The really interesting test is when this model slips into genres that aren't so on the nose.

• 20:54 – Why film is where Josh is most excited about the Attention Capital thesis
• 21:06 – Talk to Me, Backrooms, Obsession: why YouTube-to-theatrical isn't a fluke
• 22:30 – What happens when this model moves beyond horror into other genres

Connect with Josh Stein on LinkedIn · Attention Capital on Substack

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Michael Beach, author of Screen Wars and Publisher of State of the Screens, to work through convergent TV, why local advertising holds the keys to the next billion-dollar streaming exit, what $100 CPMs actually look like in the math, and why the consumer settled the YouTube-is-TV debate years ago.

📰 Read Michael's piece on What Changes as YouTube becomes TV first here
📖 Get the book Screen Wars on Amazon 

The next billion-dollar streaming exit will come from the burbs.

 Every major exit in ad tech over the last decade — Vibe, Simplifi, Madhive — has one thing in common: they weren't chasing the top 200 national brands. They were serving local and niche advertisers in markets that nobody else bothered to build for. Traditional TV gets 80% of its revenue from its top 100 advertisers. Facebook built one of the highest-margin ad products in history by going the opposite direction — 10 million smaller advertisers. The math is clear. The industry just keeps ignoring it.

• 1:13 – Why the best ad tech exits come from local and niche, not national high-profile brands
• 3:21 – Why 190 of 210 media markets get no measurement and no product built for them
• 3:49 – How Cross Screen Media was built for the markets everyone else ignored

YouTube is TV. The consumer settled that debate. What's next?

Michael writes about YouTube being TV and people lose their minds. But ask a kid. Ask yourself what you default to when you can't find anything on the app you're paying for. YouTube already commands a third of total TV time — and Michael thinks it can reach the ceiling NBC, ABC, and CBS shared in the broadcast era. The ad product hasn't caught up yet. That's not a red flag. That's the runway.

• 9:38 – Why YouTube is clearly TV to the consumer — even if Madison Avenue hasn't accepted it
• 11:10 – Could YouTube reach a 33% share of total TV time the way the big three broadcasters once did
• 12:48 – Why defaulting to YouTube when you can't find anything to watch is the behavior that changes everything

$100 CPMs aren't crazy. They're already happening in political.

The model is simple: ad inventory is shrinking as viewing shifts to streaming — fewer hours are ad-supported, and those that are carry a fraction of linear's ad load. By 2035, Michael's model shows roughly 11% fewer total impressions than today, against a market that's grown 10%. That math compounds into a CPM surge. A car dealership in Atlanta geo-targeted to in-market buyers within 20 miles already produces a $1,000 effective CPM. Political advertisers in battleground states are already paying $100 CPMs on broadcast. The number isn't the shock — it's that streaming hasn't gotten there yet.

• 13:56 – Why shrinking ad inventory plus market growth compounds into $100 CPMs
• 14:30 – The car dealership in Atlanta: how addressable targeting creates a $1,000 effective CPM
• 16:00 – Why political advertising is the test lab where the future of streaming measurement gets proven first

The theater floor tells you what streaming can't yet monetize.

Box office attendance, adjusted for inflation, is still 35% below 2019 levels. Nobody has figured out how to make a $200 million movie work on streaming economics. The studios haven't solved it. Netflix has pulled back on big-budget film spending. Until someone cracks the code on premium theatrical-to-streaming monetization, the big screen stays in distress — and streaming budgets stay rationalized.

• 17:36 – Why streaming still can't monetize a $200M movie effectively
• 18:00 – Box office at 35% below 2019 in inflation-adjusted terms — and what that means for content spend
• 18:47 – Whether the Paramount/WBD deal ever closes — and why the economics of legacy media are more challenged than anyone in ad sales wants to admit

Connect with Michael Beach on LinkedIn · State of the Screens · Screen Wars (book)

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

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Tim sits down with Simeon McMillan, Principal of Accrued Interest, to work through four of the most consequential questions in streaming right now — the Netflix engagement panic, the YouTube revenue parallel nobody is drawing, what Fox/Roku actually means for the home screen, and whether the Paramount/WBD deal ever closes.

Netflix and YouTube are in the same weight class but Wall Street hasn't noticed.
Strip away the noise and compare the revenue. Netflix and YouTube are within 5-15% of each other in any given quarter — and their growth rates have been running neck and neck for two years. The Netflix engagement panic, Simeon argues, is being driven by people reacting to headlines rather than reading what Netflix actually discloses. They publish weekly Top 10 lists for 90 countries. The engagement report they pulled back was created for the writers' unions in 2023 — it was never an investor metric.

• 2:08 – Why YouTube is the only company in Netflix's weight class that nobody compares to Netflix
• 3:41 – Why Netflix's 1-3% viewership growth looks different when the base is 90 billion minutes
• 6:24 – Why YouTube growing at 10-12% with no hit shows should reframe how we read Netflix metrics

Netflix engagement panic is wrong. "Revenue-per-hour" is what matters.
Netflix has outgrown YouTube on revenue per programming hour in almost every quarter over the last two years. The real story isn't whether engagement hours are up 1% or 3% — it's that Netflix extracts more revenue per dollar of content spend than any other media company, and that ratio keeps improving. When the format mix shifts to include podcasts, shorts, and live sports, measuring pure watch time becomes even less useful.

• 8:12 – Why revenue per hour, not total hours, is the metric that matters for Netflix
• 12:12 – What the engagement panic actually exposed: who reads Netflix's disclosures vs. who reacts to news
• 15:58 – Why Netflix's $700M NFL spend is a signal to advertisers, not a red flag for investors

Fox acquiring Roku is acquiring a strategic choke point.
Simeon's three-part series on Fox/Roku frames the deal as a distribution play, not a content play — Fox is buying control of the passageway through which streaming viewership flows. For Netflix and Disney+, nothing changes. For everyone else, home screen placement, discovery priority, and promotional real estate on 100 million Roku devices just got a new landlord. Fox, Simeon argues, is the most strategically disciplined of all the legacy media players — they sold at the peak of Peak TV and are now buying back in at exactly the right moment.

• 18:06 – Why Netflix not having hardware is not an impediment — and why Roku can't afford to cut them off
• 19:37 – The choke point thesis: what Fox/Roku means for apps that aren't Netflix or Disney+
• 20:14 – Why Fox is the most strategically disciplined legacy media company — and what they're actually buying

The home screen is now as important as advertising.
Over 50% of total TV viewing has crossed over into streaming for the first time. As more viewing moves to the big screen, navigation — where you go, what you see first, what gets surfaced — becomes the discovery layer. Simeon's toddler noticed when HBO Max changed its logo. The Looper Insights data showing Peacock gaining $1.8M in share of voice from a single Apple TV home screen update is the proof point. Home screen placement is arbitrage — and most of the industry hasn't priced it correctly yet.

• 22:41 – Why the home screen is becoming as important as advertising for content discovery
• 23:45 – Why shows are no longer associated with the brand that made them — and what that means for discoverability
• 25:10 – The cross-licensing trend: why HBO, Starz, and others are finally distributing on rival platforms

The Paramount/WBD deal: shaky, but it closes. With concessions.
Simeon called it wrong on whether Skydance would win Paramount. He called it right — he thinks — on why Paramount/WBD has structural problems. His read: the deal closes, but Paramount gets forced to shed assets to service the debt load. Which assets? He won't say. But his next piece argues that by 2029, Netflix makes a run at Universal Studios IP. Subscribe before that one drops.

• 26:40 – Why Simeon's "Dead on Arrival" piece on Paramount/WBD may still be right
• 27:09 – What concessions Paramount will have to make and why the debt load makes it complicated
• 28:06 – Why the international footprint problem was always the deal's structural weakness

Connect with Simeon McMillan on LinkedIn · Accrued Interest

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

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Tim sits down with Josh Hudgins, Chief Product Officer at VideoAmp, to unpack how the performance media platform connects ad exposure directly to real-world outcomes — store visits, purchases, subscriber signups — and how AI is acting as a semantic layer to reinvent how that data gets interpreted, planned against, and acted on.

The measurement problem is  a signal-to-noise problem.
Advertisers and analysts aren't starving for data — they're drowning in dashboards. VideoAmp's answer is a semantic AI layer built on top of their measurement stack that interprets the data, separates noise from signal, and surfaces the insights that actually matter — without replacing the rigorous measurement methodology underneath.

• 1:18 – What VideoAmp is and the core problem it solves: closing the loop between ad exposure and real-world outcomes
• 2:13 – How VideoAmp built its data asset: set-top boxes, smart TVs, streaming log-level data via clean rooms
• 6:19 – The new AI-powered reporting experience: from monolithic dashboards to interactive insight conversations

The alchemy nobody expected: audience + content + platform = lift.
When you can report at a creative level all the way through to outcomes across every platform simultaneously, you start finding combinations that no analyst would have predicted. A specific audience, paired with specific content, on a specific platform, driving measurable lift for a specific product. That's not a dashboard insight. That's a campaign brief.

• 7:54 – What the data reveals when AI interprets it: creative-level performance tied to real-world outcomes
• 9:30 – How the AI journey goes from insight to media plan to agentic campaign orchestration
• 10:25 – Why siloed channel teams are being replaced by audience-first, outcome-first structures

Media planning is becoming a real-time optimization loop.
The traditional cycle — annual media mix model, allocation decision, wait and see — is collapsing. VideoAmp is working with publishers on mid-flight optimization tied directly to outcomes, compressing what used to take a year into a near-real-time feedback loop. The automotive supply chain example makes the implications concrete: media exposure signals flowing back into inventory planning.

• 10:56 – How AI compresses the learning and response cycle from annual to near real time
• 11:59 – The automotive case: from dealership visits to supply chain signals, all connected to media exposure
• 13:21 – What it looks like when the measurement flywheel starts spinning faster

Agent-to-agent integrations will make brittle API workflows obsolete.
The next six months: agencies, streaming platforms, and media companies are all building AI agents — and those agents are starting to talk to each other. What used to take 12 months to integrate now takes weeks. Josh explains what that means for the pace of new capability development and why it's the most exciting technical shift he's seen.

• 13:48 – What agent-to-agent integrations actually are and why they replace brittle API workflows
• 14:27 – How different entities — buyers, sellers, platforms — are now connecting via agents
• 15:51 – Why AI unlocks more human time, not less: the case for focusing on connection and ideas

Connect with Josh Hudgins on LinkedIn · VideoAmp

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Jon Schulz, CMO at Viant, the day after the company reports its best quarter ever — revenue up 34%, CTV now 50% of total revenue, and a single NBA Finals ad moment hitting $120 CPM, nearly double the Super Bowl. This is the Viant Earnings Brunch.

'Best quarter ever' was 27-years in the making.
Revenue up 34%. CTV at 50% of total revenue. Direct CTV transactions up from 50% to 80% in a single quarter. IRIS Content ID now on 50% of the CTV bid stream, targeting 70% by year end. Viant Household ID mapped to 95% of US households. None of this happened overnight — Jon walks through the acquisitions, infrastructure investments, and strategic decisions that made Q2 2026 possible.

• 0:31 – The Q2 numbers: 34% revenue growth, 50% CTV mix, $120 CPM NBA Finals peak
• 1:26 – Why best quarter ever is the result of a long-term plan, not a lucky cycle
• 2:11 – How eliminating non-value-added resellers created a win for both publishers and advertisers

Meta, Google, and Amazonall have buying tools. They also have a serious conflict of interest...learn about it.
Google has DV360. Amazon has Amazon DSP. But 80%+ of their revenue comes from their own owned-and-operated inventory. The buying interface is a gateway to their supply — not a neutral platform. Meanwhile, the top 52% of advertisers have grown just 1% annually over 15 years, while the Mag 7 grew 550% over the same period. Jon puts a number on who is actually winning in digital advertising — and it's not the brands.

