Transcript: MIP Global FAST & AVOD Summit - Part I
The state of FAST, Serving local audiences with optimized viewing experience
You will find in this article the transcript of the first 2 sessions of the MIP Global FAST & AVOD Summit that happened last week during MIPTV in Cannes.
The State of FAST
Presented by Alan Wolk, Co-Founder/Lead Analyst, TVREV
To start off, I'm going to take you guys through something we call the state of FAST in about 10 minutes.
So first thing I want to do if there's one thing you guys take away from this today, it is what I'm going to tell you in this next slide. There are FAST services like TUBI and Samsung TV Plus, and the Roku channel, and Vizio watch free, LG channels. In FAST services, you will find FAST channels and AVOD. Now the FAST services are the ones who bring the interfaces, who deal with the advertising, who do the marketing and who do the aggregating. FAST services and FAST channels are two different things. So if that is the only thing you take away from today, my job here is done.
Let's now take a look at what is going on today in the FAST market. The first thing we have going on is quality over quantity. What does that mean? In the early days of FAST, it was sort of like the early days of cable. People really weren't sure what was going on. So a lot of what was VOD was Australian sitcoms in the 1960s and things like that. So what might not have been such a great audience for outside of Australia and other sorts of channels. And what we're seeing now is the big studios are getting involved. Warner Brothers is selling HBO content in a FAST and others producers are getting involved. So we're seeing also that the FAST services are cutting down the number of channels that they're taking. They're starting to curate a little bit more and they're basically making it better. And again, you can look at cable in the 1980s and that's similar what happened: it was just a bunch of random stuff and then everybody started getting identities and stuff got better. So that is one of the big things is happening in FAST right now.
Secondly, what we're seeing is a focus on user experience. Now that takes a whole bunch of different forms. So at its most basic level is basically making better interfaces, making it easier to find stuff to create things and a whole lot of FAST channels that goes back to the first point of these boosted quality. You're shedding some of these extra channels, making it easier to find things. We're going to start seeing AI brought in to help personalize the experience. We're also seeing more intersections of linear channels and AVOD. Now, people start watching on a linear channel and they're like: yeah, I want to watch that from the beginning. I want to go back and see some earlier episodes. So, as I said, much better interface, much better experience. And interface is really what's going to set the various FAST services apart from each other. Because at some level, they're also pushing out a fairly similar products. That's gonna make a big difference in the years to come.
The next thing we've noticed is that FAST is taking off globally. We saw the FAST services started in the US and from there, they should have moved on across the world. The US services started to push out globally. Companies like Tubi and Pluto, Samsung TV Plus are trying to expand themselves globally. But at the same time we're seeing FAST channels arise that are local that are European like Rakuten, and all around the world. What is super important about this is that in most of the world FAST is going to dominate the way people watch TV. Why is that? Because in most of the world people don't have disposable income for a streaming TV service or very few people do. Look at Netflix in India. Netflix started to charge $10 a head and they very quickly realized not a lot of the Indian population has $10. They cut it to 3 dollars but still don't get it: they don't have any disposable income. So FAST is going to become a beautiful way how most of the world watches television, and especially in countries where you're getting your well produced programming from the US and Europe. There are all these new markets having Nollywood and Bollywood with content that can be spread across the globe now. So we're going to start seeing a whole lot more of this being global and FAST being a real factor around the world.
Next thing is that Sports and News are coming to the FAST. The NBA or Premier League Soccer are probably not coming to FAST but there's a bunch of leisure sports that still have intense fan bases. Pluto TV has been running the CrossFit Games and apparently they have a strong fan base. We're also seeing shoulder contents and just last week, Roku in the US struck a deal with the NBA to run all of their shoulder content from the home games like interviews with players and it's a great deal for both of them because there's obviously a lot of dedicated basketball fans who will watch that. It helps the NBA promote their games and keeps people watching longer. It's a chance for a real good promotion with their other programming to basketball fans who might not watch it. So we're gonna start seeing this happen with a lot of different sports in both the live events and in the shoulder content.
News is another huge thing. In the US, you have all these local broadcasters and local news stations. And as people are moving away from broadcast and cable, they're like: what do we do now? They're looking to move their News shows onto FAST and asking themselves how do we make a 24 hours News shows something that lends itself to the FAST service. It should be free, people don’t have to pay for it and so there are a lot of governments that get involved in subsidizing it. And it's something that the FAST services themselves are seeing a lot of interest in. This is a way users can find out what's happening locally. A lot of the News in Sports that we're going to see is local too. We're seeing that in the US already, smaller colleges, even high school Sports on FAST local News and you can really play around with it. Users can get news about Cannes and not just about the whole of Provence. So that you can really play around with it as technology gets better.
