YouSaid · the spoken record

Matt Strauss

lines on the record: 79
first: 2024-09-30
most recent: 2024-09-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Being able to notice the differences. But I will tell you our ambition is to offer the best and highest quality video and audio. So because to me that's an important quality of the platform. And so technically, that is what we're building towards whether the consumer is necessarily asking for it or not. We want to offer them the best and highest quality. And so that is really where that is the ambition of where we're going with Peacock. And I think we will absolutely get there.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And for Listen, I think I'm going to put back on my Comcast hat We've been delivering 4K, and most people don't even know if they have a 4K television or they think they're watching in 4K and they're watching in like 720p. And so I don't think the average consumer generally really does understand it because it is confusing. Like what is 4K? What's Ultra HD? What's HDR? There's a lot of marketing rhetoric. And so I don't know if it's being really driven by the consumer as much as maybe a subsegment of the consumer that really is more acute to”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I share your ambition and enthusiasm Do you see demand for higher video quality? This is the thing that I worry about is that people put convenience over quality all the time and the demand for 4K or high bitrate, it just isn't there.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, listen, I share your ambition and enthusiasm. We will get there. I think we've shown that we're continuing to evolve the product in the platform. Hopefully you're seeing that as a consumer. And again, the Olympics”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We want to make sure that when we're delivering content, especially content that's simulcast across the different properties, that our ambition is we want to deliver it in the highest quality universally. And so if we're going to deliver the content in 4K on Peacock, I think it's also important that we're able to deliver it in 4K to our broadcast stations and to our cable and satellite distributors. And so it adds a little bit of complexity in having that focus. And so the relationships.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“NBC, you know, I talk to Neil at YouTube, like, what's keeping you? And he's like, millions of partnerships and broadcasters. NBC owns the whole chain. You've got the broadcast booth. You've got the production. You've got the rights directly. You've got the platform. What's stopping you?”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“and that we have such a broad reach with broadcast and with cable. And so that's, I see that as a strength. And to me, that's something that I would want to continue leaning into as we evaluate sports rights deals going forward. And my belief is most leagues see it the same way, that they don't necessarily want it to be limited to distreaming because you still have such a large audience that's available on these other platforms, including pay television.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you look at something like our WWE deal, Which is sports entertainment. All of those events used to be pay per view events. And those are now exclusively available on Peacock. And that was a deal that we entered into that even though we have a relationship with the WWE for USA, that was a decision that we made that was very specific to Jeff Peacock. But I actually think of it a little bit differently. We're not really focused on sports that are unique to Jess Peacock. I think one of the benefits of being part of this bigger portfolio is we have the ability to make content like sports available on different platforms. And when you look at something like the NBA, which we're very excited about and obviously is a very big deal for us as a company, these rights only come up every decade. And so it's nice to have these rights back where they belong on NBC and on Peacock. I think part of the reason that we were able to enter into that relationship is because we're more than just streaming.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sports rights are getting more and more expensive over time producing the Olympics, obviously not cheap. NBC can do all this because it can monetize that in several different ways, right? You have broadcasts, which is lucrative, you've got cable, which is still lucrative, and now you have Peacock. Will Peacock ever get to a place where it can support one of these large sports rights deals all by itself?”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was the number one unscripted show on Peacock. And so we have the ability to bend the curve when we could take somebody who comes in for sports. But utilize the product in a way to engage them with other content on our platform. And again, that's the benefit of having such a large catalog of programming for each individual in the home.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We haven't disclosed the number, but I guess one way to think of it is 90% of people who engage with sports on Peacock watch other content. And so, again, we look at sports. There's no bigger fandom than sports. And so sports, as I mentioned earlier, is a very effective tactic to drive acquisition. We've shown that with the NFL exclusive games and NFL just regular season games, we've shown that certainly we've seen that with the Olympics. But we also have such a great portfolio of other programming. And so the way that that's manifesting itself just to kind of build on this for a second is that when you look at something like the playoff game that we did earlier in the year, we had the most viewership engagement we've ever had on Peacock, but the next day after the playoff game was the biggest on-demand usage day we ever had on Peacock. And one of our originals, TED, the Seth McFarland show, was the number one original we ever had on Peacock. And then the traders, which just actually won the Emmy for Best Unscripted Company.