• 3:41 – Viant's history: from exclusive inventory to Time Inc. to independent buy-side platform
• 4:26 – Why Amazon DSP and DV360 are gateways to owned inventory, not neutral DSPs
• 5:10 – The stat: top advertisers up 1% annually over 15 years. Mag 7 up 550%.

Only 5% of customers are in market at any given moment but most ad budgets spend like it's 100%.
The overinvestment in performance advertising has funneled most ad dollars toward converting demand that already exists — ignoring the 95% of future customers who haven't raised their hand yet. CTV and TV have always been the best format for demand generation. That's the thesis behind Viant's Outcomes product: measurable performance outside the walled gardens, on the open internet.

• 6:23 – Why the over-focus on performance advertising is suppressing brand growth
• 7:20 – What the open internet actually means and what inventory it includes
• 8:57 – Game five of the NBA Finals on the open internet: $120 CPM, nearly 2X the Super Bowl

Did you know? According to TVision attention metrics: 30% of ads run to an empty room. Viant can now bid against the ones that don't.
TVision — Viant's attention signal acquisition — measures three things: is someone in the room, how many people are watching, and second-by-second eyes-on-screen attention. The NBA Finals comeback moment is the perfect case study: attention collapsed during the blowout, then spiked when the Knicks started climbing back. Viant's platform can now bid up or down in real time based on that signal.

• 9:59 – What TVision measures: in-room presence, co-viewing, eyes-on-screen attention
• 10:29 – Why 30% of CTV ads run to an empty room
• 13:12 – The NBA Finals comeback: how attention data moves in real time within a single program

The Viant streaming stack: household ID, content ID, attention signal.
Viant Household ID is in 80% of programmatic bid requests and covers 96% of CTV requests — mapped to 95% of US households. IRIS Content ID is at 50% of the bid stream, heading to 70%. At those coverage levels, these stop being proxies and start being currencies. Jon explains what it takes to get a signal from 7% to 50% to 70% — and why scale is everything.

• 14:29 – The full Viant stack: Household ID + IRIS Content ID + TVision attention signal
• 15:16 – Why signal coverage below 30% is a proxy. Above 80% is a currency.
• 16:48 – The grocery store use case: first-party data matched to Viant Household ID at scale

Connect with Jon Schulz on LinkedIn · Viant 

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Matthew Keys, Publisher of The Desk, a media outlet covering the broadcast, streaming, and digital media industry that has grown from a hobbyist blog into a publication that industry executives now regularly check — and walk up to strangers at conferences to mention.

TheDesk.net started as a survival mechanism.
Matthew Keys built The Desk across two different moments of involuntary downtime — first while on paid suspension during a legal situation, then again during COVID when a planned job transition went sideways. Thirteen years later, it's one of the few places covering streaming and broadcasting from someone who actually worked inside both industries.

• 0:44 – Why the desk is called the desk: the assignment desk as the unsung hero of every newsroom
• 3:10 – How The Desk started on suspension and grew through COVID
• 5:45 – The StreamTV show moment: from unknown hobbyist blog to recognized industry outlet

What traditional broadcasters are giving away and calling it a "streaming strategy".
 Every major local news station now has a 24-hour FAST feed. That's not a streaming strategy — it's content distribution without a monetization model. Matthew breaks down why Nexstar's Haystack investment, the NewsNation experiment, and the broader local news pivot to streaming are all variations of the same unresolved tension between reach and revenue.

• 7:12 – How local broadcasters are addressing streaming: giving the product away
• 8:30 – Nexstar, Haystack News, and what the largest station group is actually betting on
• 10:15 – NewsNation: what national ambition looks like when you're built on local infrastructure

Are sports the only thing keeping cable alive? 

Churn accelerates the moment football season ends and partially recovers when it comes back. That's the only thing holding legacy cable bundles together. Once consumers churn out, the data shows they don't come back — they go to FAST, because to them there's no meaningful difference, and FAST offers more options.

• 15:20 – Why sports is the last thing keeping cable subscribers in the bundle
• 16:44 – What churn data shows about former cable subscribers and where they go
• 17:30 – Why FAST is bad at personalization except for Tubi — and why that matters

The FASTpocalypse is coming. Two thousand channels will become one hundred.
The supply glut is real. Advertisers aren't keeping pace with inventory. Reporting and aggregation are still broken. But the people who work closest to FAST all say the same thing: when the consolidation happens, the channel count drops by 95% and what's left looks a lot like peak cable — around 20 channels that any given viewer actually watches regularly.

• 18:10 – Why FAST supply has outrun advertiser demand
• 19:05 – The 2,000 to 100 channel shakeout thesis
• 20:15 – The Savannah Bananas playbook: YouTube first, then TNT, then the CW

The World Cup drew the numbers it did because it was easy to find.
The FIFA World Cup pulled massive viewership not just because of compelling storylines or home-field time zones — but because rights were consolidated in a way that made the product frictionless. No "this game is on Netflix." No market blackouts. Just find it and watch it. That's the discoverability lesson the rest of the industry keeps failing to apply.

• 22:10 – Why the World Cup's distribution model was as important as its storylines
• 23:00 – The Roku bundle as a frictionless access point
• 23:30 – What professional women's hockey and Banana Ball prove about the YouTube-to-TV pipeline

Connect with Matthew Keys on LinkedIn · Matthew Keys on X · The Desk

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

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James Smith, who leads monetization at Frequency, joins Tim Rowe to unpack why the ad pod is broken — and why the fix isn't more ads, it's smarter ones. They dive into in-scene advertising, the industry's slow embrace of "fewer ads, better ROAS," and why personalization has to fix the programming guide before it can fix the ad break.

Too Many Channels Chasing Too Little Attention

FAST channels went from a novelty seven years ago to hundreds per platform today — and that glut is the real source of the ad experience problem. James frames it plainly: when discovery becomes the bottleneck, fill rate suffers, and channels that can't fill inventory resort to slate, black screens, or bloated pods just to hit revenue targets. It's not a content problem. It's a supply-and-attention math problem, and the math isn't working for anyone — viewer, publisher, or advertiser.

• 02:51 – Why fragmented attention is now the industry's core challenge
• 03:09 – The discovery problem: hundreds of channels, no way to find yours
• 04:18 – Tim's own ad-pod horror story, and why it's a business problem too

How Frequency's Uses AI to Find the Break Inside the Break (In-Scene Ad Product)

Instead of stuffing more ads between segments, Frequency uses video introspection to identify contextually relevant moments inside the content itself — ad zones that fit the scene, not just the runtime. The goal isn't to add inventory. It's to replace some of the pod with better-performing units, then use an ad balancer to right-size what's left for maximum return on ad spend. James connects this directly to Jounce Media's research: fewer, better-placed ads consistently outperform saturation.

• 05:29 – How AI video introspection identifies in-scene ad zones
• 06:11 – The ad balancer: reducing the pod without reducing revenue
• 07:30 – Why fewer ads can mean higher conversion, not lower

Fewer Sellers, Fewer Hops: Why 'Proximity to the Stream' Is the New SPO

Programmatic's dirty secret is the number of hops — every intermediary between ad sale and publisher payout adds fraud risk and kills transparency. James argues Frequency's position — sitting upstream at channel origination and SSAI — makes it structurally closer to clean supply path optimization than SSPs stacked with resellers. The company isn't trying to own inventory; it's trying to be the shortest path between demand and the stream.

• 09:26 – Who's adopting in-scene units first: OEMs, platforms, or publishers
• 09:52 – Frequency caps and the tools built to avoid making the pod worse
• 12:19 – What Netflix's ad-tier evolution signals for the rest of the industry

80% of Shopping Comes From Feed-Driven Ads - yay or nay?

James's bet on where CTV is headed: personalize the electronic programming guide first, and the advertising experience follows — the same way Instagram's feed conditions purchase behavior. He points to World Cup hydration-break ads as proof that endemic, contextually-earned advertising doesn't irritate viewers; it performs. The next frontier is dynamic creative that swaps based on geography in real time — same ad concept, different local retailer, different outcome.

• 17:51 – What James is most excited about for the rest of 2026 and into 2027
• 18:35 – The Instagram parallel: personalized feed, personalized ads
• 13:04 – The Miami Doritos example: one ad, two dynamically different CTAs

Connect with James Smith and learn more about Frequency's channel monetization tools at frequency.com.

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Emily Williams, Consumer Expert at MRI-Simmons, joins Tim Rowe to unpack why the streaming industry's measurement habits are failing the consumers they're supposed to serve — and why fragmentation isn't a technology problem. It's a consumer experience problem.

The Average American Uses 11 Streaming Services a Year

MRI-Simmons' Cord Evolution Study reveals that 75% of Americans with traditional cable also stream — meaning the incremental reach marketers assume they're buying is largely the same audience showing up in a different environment. Eleven services a year isn't loyalty. It's fluid movement across platforms following content, not platforms. Media plans built on channel logic haven't caught up to that reality.

• 1:02 – What MRI-Simmons is and why address-based probabilistic sampling is the gold standard
• 5:16 – The stacker problem: why adding streaming to a linear plan doesn't automatically add reach
• 6:28 – 11 services a year, on average — and what that says about churn

'Total Minutes Viewed ' Is the Metric We Need to Stop Using

63% of adults report doing other activities while watching TV. That's not a niche behavior — it's the majority. Emily's argument: total minutes viewed can tell you what platform content ran on and for how long, but it can't tell you whether anyone was paying attention, whether those people were the right people, or whether the campaign moved anything. A hundred million minutes among the wrong audience loses to twenty million minutes among high-value prospects every time.

• 8:21 – Why total minutes viewed is useful but dangerous as a standalone KPI
• 9:44 – The attention gap: 63% of adults are multitasking while the TV runs
• 11:05 – The question every viewing metric headline is missing

First-Party Data Tells You Who Watches What. Consumer Insights Tell You Why, How, and How Much.

Streaming platforms can see everything inside their ecosystem — completion rates, session length, genre preferences. What they can't see is that the person who watched three video podcasts this week is also planning a trip to Italy, renovating their home, and just bought their first EV. MRI-Simmons' Consumer Canvas enrichment product layers 60,000+ consumer attributes across 250 million adults onto a platform's first-party data — turning behavioral signals into audience understanding that actually informs creative, targeting, and planning.

• 11:38 – What first-party data can and can't tell a streaming platform
• 13:15 – Consumer Canvas: how data enrichment makes first-party data smarter
• 15:07 – Why a unified audience view is a consumer problem, not a technology problem

Did You Know? 40% of Adults Feel Overwhelmed by Streaming Choice

More services, more content, more FAST channels — the assumption was that consumers want unlimited options. MRI-Simmons measures 170 FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV) channels and adds new ones every wave. Emily's prediction: three years from now, the industry will look back and realize it confused more choice with a better experience. Discovery isn't a measurement problem or a media planning problem. It's what happens when finding something worth watching becomes work.

• 17:32 – What the industry will look back on as a fundamental mistake
• 18:07 – 40% of adults overwhelmed by choice: the data behind the scroll paralysis
• 19:56 – Why fragmentation is ultimately a consumer experience problem, not a tech one

Connect with Emily Williams and explore MRI-Simmons research at mrisimmons.com.

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Justin Ruiss, SVP of Media at BWG Global, joins Tim Rowe to break down three of the biggest deals in streaming right now — Walmart's acquisition of Vibe.co, the Comcast spinout of NBCU and Peacock, and Fox's $22 billion move on Roku. Justin hosts 30 primary research forums a month with senior industry executives, and brings a synthesized, cross-vertical read that goes well beyond the headlines.

Why Walmart Acquired Vibe and How They Declared War on Amazon

The Vizio acquisition two years ago was Walmart getting serious. Vibe.co is Walmart gritting its teeth. The read from BWG's network: Walmart is building toward an in-house ad tech stack that competes directly with Amazon DSP — keeping the margin, owning the data, and closing the loop between retail media and CTV inventory. Their existing partnerships with Yahoo DSP and Magnite aren't going away, but they're becoming the lower tiers of a good-better-best model that Walmart now controls top to bottom.