The last piece of thoughts, is that they're still figuring out how to make real money. So we're still in the early stages. In the US the FAST services do not have the affiliate fees that make cable and broadcast, literally, 10s of billions with a B dollars every year. And we're still figuring out so much on this. How do we measure it? How are we actually monetizing it? What are people willing to pay for it? Our guess at TVREV is that at some point in the next couple of years, these ads that are on the subscription streaming services, like Netflix, Disney and HBO, are going to reach critical mass. And because at this point, they really don't have enough for the big brands. It's been nine figures from TV advertising that they have to move. But once they have 30 or 40 million, and Amazon certainly helped us with that, they’re gonna move the other big brands and budget there. As far as SVOD is the new primetime and FAST is the new cable, here's a lot of money: go! But until that happens, How are we monetizing this? Is this a real thing? So it's still taking some time. And again, measurement is a huge thing. How are we actually measuring this with third party verification in a way that advertisers feel comfortable? Don't take my experimental budget but $75 million. Anyway, so that is the state of fast in 10 minutes.
Serving local audiences with optimized viewing experience
Moderated by Alan Wolk, Co-Founder/Lead Analyst, TVREV
Maciej Gozdowski, Group Vice President - Streaming at Warner Bros. Discovery Poland & Jennifer Batty, Director of Content Partnerships - Samsunt TV Plus Europe and MENA
Alan Wolk:
So we're gonna be discussing serving local audiences with optimized viewing experiences, but we promise we won't get that nerdy about it. I want to let Jen and Maciej introduce themselves and tell you why you should care about what they have to say.
Jennifer Batty:
I'm Jennifer Batty. I'm head of content acquisitions for Samsung TV plus for Europe and also the rollout that we'll be doing towards the end of June July in the Middle East. We are currently in 16 countries in Europe and 24 countries worldwide. And as you know, Samsung is the number one manufacturer of televisions for I think in the last 18 years. If you buy a Samsung TV, you get Samsung TV Plus for free, which means that depending on the country that you're in, you can have access to 100 channels, 150 channels along with video On Demand.
Maciej Gozdowski:
I'm Maciej Gozdowski from Warner Bros. Discovery in Poland. I'm responsible for the whole streaming operation.
Alan Wolk:
We have somebody who's from an aggregator and somebody who's from a content providers, we can get two different opinions here. The first thing I want to ask you guys is something I actually just said which is that the overall interface is getting better because you do a better job of combining Linear and On Demand. Is that actually happening or did I made that up?
Jennifer Batty:
It is, if you are looking at how you access Samsung TV plus, you just turn your TV on. And as long as your TV is 2017 or newer, it's a smart television. You have all the Apps that are there. Within TV Plus we have EPGs, and your favorite channels that you like. It really is simple for somebody that doesn't work in media. And that doesn't know what FAST is. They're just watching any other channel that's out there. The difference is that we are FAST. We are Ad funded, and we do have content that's available On Demand. So, as you were saying earlier, we have in the UK Schitt's Creek which is a fabulous comedy. If you've missed it and you want to go back, you can go into the On Demand section. We have the majority of our content so it gives the consumer the opportunity for them to say, you know what, I want to watch this on demand now. It's definitely changing and it's evolving. I think the lines will continue to blur, and when you're looking at the difference between FAST Apps and the smart Apps that are out there, you will see Linear channels and On Demand all in the same rail. So as a consumer you can do whatever you'd like to.
Alan Wolk:
Maciej, as a content owner, is that something that you see as a positive thing?
Maciej Gozdowski:
Yes, absolutely. What is essential is how customers or viewers discover your content. The biggest problem we have right now is the variety of the content and the quality of the content. We have a lot of volume of content, but the content you need to find out is sometimes live TV, sometimes on demand, sometimes a transaction. So it's really tough to understand what are the customers needs. So, I think the cooperation between broadcasters, producers and manufacturers is important.
Alan Wolk:
As you guys are rolling out across the globe, like how are you looking at some of your local content versus you have a vision of more international and for anyone who has not seen Schitt's Creek, amazing show Canadian comedy series.
Jennifer Batty:
It is my favorite comedy show out there. I was talking about it. I am Canadian. So that does help. From that Samsung perspective, especially in Europe, local is king and queen. We have local partnerships. We have local teams, it's very important for us to bring local content. We talk about being a global business, but with a local sensitivity. So you know in France, we have a partnership here with Altice media. We do retransmission of their News channels. We have single IP FAST channels with them. Same thing with Newen and Mediawan. In Spain we have a partnership with RTVE, in Italy with Discovery. UK we have content from BBC, channel 4, ITV. I could go on and on, Germany with ZDF studios, we announced recently a strategic partnership with them. Local content is very important, we also localize International content. So if we're bringing something into Germany, we want it to be dubbed into German, whatever language it is, whatever country but local content is where we see the most consumption at this stage.