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Get discounts to McDonald's. I mean, so we're thinking very differently, I believe, in how we want to evolve the value proposition beyond just what it is today, anticipating kind of where we think we need to go as a platform.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I actually think the next version of where I then want to go with Peacock and with streaming is to expand the aperture even beyond video. And it goes back to what I said about time. How do you get more share of time? And if five hours is the ceiling for video, how do we start tapping into other ways that we could drive engagement on our platform and add more value? Because it's not a streaming platform. It's an entertainment platform. That's the way we're starting to think of it. And we've got lots of other parts of the company that could be leaning into how do we get more share of time, but also how do we start to get more share of wallet. And like you can imagine one day, Nele, that you subscribe to Peacock, and not only do you get this great video service, but maybe if you're a Peacock subscriber, you get a free movie ticket to Fandango. Maybe if you're a Peacock subscriber, you get early mission to Universal Theme Parks. Maybe, you know, given our advertiser relationships, maybe you...”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were preparing for years for that moment. We're really proud of what we were able to deliver. And I think in many respects there's no going back. Because when you could deliver that kind of experience and you get that response, we're now looking at it and say, well, how do we then apply that to the NBA? How do we apply that to the Premier League? How do we apply that to other types of experiences? And this is the next frontier for streaming from my point of view. Because right now, streaming is arguably a two-dimensional service, which is I sign up for your service based on your content and your price. I think the next iteration will be product. How do you start to use the product in a way that differentiates the experience from one streaming service to another, where arguably now there's more similarity than differences? The Olympics is an example of what I mean when I say the product can become part of the value proposition of where we want to go over time. If I were to project out in the future,”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In Tokyo in 2020, where we gave him a show on Olympic show on Peacock because it was too controversial to put him on NBC at the time. And so this has been an evolution that has gotten us to this place, but it is an example where every part of the company was firing on all cylinders. It also speaks to what I said earlier, where Peacock was the number one app. We had more digital consumption on Peacock for Paris than every other Olympics combined. And at the same time, though, there was always a question of, well, is that going to cannibalize the primetime show for NBC? And that didn't happen. The NBC Primetime Show had a record number of viewing because people were watching on Peacock during the day, but then they wanted to see the storytelling that NBC does so well during primetime. And that's that infinity loop that I was referring to. And so it really is an example of like, I think what plays to our strengths, what we do well as a company.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the NBC sports team did an amazing job producing that. We actually tested that if you look in Sochi in 2014. We tested the gold zone and that idea. When people were watching Snoop who became the ambassador of the Olympics, which is like a surreal thing because he became so relatable to so many people, we tested Snoop.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Take it so seriously, like it's a privilege to work on the Olympics. That's really how a lot of us feel, and it's a tremendous responsibility. And so we really set out to do something that this was the moment where I mentioned like we thought we were ready to surprise a delight and introduce features that we believe potentially could change the way people experience sports. What I don't think people appreciate, and this again is just the benefit of being a part of a bigger company, is that this Paris has been 10 years in the making. So, for example, when you went on to Peacock and you watched a replay, like maybe you missed an event, you wanted to watch Simone Biles, making the content available on demand and for replays, that was first done in London, 2012 at Comcast. That was the first time we made all the Olympics available on demand. When you saw the gold zone with Scott Hansen, which was fantastic.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Remember, from a product and technology perspective, it's this GSP team, this platform that I mentioned. So it's the same team. And since we're all part of the same group, we literally sit right next to the NBC sports team and next to the NBC entertainment team. And so we work hand in glove with these different teams. And when we brainstorm ideas and we identify where we want to go and where we see the opportunity, and I think that we kind of recognize with Paris early on, the stakes were high. We're coming out of COVID for the last two Olympics where there was questions about the cultural relevancy of the Olympics going forward. I think if I'm being very candid, I don't believe Peacock really fulfilled the promise of the Olympics for streamers and for cord cutters with Beijing and with Tokyo for a variety of reasons. But I think that there was real questions about whether or not we could really deliver the experience that we knew we needed to deliver. And so the stakes were high.