• 8:09 – Why Vizio was the setup and Vibe.co is the signal
• 9:44 – How Walmart's tiered ad stack (white glove to self-serve) starts to take shape
• 11:32 – Why the creative-to-supply chain conversation is now about minimizing hops and owning the data return

The Comcast Spinout Makes Peacock a Pure-Play CTV Story — Finally.

Buried inside a conglomerate, Peacock's performance was impossible to read cleanly. Spun out, it becomes a transparent, standalone connected TV (CTV) business that can compete in the same conversations as Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon — and be evaluated on its own terms. Justin's take: Freevee getting absorbed and Vibe getting acquired makes the Peacock spinout look like a steal in retrospect. The linear bleed to CTV isn't over, and a pure-play Peacock is positioned to capture it.

• 13:13 – Why Justin stopped keeping a bingo card on M&A
• 13:26 – What transparency means for Peacock as a standalone CTV business
• 15:37 – Why Roku was being slept on — and who wasn't sleeping

Fox Isn't "Buying Roku". They're acquiring the most mature operating system in streaming.

Amazon's overnight switch to an ad-supported model created a gravity well that cast a shadow over every other CTV player — including Roku, whose household graph and distribution scale were being systematically undervalued. Fox saw it. The combination of Fox's content portfolio (FS1, Tubi, Fox One, Roku Channel, Howdy, Friendly TV) with Roku's distribution infrastructure creates a competitive surface that can go punch-for-punch with Amazon and Netflix on premium inventory, audience segmentation, and sports. Looper Insights data pulled live in this episode: Roku generated $23 million in addressable attention for WNBA content in Q2 — against Apple TV's $513K and Xfinity's $297K. Orders of magnitude, not increments.

• 15:41 – Why Amazon's ad model switch made everyone else invisible — including Roku
• 18:25 – What Fox actually bought and why leadership execution is the only variable left
• 21:21 – The Looper Insights WNBA data: $23M Roku vs. $513K Apple TV

Read SOS coverage: Fox and Roku · Walmart and Vibe.co · Who buys Peacock

Connect with Justin Ruiss on LinkedIn and learn more at BWG Global.

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

The conversation is a companion to Nathaniel's recent piece on microdramas.

Nathaniel Danziger, Founding Voice at State of Streaming, joins Tim Rowe to unpack what makes a microdrama possible, the operational realities driving this mobile-first shift, and what the partnership between Peacock and ReelShort means for the broader media landscape.

On the Microdrama Boom

Microdramas have rapidly grown into a $30 billion global phenomenon, defined by short, hyper-melodramatic vertical episodes with constant cliffhangers designed to keep users swiping. With major platforms like Peacock striking library deals with ReelShort, this bite-sized format is moving from the fringes of social networks straight into mainstream streaming.

• 2:27 – The global expansion of microdramas: from Chinese networks to a $30B industry
• 3:20 – Defining the microdrama: short form, flashy storylines, and constant cliffhangers
• 4:41 – The mind-numbing volume of content: how libraries scale to thousands of episodes

Why Transparency on Set Matters Most

While the sheer volume of output is staggering, the operational reality on set tells a much harsher story. Interviews with sound operators, DPs, script assistants, and makeup artists expose an environment driven by grueling conditions, tiny non-union crews, and budgets pushed to the absolute brink. For media buyers, understanding this operational backend is critical for establishing true brand transparency.

• 6:41 – Unpacking the crew interviews: no union protections, small crew sizes, and low pay
• 7:29 – The reality of poor planning: when extreme constraints lead to desperate measures on set
• 9:21 – The advertising angle: establishing brand transparency against "made-for-advertising" video

Salacious Content and Industry Anxieties

Driven by algorithms rather than artistic merit, many microdramas trade in highly salacious, tabloid-style themes to capture quick engagement. This approach yields immediate clicks but leaves crew members struggling to build professional portfolios, while raising massive questions about AI integration and long-term career growth within vertical filmmaking.

• 10:12 – Tabloids of the internet: why crew members aren't putting these salacious titles on their reels
• 13:13 – The vertical advantage: finding creative bright spots and unique vertical filming techniques
• 14:26 – Fear and the future: will microdramas lower the production bar and restrict career pathways?

Connect with Nathaniel Danziger on LinkedIn and read his full article here.

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Josh Matthews, Founder of StreamScoop, a Substack publication that aggregates open-source viewership data across streaming, broadcast, and cable into weekly data dumps, monthly deep dives, and the best streaming TV guide being published right now — which SOS syndicates weekly.

📺 Get This week's StreamScoop Streaming TV Guide Here

Nobody was aggregating open-source streaming viewership data in one place. So Josh built it.

 StreamScoop started as a graduate independent study at the University of South Carolina — a journalism student who saw that all the conversation about streaming was happening at the business level, while the actual viewership numbers were scattered across Nielsen reports, Luminate, Samba, and dozens of individual PR pages. He pulled them all together.

• 1:11 – How StreamScoop started as a graduate independent study
• 3:18 – Print journalism in 2024 and betting on the thing you're most passionate about
• 5:01 – One year post-grad: what StreamScoop has become

The monthly data crunch goes where self-reported data won't.

 Streaming companies don't self-report when the numbers are bad. Josh does the work anyway — pulling Nielsen, Luminate, Samba, and platform PR data to answer questions like how Daredevil Born Again actually performed against She-Hulk and Moon Knight, or whether the Savannah Bananas' ESPN expansion is as dominant as the headlines suggest.

• 6:59 – Why streaming companies don't self-report negative data — and why that matters
• 7:10 – How the monthly deep dives find the comparisons platforms won't make for you
• 8:53 – The Daredevil Born Again analysis: what the data actually showed

AI search is not solving the streaming discoverability problem. It's making it worse.

 Josh has tested Grok, Claude, ChatGPT, and Copilot trying to pull viewership data. The results are consistently wrong — not wrong in obvious ways, but subtly wrong, often citing numbers from two and a half years ago with no indication they're stale. If AI can't reliably surface what's streaming this week, the discoverability gap is wider than the industry is admitting.

• 10:22 – Why AI search fails at streaming data specifically
• 9:36 – What ComScore and Reelgood found about AI as the default discovery method
• 14:24 – What the consumer journey looks like when they can't find what they're looking for

The weekly streaming TV guide: every major release, double-checked.

 Three sources minimum per entry. Josh cross-references Vital Thrills, TV Insider, and official platform press releases every week — and still misses things. If a human going through this process every single week with established sources can miss a release, imagine what the end consumer is up against trying to find it in two searches.

• 13:05 – How Josh compiles the weekly streaming TV guide
• 13:20 – Why English-only coverage is still almost impossible to keep complete
• 14:04 – The Among Us example: missed by every aggregator, including StreamScoop

Connect with Josh Matthews on LinkedIn · StreamScoop on Substack

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Wim Sweldens, co-founder of Kiswe, built a direct-to-consumer (D2C) streaming company because he unplugged his cable box — and never plugged it back in. Twelve years later, the technology he knew was coming has arrived, and the sports organizations smart enough to own the relationship with their fans are the ones pulling ahead.

The RSN Collapse Created a Blueprint Problem, Not Just a Revenue Problem

 When regional sports networks (RSNs) fell apart, teams didn't just lose a distribution partner — they lost the only model they knew. Kiswe's answer isn't to replace one middleman with another. It's to cut them out entirely.

• 0:55 – The origin story: a crashed cable box, a 4G network, and a company
• 3:16 – Why being early to mobile video wasn't a mistake — it was timing
• 4:43 – What "don't sell your rights, sell your content" actually means in practice

When You Own the Platform, You Own the Data

 Subscription, pay-per-view, dynamic ad insertion — the monetization model matters less than who controls it. Wim breaks down how Kiswe's revenue share structure aligns incentives and why direct fan data is the asset teams are finally realizing they've been giving away.

• 6:30 – The three monetization models Kiswe enables and how teams use each
• 8:00 – Why influencers selling 50,000 tickets at $20 each is the proof of concept
• 14:03 – Why sports teams see less churn than general streaming apps — and what drives it

SEG+ Is the Case Study. Utah Built It First.

 Smith Entertainment Group (SEG) — owners of the Utah Jazz (NBA) and Utah Mammoth (NHL) — needed one platform for two leagues, two fan bases, and games that sometimes overlap. The result: 40% subscriber growth over two years, 75% Mammoth+ growth in year one, and a MultiView feature that lets fans watch both games simultaneously.

• 10:10 – How the SEG+ platform unified two franchises under a single login
• 12:02 – The à la carte argument: why fans shouldn't have to buy butter to get milk
• 13:27 – The retention thesis: engaged fans churn less, buy more, and bring friends

Download the full SEG+ case study to see the numbers.

Connect with Wim Sweldens on LinkedIn · Kiswe

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Russell Fink, a two-decade veteran of regional sports networks, to dig into the measurement crisis hiding in plain sight inside sports streaming. The conversation pairs directly with Russell's piece published in State of Streaming this week — Too Much of a Good Thing: Sports' Measurement Problem — and uses Jurassic Park to explain why having the data isn't the same as using it.

The RSN Era Was the Last Time Everyone Won at Once

 Russell started at SNY in 2007, when regional sports networks were ascendant and the model was simple: hyperlocal content, cable affiliate fees, happy leagues, happy fans, happy advertisers. The streaming wars didn't just disrupt that model — they exposed that no one had a replacement.

• 2:14 – What RSNs looked like at their peak and why the economics worked for everyone
• 4:47 – Why the shift to streaming put RSNs into survival mode almost overnight
• 6:22 – The cable bundle déjà vu: Congress wanted à la carte then, too

The Streamers Inherited Linear's Habits and Called It Innovation

 When Amazon, Apple, and Facebook took sports rights, Russell expected them to reinvent the viewing experience. Instead, they replicated what fans already knew — and measured it the same way. The lesson: fan behavior is stickier than distribution format.

• 8:10 – Why Russell was wrong to expect streaming platforms to blow up the format
• 9:33 – What Facebook's live chat experiment revealed about fan tolerance for experimentation
• 11:05 – Why linear strategies persist inside streaming sports — and what that says about where the money still lives

16.7 Billion Minutes. Nobody Knows What That Means.

 The NBC Olympics touted 16.7 billion minutes viewed. Russell spent his career in research and can't tell you what it means — and that's the problem. When a metric requires twenty minutes to unpack, it's not doing its job. The industry's love of big numbers is actively impeding advertiser confidence.

• 14:38 – How the streaming measurement land grab produced a world where everyone is number one
• 17:02 – Why "16.7 billion minutes" is a perfect example of a metric that defeats itself
• 19:44 – What the better headline would have been — and why total viewers still wins

Your Scientists Were So Preoccupied With Whether They Could…

 The Jurassic Park thesis: the industry built fifty to a hundred new metrics it didn't have nineteen years ago, fell in love with all of them, and forgot to ask which ones actually move the business. Russell's piece is a call to simplify — not because the data is wrong, but because complexity is a sales problem.

• 21:15 – Where the Jurassic Park framing came from and what it has to do with Tuesday 3:30 PM engagement spikes
• 23:08 – How to think about which metrics actually serve programming, marketing, sales, and affiliate
• 25:44 – Why measurement complexity is part of why the advertiser shift to digital is still stalling

Part two is coming. Read the full piece at State of Streaming.
Connect with Russell Fink on LinkedIn

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Lucas Bertrand, CEO of Looper Insights, to break down what Looper's Q1 Media Placement Value ($MPV) data reveals about how connected TV home screens are being used — and misused — heading into the biggest sports quarter in recent memory. Recorded the day the FIFA World Cup kicked off, the conversation pairs directly with the Preston Smalley/Roku episode released earlier that week.