Alan Wolk:
Maciej, as you're on the other side and in Poland, a country that has not huge local programming, how are you guys approaching all of this international content?
Maciej Gozdowski:
We just launched 15 channels based on local content. But I think, the mix of both international and local content is the game changer to really attract the audience and convince them to watch. We have really strong local flavor in Poland as Warner Bros Discovery, and offer our customers the best mix of local and global content.
Alan Wolk:
Do you get the content dubbed or subtitled?
Maciej Gozdowski:
Poland is a strange Market because most of the content comes from international, but I think subtitles are enough.
Alan Wolk:
News have become really popular on FAST. How do you approach that because again, as you go global, it's not just CNN. So how do you deal with that?
Jennifer Batty:
So news is very important to Samsung TV Plus, not just in Europe, but worldwide. I think with what's going on around the world, people are looking at different areas and different ways to consume news and are looking for different types of news. They don't just want one News channel so we have partners across all of Europe. We have a News section that is very easy for users to find. We have local News also. We try to partner whenever we can with local News partners, but we do also bring in international News whether it's Euronews, France24 or you know, CNN. We want to have as diverse News as possible for our users, so you can look at it from an international perspective or from a local perspective. News is very much a key driver. Within the fast world we do retransmissions and we have all the News channels. So it's not really a different viewing experience.
Alan Wolk:
Right now is it getting easier to convince the users? I'm sure in the early days users were like “Samsung TV, what is it?”
Jennifer Batty:
Yes, I think when you look at Samsung TV Plus right now and you look at the quality of the content that we brought on board, and the strategic partners that we have across Europe, the content has gone from, you know, just somebody throwing a whole bunch of content together going, Hey, this is really cool this FAST business to some of the strongest IPs around the world. You talked about sports, we do a lot with sports. Consumers are turning their television on and what they want to see on Samsung is strong content, good quality, strong viewing experience, production value, just like they are when they're watching anything else. So we've really stepped up that game for us which is really exciting.
Alan Wolk:
Maciej can you explain to these guys what TVN is?
Maciej Gozdowski:
TVN is the most important TV station in Poland, for sure number one, with one of the best entertainment experience in the country. So also talking about News and the evening News. It's the most popular show I would say in the evening around the country and also available in streaming for free of course, but it's something which attracted the people the most.
Alan Wolk:
I know in the US a lot of local broadcasters do have an half hour News show twice a day. And now it's like okay, you have to make a whole 24, at least a 12 hour channel. What are some of the challenges on that and some of the issues that you have?
Jennifer Batty:
We don't, we haven't run into that. Because what we're doing is we're working with existing News channels. So we are working with somebody that has a News channel that's already there. They're not just taking a new show. I think we've been very lucky in respect for the countries that we are in, that there are the News channels that are out there. News is also something that you have to be incredibly careful with when you're curating channels to ensure that the News that's out there and what you're telling is what is as close to the truth as possible. We're very happy to have many partners with our News channels that we do have very strong and credible brands.
Alan Wolk:
Maciej, Warner globally has a lot of Sports programming. Is sports something that is heading over to FAST, whether it's the shoulder content, whether it's smaller leagues?
Maciej Gozdowski:
I think it's time, depending on the market. For example, in Poland, we have ski jumping, which is quite popular, and available also for free. So it has attracted customers in the weekend for sure. But I have no doubt that premium Sports content will be on paid streaming platforms only. As an example, I think that the Olympic Games will be on Max in the whole Europe, so I think it's time right now when sports comes to the streaming, we don't have problems like the same with technology that is going on with the network.
Alan Wolk:
There's some pretty cool stuff you can do with it too, because it's digital, right? Have you seen anything that’s pretty cool?
Maciej Gozdowski:
I think the Olympic Games this year will be something completely new. This experience will be completely different than what you have seen for years. So you could switch between a lot of channels, with coverage of everything. It's gonna be super easy, a lot of push information that something happens here something happens there. So if you are a sports fan, that will be a completely new experience.
Alan Wolk:
Jen, what are you thinking about the Olympics? Clearly that's on everybody's mind right now.
Jennifer Batty:
We do have partnerships with incredible brands that are out there in Sports brands and sports channels. So we are working with different channels and we have to see how we complement the broadcasters that have the Olympic rates which are very expensive. Can you do things like the road to the Olympics, following accolades, different things that we're working with our broadcasters to see who has that. But Sports from a TV Plus point of view is very important. We were one of the first FAST broadcasters to launch live sports. The partnership in Germany with DAZN: we were doing two or three live football matches a week with three of the biggest football leagues in Europe. We recently had six nations rugby that was live on some countries around Europe. We have a partnership with FIFA. So sports is a very big driver for us. Again, it goes back to News and Sports, what's driven viewership for decades. It really isn't that much different within the FAST world.