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Including the fact that we've been very committed from the beginning to an ad model, which we believed was the big opportunity for us because we knew that eyeballs were going to continue to shift more to streaming for all the reasons that you said earlier. And we also knew that the majority of streaming happens on the TV, even though most people thought it happened on the phone, but the TV is like the new TV. And you're now seeing every streaming service for the most part launching an ad tier. And so the market is evolving, but it's evolving, I think, in a very predictable way. But we really have been very consistent with our vision and strategy. I think that's actually given us an advantage because it's allowed us several years to invest in live programming and invest in advertising as part of our platform DNA, which just puts us in a very different place in our trajectory compared possibly to some other services.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But we always knew and believed that streaming could be so much more and so unscripted, live sports, live news. That's been part of Peacock from day one. And so arguably, like, it's the hunter becoming the hunted. We're here seeing other streaming services, I would argue, are moving more into our space than we're moving into their space.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, these are things that, again, play to our strengths that we knew drives a lot of engagement. And so that's been a benefit. But just back to your other comment, when I said about consistency of vision, we never subscribe to the fact that streaming has to be just scripted dramas. That is a big piece of it for sure. Scripted dramas do drive acquisition and help with brand development. And you can almost probably think of a show that you could ascribe to a streaming service as kind of like it put it on the map, so to speak, as an inflection point. So that was always part of the calculus for us as well.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Listen, what I said earlier, we're playing to our strengths. And one of our strengths, and to be honest, I did not appreciate this when I first came to NBC, just how much people love the NBC content. And I'm not just talking about the current programming. I'm talking about the deep catalog of content that MBC has. And there's a very, very large, we have 80,000 hours of programming on Peacock on demand. That has been a huge advantage to have a show like the office, parks and rec, Brooklyn 9-9, you know, to be able to have the Dick Wolf catalog of law and orders in Chicago's, to have every season of SNL.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When it comes to programming, and even in the case of the NBC Next A programming, that content was available before on another streaming service. And so there was a set value that was already ascribed to it that we essentially had to step into if we then wanted to migrate that content onto Peacock, which we did. And so my only point was as a company, we made the decision that we wanted Peacock to be the home for our content, which meant that we were going to also have to put our money where our mouth is, so to speak, and make the investment to allow us to claw back that programming. And we've been doing that. But by doing that, it also continues to tether us directly into other parts of the company in a very positive way. Because, again, we're all working together to continue to achieve these collective goals around Peacock.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and sometimes it's counterintuitive to people. But the short answer is yes. I mean, look, we have profit participants. We have to keep negotiations at arm's length. And in many cases, our content and the price of our content is being set by the market. We don't exclusively license every single piece of content on Peacock. I mentioned our movies, our movies, we are the first window, but then there's a pay one A and then there's a pay one B. And so there are other third parties that our teams license their content to. And so it establishes market dynamics that we then need to negotiate.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“that could materially add more marketing value or remember we're the home for all the universal movies and so when When twisters or wicked goes into theaters, we're the next stop after the transactional premium transactional window. We're the exclusive home for all the next day NBC programming. We're the exclusive home for the Bravo programming.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Monetization, better retention. And so when you look at it through that lens, it drives a lot of our decision making. So our programming decisions around it's like a mutual fund. You need a balance. It can't be one extreme or the other if you're too focused on acquisition, then it's a leaky bucket. You'll get a lot of people to sign up for your service, but then you'll just lose them because you don't have enough content to engage and retain them. And then vice versa, if you've got a lot of content that drives engagement, that's not going to get you to scale because you need that. And so we're managing almost like, I think of it as like a mutual fund. And so we have a budget. We have a programming budget. We have a marketing budget. We have a P&L inside of MBC Universal that's dedicated to peacock, even though we are part of the broader portfolio. And so we're making decisions around what do we need to do in order to achieve those goals. But I feel like we got rocket fuel because I have the added benefit of tapping into this broader portfolio.