Streaming Media Connect Sneak Preview: Subscription Management and the Great Re-Bundling
No other events provide the clarity and information you'll find at Streaming Media conferences. That’s why Streaming Media attracts serious, high-level technology decision makers ready to do business. For more than 20 years, our events have been the No. 1 gathering place for streaming industry professionals. Join us this August 20-22 for the next installment of Streaming Media Connect, a FREE online event.
On Wednesday, August 21, media and entertainment technology and consumer electronics analyst Paul Erickson will moderate the panel “Subscription Management and the Great Rebundling.”
With the constant push and pull of market fragmentation and consolidation, streaming services that rely entirely or partly on sustained subscription revenue need more than great and plentiful content to fight churn and keep subscribers engaged. As consumer budgets tighten, free and ad-supported options multiply and emerge as new norms, so subscription-based streamers need to make it as easy and seamless as possible for consumers to discover and access the content they want. More and more, that means bundling and streamlining offerings. This panel’s mix of content owners, subscription management strategists, and experts discuss the art and science of making subscriptions smoother, simpler, and churn-proof.
Confirmed panelists include Jon Giegengack, Principal and Founder, Hub Entertainment Research, Yale Wang, EVP/Head, Marketing, Fubo, Rameez Tase, Co-Founder & President, Antenna, Guy Bisson, Executive Director & Co-Founder, Ampere Analysis, and Josh Rosenblatt, Head of Partner Management, Plex.
Moderator Paul Erickson is Founder and Principal of Erickson Strategy & Insights, an industry analysis, strategy, and advisory consultancy. Prior to founding the company, he was Research Director for Entertainment and CE at Parks Associates, and he brings expansive experience and perspective from covering media & entertainment technology, services, and related consumer devices across Parks Associates, Omdia, IHS Markit (now S&P Global Market Intelligence), and NPD DisplaySearch (now Circana). With more than 25 years of technology industry experience, his coverage and insight has spanned streaming video services and platforms, pay & broadcast TV, connected CE, content security, UI / UX technologies, smart home, gaming, home & professional audio, and collaboration technologies.
"Today’s challenging streaming video business environment demands every advantage possible to attract, retain, and strengthen the relationship with consumers," Erickson says. "Capitalizing on consumers’ need for simplification and perceived value, intelligent use of bundling and subscription management can deliver higher loyalty, ARPU growth, differentiation, and stabilization of revenue. Our discussion will focus on market observations as well as effective bundling and subscription management approaches to drive success in today’s crowded streaming environment."
Panelist Jon Giegengack is the founder and principal at Hub Entertainment Research. He launched Hub in 2013, as the convergence of technology and entertainment began to gain speed. Jon recognized the need for real-time insight about the changing world of digital entertainment: from how people discover new content, to how they consume it, to how they pay for it (if they pay at all). Jon works with leading entertainment brands including ABC, Comcast, Netflix, Sony, AMC and AT&T. Jon has more than 20 years of experience in research for the entertainment industry. He is a regular speaker at industry events and has been quoted in publications like Variety, TheWrap, Forbes, Bloomberg, and more. For the latest insights, subscribe at hubintel.substack.com.
“Consumers love the subscription economy and are using more subscriptions than ever before,” Giegengack says. “So many that their biggest challenge is figuring out how to keep track of and use them all. Today, simplicity is a virtue that people are willing to pay for, and bundles are one of the most effective ways to attract new subs, become more valuable to existing customers, and reduce churn."
Panelist Yale Wang is executive vice president/head of marketing at Fubo, the live TV streaming platform whose global mission is to aggregate the best in TV, including premium sports, news, and entertainment content, through a single app. Wang, who joined Fubo in 2017, leads all North American marketing efforts for the company, focusing on implementing data-driven digital marketing strategies to drive subscriber growth. Previously, Wang was VP and head of marketing for DramaFever, a streaming OTT network that was acquired by Warner Bros. Digital Networks. Prior to his five year tenure at DramaFever, Wang was an investment banker for the technology, media and telecom sectors at BMO Capital Markets.
“In today’s fragmented streaming landscape, consumers are looking for a seamless way to access all of the content they love within a single app and user interface,” Wang says. “We believe Fubo’s super aggregation strategy, which offers a frictionless experience of bundled content at varying price points, will differentiate our product from soft bundled options and solve a major consumer pain point.”
Panelist Rameez Tase is Co-Founder & President of Antenna. He is an innovator in the digital media space. As one of the early “Head of Growth” professionals, he has worked at the intersection of marketing, data, and product since 2015. Tase was an early pioneer of many of the growth & retention tactics that are standard in digital media & commerce businesses today — and continues to evolve these strategies, including defining “what great looks like” and the approaches to achieve greatness.
Tase has led a handful of startups to best-in-class growth milestones including Axios, where he helped scale the company beyond 2 million subscribers, and Mic, where he helped scale the company beyond 400 million video views. As a result of their premier growth trajectories, both companies completed successful Series C fundraises. Previously, Tase spent several years as an Analyst in Private Equity & Investment Banking.
"Churn is an industry-wide challenge and every service is rightly focused on mitigating the impact – we see in the data that churn rates have increased about 2% over the past few years,” Tase says. “The rise of ad-supported service tiers and bundling options are among the ways streamers are tackling the issue, and appear to be resonating with consumers; ad-supported plans now account for nearly half of all gross additions, and the data shows that when compared to stand-alone services, bundles have markedly lower churn rates. But even when a user does cancel, some 40% resubscribe to the same service within six months, indicating that the industry needs to go beyond gross churn rates as a primary evaluation of business health.”
