Media Minute with Jeff Minsky: Take a Minute and See What You May Have Missed!

Disney announced quarterly earnings and while Disney+ missed Wall Street’s expectations of 109mm subscribers, they were in line with Disney’s internal projections. Disney+ now has 104mm subscribers. We learned that Hulu has 41.6mm subs and ESPN+ 13.8mm subscribers.

On Monday, the MRC met with Nielsen to discuss their findings that changes to Nielsen’s panel methodology led to an undercounting in February 2021 of Total Usage of Television (TUT) from anywhere between 2% - 6% against P18-49. Persons Using Television (PUTs) were understated between 1% - 4%.

Sirius XM Media has consolidated the ad sales forces of SiriusXM, Pandora and Stitcher to form SXM Media which will cover over 150mm listeners across radio, streaming, and podcasting. In addition to the three core brands, inventory across SoundCloud and NBC News and MSNBC & CNBC podcasts will be available for purchase from the ad sales organization.

Discovery CEO David Zaslav revealed at this week’s MoffettNathanson conference that they are probably more than ok with losing viewers on cable platforms, while cable would not be so ok with losing Discovery. According to Zaslav, Discovery Networks generates 20% of cable viewing share and only gets between 7%-8% of distribution revenue. Zaslav says that Discovery makes about $3 - $3.50/mo per cable/sat subscriber and then another $3 - $3.50 in advertising revenue from those subscribers. Discovery+ brings in around $7 of ARPU for its ad-free version and $10 of ARPU for its light-ad/hybrid option. If cord cutting lost 1mm subs for Discovery, they’d only have to pick up 650,000 Discovery+ subs to replace that revenue.

For the first time in its history, The CW will be a full seven-day-a-week broadcast network. The home of Kara Jor-El, aka Supergirl, will be adding two hours of original primetime programming to Saturday nights beginning in October.

Comcast revealed that they have 3.5mm Flex devices, their streaming device and video platform for broadband only subs. According to Comcast about half of those devices are active users in a given month.

A number of high-profile shows announced that they will take their final bow with the 2021-2022 season. “This is Us” will finally run out of ways to manipulate our emotions. Sales of Kleenex are anticipated to plummet! Following a fairly controversial year, Ellen has announced that she will end her talk show. CBS cancelled the acclaimed comedy “Mom” which ends its run this year.

You may recall that Roku purchased Quibi’s original content assets in a fire sale. Thirty of those originals, some of which were highly praised, will launch on Roku on May 20th.

Hot off the Press: According to the newly release U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue Study from the IAB, U.S. podcast revenue rose to $842MM an increase of 19% with estimates that it will break the $1B mark this year and double to $2B by 2023. The study points to increase investment in content by leading audio platforms and the ability to dynamically serve ads vs. traditional audio as the key drivers of this expansion.

Have a wonderful weekend!

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