The CTV Home Screen The Arbitrage of Streaming

 Looper's $MPV metric assigns a dollar value to placements across Roku, Fire TV, Samsung, Xfinity, and others — factoring in local CPM rates, device footprint, and engagement. The result is a comparable framework that lets streamers, advertisers, and platforms understand what a homepage placement is actually worth before they negotiate for it.

• 4:06 – What $MPV is and the three variables that drive it: CPM, device count, and engagement
• 5:59 – Why Roku's 100M device footprint makes its homepage one of the most valuable digital surfaces in media
• 6:49 – The home screen as one of the most valuable websites in the world

The Winter Olympics Set the Template. The World Cup Is the Stress Test.

 Roku's Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics hub generated $36M in $MPV in Q1 — one of the first major hub executions on the platform and a proof of concept for what coherent sports signposting can do. With the World Cup now live across half a dozen broadcasters, multiple languages, and fragmented rights windows, the question is whether that template scales.

• 14:11 – How the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics hub performed in Q1 $MPV data
• 15:43 – Why the Olympics hub is a model for Peacock, Roku, and other OEMs to build on
• 16:07 – World Cup fragmentation: Telemundo, YouTube first-ten-minutes windows, and the signposting problem

Live Sports Errors Are Already Appearing in the World Cup Data.

 Looper monitors CTV interfaces in real time and is already surfacing errors to partners in the early days of the tournament — wrong match times, missing delay notifications, outdated location data. When a game gets rained off and every platform needs to update simultaneously, the gap between what's on screen and what's actually happening becomes a real fan experience problem.

• 17:18 – How Looper monitors live event signposting in real time
• 18:02 – The types of errors already appearing in World Cup data: times, locations, delays
• 19:09 – Why "it's available everywhere" is sometimes no answer at all

Q2 $MPV report expected mid-July. We'll have Lucas back to break it down when it drops.

Connect with Lucas Bertrand on LinkedIn · Looper Insights

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Preston Smalley, VP of Viewer Product at Roku, unpacking the first new Roku home screen in a decade — how it was designed for 100 million+ households, what the hub methodology means for sports fragmentation, and why "delight" isn't just a brand word at Roku. It's a measured KPI.

82% of streaming viewers want you to read their mind 

Roku built a home screen with a billion possible configurations to get closer to doing exactly that — and they're measuring whether it's working.

Preston breaks down how Roku balances personalization with customization, why quick access felt "wrong" to users at first and indispensable a week later, and how a fictional city on your screensaver became one of the platform's most measurable loyalty drivers.

• 1:51 – Designing for 100M+ households: how surveys, diary studies, and a billion possible configurations shaped the new home screen
• 4:42 – What "personalization" actually means: familiar content, adjacent discovery, trending signals, and human curators working together
• 6:55 – AI in practice: how Roku layers large language models on top of its proprietary TV-specific models — and why general AI alone doesn't know what episode just dropped
• 8:36 – The diary study insight: why users hated quick access on day one and couldn't live without it a week later

Sports on streaming is more fragmented than cable ever was

Roku's answer isn't aggregation — it's destination design.

Preston explains how the Roku hub methodology works: one place for a fan to find their league, their team, their game — and the app they need to stream it, or free highlights if they don't have it. The NHL hub just launched. All four major leagues are now covered. World Cup planning is underway.

• 11:38 – The hub methodology: why sports fragmentation is a discovery problem, not a rights problem
• 13:25 – World Cup and the Olympics playbook: medal counts, bracket tracking, and what "cultural moment" infrastructure looks like on a home screen
• 14:37 – The global Roku business: #1 in the US, Mexico, and Canada — and why free live TV and antenna-blending are the growth story in Brazil

Why Roku City is a screensaver

It's also a brand platform, a live event venue, a trivia game host, and one of Roku's top two sources of measured user delight.

• 16:55 – Roku City as loyalty infrastructure: IP partnerships, live events, Roku Dash, and why users don't experience it as advertising
• 17:52 – How Roku actually measures delight — and what it has to do with finding a show you didn't know you liked

Connect with Preston Smalley on LinkedIn
Learn more about Roku at roku.com

For more on how Roku is monetizing the home screen as a media property, read our full breakdown of the $MPV methodology from Looper Insights here.

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

The conversation is a companion to Hemant's recent piece on AI personalization at scale.

Hemant Soni, AI Architect and SOS. contributor, joins Tim Rowe to unpack what streaming platforms can learn from the infrastructure telecom companies built under survival pressure — and how to start applying it now. 

On Combatting Churn

Streaming platforms collect mountains of behavioral data — what you watch, what you skip, when you disengage — and respond days or weeks later with a generic retention email. By then, the subscriber has already left. The model that actually works isn't coming from Netflix or Spotify. It's coming from telecom.

• 1:32 – About how telecom is mastering personalization — and why it matters for streaming
• 3:05 – T-Mobile's customer decision hub: processing 140M+ subscriber signals in under 200 milliseconds
• 5:33 – Comcast's convergence advantage: telecom-grade AI infrastructure applied directly to Peacock's 32M broadband customers

Why "Feeling Understood" Matters Most

The shift Hemant describes — from responding after a customer cancels to predicting intent before they act — is the key unlock. Customers don't feel retained. They feel understood. That's the difference between a churn intervention and a relationship.

• 6:08 – What Comcast is actually deploying: not experiments, proven telecom intelligence
• 7:32 – The four pillars of AI personalization and what each one means for a streaming operator
• 11:17 – Where to start: a practical framework for media companies beginning the AI journey

Get Hemant's 90-day Fast Start Framework

 Start with personalization. It's the highest ROI use case, and once you show impact there, scaling AI gets easier everywhere else.

Hemant closes with the most actionable thing in the episode — month one: identify use cases and clean your data. Month two: build and test AI models at small scale. Month three: optimize and scale what worked.

• 12:42 – Building a unified data foundation: what to connect, clean, and make reusable
• 13:56 – Why personalization is the highest ROI AI use case
• 14:30 – Language barriers, content hypergrowth, and what AI-enabled localization actually unlocks

Connect with Hemant Soni on LinkedIn and read his full article here.

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Bonus Episode: Tim Rowe on the FPC Podcast — Open Infrastructure, Closed Loops, and the Ad Tech Middle

Tim joins Kevin Flood, Rich Ashton, and Ciarán O'Kane — General Partners at First Party Capital — for a conversation on their investment thesis and what it reveals about where streaming advertising infrastructure is actually heading.

FPC crossed State of Streaming's radar when their corporate innovation model announcement landed the same week as a notable product update from The Trade Desk. What followed was a conversation worth sharing with the SOS. universe.

Did You Know?

AWS is projected to generate 3x the margin on AI services versus traditional compute in 2026, with 40% of year-over-year growth coming from AI and machine learning — not the media vertical. 

The cloud is not neutral infrastructure. 

It has a point of view, and it's shaping ad tech.

The FPC partners are direct about what they are: picks-and-shovels investors. 

They don't back the next sexy format or the latest AI wrapper — they back the companies building the infrastructure nobody sees but everybody needs.

• 1:10 – What is State of Streaming?
• 2:37 – First-party data as the new center of gravity. Should you: build, own, outsource, or layer on top?
• 4:00 – Why the value in ad tech has shifted away from software — and toward data, finance, and infrastructure
• 8:30 – Live sports as the unsolved problem in streaming advertising: the gap that Bedrock and Index Exchange are positioned to close

The Trade Desk vs. Publicis spat wasn't really about advertiser outcomes. 

It was two economic models colliding — a Demand-Side Platform (DSP) maximizing margin on one side, principal media buying maximizing agency take rate on the other. The advertiser is mostly a bystander.

• 10:17 – Margin compression as the real story: where the 40–50p in the pound is actually going
• 13:52 – Tim puts the question directly: what gave FPC the conviction to back Bedrock early?
• 14:28 – The ad tech middle: why global scale DSPs don't serve everyone, and what Bedrock was built to solve
• 17:26 – The cloud tax nobody talks about: how AWS, Google, and Amazon costs get embedded in every startup's pricing
• 22:01 – What SOS. found when it looked at how much of the streaming universe runs on AWS
• 23:21 – Lumen: how a first-party attention signal company became one of FPC's largest portfolio positions — and why the Netflix UK deal matters

Most ad tech money flows toward the obvious infrastructure. FPC is betting on something different: composable, containerized, margin-efficient layers that the big incumbents can't easily replicate — and that the ad tech middle actually needs.

Learn more about First Party Capital and their portfolio.

This episode originally aired on the FPC Podcast. 

It appears here as a State of Streaming bonus episode.

Earlier this year, SOS. covered how the Trade Desk's platform strategy is reshaping the open web buying debate — read it here.

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Seth Mittman, VP of Integrated Sales at Ampersand, unpacking how the ad infrastructure jointly owned by Comcast, Charter, and Cox unifies linear and streaming inventory — and what that means for brand marketers, agency planners, and anyone trying to understand where Multichannel Video Programming Distributor (MVPD) inventory fits in a modern media mix.

Did you know streaming-only buys are leaving reach on the table? Brands that added linear inventory saw an average 131% lift. The ones that haven't are paying for it.

Mittman breaks down what Ampersand actually is, what it isn't, and why the distinction between "one-stop shop" VS. "end-to-end solution" matters more than it sounds.

• 1:00 – What redefining cable actually meant — and why it took eight years, not four
• 2:25 – The co-opetition structure: how Comcast, Charter, and Cox became one ad sales entity
• 3:16 – The sports footprint: 90% of live sports events on television, cross-platform

How do you actually buy live sports through Ampersand?

Mittman is direct: programmatic live sports isn't the product yet. Direct Insertion Order (IO) is. But the real move is running the same campaign simultaneously across linear and streaming — hitting the audience wherever they went, without upfront guarantees.

• 4:49 – Activation: what placing a buy actually looks like across 210 Designated Market Areas (DMAs)
• 6:10 – End-to-end vs. one-stop shop: why the framing change matters for buyers
• 8:07 – Political: local scale, programmatic expansion, and why it's a separate team

Ampersand is the ad infrastructure behind Comcast, Charter, and Cox — yet most buyers have never heard of them.

Everyone knows Comcast. 

Everyone knows Spectrum. 

Everyone knows Cox.

But almost nobody knows the backbone sitting behind their combined ad sales effort. Mittman walks through how he educates buyers, what questions he needs answered in every meeting, and why "who are you trying to reach and what are you trying to accomplish" is the only brief that matters.

• 9:01 – Core business: holding companies, independents, and the education gap
• 10:25 – Multichannel Video Programming Distributor (MVPD) explained: the barbecue version
• 11:16 – Trends: why live sports content is pulling buyers back to context alignment
• 14:42 – What excites Mittman most after three decades: convergence, not disruption

Connect with Seth Mittman: seth.mittman@ampersand.tv

Learn more about Ampersand at ampersand.tv

Earlier this week we covered Ampersand's closed-loop attribution partnership with Fandango and Kochava — read it here.

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with David Sanderson, Founder of Reelgood, unpacking how content availability data reveals where attention actually goes on streaming — and what that means for media buyers, platform teams, and content strategists.

Content availability isn't a metadata problem. It's an attention problem. 

Most of the industry is making catalog, licensing, and buying decisions based on incomplete information. Reelgood built the infrastructure to fix that — and the insights that fall out of it reframe how you think about viewership, platform strategy, and where the real gaps are.

• 1:00 – What Reelgood built and why Google was one of their first customers
• 2:36 – The 88% problem: what's actually available across the major streaming services
• 4:00 – How a single canonical content ID changes the data picture entirely

How did Loudermilk go from 800th to 8th the moment Netflix picked it up and merchandised it? 

Find out why that's not an anomaly. When you overlay content availability data against viewership data, platform moves become explainable and predictable. The data also reveals what competitors are quietly doing by genre, what's sitting unlicensed, and where your catalog has white space.

