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USA’s Sunisa Lee (gold) celebrate son the podium during the medal ceremony of the artistic gymnastics women’s all-around final during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre in Tokyo on July 29, 2021.
Lionel Bionaventure | AFP | Getty Images

If last year’s biggest corporate media challenge was launching subscription streaming services, this year’s unifying dilemma is figuring out what to put on them.

The tension between how to balance streaming video, theatrical release and linear TV is leading to some peculiar choices bound to confuse consumers in what’s becoming an increasingly jumbled landscape.

“The challenge all of these companies are battling — the central question — is what content goes where, who decides, and why?” said Rich Greenfield, a media analyst at LightShed Partners.

The programming decisions may alter how the public views streaming video. So far, most media companies have marketed streaming video as a complement to traditional pay television. This is why so many of the products are named with the suffix “plus” — Disney+, ViacomCBS‘s Paramount+, Discovery+, etc.

In the long run, it’s possible each streaming platform will become the home for all of a media company’s programming. The “plusses” will essentially be lopped off. ESPN+ may just be ESPN, with everything ESPN has to offer.

But the world isn’t there yet. And the results are increasingly confusing for consumers as new programming is made specifically for streaming services, and the best of linear TV still doesn’t show up on streaming.

The streaming labyrinth

For scripted television series, media executives have largely made the decision that streaming services will be the home for the highest quality original programming. Disney, AT&T‘s WarnerMedia, Comcast‘s NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS are all attempting to convince Wall Street they can grow beyond traditional cable television. They’re using new hit shows, including “The Mandalorian,” “Mare of Easttown,” and “Yellowstone,” as bait to entice subscribers. The results have varied from service to service, but all of the major new streaming services are growing by millions of customers each quarter.

For movies, there’s disagreement at a film-by-film level across the different services. Disney put Pixar movies “Soul” and “Luca” directly on its Disney+ service for no additional charge upon release. For “Jungle Cruise,” “Black Widow” and “Raya and the Last Dragon,” the company decided to make users spend an additional $30 to stream the movies before eventually making them free with a subscription. NBCUniversal placed “The Boss Baby: Family Business” on its paid tier of “Peacock” but only released “F9” in theaters. WarnerMedia decided to place its entire slate of 2021 films directly on HBO Max but won’t do that for blockbuster movies in 2022.

For news and sports, most media companies have kept their most valuable programming exclusively on traditional cable TV. The most-watched primetime programming on CNN, MSNBC and ESPN is still locked inside the cable bundle. This has allowed executives to push against the steady but not yet overwhelming surge of pay-TV cancellations, keeping alive a highly profitable business that brings in billions of dollars each year.

Choice overload

NBCUniversal is navigating the challenge of distributing valuable programming as it broadcasts the Olympic Games. Executives can choose to air live and pre-recorded events on NBC’s broadcast channel, NBC’s cable networks, NBC’s authenticated apps for cable subscribers, NBC’s free apps, Peacock’s free tier and Peacock’s paid tier.

The variety of choices has led to a complicated ecosystem because NBCUniversal is attempting to achieve several goals at once. The company wants to push Peacock subscriptions, appease pay-TV distributors who have agreed to many years of fee increases because they were receiving unique content, and maintain expensive TV advertising rates by attaching commercials to exclusive live programming.

“It’s the innovator’s dilemma in action,” said one veteran broadcast television executive. “You know the linear TV world is collapsing, but you’re trying to stay on the Titanic for as long as possible. At the same time, you’re setting up the lifeboats, which are digital and streaming.”

Making the numbers work

Disney is staring down a major streaming dilemma as soon as next year with “Monday Night Football.” The company secured rights to stream the perennially most-watched cable series on ESPN+ in its new TV rights deal with the National Football League in March. But Disney and ESPN haven’t said anything about when it will actually include “Monday Night Football” on ESPN+.

ESPN is by far the most expensive network on cable TV. It gained that distinction by being the only way Americans can watch “Monday Night Football” and other popular sporting events. If Disney starts moving previously exclusive programming from ESPN to ESPN+, pay-TV distributors will push back on future rate increases and millions of consumers will be given another reason to cancel cable TV.