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, in order to achieve what I just said, if you're a subscription business, you need to say, okay, what's going to drive acquisition, which is an important ingredient to a subscription service, what's going to drive retention and engagement? What is going to drive frequency, which is something that's not really talked a lot about with streaming services, but it's something that I'm very focused on, which is, you know, how do you actually change the paradigm where you want people to go into your app every single day? And again, that's not the way people typically think of streaming because if it's all on demand or it's all binge viewing, you're essentially telling the consumer it's there whenever you want it. There's no urgency to it. And we want to actually get people to open up our app every single day because that just gives you more at-bats, so to speak, to try to drive them into other parts of the service, which then drives more engagement, more”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so, what you're looking for when you're investing in a new business is, are you growing, are you hitting your KPIs in the metrics? Are you achieving the long-range plan objectives? And the answer to those is yes. We're actually exceeding those objectives, which only gives us confidence that we're on the right path. And so we have a long-range plan, and we're executing against it. And so getting Peacock to scale, getting Peacock to profitability. But again, doing it in a way inside the broader portfolio is really where we're focusing a lot of our resources and our efforts. And we feel really good that we're on the right path.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are not profitable now, but it's invested the way I look at it, and this is kind of something that's so interesting because, and I just ignore it, to be honest with you, but it's like you'll see press articles where it's like, Peacock is losing money. I mean, we are a startup business. I've never seen a startup. I mean, did Amazon make money immediately? I think that you've got to have a much longer-term view here, where I say, no, we are investing in a business.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just to take a simple, I actually didn't have a different perspective when I was a cable only because over 10 years ago, I was part of a group that was nested inside of Comcast Cable, which was called Comcast Interactive Media. And we were there to disrupt the cable business. And that's exactly what we did. And so being a change agent is actually something I enjoy. But being a change agent in the right way, I think is also important, which is through collaboration through challenging people, but doing it, I think, in a respectful way and in more of like an intellectual way and getting people to buy in. I really enjoy that aspect of the roles that I've played at Comcast and the roles that I've played at NBC. But it's very, I'm not sure if this is answering your question directly, but I think it's our goal within NBC is we want to get Peacock to scale.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That Peacock is in many ways trying to change the company from in some ways from the inside out by also being respectful of the expertise of other parts of the company inside NBC. But I do think over time, our future is very much anchored on streaming and peacock. And that is, but the difference is everyone inside the company owns a piece of that. It's not one group anymore. It's now news, sports. entertainment every single part of our company has their DNA in some way connected back to peacock and i think that is our superpower is how do we harness that power inside the company to so everybody feels ownership of it and i think that's been probably the biggest transformation i've seen over the past four years since i've been at the company”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Proud of the culture that we've built inside of NBC, which to me is equally important. And I've probably spent a vast majority of my time really on how we build that culture in a way that I believe is good to position us for success. And it's around collaboration. It's around communication, transparency. Remember, Peacock was born in COVID. We literally were, I was literally in my house building a new service that I had to coordinate with hundreds of other people that were not in the same room with me. And that forced a lot of communication, a lot of transparency, a lot of trust, a lot of people feeling ownership. And I've been doing everything I can with the help of others to foster that sense of culture. And that started to spread into other parts of the company. And so I think from that perspective, yes, I do think.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mentioned earlier that when I came to NBC from Comcast, Steve Burke called me and I've known Steve for a long time. He actually hired me at Comcast when he was the president of Comcast. And it was kind of full circle when he asked me to then come to NBC when he became the CEO of MBC. But he said something to me on the phone which resonated, which is he said, you know, peacocks our future. And I interpreted that not just that it's the future revenue growth or growth for subscribers. I interpret it as it's like, this is like how we could build a new culture. That's what excited me. And so part of what I'm really proud about that we've done inside of NBC since I've been there is not only establish peacock as the fastest growing streamer. And, you know, our last earnings, I think you know we've had 33 million subscribers and continuing to show bottom line growth.