• 7:10 – Loudermilk: the case study that shows platform placement is a viewership variable
• 9:16 – How to use competitor catalog data to inform your own content strategy
• 10:20 – The advertising angle: content availability as a media buying arbitrage lever

Why does Franchise content compound?

The Squid Game data makes the case cleanly — each new release created a measurable halo effect on every other title in the universe. And catalog gaps are a buyer problem too: Reelgood found 81 titles missing from the Prime/Max channel, including Moonlight and Dune.

• 13:00 – The Squid Game ping-pong: how franchise releases drive attention across an entire universe
• 15:30 – Catalog blind spots: what media buyers may not be getting when they buy bundled channels
• 17:00 – How Reelgood's popularity score is being integrated into SOS.'s Unified Streaming Power Index

Download the deck 🔽

Connect with David Sanderson here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidaesanderson/

And Reelgood here: https://data.reelgood.com/

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Mark Holland, SVP Media Products at Sportradar, unpacking their new sports media report and the five pillars powering the next generation of sports viewing — from real-time probability overlays to AI-driven personalization at scale.

Data isn't a stat — it's a story machine. The box score is table stakes. What Sportradar is building goes further: real-time context that turns an ordinary hit into a career milestone, a routine shot into a geometry lesson in probability. The fan doesn't consume data. They feel it.

• 1:00 – How the report frames modern fan behavior and content personalization
• 2:36 – From box scores to broadcast context — what data actually does on-screen
• 7:10 – What "interrogating the data" means and why it changes storytelling

Foresight and GameFrame: two products redefining the live broadcast layer. Foresight surfaces real-time probabilities inside the viewing experience. GameFrame virtualizes player movement from tracking data — not X's and O's, but the exact path a player took and why it worked. Both reflect the same thesis: interactivity is inseparable from insight.

• 3:59 – Tim's son's math project — and why it mirrors what Peacock and the NBA are already doing
• 5:48 – GameFrame: visualizing the "how" behind the play, not just the outcome
• 5:25 – How AI lets partners personalize different experiences to different fans at scale

Innovation is coming from every direction at once. Leagues are collecting more data than ever. Media companies are closest to the end user. Sportradar sits in the middle — translating all of it into experiences that scale across broadcast, streaming, digital, and international markets simultaneously.

• 8:09 – Why the push is league-driven, media-driven, and platform-driven all at once
• 9:16 – Scalability across platforms — why one-size-fits-all is no longer the operating model
• 10:20 – The real bottleneck: time and resources, and how Sportradar helps partners do more with less

The World Cup is next — and it's a scale stress test unlike anything else. Three Super Bowl-sized audiences a day for a month straight. Sportradar is expanding its soccer data sets heading into June. The full roadmap isn't out yet — but the numbers make it worth watching closely.

• 11:04 – What Mark is most excited about on the 2025 sports calendar
• 11:42 – The World Cup stat: three Super Bowls a day, every day, for a month
• 12:07 – What to watch for from Sportradar around the tournament

Connect with Mark Holland on LinkedIn and Sportradar here.

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Tim sits down with Kris Johns, Founder of AdGood, a 501(c)3 that aggregates unused premium streaming inventory from Samsung Ads, LG, A+E, and Scripps — making it available to nonprofits at 70%+ off, with budgets as small as $250.

Key Takeaways

The donated media model is broken. Most nonprofits never get access, and those who do receive a one-time impression dump with no way to iterate or optimize.

• 1:26 – Why the existing pipeline leaves most nonprofits behind
• 2:10 – What 3.5B impressions/month means for hyperlocal and national campaigns
• 3:19 – How the rate structure gives small nonprofits first-ever access and large ones 4x leverage

CTV builds donor trust. TV legitimized the Red Cross and St. Jude. Streaming now offers that same credibility — with targeting and attribution.

• 4:35 – Why TV builds trust digital channels can't replicate
• 8:07 – A Thousand Oaks special needs baseball team added six families on $250
• 11:12 – Why publishers benefit: better viewer experience, brand affinity, local relevance

AI creative removes the last barrier. AdGood's ad manager turns a URL into a broadcast-ready 30-second spot in under four minutes — voiceover, music, Google VEO B-roll, QR code included.

• 5:36 – How the ad manager works
• 6:38 – Case Study: $200–$400/mo → +433% donations, +233% event turnout

The origin story. Kris kept showing up to an empty Red Cross blood drive. Three months later, AdGood launched. 120+ nonprofit partners in year one.

• 9:14 – The Red Cross moment
• 10:37 – How AdGood went from in idea to live in 90 days

Get Involved Nonprofits: adgood.org · Publishers & ad tech partners: reach out directly

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

We talk about The Aggregator Paradox in today's episode, get that article here - https://www.stateofstreaming.com/articles/the-aggregator-paradox

In this episode, Tim Rowe sits down with Lucas Bertrand, CEO of Looper Insights, a merchandising intelligence company auditing connected TV platforms across 25 countries and 250 devices to help streamers understand where their content shows up and what that placement is worth. The conversation covers why streaming content discovery is fundamentally a merchandising problem, how the aggregator paradox is creating blind spots for consumers and platforms alike, why piracy thrives where the legitimate experience fails, and what live sports signposting errors reveal about the industry's growing pains.

Key Takeaways

Streaming Discovery Is a Shelf Space Problem Just like physical retail, where product placement drives sales, the position and visibility of titles on connected TV home screens directly determines whether content gets watched. 

• 1:23 – How Looper Insights audits connected TV platforms and why the physical retail merchandising analogy applies directly to streaming.
• 3:35 – Why every title is a SKU and how quantifying the SKU universe across platforms, apps, and hardware is the core challenge.
• 9:23 – How Looper's media placement value metric gives partner marketing teams a consistent way to compare placement across Samsung, LG, Roku, and beyond.

The Aggregator Paradox Is Creating Costly Blind Spots Prime Video Subscriptions has become the biggest acquisition channel for most streaming apps, but that aggregation layer is introducing new problems, from duplicate subscriptions consumers don't realize they're paying for to a fundamental data-sharing disconnect where OEMs won't tell app owners how users actually found their content.

• 5:30 – Why broadband bundling may be the stickiest subscription strategy and how Disney Plus joining the Sky bundle in the UK illustrates the trend.
• 7:22 – How Prime Video channels became the dominant acquisition funnel and why only a few streamers can afford to go pure direct-to-consumer.
• 12:27 – The data-sharing gap between OEMs and app owners and how Looper fills it with an 80%+ correlation between placement and performance.

Piracy Thrives Where the Legitimate Experience Fails Data from Brazil's football market shows a 60% piracy rate through illegal dongles and sticks, a problem the industry can only solve by fixing pricing, bundling, and discoverability.

• 14:21 – Why free ad-supported TV has to be part of the mix and how ignoring consumer-friendly business models drives piracy rates up.
• 16:15 – The 60% piracy figure from Brazil's football market and why Looper is considering tracking pirated device UIs.
• 19:15 – How fragmented access and $1,000+ annual costs push even casual fans toward illegal streams.

Live Sports Signposting Is Broken Across Major Platforms Looper's tracking of live events is revealing basic merchandising failures at scale, missing live indicators, wrong logos, and promotions that go live 20 to 40 minutes after a game has already started. 

• 20:17 – Why live events are Looper's biggest focus for the rest of 2026 and what the tracking is already revealing.
• 21:30 – How the F1 Melbourne Grand Prix had no live signposting on the biggest OEM in the US.
• 23:02 – The 1.3 errors per platform per event figure and why broken signposting directly reduces sponsorship value.

Connect with the Guest

• Connect with Lucas Bertrand at Looper Insights on LinkedIn
• Email: 

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

Download Todd's Research on The Creator Economy Here: https://podcast.stateofstreaming.com/downloads/rts-creator-economy/

In this episode, Tim Rowe sits down with Todd Nicolini, a research and insights veteran who spent over two decades at the Washington Post connecting data to decision-makers across advertising, digital subscriptions, content licensing, and the newsroom. The conversation covers where streaming is headed, why the creator economy is poised to explode, how AI slop is reshaping the value of legacy IP, and why measuring attention may ultimately come down to a consumer value exchange.

Get the Unified Streaming Power Index - Q1 2026

Key Takeaways

Streaming Is Consolidating Into Massive Walled Gardens The Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger, Netflix's evolving acquisition strategy, and Roku's push into younger demographics all signal a future where platforms build full-spectrum ecosystems spanning video, audio, gaming, and creator content. 

• 4:10 – How the Paramount–WBD merger is reshaping walled garden strategy and what it means for advertisers.
• 5:45 – Why Netflix is quietly positioning itself to challenge YouTube as a global multi-format media platform.
• 6:30 – The case for Netflix acquiring Roblox and what gaming infrastructure brings to a streaming ecosystem.

The Creator Economy Still Depends on Legacy Media While AI is set to dramatically reduce the production burden for independent creators over the next five to ten years, Todd Nicolini argues that serious creators still rely on legacy media outlets for fact-checking and verification. 

• 7:45 – How fragmentation in media is best defined by the creator economy and the rise of short-form vertical video.
• 8:12 – Why legacy media outlets remain the backbone for fact-checking and verification, even as creators go independent.
• 10:00 – How AI will streamline video editing and cross-platform distribution for creators in the near term.

AI Slop Is Making Legacy IP More Valuable As AI-generated content floods platforms like YouTube, the value of original, legacy intellectual property is increasing. Todd Nicolini explains why platforms need to do a better job labeling AI-generated content and why federal regulation may eventually force the issue. 

• 11:38 – Why AI slop is a growing problem for YouTube and short-form content platforms.
• 12:30 – How legacy IP becomes a premium asset as low-quality AI content saturates the market.
• 13:45 – The case for clearer AI content labeling and where federal regulation may be headed.

Measuring Attention Requires a Consumer Value Exchange Rather than chasing a single perfect measurement solution, Todd Nicolini argues that the industry needs to focus on transparency with consumers about the trade-off between personal data and personalized experience. 

• 15:25 – Why no single company will fully quantify user behavior across all platforms, and what that means for the industry.
• 17:00 – The value exchange consumers need to understand between personal data and personalized content experiences.
• 18:31 – How triangulating directional data points can move measurement forward without 

Connect with the Guest

• Connect with Todd Nicolini on LinkedIn
• And on X here 

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In this episode, Tim Rowe sits down with Johnathan Barnes, Founder and CEO of Supply Monitor, to tackle one of Streaming TV advertising's biggest problems: waste. 

A recent Truthset report estimates that advertisers will waste $7.4 billion in the Connected TV market in 2026, roughly 40% of all open programmatic ad spend, because the audience data guiding those buys is only accurate 13% of the time. Johnathan Barnes breaks down where that waste comes from, how to fight it, and why media buyers need to take a more active role in protecting their spend.

Key Takeaways

Every Programmatic Impression Is a String of Data, and Every Hop Adds Risk When you buy CTV programmatically, you're not just buying an ad placement, you're buying a chain of data that passes through multiple intermediaries before it reaches your bidder. Each hop introduces the potential for fraud, loose ID bridging, or degraded signal quality. 

• 2:35 – Why waste means different things to different people, and how intermediary hops create efficiency for some and fraud for others.
• 3:23 – What ID bridging is and how probabilistic models attempt to connect disparate identity graphs across the ecosystem.

AI Is Accelerating Both Sides of the Fraud Fight AI has made it dramatically easier to detect and filter fraudulent or low-quality supply in real time, but it's also made fraudsters faster and more sophisticated. The organizations winning are the ones actively using AI to monitor supply paths, unify siloed data sets, and action against anomalies. Those that aren't are falling further behind.

• 7:23 – How AI serves as both weapon and shield in the fight against ad fraud.
• 9:21 – Why bringing together data from your DSP, GA4, and third-party analytics platforms into a single view is now possible and essential.

