Behind the Numbers: Beyond the Bundle — What Will Shape the Streaming World Next? | March 17, 2025
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There's a comma in the sentence, is that right?

The mayor of Maine, Paul Verner. Great to be here. Happy St. Patrick's Day to those who celebrate. And to those who don't, probably no harm in going along for the ride, but no judgment. Stop putting green stuff in the river. They're okay, Chicago. What are we doing? Senior editor based in New York, Daniel Konstantinovich. Hello, happy to be here. No strong thoughts about St. Patrick's Day.

You do? Let's get into it. I've got none. I've got none. I don't want to go there. Nearly derailed this whole episode. Okay, I'm going to derail it right now by talking about the most walkable city in the world. So I know what you're thinking. It's got to be somewhere in Texas. It's not. I'm kidding, of course. I'm in Austin right now. My friend convinced me the other day that we should drive to a place to eat that was quite literally across the road. I could see it. And we drove there.

Because that's the kind of people we are, apparently. That's what they've made me into. There was a Visual Capitalist article by Kayla Zhu, wrote up some research from M. Bruno et al. and The Economist that looked at the world's most walkable cities. They counted ones that are over half a million people. So not the tiny ones, or small ones, I should say. Ranked by the average time to walk to key amenities and the share of residents within a 15-minute walk of key amenities. Schools, hospitals, restaurants, shops, things like that. Can you guess that?

Number one. Are we talking just in the US or worldwide? Worldwide. I can give you a hint if you want the hint. I'm going to throw a shot in the dark. Pre-hint. I'm going to guess Tokyo. Oh, okay. And I'm going to say Venice. That's a good one. That is a good one. So the hint was going to be that 45 of the top 50 were in Europe. Paul's Venice is...

is not on the top 20, but Italian city Milan is.

Number one. Number one. Takes about six minutes to walk to key amenities. Then it's Copenhagen and Turin, again in Italy. So Kyoto in Japan was the most walkable non-European city. So right country, Danny. On the list coming in 28th, though, which is remarkable. Vancouver in Canada was the highest ranked North American city in the overall list at 53rd, which is low.

Yeah. Why are all most walkable cities in the world in Europe? Why most of them in Europe? Primarily because these cities were established long before the advent of cars, Ms. Zhu points out, but also because they prioritize walking through urban redesigns, national walking policies and strategic initiatives as well. So it's not just because of the history part. They're really real intention to keep their cities walkable.

Where is Amsterdam on the list? Ooh. I've got the top 20 here, so if it didn't make the top 20, then I'm not sure. It's not on here. I'm just wondering because...

For biking? Yeah. I would say number one for biking, yeah. But Copenhagen is as well. That's why I was wondering because Copenhagen is almost like Amsterdam in that everybody bikes, but obviously everybody walks too. So I was wondering if those two, it'd be interesting to see how those two factors correlate. Yeah, that's a good point. Longest walk

pedestrian street in the world. The Strogate? Strogate? I can't pronounce it, but in Copenhagen. So that one definitely makes a lot of sense. Top 10. Milan, Copenhagen, Turin, Dublin, Lyon, Munich, Paris, Marseille, Genoa and Edinburgh. That's the top 10. Anyway, today's real topic. Beyond the bundles, what will shape the streaming world next?

All right, so, gents, the last few years we've been talking a lot about bundling and the wave that hit the streaming world, the Disney Plus Hulu Max bundle, the Disney Plus Hulu ESPN Plus bundle, the Starz MGM Plus bundle, and there's an AMC Plus One. And some have worked out quite well. Brad Adgate of Forbes was noting the Disney Max bundle, Disney Plus Hulu and Max, launched in July 2024 and has to date been a success, according to Antenna. The first six months, over 20% of new Max customers had subscribed previously.

to the bundle and 80% of the near 2 million that subscribed in the second half were still subscribing three months later. So able to hold onto those folks as well. So that was the bundling wave. Now it's time to discuss a few other waves that are being made. One is the concept of the streaming hub.

In some ways, it kind of feels like it already is. I mean, it's...

Fair. One of the, if not the top competitor in digital video, making big gains year over year in TV viewership. In fact, I think they came out with a stat recently that more people are watching YouTube on TVs than they are on their phones, which is a really big shift. So they absolutely could. I mean, if they can meet, you know, with these streaming hubs, I think that, you know, these are an effort to.

meet consumers where they are and just offer them access to a whole huge slew of content without having to leave the interface or the app that they're familiar with. And, you know, if YouTube is already number one,

That's a very familiar place to, you know, make that transition. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, Paul, to what Danny's saying, there's YouTube, according to, based on viewers, so not the whole population, but if you look at viewers, YouTube is third in terms of where people spend most of their time. Netflix first, but over one hour of Netflix, people spend over an hour on Netflix. Spotify second, 54, and that's obviously music.

for 54 minutes a day. And YouTube is third with 51 minutes a day. So it's doing well there. And it's doing well. Nielsen Gage, YouTube, the main app we're talking about, 11% of all TV time is spent on YouTube. All TV time, not just the streaming bit. All TV time, 11% spent with YouTube. However, I am surprised that folks would kind of cede that much control to a rival streaming service, so to speak.