The math makes this calculus tricky. Beginning Aug. 13, Disney will charge $6.99 per month for ESPN+ after a recent price increase. But Disney makes more than $9 per month per cable subscriber for ESPN, according to Kagan, the media research division at S&P Global, in pay-TV distribution fees. When bundled with the other ESPN networks, Disney Channel and ABC, Disney makes more than $16 per month.

In other words, for every customer canceling cable, Disney loses more than $16 per month. It will need to start charging more for its streaming products to break even  and that’s not even counting the loss in advertising associated with its linear programming, which dwarfs streaming video advertising revenue.

“Nobody is ready to unplug the linear ecosystem, because it brings in so much cash,” Greenfield said. “So they’re all balancing how to manage legacy assets with future investments that are free cash flow negative to show Wall Street that they’re trying. They’re all walking the tight rope.”

News programming decisions

NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia announced this month they’ll hire hundreds of new employees to beef up their streaming news services.

Instead of simply duplicating MSNBC, CNBC and CNN programming on “Peacock” and “HBO Max,” the media companies are taking a different strategy. CNN is building a subscription news service, CNN+. CNN chief digital officer Andrew Morse said he plans to hire 450 people to develop and market new series and newscasts. NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde announced plans to hire nearly 200 new employees across its news brands, the majority of which will support NBC News Now, the company’s flagship streaming network.

The decision to create separate programming for streaming — some of which may duplicate the content of what’s already being broadcast on linear TV — can be viewed in several different ways.

Skeptically, it could be seen as a waste of resources, filled with redundancies, as a “moment in time” decision to keep exclusivity in the cable bundle that may no longer exist in two or three years.

But NBC News executives say the investment acknowledges streaming audiences aren’t the same as linear viewers. That should lead to programming decisions that acknowledge digital viewers tend to be younger and more diverse.

“We’re always thinking about ways to optimize our journalism for each distribution platform,” said Noah Oppenheim, president of NBC News. ”How do we engage these new audiences? Sometimes the answers lead to different faces on screen, different approaches to storytelling, a different lens on the world.”

It’s unclear if there’s actually an audience for an all-streaming news network — especially one that demands consumers pay a monthly subscription fee, such as CNN+, which debuts in 2022. The notion of programming to a younger audience is suspect, as a video news broadcast, whether streaming or on traditional TV, may simply not appeal to those under 25. The decision to invest more in streaming news could lead to a gradual decline in investing in broadcast or cable productions if total revenue is shrinking.

NBC News Chief Digital Officer Chris Berend said he’s confident further investment in NBC News Now will pay off because he can already see the growth in time spent on the existing product, which launched in 2019. NBC News Now is free for consumers, backed by advertising.

“We are incredibly excited about the millions of hours audiences spend with NBC News NOW and how that continues to grow as we continue to invest,” said Berend. “That time spent, which includes more than an hour per visit on some platforms [like YouTube], is a clear indicator we are satisfying our audience across many platforms, each with their own demographic nuances.”

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

WATCH: Comcast CEO Brian Roberts on earnings and streaming business

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How Fanatics and MLB are planning to keep the trading card boom going

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How Fanatics and MLB are planning to keep the trading card boom going

Julio Rodríguez of the Seattle Mariners was the American League Rookie of the Year in 2022. MLB trading card partner Fanatics has plans for new rookie card features this season as part of a bigger plan to increase the value of Topps baseball cards for collectors.

Diamond Images | Diamond Images | Getty Images

Fanatics made waves in the sports and collectibles industries when it pried the rights to make trading cards for Major League Baseball from incumbent Topps in August 2021, ending a partnership that dated back to 1952. The sports platform company made another huge splash last January when it acquired Topps outright for roughly $500 million.

Now, after releasing its first major Topps set alongside the start of the 2023 MLB season, Fanatics is starting to show how it plans to elevate the trading cards and collectibles space.

“Fanatics is focused on the best experience for the fan, and collectibles is focused on the best collector experience,” said Fanatics Collectibles CEO Mike Mahan. “That means having the most innovative, thoughtful, authentic products possible.”

Mahan, who joined Fanatics in June to lead the company’s trading cards and digital collectibles business after serving as CEO of Dick Clark Productions, said the “the collector experience in 2023 will be the best collector experience ever, and 2024 will be even better.”

