The Ankler Podcast

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Hosts Janice Min, Richard Rushfield and Tatiana Siegel are joined by new Ankler contributor Sean McNulty of The Wakeup newsletter to discuss the first likely recession of the streaming era, which, if it were to happen, would further roil companies already getting pounded by Wall Street and, in the case of Netflix, subscriber losses.

McNulty references the last recession following the 2008-2009 collapse of the financial markets. It was pre-streaming and HBO was the dominant premium player at the time. “HBO really never saw a big hit in [previous] recessions... but that was in the ecosystem of cable TV, where it was a lot harder to cancel your HBO,” says McNulty, a former executive at HBO and Charter. “Now, you can literally cancel at the click of a button on your [remote]. I think we haven't seen too much [subscription decline] yet. But I think by end of by Q3... this will be very interesting.”

Marketing cuts appear already to be underway as the streamers tighten their belts. “You're not gonna cut back necessarily on production, but you cut back on marketing and advertising... [they] take the first hit, which is where Warner Bros. Discovery already has positioned its ax,” adds McNulty. “And layoffs are sweeping the industry.” Additionally, an across-the-board pullback in advertising is expected as well right as streaming services pivot to advertising to goose revenue.

Siegel also discusses the role of inflation in the new subscription economy: “Everyone right now is terrified of the economic outlook, because no matter how wealthy somebody is in the industry, even if they're at the highest echelon of the industry, they are seeing that a pint of strawberries is $19. And you have to wonder how long will people be able to have four different streaming subscriptions under those kind of economic [conditions].”

The most-watched entertainment company in the world, Disney lately is roiled by major exec changes, an animation eclipse from other studios, layoffs and a CEO racing to both name a successor and right the ship at the same time. CNBC media reporter Alex Sherman joins Sean McNulty and Elaine Low to talk the perfect storm facing the company with less than 18 months left in Iger’s second term. Also: the PGA-LIV anti-trust problem (2:27), latest on the strike, and what’s next on the Sun Valley agenda (43:52).

Full transcript here.

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Follow us (and like us!) at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, and follow us on Twitter . Also please subscribe to The Ankler at TheAnkler.com for more podcasts and stories like these about the entertainment industry.

Today's Hot Seat Podcast is hosted by Richard Rushfield and features special guest, media investor and analyst extraordinaire Rich Greenfield, Partner and TMT Analyst at LightShed Partners and LightShed Ventures.

Greenfield has long been one of Netflix's most ardent enthusiasts in the investment community, but in a wide-ranging conversation on the state of the media world, post-Netflix earnings, he’s changed his tune.

Says Greenfield, “If you think about the sort of rocky road, Netflix was at an all-time high in October or November, and it reminds me of the Ferris Bueller quote — things move fast. You really have got to pay attention because this industry is moving at pretty crazy speed right now.

“That's what's so scary. The reality is we coined the term #goodluckbundle cause we saw what was happening to linear television before others. The question now is everyone looked at Netflix, everyone looked at Disney and the success they had and said, ‘Oh my God, this actually isn't as hard as it looks! Wall Street will reward us! We're gonna build this massive streaming juggernaut. We can be like Netflix too!’ So everyone's all in on streaming and now you just go, holy crap, that valuation is no longer gonna be possible. Wall Street's not gonna reward us. Our legacy TV business and movie business is actually falling apart faster than we thought, because we've shifted so much content to streaming and change consumer behavior. So you can't go back to the old business. The new business is not economically as compelling as you thought it was. What do we do? Do we just keep plowing into streaming?"

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And in a reversal unthinkable just weeks ago, Greenfield sees the company — now at a bargain market cap of $100 billion — as a possible takeover target for Apple or Amazon, companies he also believes will increase their production spend to capitalize on where Netflix may cut.

"If Apple wants to step in, buy it or Disney wants to step in and buy it, I think there are certainly crazier things that have happened and maybe that's the opportunity, right? While I don't think they're looking to be sold and I don't think that's the plan, obviously, I can't imagine everyone is not thinking about if you want to have a 220 million global subscriber business with a growing library with incredible tech talent, there's a way to get it. So again, another reason why people don't just abandon Netflix as a stock is that it's actually gotten to a size where it actually becomes an interesting chess piece."

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Greenfield also predicts a possible role for Jason Kilar, the streaming age's golden boy, who recently was exited out of WarnerMedia and launched HBO Max.

"I was just sort of thinking out loud of like, if you were, if you were gonna build an advertising-supported streaming business, who would you call? If you got one call for help, who do you call right now? Why don't you pick up the phone and call Jason Kilar who has an entire team, that's done advertising on streaming, not once but twice. And his entire team is right now sitting on the side.”

Still, he scornful of Netflix's new ad push. “It really is surprising that the right answer for Netflix is to cave on their religion of advertising or being anti-advertising. And I think that of everything that happens this week, the one that is by far the scariest, is that they're now coming to the conclusion that advertising might be the only answer.”He continues, “When you think about Netflix and you can go through, you know, hundreds of episodes of content...how many seasons of Grey's Anatomy are there? You know, you can binge through the first three seasons of Stranger Things and you get lost. Without an ad break and the content just auto-plays, you totally get lost.”