Yeah, I think YouTube occupies a very interesting space in the spectrum. And I think Danny touched on this, you know, just talking about the transition from mobile to CTV. So now YouTube is predominantly a CTV platform. However, that's only when you compare it to how mobile centric it had been up until maybe three, four years ago. But when you compare it to a...

Amazon Prime, an Apple TV, a Peacock, a Netflix, YouTube is still very spread out among different devices. So I think what YouTube is trying to do is become more and more TV-like. And in order to do that, it does have to become, I think it has to improve the user experience in terms of the interface,

and accessing it on a TV. But I think the other key thing in terms of being a content hub is, as you pointed out, Marcus, you have to have partnerships, right? No one is just going to suddenly make their streaming platform available on YouTube unless there's something in it for them. And so far, that hasn't really happened with YouTube. I think YouTube is the common denominator of all videos that are posted by certainly individuals and creators and increasingly media companies

But that doesn't necessarily carry over to a standalone streaming service. So as of right now, either Google hasn't pursued those kinds of deals or maybe there's just not enough of a win-win for their partners. But in order to get to that place, you really do have to cut deals with these rivals, essentially. And obviously what has to be in it for them is...

either subscriber growth or revenue growth or both. And if they've made that calculus and they're not gonna get there by giving up a portion of their ad revenue or even their subscriber revenue to YouTube,

then it's going to be a hard nut to crack for them. Yeah. But it seems like something along those lines might already be happening with Prime Video because they have definitely become a big hub for all of these different streaming services. I think the most recent one to join in or launch like a tile on Prime Video is Apple TV. So if you're one of these smaller streaming services like Apple TV that's struggling to gain access

you know, significant subscriber growth since the market's really saturated. A platform like Prime Video that has this enormous, you know, baked in audience is clearly appealing and they're willing to cede some amount of revenues or whatever the cut that Amazon takes in order to be in front of more people. So, yeah, I mean, I think that you're certainly right. Like YouTube is not there yet, but.

I think it may already be happening for... They have. Yeah, it's a good point. YouTube has a few partners. And they're already doing this. It's just hard to find. So if you go to YouTube and then you go on the left-hand side, you go down to Movies and TV. And then in there, if you go down to Primetime Channels and you scroll across, there are some folks. NBA TV, you can get your subscription through them. Paramount+, Max, Stars, the WNBA, AMC+, a few others. So there are some partners, but smaller ones, similar to what

Amazon has, as Danny was mentioning. Yeah, but I think the key there, Marcus, you hit on is hard to find. And that's where the user experience comes into play. You know, YouTube, frankly,

has obviously a lot of strengths, but clear interfaces and clear branding have not been their hallmarks. And I think what these partners are looking for is a place where somebody's going to turn on their smart TV and instantly be able to navigate, if they're on the YouTube app, instantly be able to navigate to that

Amazon tile or the Apple TV or whatever it might be. I think that's going to require some substantial redesign or re-engineering on Google's part. Especially because, maybe this isn't a problem, but I saw it as something that could be quite confusing for folks. Kurt Williams, YouTube Senior Director of Product Management, was telling the information, the vision is that when you come to our TV app,

and you're looking for a show, it will just blend away whether that show is from a prime time channel or that show is from a creator. I would want to know the difference. I would want them to be separate. So I'm wondering if it's going to be harder for someone like a YouTube because there is so much user generated content there in the first place. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a big distinction there.

Yeah, I mean YouTube does not have its own premium content offerings, which is why I think despite being the CTV leader, it is viewed differently from a Netflix or Prime Video or what have you. And I think that distinction is really important. They can't just like mesh it together and have a smooth experience in my opinion. Yeah.