Alan Wolk:
There's still technical issues with live streaming Sports. You know, every year in the US when there is the Superbowl, people are like “ah, it's like, you know, 90 seconds behind broadcast”. Like, my friends were cheering in the next room. Are we getting past that now?
Jennifer Batty:
I think for us, the partners that we have are very strong Sports broadcasters. So they've been dealing with this in different realms for many years. I think the viewing experience is now fabulous. I think that you'll always want to do something where somebody in the other room might be a second ahead of you know, like, don't cheer when they score because I'm watching in the kitchen. But the feedback and the viewing experience has been very strong for us so far today.
Alan Wolk:
You are in TV so you are the technology in the end.
Jennifer Batty:
We are, but we also do work with a number of tech integrators. Because we are the screen, I think the expectations are a little bit stronger. People may not understand the behind the scenes sort of things that happens all over, they just think I'm watching Samsung like, oh what's happened? But we work very hard. We have an incredible tech team around the world that work really hard to make sure that the viewing experience is as strong as possible.
Alan Wolk:
Maciej, what are you seeing over there?
Maciej Gozdowski:
Observing this market for so many years, of course there are challenges, but the experience is pretty different. I think, what you describe like the 90 seconds, right now it doesn't happen. I think it's better and better and indeed of course there are challenges about the local network every few months. But I think we are in this moment of time when watching Sports live was really almost the same experience like with classic broadcasters.
Alan Wolk:
The other thing that comes up with Sports is that American Sports had tons of breaks. It's like the Joke has always said the last three minutes in an NBA game can last 20 minutes. And so there's a lot of opportunity for advertising but like things like European football, they don't have that kind of breaks, so how do you guys do work around that because you know FAST is asking for it.
Maciej Gozdowski:
Football is probably more predictable. We know where are the breaks and it's 15 minutes so it's a little bit I can say easier to manage. We also have the News channels and we have to insert the commercials. So I think with the sports we also have the problem, how to put the commercials as when to put the breaks is not always predictable. AI also helps us with that.
Jennifer Batty:
You know the Sports broadcasters that we have on FAST, they understand how the football game goes. The European broadcasters understand how the game goes and when the commercial breaks needs to go. The US has an interesting way to do it and I think that they sometimes slow things down so that they can go on with the commercial break. The broadcasters that we work within FAST are very smart. They understand the sort of nuances FAST now is incredible quality television, versus what it was when it first started, you know, not that long ago. The quality has changed and the partners that we see are people that have been in the media industry for decades. So the experience that they're bringing in the quality of the content they're bringing, whether it's sports, whether it's news, is so much stronger.
Alan Wolk:
About AI, do you think that personalizing the interface or making personalized channels for people, is something that we're going to start seeing? We'll just make the whole experience a lot better and a lot more personalized?
Jennifer Batty:
I think that we'll see a lot happening in the next couple of years. From the Samsung perspective, we've just recently launched our Galaxy phone with Samsung AI, which we announced just within the last couple of weeks. Of course, as soon as that gets announced, we're like, how is this going to work with TV Plus? How can we use these things to serve better content to the viewers? To serve better ads? How can we do that? It's something that from a Samsung perspective is very interesting. I think we will see different ways that we'll be able to utilize AI and if you think it's amazing.
Maciej Gozdowski:
The future is also on the FAST channels that will be more personalized, more individual channels. That's for sure the future of recommendation and the user interface. I think this is also a challenge on the big screens, as you have to take in to account the decision of not only one person but 3/4 persons. So it's not easy to recommend something and build a compromise in a few minutes. So challenges are in front of us but I think AI will be very helpful.
Alan Wolk:
So the last thing I'm going to ask is a question that we're asking everybody is looking to the future of the industry. What are you most excited about?
Jennifer Batty:
I don't know how long we need, whether it's six months, two years, three years, where we're not actually talking about FAST, we're just talking about television, and it just becomes the way of life and I do think we are going in that direction. When you're talking to somebody that's at home watching TV, they're just watching television. I think that it's incredible, where FAST is growing in the last few years, and it's getting even more exciting, I think in the next couple of years.
Maciej Gozdowski:
I think the challenge will come from the younger audience, how to attract this younger audience to watch something on the big screen. This is a global challenge. I feel like this is important to find the solution.
Alan Wolk:
That's a good point. Eventually FAST will just become free and there'll be a subscription and now that will be television. I think it's fascinating. How younger people who are doing a lot of TikTok and YouTube, like how are they are going to start interacting with TV? They can grow into it the way everyone else did, or is it just gonna be a completely different experience? It will be fascinating to see in the years to come. Well, thank you both very much for this. It's been great.
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