“As soon as you start putting ad breaks in — and remember, none of the Netflix originals were made [even thinking] about with ad breaks...I don't know if you've watched Hulu with advertising late...

Today’s podcast is the third of four in our “What the World Watches” audio series recorded at Singapore’s APOS conference, for paid subscribers only. You can listen to earlier conversations with Formula 1’s Director of Media Rights and Content Creation Ian Holmes here , and Warner Bros. Discovery International President Gerhard Zeiler here.

Amazon Prime leads in Japan; Netflix in South Korea; Disney+ in India. Nowhere is the growth opportunity (some might say only opportunity) for American streamers as significant as it is in Asia. But it’s not as simple as ordering up more Squid Game. Consigliere to many an entertainment C-suite exec, Vivek Couto , Executive Director and Co-Founder of Media Partners Asia, recently hosted regional players including Amazon’s VP, Prime Video International Kelly Day, Netflix’s Vice President, Content APAC (ex-India) Minyoung Kim and Uday Shankar, investor with James Murdoch in Viacom18, at the APOS conference in Singapore. From there, he joined hosts Janice Min and The Wakeup’s Sean McNulty to discuss what will determine who wins (and how) the most important front of the streaming wars.

Among the topics:

The immense scale of opportunity vs. the U.S. and Europe (9:22)

Current misassumptions about the quantity of local content necessary to win (multiple mentions)

Who has first-mover advantage where

Regional players — and potential acquisition targets for American players (multiple mentions)

Sports rights as loss leaders in the region — including cricket (33:14)

The region’s wide disparity in ARPU (average revenue per user) (10:58)

Potential for imminent streaming consolidation in the Asian market (43:43)

How Warner Bros. has “one of the best libraries to monetize in...the world” (17:57)

A transcript of the conversation is available here.

Welcome to The Ankler Hot Seat, our new podcast that takes you behind the scenes of Hollywood’s big personalities, power struggles and ever-changing playbook. It is a production of The Ankler, a subscription-only newsletter.

Everyone will have an opinion about the topics on today’s episode, as we dive into the most sensitive subjects currently raging in Hollywood — racial reckoning, “woke” culture, and #MeToo. We base today’s discussion on two news-making stories that reveal the death of consensus not just in politics, but also in this industry. You’ll also notice a theme in the discussions around redemption — is it possible for any one person or organization that has been disgraced?

First up, our special guest is writer Peter Kiefer, whose piece “Hollywood’s New Rules”, was in equal measures loved and hated as it made waves immediately upon its publication on Tuesday. Writing what many whisper, but few speak out loud, Peter reveals the private feelings of much of white Hollywood about so-called “woke” culture, their fear of misstepping or being “canceled”, and how things, as Hawk Koch, former president of the Academy told him, have “gone too far.” (Lots of voices in his piece would beg to differ).

Peter reveals the emails that a white male show-runner shared with him after he didn’t get certain jobs (possibly as convenient excuses):

“This one a dead end — they are going to limit search to women and bipoc candidates”

“Studio now telling us this job must go to a female / bipoc writer. Sorry — it sucks”

As the demographics of the country shift toward a non-white majority GenZ audience, recent cultural reckonings and a recognition of a century of exclusion for people of color in Hollywood have resulted in sweeping changes — critics would say regulation and interference — around representation. Diving into why what some of liberal (white) Hollywood says publicly differs from what some say privately, The Ankler Hot Seat asks the real question — has anything really changed at all?

Then after that:

Our hosts dive into the Golden Globes debacle, an epic, hilarious mess of an evening. After the Los Angeles Times expose, the publicist boycott, and botched attempts to shake it off, the Globes finally took the stage last weekend, to an audience of themselves. The proceedings were followed widely via a series of madcap Twitter announcements that somehow perfectly captured the zaniness that is the Globes’ calling card. We hash out what this night added up to, what did Hollywood lose in not having this show, and is there any path back?

The, we take up the fate of James Franco as he attempts to mount a comeback. Should he have been exiled? Was he even exiled? And what stands in the way of his return? There has yet to be a successful return from #MeToo jail; will this be the first? The reasons why he might not be accepted back are probably not quite what you think.

Finally, we have a quick recap of the Top 10 shows and movies on streaming.

What do you think about all this? Are the hiring doubts in Hollywood justified concerns, or sour grapes and entitlement? Should the Globes come back? Should James Franco? Tell us hear your thoughts in the comments...

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If you have thoughts about what is said on the pod, or have a guest or topic suggestion, let us know at HotSeat@anklermedia.com

Music by Jordan Sommerlad On Spotify @jordansommerladmusic

Follow @TheAnkler and our hosts: @janicemin @anklerrushfield @tatianasiegel27

If you’d like to sponsor The Ankler Hot Seat, give a buzz to Kymber Allen at [email protected]

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