Netflix probably has something to say about this as well, because they're trying to be an entertainment hub of sorts. They have TV shows and movies, obviously, that they've made, that they licensed. They have live content now showing American football games and just football games. What is what you call them in America? Because it's implied that it's American football because you're in the country or something.

wrestling now they've got WWE Raw the games they're adding as well so they're trying to be an entertainment hub of sorts but YouTube something to say about that apparently let's talk about another trend potential wave that could be hitting streaming because it's kind of already happening Warner Brothers Discovery's Max streaming service said it will keep

CNN Max News and its BR Sports offerings free on higher tiers of its service, but they will no longer be available on its cheapest and supported basic tier. No, it's David Bloom of Forbes. Basically what they're saying there is if you are paying for the premium tier, you'll get news and sports. If you're not, if you're paying for the cheaper one, then they won't be available on there. Paul, how will content tiers, this idea of, you know, if you're paying for the premium

a lower level subscription plan, you're only going to get certain amounts of content and you're going to have to level up in terms of how much you pay to get access to more content, more types of content. How does, how do content tiers in your mind change? How are they going to change viewer engagement and subscriptions? Well, to your point, it's already happened in the sense that Netflix and Disney Plus, by rolling out their ad tiers, they've inherently created different levels of access and, you know,

users or viewers get different content depending on which tier they're signed into, or at least they will get an ad free experience versus ad supported experience.

What's interesting about Warner Brothers Discovery is they're kind of at a different point in their trajectory. They've definitely struggled. They had a lot of trouble re-signing some of their sports licenses. So they basically lost out to some of the big tech players when it comes to live sports. And...

They seem to be in a place where they're still prioritizing user growth. And as we've discussed on this show before, many of the more established services have at some point in the past two or three years pivoted from focusing on user growth to focusing on revenue generation. Obviously, Warner Brothers Discovery is trying to do both.

the play that they just announced strikes me as a way to boost the subscriber counts and the revenue will presumably fall into place as they grow their base. So in some ways this development is more of the same in terms of a streaming service creating different tiers and playing around with what its own sweet spot is with how it monetizes those tiers.

But it's also an indication to me of where Warner Brothers Discovery is compared to a lot of the other services, some of which are also struggling. But I think Warner Brothers Discovery has had a tougher time with all of its content, news content, sports content, entertainment content. Yeah, Danny, it was...

It wasn't clear to me when I subscribed to one of the Netflix tiers, the ad-supported one, that I wasn't going to get access to all the content. And so I'm wondering whether that's going to have to be a point of emphasis, that you're going to have to make it clear what you're going to get and what you're not going to get by paying more and not paying as much for some of these tiers. Yeah, I mean, I certainly think that that could be a problem, although there are ways to...

get around that. You know, if you...

say are a customer who subscribes to the cheapest tier, not realizing that this means you don't have access to sports. I think that there are pretty easy ways that Warner brothers discovery or any streaming service could, you know, surface the fact that like, Hey, this big sports event is coming, right? You don't have access, like click here to up your subscription or something like that. That's a great, great point. But that's a great point. Yeah. And that's a great way for them to, to get people, people hooked onto a certain sports packages is by, um,

making sure that they will join those milestones during those events. They are telling people about them. But what I was saying is, I guess with sports, it's a big category. It's easy to say, cause it's kind of like, it's kind of like with cable, right? It's, it's old. It's a proven concept because that's what we used to have with cable when people would be like, okay, you want basic cable? Fine. Do you want the sports package? Do you want the movie package? Do you want the whatever? Um,

And if it's a group, it's fine. But when it's with individual shows, like you're not going to get some films and TV shows, which ones we're not going to tell you exactly which ones you will and won't get. I feel like I wonder if that's more confusing for the consumer. I think it is confusing and consumers are increasingly selective about these services and savvy about turning them on and off. So churn is an issue.

And I think streaming services are going to have to be somewhat more transparent than they've been about what you actually get when you sign in to a given tier. You mentioned Spotify before, Marcus. The music streaming services, I think, have done a better job of delineating exactly. For example, like Amazon Music, if you subscribe to the paid version of

you're going to get like, I don't know how many million tracks. But if you don't and you just do the free ad supported, you're going to get like maybe two million. So and they make that pretty clear. So does Apple Music. So I think that kind of reckoning is probably coming to streaming services because frankly, they have not been very transparent about what they actually give people for what they pay. So we're talking about the hub. Yeah.

YouTube trying to be the hub of streaming for the household. We've talked about the different tiers, the different types of subscriptions that you can have with different types of services. We'll go down a level further now and talk about the types of content specifically on those services and particularly content which still is able to pull in large audiences. So we're talking about a programming that pulls in tens of millions of people. So this year's Super Bowl,

which is kind of the gold standard of large audiences, pulled in a record near 128 million viewers. But the Super Bowl is a gold standard for a reason. It's in a tier all by itself when it comes to live event audience viewership. The second most watched show every year is also a football playoff game. It kind of changes year to year, but typically it's a football playoff game with less than half the audience. In fact, you have to go down to 11th place

on the most watched shows or programs of the year list to find a non-football event, the presidential debate, pointing at about 20 million people

And right behind that in 12th place was last year's Oscars. The Grammys was in 19th. Even they pulled in 18 million viewers last year. So still a substantial audience given they were in a world of fragmented viewership. The Grammys viewership though fell nearly 10% year on year to 15 million. Globes viewership in January ticked down 1% from 9.4 to 9.3 million. ABC said total viewership for this year's Oscars, including Hulu, was up 1%.