That belief is driven from Fanatics Collectibles’ main focus areas so far, Mahan said: educating new collectors and better onboarding them into the hobby, building out the marketing around collectibles, enhancing the existing collector ecosystem and experience, and innovation.

Rookies play a big role in increasing baseball card value

Innovation drove one of the new initiatives Fanatics is adding this year around typically one of the biggest points of excitement, and value, for card collectors: the debut cards of highly touted rookies.

“One of the central questions that we’ve been trying to answer is how do we get cards to really capture the big moments,” Mahan said. “Baseball cards have been about the rookies for so long, so if rookie cards are the biggest things in sports, how do we make the best possible card? How do we bring people closer to that moment?”

That led to the creation of MLB Debut Patches, which Fanatics is touting as the first-ever memorabilia made in partnership with a pro sports league specifically for the inclusion on trading cards. Working with MLB and the MLB Players Association, every player who makes their debut this season will have a patch on their jersey. After the game, the patch will be authenticated and placed directly onto their rookie card in a future Topps set.

MLB chief revenue officer Noah Garden said that is the sort of the thing that will continue the momentum among collectibles and trading cards.

“It’s that emotional connection that drives the hobby, and brings fans closer to the game,” said Garden, who described himself as an avid baseball card collector. “They want to feel like a part of the game, and what is a better way to do that than to have something that was actually a part of it?”

While the sports trading card industry had seen growth in recent years, the pandemic put the hobby into overdrive. Cards across sports have been selling for record prices, including a $12.6 million sale for a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card, the highest price ever paid for a trading card.

U.S. Google searches for “best sports cards to buy right now” increased by 680% between January 2020 and February 2023, according to data provided to CNBC by online visibility management SaaS platform Semrush. During the same period, average U.S. monthly visits to Topps.com grew by 218.5% to nearly 1.2 million, Semrush data showed.

Business overall has been very good, says Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin

But even as other collectibles that boomed during the pandemic have fallen out of favor like NFTs and Funko Pops, trading cards have looked to maintain their momentum.

Jeff Owens, editor of Sports Collectors Digest, the largest trade publication covering sports trading cards, said that the resurgence of the hobby was “primarily due to a resurgence in buying and selling during the pandemic and a large group of wealthy investors looking for alternative assets.”

The softening of the economy led a decline in the market of modern cards last year, but values and demand are still “well above” what they were before the pandemic, Owens said, adding that the market for vintage cards like the Mantle rookie card is “very, very strong.”

Owens also pointed to the growth and support of card shows across the U.S. – nearly 1,000 planned for 2023, which is a significant increase compared to previous years.

Mahan said that from Fanatics’ perspective, “it’s a very strong time for the hobby right now.”

The global sports trading card market is valued at $44 billion and is expected to approach $100 billion in 2027, according to data from Verified Market Research.

“We think very firmly that the best days are in front of it; we can’t control the broader economy and like any consumer good there’s some correlation with broader spending but go to any card show or shop right now, this is a very vibrant and healthy marketplace,” Mahan said.

When Topps was considering going public in a SPAC deal that would have valued it at $1.3 billion in April 2021, the company reported that it had record sales of $567 million in 2020, a 23% year-over-year increase. That SPAC deal was later canceled after Fanatics acquired the MLB rights, which ultimately led to Fanatics’ acquisition of the company.

Mahan declined to comment on Topps sales today, but he said that “the business and the industry continues to be in a great, great place.”

What MLB gets from the Topps deal

For MLB, the return of trading cards has also served as a boon, which Garden said has parallels to video games or other ways that the league looks to bring in new fans and turn casual fans into diehards.

Garden noted fans like his son, who is an avid baseball fan but may not know every player on a West Coast team besides their stars. “When these players start to break through nationally, you already know who to look for” based on the rookie cards and other cards in the set, he said.

“The importance of cards in the evolution of fandom I’ve always thought was important,” said Garden, noting that’s how he got into baseball. “But the business hadn’t seen innovation in forever and in many ways, it had gotten harder to collect. … What Fanatics has done so far to innovate the product and support the ecosystem has been nothing short of fantastic.”

While MLB cards remain the crown jewel for Topps, Mahan said that Fanatics is excited for what the future holds not only for baseball cards, but also for the other rights the company holds, which includes the ability to produce NBA and NFL cards in the coming years.