The Best CTV Buyers Go Direct, Ask Hard Questions, and Curate Their Supply Johnathan Barnes outlines a three-part playbook for any team buying connected TV. First, go direct or programmatic direct whenever possible to skip unnecessary intermediary hops. Second, ask your DSP and SSP partners specific questions about how they vet resellers and maintain supply chain health. Third, invest in curation and supply-side decisioning to control what inventory actually reaches your bidder, whether through a third-party curation service or deeper partnerships with your SSPs.

• 10:24 – Why CTV resembles the mobile app environment and what that means for supply chain visibility.
• 12:23 – The questions buyers should be asking SSPs like OpenX, Index, and Magnite about reseller vetting and supply chain integrity.
• 13:19 – Why curation isn't a buzzword but an ongoing practice that requires active management.

Media Buyers Should Get Hands-On with AI Tools Johnathan Barnes challenges media buyers to spend time with AI coding tools like Claude Code to build custom solutions, even without a technical background. 

• 14:25 – How Johnathan Barnes, a non-technical founder, now writes code with AI tools that his product developers can ship.
• 16:40 – Why invalid signal, not just invalid traffic, is the next frontier, and how political advertisers are especially vulnerable to waste.

Connect with the Guest

• Connect with Jonathan Barnes on LinkedIn: Johnathan Barnes
• Website: www.supplymonitor.ai
• Email: jb@supplymonitor.ai

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

DOWNLOAD THE EMARKETER SPORTS VIEWERSHIP REPORT REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE HERE: https://podcast.stateofstreaming.com/downloads/the-sports-report/

In this episode, Tim Rowe sits down with Ross Benes, Senior Analyst at EMARKETER, to separate the hype from reality in sports streaming. Ross's research reveals a striking disconnect: while streaming dominates nearly two-thirds of total TV screen time, live sports viewing on streaming platforms accounts for just 10% of minutes watched. The conversation covers the sports rights bubble, the future of regional sports networks, and why niche streaming might be the most exciting frontier in the space.

Key Takeaways

Sports Streaming Is Massive In Buzz, Not In Minutes Most sports viewers have watched something on a streaming service, but they're not doing it regularly. On-demand platforms like Peacock, Paramount+, and Prime Video account for roughly 10% of sports viewing time, while digital pay TV services like YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV make up another 20%. The remaining two-thirds still flows through traditional cable packages.

• 5:19 – Why streaming's share of sports viewing is a fraction of its share of total TV time.
• 8:35 – How vMVPDs blur the line between streaming and cable, and why the distinction matters for advertisers.

The Sports Rights Bubble Is Real, For Some The NBA's media rights deal jumped from $2.7B to $6.9B. MLS tripled its rights payments but lost 65% of viewers after moving to Apple TV. Amazon and Apple can absorb sports as a loss leader because streaming is one piece of a larger business. But for platforms where ad revenue is the primary model, overpaying for rights with underwhelming viewership is a ticking clock.

• 12:50 – Why TNT walked away from the NBA deal and what that signals.
• 9:48 – The college basketball viewership reality, a St. John's game on Peacock likely doesn't crack 500K viewers.

Short-Term Revenue Grabs Versus Long-Term Fan Building Some teams are choosing reach over revenue, dropping paid RSN models in favor of free local broadcasts. Ross highlights NBA teams moving games to local affiliates instead of charging fans $6/month through cable networks, a bet on lifetime fan value over immediate subscription income.

• 17:40 – The NBA teams betting on accessibility over paywalls.
• 14:05 – Why RSNs survive for big-market teams but face extinction in smaller markets.

Niche Sports Streaming Is Quietly Expanding Access The most underrated story in sports streaming isn't the NFL or NBA, it's the long tail. Platforms like FloSports and Big Ten Plus now make it possible to watch Penn State wrestling, college volleyball, and semi-pro hockey on your TV. The question is whether discoverability and revenue can catch up to availability.

• 21:50 – FloSports, Big Ten Plus, and the explosion of niche sports content.
• 16:28 – The Roku Channel carrying League One volleyball and why cheap rights don't guarantee an audience.

Connect with the Guest

• Connect with Ross Benes on LinkedIn: Ross Benes
• Email: rbenes@emarketer.com

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

https://2026.marketecturelive.com/e/u/checkout/marketecturemedia/tickets/order

Use discount code FINAL30 for 30% off general admission. 
Brands and agencies attend free.

In this episode, Tim Rowe sits down with Sam Khoury, Chief Strategy Officer at Marketecture Media, to go behind the scenes on one of ad tech's fastest-growing media companies and preview their upcoming flagship event, Marketecture Live 3: Consumers in Control. From the origins of the company as three independent podcasts to the current debate over OpenAI monetization and the decline of Google Search, Sam delivers a candid look at what's actually moving the needle in advertising right now and what's just noise.

Key Takeaways

The Open Web Is Under Pressure and Advertisers Need A Plan 

Web traffic is declining across open web properties as consumers shift their discovery and research habits toward LLMs and AI platforms. Sam explains why Marketecture Live 3 is deliberately focused on maximizing what advertisers have today rather than chasing AI hype, and how the theme "Consumers in Control" reflects a fundamental shift in how audiences access content, research products, and navigate the internet.

• 4:04 – The event theme and why consumer behavior, not AI, is the real story.
• 5:10 – Why Marketecture is prioritizing practical advertising fundamentals over trending topics.

ChatGPT Ads Could Be A Multi-Billion Dollar Business 

With Google Search usage declining and OpenAI announcing plans to add advertising, Sam and Tim break down what LLM monetization could look like, and why the contextual relevance of ChatGPT ads could be a game changer. The key risk? Transparency. If users can't tell what's sponsored, trust erodes fast. If they get it right, it's a new category of marketing entirely.

• 6:37 – OpenAI's ad play and what it means for search marketers.
• 8:32 – Why demand capture through LLMs still requires demand generation elsewhere.

The Startup Showcase Is Ad Tech's Shark Tank 

MarketectureLive's pitch competition has a real track record. Past participant Streamer.ai was acquired by Magnite shortly after showcasing, and two other startups raised funding rounds. This year, five startups were selected from over 60 submissions spanning pharma, platform integrations, and more, proving the showcase has evolved well beyond AI-only pitches.

• 13:18 – How the startup showcase works: submission, selection, live demo, audience voting.
• 15:27 – Real outcomes: acquisitions and funding rounds that followed past events.

Headline Sessions Worth Blocking Your Calendar For 

The two-day event at The Glasshouse in NYC features the CMO of the NFL discussing the Super Bowl and the rise of live sports advertising, an FTC commissioner addressing privacy and data, leaders from Omnicom and Dentsu, and Ari Paparo's keynote, which Sam calls a can't-miss every time.

• 8:32 – Session highlights and why the NFL CMO session stands out.
• 10:23 – Venue details, ticket pricing, and how brands and agencies attend free.

Connect with the Guest

• Connect with Sam Corey on LinkedIn: Sam Khoury
• Learn more about Marketecture Media: https://www.marketecturemedia.com
• Get tickets to Marketecture Live 3: Use code FINAL30

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In this episode, Tim Rowe sits down with Jean Carucci, Streaming Strategy Scholar, to decode the rapidly evolving world of streaming mergers and acquisitions (M&A). They trace the industry’s journey from the Plethora of Plus era and the rise of FAST channels to the current landscape of mega-mergers and consolidation. Jean provides a strategic roadmap for media buyers to navigate the shift from linear-first to streaming-first planning, ensuring brands remain relevant and effective amidst the chaos.

Key Takeaways

The Shift from Linear to Streaming-First

The media planning landscape has fundamentally flipped. Historically, buyers started with linear TV and used digital to extend reach, today, the strategy starts with streaming, using linear only for incremental reach. Jean explains that we have reached a point of diminishing returns for subscriber growth, forcing major media companies to acquire competitors to gain scale and maintain leadership.

• 4:20 – The Plethora of Plus era and how the pandemic accelerated direct-to-consumer adoption.
• 12:20 – Analyzing the Nielsen Gauge: Understanding the 80% growth in streaming viewership over four years.

Two Paths of Consolidation: Prestige vs. Scale

Jean compares two potential merger scenarios, Netflix/Warner Bros. Discovery vs. Paramount/WBD, to highlight the different opportunities for advertisers. While one offers high-touch, premium integrations with limited inventory (Prestige), the other offers massive, high-volume reach across linear and streaming with endemic, sticky content like live sports and reality TV (Scale).

• 18:22 – A head-to-head comparison of merger outcomes for media buyers.
• 20:35 – Choosing between limited premium slots and fragmented high-volume supply.
• 26:20 – Why CPG brands might prefer the stickiness of lifestyle content over high-brow prestige drama.

Future-Proofing for Media Buyers

With consolidation comes technical hurdles. Jean outlines four critical tips for navigating the M&A wave, emphasizing Data Readiness and Engagement. She argues that the 30-second brand awareness ad is no longer enough; buyers must demand interactive, shoppable formats and prime real estate on the streaming home screen.

• 32:05 – Why scale is the primary driver for mass-market ROI in a merged ecosystem.
• 34:20 – Four tips to navigate M&A: From data portability to venture buying for tentpole events.

The 5 Must-Ask Questions for the Upfront Season

Jean identifies five critical questions every media buyer should bring to the table this year:

1. Can I activate my first-party data on your platform?
2. What is the actual ad-available subscriber base post-merger?
3. Can we lock in high-affinity tentpoles before prices reset?
4. Does your ad tech stack support shoppable and outcome-driven formats?
5. How are you carving out opportunities for my brand on the new user interface?

Connect with the Guest

• Subscribe to Jean Carucci’s Substack: The Streaming Strategy Scholar
• Connect with Jean on LinkedIn: Jean Carucci

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In this episode, Tim Rowe sits down with David Sanderson, CEO of ReelGood, to discuss the complex world of streaming fragmentation. They explore how the lack of a universal content barcode led to a data crisis, how major studios are using historical availability to make nine-figure licensing bets, and why the current streaming landscape feels more like a logistics problem than an entertainment one.

Key Takeaways

The No Barcode Problem 

There is no industry-standard ID for content. Netflix, Disney+, and Prime all assign unique internal IDs to the same movie, making it nearly impossible to track availability without sophisticated technology. David explains how ReelGood spent eight years and tens of millions of dollars building a machine learning system that maps content based on cast, crew, and metadata rather than relying on inconsistent vendor data.

• 2:28 – Why licensing data from existing vendors often results in wrong information.
• 5:12 – The challenge of the universal ID and why new standards often make the problem worse.

Strategic Insights: Defensive vs. Offensive Moves 

Data isn't just for helping consumers find shows; it’s for helping studios survive. David reveals how data shows Paramount is more dependent on Warner Bros. Discovery than Netflix is. He discusses how licensing decisions are shifting from filling gaps to strategic gatekeeping of IP, especially as adaptations of proven books and franchises become the industry's safest bets for ROI.

• 9:00 – How marketing teams use data to identify and lean into their biggest catalogs (e.g., horror vs. drama).
• 15:00 – Analyzing the Paramount/WBD/Netflix exposure: Why buying WBD is an offensive move for Netflix but defensive for Paramount.
• 17:10 – Case studies on Yellowstone, James Bond, and Jurassic Park that reveal the absurdity of app-switching.

The Invisible Gap in Streaming 

Nearly half of all movies and TV shows in global databases are not available to stream in the United States. David highlights the massive opportunity in international content and existing IP (like the hit Heated Rivalry), noting that smart services are looking at outsized returns by finding high-impact international titles that can be licensed at a fraction of the cost of a domestic blockbuster.

• 17:44 – The surprising stat: 50% of global content is missing from US streaming platforms.
• 18:20 – Why the future of margins lies in proven IP from international markets.

Connect with David Sanderson on LinkedIn here.

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In this episode, Tim Rowe sits down with Brian Josephs, Vice President of the Americas at Sportradar, to pull back the curtain on the invisible engine powering the global sports industry. They discuss the evolution of sports data from simple box scores to real-time predictive modeling, how the NBA on Peacock is redefining the home viewing experience, and why the future of sports media lies in hyper-personalization and social gamification.