1% to reach 19.7%. So a mixed bag. Danny, can streaming, where a lot of these shows have moved over to, can streaming maintain sizable enough audiences for award shows? These kind of second or third tier events? I think definitely. I mean, these streaming services have, you know, something like Netflix has millions of subscribers. Like, I think that if you are...

the rights holder to one of these big live events, it's certainly attractive to partner with the streaming service because they can expand your reach. You can still partner with linear TV, you know, doesn't necessarily exclude you from non streaming broadcast options.

And these streaming services have shown that they're willing to pay a lot of money for access, exclusive access to these live events because even if Grammy's viewership or Golden Globe's viewership is down 10%, 15% and is sort of plateauing after the pandemic…

That is still a somewhat guaranteed audience of many millions of people. And that's something that's very attractive to advertisers and big budget advertisers. That's ad space that you can charge a lot of money for. Yeah. And you were telling me that the Thanksgiving Day Parade eclipses all these guys, all of these award shows in viewership. Yeah, that is a very interesting one. The Thanksgiving, I don't have the numbers handy, but the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade just renewed its

contract with uh nbc universal so i think it was you told me when we talked about it um the other day i went and looked 31 million record viewership last year which is staggering it's higher than any of these guys viewership across demographics too you know it's that's yes imagine like a family on the couch on thanksgiving morning that's you know the the

of age ranges watching this event together. So definitely a big advertising opportunity and something that's interesting about it that just speaks to what I was saying about streaming services being willing to pay a lot of money for these events is that when negotiations first started for streaming rights for the Thanksgiving parade, Macy's was reportedly asking for as much as three times the previous contract's value. So just really capitalizing on that

the hunger among streaming services for these events. Yeah. Paul, where do you stand? Because it's a hard one to figure out. I'm looking at Academy Awards viewership from 2000s.

Onwards used to be about 46 million people tuning in. So huge audience. It kind of maintained that through to 2014. And then, and then has just kind of been in free fall up until the pandemic where low point was 10 million in 2021 is rebounded, but it's to use Danny's word, it's kind of plateaued now at a kind of 19 to 20 million. Where do you see, I mean, this is just one of them, but where do you see award shows viewership going in the future?

I don't see that they're going to grow a lot from where they are. I think what is happening is the distribution of viewers is shifting increasingly towards streaming as it becomes more available and more prevalent in the viewing population. And I think that in the case of the Oscars specifically, because it is a Disney property, it made sense that it streamed on Hulu, but I saw that the New York Post reported that

There's some tension between the film Academy and Disney. So I guess there are some conversations with Netflix about carrying it. So this could be one of those things like some of the big sports events that shifts to a non-affiliated streaming property, not affiliated with the broadcast network. But I think in terms of the total audience, one thing I'd like to highlight is

just how politicized these types of shows have become. And I'm not talking necessarily about the shows themselves pushing buttons politically. I think the Oscars went out of their way this year to try to be apolitical. But just the nature of discourse in this country and how divided everything is means that the Oscars are seen as sort of like the Hollywood elite, you know, which is typically like

liberal leaning. So I think that kind of shuts out a lot of the audience. And because this trend has been happening, it's been the gulf has been widening over the years that you singled out, you know, since like 2014, 2015 or so.

I think that is going to be a limiting factor. So even if more, you know, more of the viewing is happening on streaming services, which seems inevitable, I don't know if we're going to see like an overall rise in the number of people who tune in. Yeah. Yeah. Great take. Yeah. Might not be able to get back to where they were, but might not have to because, um, they fell from a very high number and they're still at a very high number, even if they've been going to cut viewership in half, uh,

Also, another bright spot is key demographics doing well. Oscars reaching post-pandemic highs for adults 18 to 34, about 3 million viewers. That's up 30% year on year, which is great. And then viewership for adults 18 to 49, also reaching its peak since 2020 with about 6 million people. That's up 20%. And that is all we have time for for today's episode. Thank you so much to my guests for hanging out with me today. We first thank Danny. Yeah, no problem. Always a pleasure.

Thank you to Paul. Thank you, Marcus. Great being here. And thanks, of course, to the whole editing crew, Victoria, John Larson, Danny Stewart, who runs the team, and Sophie does our social media. Thanks to everyone for listening in to the Behind the Numbers show, an e-marketer video podcast made possible by Trax. Sarah will be here on Wednesday for the retail show for a conversation all about ageism in beauty. ♪