Panelist Guy Bisson has been a leading entertainment market analyst with a specialization in the global television business for the past 30 years. He is a regular speaker and moderator at many of the world’s leading entertainment business conferences, a frequent media commentator in print and broadcast and author of numerous reports and research articles on the business and strategy of the global television industry. Guy is co-founder of Ampere Analysis, a London-based analyst house focused on the entertainment and content business, which draws on title-level movie and TV analysis, consumer research and market forecasting to create a holistic outlook for the future of the industry. Guy previously led the television research practice at both Screen Digest and IHS.
"Streaming's 'great re-bundling' is not great enough and should have happened much sooner,” Bisson says. “The Covid boom allowed streamers to delay the inevitable as they reaped the benefits of a captive audience hungry for escape and entertainment. Today's market saturation and the drive for profit have changed the dynamics of customer relationships as retention becomes key both to sustain the subscription business and retain eyeballs for advertisers. That means the economics of the bundle start to make sense for all (with the possible exception of Netflix; at least according to Netflix's management). Clearly, consumers benefit from cost reduction, but the real winners are the streamers themselves as they gain longer customer relationships, lower churn, and greater engagement. But there are still challenges to solve, not least content discovery and branding in increasingly complex cross-brand and cross-format user interface.”
Panelist Josh Rosenblatt heads up partner management for Plex, the largest independent global streaming service. He works cross-functionally across AVOD, FAST, and transactional to optimize content, marketing, merchandising, and monetization. With nearly 25 years of experience in digital media and entertainment, Josh manages Plex’s 300+ partners globally, content acquisitions, strategy, and business development.
Before joining Plex, Josh spent over a decade at Vubiquity, most recently as VP of Content, where he oversaw North American content licensing, and prior to that, as VP of Content Sales, tasked with growing content services across studios and cable networks. He began his career at ICM Partners as an agent trainee and an independent producer.
Register now for Streaming Media Connect 2024!
Related Articles
On Tuesday, August 20, 2024, at Streaming Media Connect, Alan Wolk, one of the industry's most influential thought leaders, moderated a panel that confronted the current challenges (or, some would say, failures) to reliably deliver the right ads to viewers and measurable results to brands and discussed innovative technologies and strategies to make streaming ads perform. Panelists included Christina Chung of Estrella MediaCo, Julie Triolo of Vevo, C.J. Leonard of Mad Leo Consulting, and Erin Firneno of Advertiser Perceptions.
20 Aug 2024
On Tuesday, August 20, leading new media and technology producer and strategist Chris Pfaff will moderate the panel "Now It's Personal: AI and Streaming Personalization." Many of the ways AI is poised to alter the streaming ecosystem happen behind the scenes, involving streamlining workflows or automating repetitive production or delivery tasks. But AI also has the potential to transform viewing experiences, making them more personal and immersive. This panel of industry experts from Google TV, Vionlabs, TCL, and Deltatre will explore what's possible and probable with AI and streaming in the months and years to come.
12 Aug 2024
On Tuesday, August 20, leading streaming consultant Nadine Krefetz will moderate the panel "Hat Trick: Delivering Live-Streaming Experiences That Scale, Perform, and Engage." Live streams at scale offer great payoffs for fans and brands alike for all kinds of events, from sports to concerts and festivals. Effective streams deliver personalized, interactive experiences that traditional broadcasts can't match. A panel of industry experts from DAZN, AWS, B Live, and Infinitive will delve into the ongoing challenges of delivering great streams at scale in 2024.
09 Aug 2024
On Wednesday, August 21, adtech expert Tim Ware will moderate the panel "Over the Hedge: Monetizing CTV and FAST Channels as Walled Gardens Proliferate." The emergence of the smart TV OEM has created increasing opportunities for platform distributors and challenges for content providers as distributors grab greater percentages of inventory and revenue splits to generate greater revenue upside to selling the hardware. How do programmers contend with the high costs of programming that require ad support among the next generation of walled gardens in smart TV OEMs? A panel of industry experts from Samsung, Roku, TVREV, and IAB will discuss these issues in-depth.
01 Aug 2024
On Wednesday, August 21, Jason Thibeault, CEO, Streaming Video Technology Alliance, will moderate the panel "Ex-Factor: Cutting Cloud Streaming OpEx." An expert group will discuss managing and streamlining cloud OpEx and implementing strategies and technologies for making cloud operations as cost-efficient as possible. Confirmed panelists include Eric Bolten of Zixi, John Barber of AWS, Corey Smith of CBS Sports and Paramount Global, and Dave Klee of A+E Networks.
25 Jul 2024
On Tuesday, August 20, at Streaming Media Connect, Alan Wolk, Co-Founder/Lead Analyst, TVREV, will moderate the panel "Ad Counsel: Delivering Streaming Ads That Convert," which confronts the current challenges (or, some would say, failures) to reliably deliver the right ads to viewers and measurable results to brands and discusses innovative technologies and strategies to make streaming ads perform. Confirmed panelists include Christina Chung of Estrella Media, Julie Triolo of Vevo, C.J. Leonard of Infinitive, and Erin Firneno of Advertiser Perceptions.
22 Jul 2024
Companies and Suppliers Mentioned