Sentiment Analysis of the earnings transcript to help figure out if there are any bullish or bearish sentiments that could be gathered from it. We're doing ML and AI based analysis on the earnings call to get some more insights.
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| Statement |
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| So I feel very, very good about where we are |
| So, I feel very good going into the fourth quarter and these -- the next 12 months as the broadcast calendar with what we've been able to secure |
| As I said, these businesses have great return on investment |
| So you think about it from that perspective, 11 years old, pretty much the same time since the last Potter film came out, but the IP is generating enormous returns in these experiential business model |
| But it's clearly an area where we have a growth opportunity and where we have an enormous IP library that we can tap into in order to -- again, back to my earlier point, to get some projects launched that have better ad than others of being financially successful |
| And so, I do think we clearly have a great relationship in that traditional ecosystem, and we will continue to honor that |
| To your point, we've got a balance sheet that is getting stronger and stronger with a clear trajectory on the leverage side |
| And on the whole, your own viewership on your own platform starts to benefit because people go like, "Oh, I haven't seen that in a while or I missed that." So, it's a win-win-win |
| That's been very encouraging |
| It's great for talent because we won the greatest monetization for every piece of IP |
| So, I do think that on the advertising side, we have pretty significant additional growth opportunities |
| It's great for our platform, and it's great for my free cash flow as well |
| The other point is we're continuing to see great success with our ad-lite solutions |
| I'm very happy with the outcome |
| We've done better than that this time, and we have added more initiatives to that process |
| So -- and again, as I said initially, we're learning a ton from integrating the operation of that sports footprint, and we've been very successful in this space |
| And I do think we have the benefit of running sports businesses sports media business is almost everywhere in the world with a very, very strong footprint in Europe, very strong footprint in Latin America and then a very relevant footprint from our perspective in the U.S |
| I am 100% convinced that we are delivering significantly more value to our affiliates in terms of viewership, which in the end is driving their revenue than our relative share of their programming expenses |
| I do believe that we can continue to get better with the subscriber acquisition economics and subscriber retention economics |
| But we're also seeing small incrementally positive signals through the third quarter |
| I think market-wide very significant increases in volume |
| We want to be the best at monetization distributing our content across all platforms everywhere in the world |
| And to your point, the -- this one company mindset versus a siloed management approach is really probably the single biggest change in one of our other discovery after we came together in April of last year, and it's remarkable |
| I just want to be clear, we have very, very strong and amicable relationships with our affiliates |
| We've got over 1,000 individual initiatives in our attracting system, but more my increasing confidence in our ability to deliver against these, right, because everything starts with an idea |
| We're still in the beginning stages of harmonizing our content supply chain just the operational backbone of making content available within the Company across different platforms, there's enormous efficiency opportunity there still |
| It should be positive for all the programmers |
| But the most important point is we've really put ourselves in a great position here to tackle these challenges in the industry |
| So again, I think we've got a lot more runway here, but I'm also super happy with where we are |
| But we're very pleased with what we're seeing, very focused on churn, a number of the churn related metrics, churn drivers or drivers of churn reduction, I should say, such as viewership engagement, habituality, coming back to the platform multiple days a week |
| Statement |
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| We've lost about $1 billion in ad sales with a pretty steep profit flow-through |
| And that has been -- the lack of volume commitments in the upfront has been one of the headwinds, frankly, in 2023 |
| But in that framework that we made out on the earnings call, we're now seeing a slightly lower EBITDA number for the year because content delivery and monetization is subdued, especially in the third and potentially the fourth quarter |
| And as we laid out on our earnings call, there is uncertainty |
| The thing though that we can't ignore is that the traditional ecosystem has lost about 30 million homes from its peak |
| And we'll have some tough comps in the film space |
| Can you give us some color on the '23 upfront by the various components, linear, sports, news, direct-to-consumer? Were there any upside or downside surprises? Gunnar Wiedenfels Well, as you've heard from others, a market that was a little more challenging than in the past |
| Look, it's an unfortunate situation |
| Also for the film slate, you have to assume slightly more conservative outlooks with the lack of talent being available to promote titles, et cetera |
| The strike is not helpful, obviously |
| We're still scratching the surface |
| And we've seen this again and again, you have a title where engagement of viewership drops off after whatever, a number of months, six, seven months or so on the platform, it drops off because people on the platform have seen it often enough |
| On the other hand, we've also had some disappointing releases, the ad sales environment should be a big positive |
| So that's clearly not great from an advertiser perspective |
| Again, we've only just scratched the surface |
| I think the one thing to keep in mind is with the production that might have a 10% margin, but it takes 24 months to get it done, and then we might not collect all the revenue right away |
| Now that's not a good solution |
| And again, we don't even need a full-on recovery on the ad sales side, just not at the same headwind would make a huge difference |
| Look, I think that's still a function of the practical reality that for a decade in streaming an enormously valuable amount of quality content has been given away well below fair market value |
| And we're still hearing mix signals |
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