Key Takeaways

From Facts to Predictive Insights

Data has evolved beyond simply stating what happened. Sportradar now focuses on why it happened and what will happen next. By leveraging AI and computer vision, they provide real-time predictive insights, like shot probability and expected points, that turn a passive broadcast into an interactive, insight-driven experience.

• 5:17 – The transition from basic data APIs to AI-generated visualizations.
• 6:40 – How player tracking data predicts play outcomes in real time.

The Personalization of the Fan Experience

The one-to-many broadcast model is fading. Streaming allows platforms to meet fans where they are with personalized overlays, alternate commentators, and interactive features. Brian explains that this interactivity is essential for capturing the attention of a younger, unreasonable consumer who expects a video game-like experience.

• 8:15 – How the NBA on Peacock’s Performance View adds value without overwhelming the fan.
• 10:32 – Why streaming is the bridge between passive viewing and full personalization.
• 13:00 – Competing with social media and short-form content.

Social Viewing and Global Strategy

Sportradar is bringing the group chat inside the app through Virtual Stadium, a product that integrates social interaction, gamification, and betting. Looking ahead to 2026, the company is preparing for a sports equinox, the collision of the FIFA World Cup and the Winter Olympics, using dynamic creative optimization to react to on-field action in real time.

• 14:56 – Understanding Virtual Stadium and the psychology of social betting.
• 17:09 – Global strategy for the World Cup: Deeper insights and more betting markets.
• 18:15 – How ads can react to live events as they happen on the field.

Connect with Brian Joesphs on LinkedIn here.

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In this episode, Tim Rowe sits down with Dr. Augustine Fou, Creator of FouAnalytics, to pull back the curtain on the multi-billion dollar ad fraud industry. They discuss why fraud isn't a tech problem but an incentive problem, how to spot the red flags of spoofed CTV inventory, and why the most powerful tool in a marketer's kit might be the pause button.

Key Takeaways

Ad Fraud is an Incentive Problem Fraud persists because the ecosystem is designed to reward volume. Dr. Fou explains that middlemen, exchanges, agencies, and tech platforms, make more money when more traffic flows through their pipes, leaving them with little financial motivation to filter out the bots.

• 0:00 – Why throwing more tech at fraud won't solve an incentive issue.
• 2:42 – The red flag of 100% click-through rates and how bot mechanics work.
• 5:20 – Transitioning from manual McKinsey-style audits to the FouAnalytics platform.

The CTV Conundrum & The CPM Trap In Connected TV, fraud is binary, it’s either 0% or 100%. Buying direct from premium publishers is safe, but chasing efficient CPMs on programmatic exchanges often means buying spoofed bid requests that never reach a real television.

• 6:23 – How fraudsters pretend to be Disney+ or ESPN to hijack programmatic budgets.
• 9:21 – Why low CPMs are actually driving up your total waste.
• 16:38 – How independent audits prove if your CTV ad actually ran on a TV.

Correlation vs. Incrementally Marketers often mistake concurrent sales for successful advertising. Dr. Fou breaks down how attribution models over claim credit for sales that would have happened anyway and why turnoff tests are the only way to find the truth.

• 11:42 – Why View-Through conversions are often used to hide fraudulent traffic.
• 14:12 – The Uber Case: Cutting $100M in spend with zero impact on app installs.
• 15:30 – Adopting the Small Business Mindset to focus on real business outcomes.

Connect with Dr. Augustine Fou on LinkedIn here or visit FouAnalytics.com.

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In this episode, Tim Rowe sits down with Albert Thompson, Managing Director of Digital Innovation at Walton Isaacson, to unpack the Attention Stack. They discuss why traditional reach is a fake number and how brands can use AI and sequencing to drive real consumer intent.

Key Takeaways

The Attention Stack Framework Stop measuring impressions and start measuring duration. Albert explains that hijacking attention is a prerequisite for influence and power. Brands must follow the rules of engagement on platforms like TikTok and CTV to stay relevant.

• 01:01 – Duration vs. Accumulation: The only metric that matters.
• 04:15 – Mastering the rules of the sandbox on social.
• 07:02 – Why 3-second QR codes on CTV are not effective.

Marketing is the Parent Company Advertising is just a derivative. Marketing’s job is to make people get along with the brand before they go along with the sale. Albert challenges brands to flip the paradigm and solve for human attention before solving for measurement.

• 09:09 – Why advertising isn't the boss, marketing is.
• 10:28 – Flipping the paradigm: Solving for attention first.
• 15:15 – Closing the craftsmanship gap in media buying.

The Rise of AI Agents & Intent By 2026, AI agents will replace traditional agency decisioning. Success will depend on Exposure Sequencing, moving a consumer from a home-screen placement to an in-scene product appearance, then finally to a shoppable ad.

• 13:01 – The Sequencing Playbook: From awareness to transaction.
• 16:44 – How AI Agents will take over the agency role.
• 32:14 – Intent over Reach: Targeting the next 5,000 buyers, not a billion viewers.

Connect with Albert Thompson on LinkedIn here!

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In this episode of the State of Streaming podcast, host Tim Rowe welcomes Thierry Denis, Co-founder and Director at OCKHAM, a boutique production company specializing in commercials that convert through the power of comedy. Their conversation explores the details of commercial directing, the psychological advantage of making an audience smile, and how budgeted creative execution can outperform massive Hollywood budgets.

Here are three key takeaways from their conversation on how to make a TV commercial that entertains and converts:

The Psychology of the "Micro-Smile"

Thierry explains that commercials are essentially interruptions that audiences didn't ask for. He reveals why comedy is the most effective genre for breaking through this resistance—if you can make a viewer smile, they are statistically more likely to remember the brand and the specific value proposition of the product.

• 02:35 - The 30-second challenge: Why you have to "grab" an audience that doesn't care.
• 03:45 - The "Smile" Theory: Why humor is the ultimate tool for brand recall.
• 09:52 - Why comedy is the most effective genre for "interrupted" viewers.

High-End Looks on a Small Budget

Thierry breaks down how his team built a "CIA-style control room" in a standard conference room for the brand Shady Rays commercial. He shares the secret to selling the idea through background details, like using $500 Facebook Marketplace server cages and foam boards, to create a cinematic environment that feels like a Hollywood spy thriller.

• 10:40 - Shady Rays: Creating a Hollywood Spy look on a budget.
• 13:30 - The Control Room: Using green screens and CGI to expand a physical space.
• 15:00 - Turning Facebook Marketplace finds into high-end props.

The Devil in the Details of Execution

Whether it's wrapping two actors in fabric to simulate body parts for Manscaped or digging a custom-shaped hole in a stylist’s backyard. Thierry emphasizes that fine-tuned details sell the reality of the spot. He explains how these subtle cues speak to the viewer's subconscious to build trust and comedic timing.

• 05:55 - Manscaped - How to talk about sensitive subjects on broadcast TV.
• 06:55 - The physical cocoon: Behind the scenes of the Boxer 2.0 shoot.
• 18:02 - The World's Best Deputy Director mug: Using subtle props to reinforce character.
• 20:06 - Why practical locations beat digital sets.

Connect with Thierry Denis on LinkedIn here!

Learn more about OCKHAM at ockham.tv.

Commercials shown:

• Shady Rays 
• Manscaped 
• SmartAsset

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In this episode of the State of Streaming podcast, host Tim Rowe welcomes Scott Young, Co-founder at Transmit, a company reshaping the monetization landscape for live sports and streaming. Their conversation explores how the traditional cable revenue model is deteriorating and how publishers are pivoting to new ad formats to fill the gap. They discuss the mechanics of non-disruptive advertising, the technology behind "picture-in-picture" ads during live events, and how rights holders can generate significant incremental revenue without annoying the viewer.

Here are three key takeaways from their conversation that highlight the future of live sports monetization:

Solving the Post-Cable Economics

Scott Young breaks down the collapse of the reliable "cable bundle" revenue stream and why subscription fees alone can no longer support media rights holders. He reveals how Transmit’s technology allows publishers to unlock 20-30% incremental revenue by monetizing "lulls" in the action rather than just relying on standard ad breaks.

• 01:11 - The deteriorating economic model: Why the "easy" days of cable revenue are over.
• 03:32 - Why standard ad pods are failing both advertisers and viewers.
• 09:26 - The numbers: How publishers are seeing a 20-30% revenue lift and driving 4X ROAS.

The End of Disruptive Advertising

Scott explains how Transmit moves beyond traditional commercials by using algorithms to identify specific moments in a game, like a foul shot or a timeout to serve contextually relevant ads. This approach prioritizes the viewer experience, ensuring ads feel like an extension of the broadcast rather than an interruption.

• 06:43 - Mapping the "Right Moment": Identifying lulls in NBA and live sports action.
• 08:00 - The missing piece: Why we have great targeting data but terrible ad templates.
• 13:42 - The "Squeezeback" effect: How L-bar and picture-in-picture ads work in practice.

2026 is the Golden Era for Live Sports & FAST

Looking ahead, Scott and Tim discuss why 2026 will be a turning point year for the industry, driven by the the World Cup and the Olympics. They also explore the massive untapped potential of FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV) channels as OEMs like Samsung and Vizio take more control of the interface.

• 15:05 - The 2026 explosion: Preparing for the World Cup and Olympics in North America.
• 17:37 - The rise of FAST: Why OEMs are the sleeping giants of live sports distribution.
• 14:30 - Beyond sports: Bringing non-disruptive ads to SVOD and subscription tiers.

Connect with Scott Young on LinkedIn here!

Learn more about Transmit at Transmit.live.

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In this episode of the State of Streaming podcast, host Tim Rowe welcomes Nick Carrabbia, EVP at OAREX, a firm that provides on-demand liquidity for the digital ad ecosystem. Their conversation explores the critical mechanics of how money moves through the advertising supply chain from advertiser to agency to publisher and the growing challenge of late payments. They discuss the macroeconomic factors tightening credit, the red flags hidden behind high CPMs, and how publishers can unlock cash flow to compound growth.

Here are three key takeaways from their conversation that illuminate the financial state of the streaming and publishing industry:

The State of Pay: Record Late Payments and Supply Chain Friction

Nick Carrabbia reveals unexpected data from the first half of 2025, noting that late payments have hit a record high. He breaks down the macroeconomic "vacuum" created by COVID-19 and inflation, and explains how the multiple "hops" between DSPs, SSPs, and publishers exacerbate payment delays.

• 03:10 - Record high: Why 58% of all tracked payments were late in H1 2025
• 04:16 - The economic vacuum: How COVID liquidity and inflation shaped current credit terms
• 05:15 - The "hops" effect: How money moves from Advertiser to DSP to SSP to Publisher

The Solution: Converting Invoices into Growth and Liquidity

Nick explains how OAREX solves liquidity issues by allowing publishers to trade invoices for immediate capital, and defines critical financial metrics like DSO (Daily Sales Outstanding) and DPO (Daily Payables Outstanding) that every publisher should track.

• 09:24 - How OAREX provides non-dilutive liquidity to the ecosystem
• 10:39 - Opportunity costs: The hidden price of waiting 60+ days for payment
• 16:01 - Defining DSOs (Daily Sales Outstanding) and DPOs (Daily Payables Outstanding)

The Risk: Red Flags, High CPMs, and Top Payers

Nick warns against chasing revenue without considering credit risk. He highlights specific "red flags", such as abnormally low CPMs coupled with late payments, that indicate a partner may be in trouble. He highlights the "Top Payers" are who consistently pay within three days.

• 11:03 - The "Top Payers" report: Who is paying on time and why it matters
• 12:28 - The shrinking list of consistent payers
• 13:30 - The "Red Flag" warning: When low CPMs are actually a sign of distress

Connect with Nick Carrabbia on LinkedIn here

Learn more about OAREX at OAREX.com 

And get the report discussed in today's episode here

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In this episode of the State of Streaming podcast, host Tim Rowe welcomes Hemant Soni, an AI and systems architect who works with leading telcos. Their conversation explores the history, evolution, and future of content bundling, a key strategy for telecom providers, streaming platforms, and advertisers. They explore the implications of AI, the metaverse, and 6G on how content will be consumed and delivered.

