Streaming Execs Discuss the Industry’s Advertising Pivot: ‘We’re in the Second Inning Era’ (Video)
In the rapidly evolving and competitive streaming marketplace, executives from companies including Paramount Streaming and AMC Networks talked about how platforms can evolve to meet challenges like audience fragmentation and dwindling attention spans, as well as break through the noise via hybrid business models.
The conversation, “Streaming Strategies in a Competitive Marketplace,” — moderated by WrapPro and business news assistant managing editor Jethro Nededog and presented by City National Bank — featured Ashwin Navin, CEO of Samba TV; Brett Dismuke, general manager of ALLBLK & WE TV at AMC Networks; Dan Limerick, chief operations officer at WME; Jeff Shultz, chief strategy officer and chief business development officer at Paramount Streaming and Juan Ponce, senior vice president and general manager at Telemundo Streaming Studios of NBCUniversal’s Telemundo Enterprises.
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“We’re in the second inning era of streaming,” Navin said. “We’re introducing a hybrid business model for the first time. Maybe Paramount gets credit for really doing this very well, but Netflix hit a wall on a pure subscription model, and the idea that we can introduce a hybrid of subscription and advertising is something that we are just now starting to figure out, and that’s going to potentially bring a lot more people into the fold.”
On Thursday, Netflix just announced its pricing and launch date for its basic with ads plan. And the advertising model is also being adopted by
The panelists also discussed the parallels between the streaming marketplace and cable. As the former grows, it has integrated previously established practices like bundling or expanding into niche audiences.
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Dismuke said, “On the ALLBLK side, we are dedicated to content specifically for the African American community. When you have a mainstream or a larger streaming service, they’re just scratching the surface of the content that pertains to these particular genres… That is the benefit of having services like ALLBLK and now we’re seeing a lot more in the marketplace. What is happening is no different from when cable television expanded into genre networks. The same thing is happening in the streaming space.”
Despite the similarities, Shultz emphasized that streaming is not just Cable 2.0, maintaining that viewers nowadays have more options to choose from that empower them to find content appealing to them.
“Even though the concept of bundling and the word bundling evokes a cable business model, it’s important to remember that all that streaming has done is introduced more choice and more control to consumers,” he said.
Watch highlights from the panel above.
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