“The good news is trading cards and sports cards have been vibrant for a long time, they’ve mattered for a long time, they’ve been meaningful for a long time,” Mahan said. “It’s a business that has traditionally been cyclical and had its ups and downs. … We’re focused on education, innovation, marketing, and community, and bringing all of those together – given where we sit today with all of these good things yet to come, we feel our best is firmly in front of us.”

Earlier this year, Fanatics hired former Snap global head of content and partnerships Nick Bell to head its new Fanatics Live business, which will focus on building a digital customer shopping experience where you can buy trading cards and other collectibles via curated and personality-driven content and entertainment.

Bell told CNBC that one of the first focuses of this new business division will be around “breaking,” a form of social trading card buying. Similar to a blind raffle, a set number of individuals purchase an entry from a seller — called a “spot” — and the seller then opens an entire case of trading cards live online and allocates each of them. Fanatics would receive a cut of each card sale.

Fanatics raised $700 million in December to bring its valuation to $31 billion, capital that it planned to use on potential merger and acquisition opportunities across its collectibles, betting and gaming businesses, according to CNBC.

The company estimates its revenue for Fanatics, including its Lids segment, will be approximately $8 billion in 2023.

Fanatics is a three-time CNBC Disruptor 50 company, and ranked No. 21 in 2022.

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Tesla has only installed 3,000 Solar Roof systems in the U.S., far below forecast, study finds

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Tesla has only installed 3,000 Solar Roof systems in the U.S., far below forecast, study finds

Tesla vehicles parked outside a home with a Tesla Solar Roof on Weems Street in Boca Chica Village, Texas, U.S., on Monday, June 21, 2021.

Veronica G. Cardenas | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Tesla has only installed 3,000 of its Solar Roof systems in the U.S. since touting the technology seven years ago, according to new research from Wood Mackenzie.

That installation rate falls well shy of Tesla’s guidance and ambitions for what it previously called its “solar glass” roof tiles. Wood Mackenzie notes that in late 2019 the company said it was aiming to manufacture 1,000 Solar Roofs weekly, and to install 1,000 per week in the first half of 2020.

The report offers the latest glimpse into Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s struggle to integrate a solar energy business into his electric car company following the 2016 acquisition of SolarCity, a solar installer founded and run by his cousins Peter and Lyndon Rive with his help.

Average weekly Tesla Solar Roof installations reached just 21 in 2022, Wood Mackenzie said. Tesla hit a high of 32 average weekly installations in the U.S. in the first quarter of last year, according to the study.

Musk first promoted a shingle-style solar panel in October 2016, as he was trying to garner shareholder enthusiasm for Tesla’s $2.6 billion purchase of SolarCity. The shingle he showed at a marketing event was not even a working prototype, it was later revealed. Musk had invested significant capital in SolarCity, and served as board chairman while also helming Tesla and SpaceX.

A group of Tesla shareholders eventually sued Tesla and Musk over the deal. Last year, the Delaware Court of Chancery ruled in favor of Musk in a bench trial. But the shareholders’ lawyers on Wednesday made their opening arguments in pursuit of an appeal in Delaware Supreme Court.

Shareholders alleged that Tesla’s SolarCity purchase amounted to a bailout and was pushed by Musk because his personal wealth and reputation were at stake. Musk has denied that he pressured the Tesla board to go through with the SolarCity deal. Had he lost, Musk could have been forced to pay upwards of $2 billion, CNBC previously reported.

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While Tesla’s Solar Roof effort has struggled, the company’s traditional solar panels have seen some improved traction in the market.

The traditional solar-panel installations shrank considerably from 2016 to 2020, but volumes have been on the rise along with broader growth in the residential solar industry, Mackenzie Wood researchers told CNBC in an e-mail. Tesla installed traditional solar panel systems with a power generating capacity of 156 megawatts in 2021, and 248 megawatts in 2022, the researchers said.

The 3,000 Solar Roof systems that are installed in the U.S. have an estimated capacity of around 30 megawatts.

While Tesla intended to manufacture all of its solar roof tiles initially, it has instead procured photovoltaic glass from Chinese supplier, Almaden. Residential roofing company GAF Energy began manufacturing and selling a competing solar shingle to residential roofers in 2022.

The Tesla Solar Roof commanded less than .03% of the approximately 5 million new rooftops built in the U.S. in 2022, according to Wood Mackenzie.

Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.

WATCH: Why Tesla has struggled with its solar business

Why Tesla has struggled with its solar business

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After a more than $1 trillion rout, Beijing appears to be warming to Chinese tech giants

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After a more than  trillion rout, Beijing appears to be warming to Chinese tech giants

Alibaba's historic restructuring may show Beijing is warming to Chinese tech giants

Beijing’s regulatory crackdown on the Chinese tech sector began in late 2020, wiping off more than a combined $1 trillion from the country’s biggest companies.

There are now signs that the central government is softening its stance towards internet titans like Alibaba, in a move that could prove positive for Chinese tech stocks.

“The regulatory headwinds that we had in the past two years … that’s now becoming from a headwind to a tailwind,” George Efstathopoulos, portfolio manager at Fidelity International, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Alibaba announced a major reorganization, looking to split its company into six business units, in an initiative “designed to unlock shareholder value and foster market competitiveness.”

Over the past two years, China’s government has often railed against the “disorderly expansion of capital” of tech firms that have grown into large conglomerates. Part of Alibaba’s announcement noted that these splintered businesses could raise outside capital and even go public, seemingly heading in a contrary direction to Beijing’s concerns.

Efstathopoulos said that the move could indicate a green light from the upper echelons of the Chinese government.

“You have senior leadership blessing for unlocking value, and, to me, that is a fantastic indication where we are now essentially moving from regulation not being the issue that it was,” Efstathopoulos said.

Jack Ma’s return

Alibaba’s restructure isn’t the only sign that Beijing could be easing up its scrutiny of the tech sector. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, returned to public view in China for the first time in months.

Some credit Ma with sparking the start of the tech crackdown in October 2020, when the billionaire made comments that appeared critical of China’s financial regulator. A few days later, Ant Group, the financial technology affiliate of Alibaba that was controlled by Ma, was forced to scrap its massive Hong Kong and Shanghai dual listing, after regulators said it did not meet the requirements to go public.

Following this, the Chinese government doled out huge antitrust fines to Alibaba and food delivery giant Meituan, introducing a slew of regulation in areas from data protection to the way in which companies can use algorithms.

Ma’s reappearance in Hangzhou, where Alibaba is headquartered, has been read as another sign of Beijing’s more positive view toward the tech sector and entrepreneurs.

“Jack just didn’t show up in Hangzhou because he was tired of traveling around. I think it was well orchestrated and fits with the government’s campaign to demonstrate that, you know, they are relaxing pressures on their private sectors and are welcoming the rest of the world,” Stephen Roach, a senior fellow at Yale University, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Tuesday.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma's return to China was 'well orchestrated,' says Stephen Roach

Economic growth in focus

There have been further signs of regulatory easing over the past few weeks.

The gaming sector was hard hit in 2021, as authorities grew concerned about addiction among young people in China. Chinese regulators froze the approval of new game releases for several months. Last April, authorities began to green light new games, mainly from domestic firms. This month, the video game licensing regulator gave its stamp of approval to a batch of foreign titles for release in China.

Meanwhile, Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi — one of the companies caught up in the regulatory overhaul — announced plans to expand its business. Didi went public in the U.S. in June 2021, but found itself subjected to a cybersecurity review by Chinese regulators within days of listing. It eventually delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and plans to float in Hong Kong.

Over the last few days, foreign technology executives including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon visited China and met with government officials.

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, reappeared in the public view in China for the first time in months. Alibaba then announced a huge reorganization of its business. Experts see the move as a signal that the Chinese government is softening its stance toward tech giants after a crackdown that began in late 2020.

Jean Chung | Bloomberg | Getty Images

In addition to warming to the domestic tech sector, China is also courting foreign business. Its economy has been battered over the past two years, thanks in part to the country’s strict Covid policies and regulatory tightening. The government now aims for around 5% economic growth this year.

To achieve that, it will need the help of private businesses — including the tech sector.

“China is facing both weak economic growth and rising tech competition from the U.S. It’s a pretty tough position to be in. So they need the economy to fire on all cylinders. Tough regulations on big tech platforms just doesn’t make sense at this juncture,” Linghao Bao, tech analyst at Trivium China, told CNBC via email.

Is China tech out of the woods yet?

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