Here are three key takeaways from their conversation that illuminate the strategy behind the modern content bundle:

The Core Strategy: Soft vs. Hard Bundling and ARPU

Hemant Soni breaks down the origins of bundling (dating back centuries to merchants and farmers) and defines the two primary types of modern bundles, explaining how they drive essential business metrics like ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) and customer retention.

• 06:54 - The origin of the bundling concept 
• 07:37 - Soft bundling vs. hard bundling defined (user choice vs. single package) 
• 09:40 - Bundling strategies for customer retention and revenue 
• 11:30 - Defining ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) and how bundling impacts it

The Evolution: Super Bundles, Lifestyle Platforms, and FAST

The conversation explores how bundling is evolving beyond simple acquisition offers to become a complex retention and lifestyle strategy, highlighted by the rise of aggregated platforms and ad-supported models.

• 16:30 - The trend of super bundling and content hubs 
• 17:35 - Cross-vertical bundling (smart security, banking, fitness) 
• 20:45 - Bundling to retain vs. bundling to acquire 
• 24:20 - Rise of FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming) bundles

The Future: Metaverse Hardware and AI-Driven Personalization

Hemant looks ahead, detailing a plausible path for the metaverse to enter the home and describing how AI is already being used and will become central to content delivery and marketing strategy.

• 27:00 - The metaverse hardware hypothesis: telcos selling it as a service
• 29:10 - Generative AI for content creation, editing, and recaps 
• 30:00 - Introducing the DICE (Data Integrated Campaign Enablement) framework 
• 34:00 - The impact of 6G on streaming: ultra-immersive media and real-time content personalization

Connect with Hemant Soni on LinkedIn here

Check out the DICE framework here

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In this episode of the State of Streaming podcast, Tim Rowe hosts Jean Carucci, "The Streaming Strategy Scholar" and Principal @ Carucci Consultants. Our conversation centers around what it takes for Streaming TV publishers to win, focusing on the essential ad products needed to compete, strategies for balancing programmatic dollars and direct sales, and the critical need to educate sales teams in the fast-evolving Connected TV (CTV) landscape.

Here are three key takeaways from our conversation that every marketer and advertiser should consider:

• The Challenge of Educating Sales Teams: Jean discusses the "analysis paralysis" sales teams face due to the overwhelming pace of change in streaming. She emphasizes the importance of shifting metrics away from legacy ratings (TRPs) to engagement, subscribers, and watch time. The key is to provide consistent, curated education so teams can be responsive (informed and strategic) rather than reactive (panicked and late).
  • 00:08:15 - The challenge of educating sales teams
  • 00:09:40 - Shifting the paradigm from ratings to engagement
  • 00:11:45 - Being responsive vs. reactive
• The Four "Table Stakes" of a Streaming Ad Stack: To be competitive, Jean argues that streaming publishers must offer four key ad products. She breaks down why Contextual Targeting (aligning ads with specific content), Pause Ads (a user-generated, incremental opportunity), Interactive Ads (making TV truly "connected"), and Shoppability (speeding up the transaction) are now non-negotiable.
  • 00:12:08 - The Streaming Ad Product Scorecard
  • 00:14:10 - The four table stake ad types of streaming
• Ad Products Gaining Momentum: Beyond the basics, Jean identifies three ad placements rapidly gaining traction for their high value. These include Prominent Home Screen Placements (valuable "billboard" real estate), Exclusive Pre-Roll Ownership (aligning with content before it even starts), and Prime Pod Placement (owning the very first ad in a break).
  • 00:16:30 - Trends and three ad types gaining momentum
  • 00:18:28 - Balancing programmatic vs. direct-sold ad products

Connect with Jean and learn more about her work here:

• LinkedIn: Jean Carucci 
• Substack: The Streaming Strategy Scholar
• Website: carucciconsultants.com

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In this episode of the State of Streaming podcast, Tim Rowe hosts Alberto Alvarez, the Chief Executive Officer of The Mediam Group. Our conversation centers around the gap between how we consume media and how we activate advertising in the rapidly shifting streaming landscape, particularly in the realm of connected TV (CTV).

Here are three key takeaways from our enlightening conversation that every marketer and advertiser should consider:

• The Role of Measurement: Alberto highlighted the importance of measurement in advertising, noting that understanding what to measure and how to measure it is crucial for brands looking to optimize their marketing strategies. He explained that the conversation around performance should start with clear goals and a focus on continuous improvement, rather than simply chasing immediate results.
  • 00:03:21 - Driving Outcomes Through Advertising
• Live Sports is THE Premium Connected TV Opportunity: We then delved into the immense potential of live sports as a premium advertising opportunity. With a significant portion of top television programming consisting of sporting events, Alberto pointed out that live sports offer brands a unique moment of consumer engagement. He discussed how Connected TV is democratizing access to these premium advertising spaces, allowing more brands to participate in high-stakes advertising environments that were previously reserved for larger companies.
  • 00:06:16 - The Opportunity in Live Sports Streaming
  • 00:07:03 - Consumer Engagement with Live Sports
  • 00:10:14 - The Shift of Live Sports to CTV
• Bridging the Education and Awareness Gap: However, we also addressed the challenges that advertisers face, including a lack of awareness and education about the possibilities within Connected TV. Alberto stressed that many advertisers are unaware that they can effectively advertise in these spaces, often due to misconceptions about costs and accessibility. He outlined the importance of education in bridging this gap and helping brands understand how to effectively engage with consumers through Connected TV.
  • 00:12:51 - Challenges in the Advertising Landscape
  • 00:13:14 - Awareness and Education as Key Barriers
  • 00:18:41 - Opportunities Beyond Sports in CTV
  • 00:22:44 - Optimizing Ad Spend Through Allocation

Connect with Alberto and learn more about The Mediam Group here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertoalvarezm/

https://americas.themediamgroup.com/

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In this episode of the State of Streaming Podcast,  Tim Rowe hosts Shelley Stansfield, co-founder of Centriply, a tech-enabled agency that specializes in media buying and ad tech development. Our conversation explores the current landscape of local linear sports advertising and how it can be layered with streaming TV targeting and measurement.

Here are three key takeaways from our enlightening conversation that every marketer and advertiser should consider:

• Household-Level Targeting is the Foundation for Effective Local Campaigns: The conversation centers on the household as the true unit of measurement for local advertising success. Shelley simply reminds us that “The households don’t move,” making them a stable anchor for actually precise audience targeting. By mapping at the census block level, advertisers can align linear TV with digital audience segments, measuring performance across mobile, CTV, and traditional TV within the same footprint. This approach shifts focus from broad TV DMAs to more actionable business outcomes—connecting every impression to ROI across the entire customer funnel. 
  • 00:01:05 - Audience Targeting and Measurement
  • 00:02:52 - The Importance of Households in Advertising
  • 00:04:18 - Combining Streaming and Local Linear Advertising
• Blending Streaming and Local Linear TV Unlocks Efficiency:
  Advertisers are finding real value in combining CTV and local linear TV—especially around local sports. Shelley advises, “Don’t stop at just CTV or just linear,” because integrating both delivers full-funnel coverage and maximizes reach across modern viewing habits. This blended strategy captures both streaming and traditional audiences, particularly passionate sports fans, in premium yet less crowded environments. It’s a smart play for brands seeking Super Bowl-level engagement without the Super Bowl-level spend.
  • 00:06:06 - The Value of Women's Sports Advertising
  • 00:07:08 - Creative Opportunities in Sports Advertising
  • 00:08:55 - Evolution of TV Advertising
  • 00:10:49 - Understanding Carriage Agreements
  • 00:12:12 - Impact of COVID on Regional Sports Networks
  • 00:13:24 - Fragmentation in Sports Advertising
  • 00:14:47 - Challenges in Inventory Submission
  • 00:16:08 - Standardizing Advertising Data
• Women’s Sports Are the Next Big Advertising Frontier:
  The surge in women’s sports presents a rare and growing opportunity for brands. Shelley describes it as “pristine beachfront real estate”—a space with immense audience passion and minimal ad clutter. Viewers here aren’t passive; they champion their teams and the values they represent. For brands, aligning authentically with this movement creates deep emotional resonance and long-term loyalty. Supporting women’s sports isn’t just a media buy—it’s a cultural statement that can turn sponsors into household names. 
  • 00:18:25 - Opportunities in Local Sports Advertising
  • 00:19:26 - Advanced TV Advertising Explained
  • 00:21:07 - The Rise of Women's Sports Viewership
  • 00:22:57 - Community Engagement in Sports

Connect with Shelley and learn more about Centriply here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelley-stansfield-003577285/

https://www.centriply.com/

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today! 

Have a question? Send us a text!

In the inaugural episode of the State of Streaming podcast, Tim Rowe hosts Jon Schulz, the Chief Marketing Officer at Viant, a pioneering buy-side platform in the streaming TV and digital advertising space. With a rich history dating back to 1999, Viant has been at the forefront of ad tech, particularly in connected TV (CTV) since its early days in 2011 when it co-founded Xumo, a free ad-supported television service later acquired by Comcast.

During our conversation, Jon shared insights into the evolution of Viant and the significant opportunities and challenges that advertisers face in the current streaming landscape. 

Here are three key takeaways from our enlightening conversation that every marketer and advertiser should consider:

• The Importance of a Buy-Side Focus: Viant operates solely on the buy side of advertising, which eliminates inherent conflicts of interest that can arise when platforms also serve as sellers. This focus allows them to prioritize the success of advertisers and marketers, ensuring that they are buying the right inventory to drive optimal outcomes. As Jon pointed out, understanding this distinction is crucial for advertisers who want unbiased access to the best inventory available.
  • 00:01:08 - Viant's Legacy in Ad Tech
  • 00:02:09 - Understanding Buy-Side vs. Sell-Side Advertising
  • 00:03:18 - Viant's Early Involvement in Streaming TV
• Household-Level Targeting is Key: In today’s fragmented media landscape, thinking at the household level rather than individual users is essential. Jon emphasized that most major purchase decisions are made at the household level, making it more effective to target ads based on household identifiers. This approach not only respects privacy but also aligns with how consumers engage with content—especially on shared devices like TVs.
  • 00:04:42 - The Launch of Xumo and Its Impact
  • 00:06:34 - Key Takeaways from Early Streaming Experiences
  • 00:07:03 - The Rise of Mobile and Its Influence on Advertising
  • 00:09:08 - The Importance of Household Identifiers
  • 00:10:46 - Advertising Strategies at the Household Level
  • 00:11:29 - Challenges of Fragmentation in Streaming Services
• The Power of Contextual Advertising: With the rise of connected TV (CTV), advertisers have a unique opportunity to leverage contextual targeting to enhance ad effectiveness. Jon shared insights from Viant’s acquisition of Iris TV, which focuses on scene-level targeting. By placing ads in relevant contexts—like a beer ad following a party scene—brands can significantly boost awareness and recall. This approach is not just about reaching audiences but doing so in a way that resonates with their viewing experience.
  • 00:12:32 - The Role of CTV in Demand Generation
  • 00:15:21 - The Importance of Live Sports in Advertising
  • 00:16:25 - Managing Reach and Frequency Across Platforms
  • 00:19:16 - The Impact of Co-Viewing on Advertising Effectiveness
  • 00:20:18 - Shifting Focus to Measurable Outcomes
  • 00:21:43 - Acquisition of Iris.TV and Contextual Targeting
  • 00:24:08 - Partnership with Wurl and Scene-Level Targeting

Connect with Jon and learn more about Viant here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-schulz-4780ba4/

https://www.viantinc.com/

Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today!