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have no ambition of white labeling it. We're being very surgical, I would say, and methodical on how we're thinking of this. And so in the examples that I've given, we have partnerships. The Skyshowtime venture is a 50-50 venture. The venture in Africa that I mentioned, we have an equity stake in that venture. Obviously, we own Sky is a broader Comcast company. And so I think that our ambition is not to build a white label platform. The benefit of what I'm describing is that as we've kind of created these partnerships, which has allowed me to get more scale, it also subsidizes the development for Peacock. And so by me strategically licensing our platform in the ways that I've described, it's bringing in actually another revenue stream to me that I'm then able to use to add more resources to accelerate the development. And again, all these.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To pay. And so we have to build capabilities that are more unique to that market. And so you have to be able to arbitrage certain capacity depending on the priorities. But there's a benefit, which is when you build these capabilities, we're building at once. And so now we have that capability. And so if we ever wanted to introduce that functionality in other markets, it's not like we're building it once in its throwaway work. We can actually leverage it and it benefits other parts of the platform. And so it is a kind of a balancing act, but I feel like generally Peacock is certainly the center of where we're focusing the vast majority of our resources, given the priority and the importance of it. And I would say the majority of how we're using the platform in other countries is drafting behind Peacock and the Peacock roadmap, with the exceptions of some of the things that I just mentioned that are more unique to those markets.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The answer is, of course, yes. I mean, which is a very classic Of challenge that you have when you become a shared service as a platform. And there's ways around that, though. I mean, we do carve out a certain amount of capacity to the different services that we're supporting. So, for example, in some cases, there's commonality. Like Skyshowtime has advertising. Well, they actually benefited because we had already launched advertising on Peacock. And so when they want to launch advertising in Poland, that's a relatively easy thing for us to turn on because it's already been built. In Africa, just as an example, the viewing behavior is much more oriented towards mobile viewing because they don't have the broadband proliferation that we have in countries like the United States. And so the majority of streaming happens on mobile devices just because of the bandwidth constraints. And there's also different payment structures because most people don't always have the ability to like pay by the month. And so they need to maybe pay by the day or they in some cases go and they have to go to retail environments where they buy vouchers.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think we've ever disclosed it publicly, but it's in the thousands. We've got thousands of people. It has grown considerably over the last few years. And again, I think as we've built this platform and demonstrated the capabilities, it's actually allowed me to partner with other parts of our company to shift more and more resources towards the global streaming platform team. And so this has really been the tip of the spear in how we're continuing to build out all of our technology on streaming going forward. And we work very closely, of course, with Comcast Cable, who has a very large team as well. But they have been more focused on connected TVs and connected TV devices. And so there's like a complementary nature to how we work together, but our focus has been, as you can imagine, mostly on streaming video.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think I'm proud of the team of what we've accomplished because it allowed us to then do something like the PowerS Olympics, which we feel really good about because all of the things that we introduced, we've wanted to introduce for years, but we didn't believe we had permission to do that until we got what I just call the basics right. And to me, the basics are Nothing matters from an innovative standpoint if the platform doesn't work. And so I feel like we've been very disciplined and focused on doing that. We've structured ourselves around that ambition over the last couple of years.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You don't think about electricity unless there's a blackout, then you think about electricity. But the electricity is what powers everything in your house, everything that you're using in your house is likely getting powered by electricity. And that was, in a way, the ambition that we had with the platform, which is can we make the platform so stable, so scalable that latency, buffering, you know, crashes if too many people are using it, out of sync audio with video, all the things that have plagued streaming for years, let's do everything we can to just get that right. And if we could do that in a big way, then that gives us permission then to drive innovation. And so we have been the last two years really organizing ourselves in that way, building a platform because live streaming, especially if you haven't noticed, is very hard. But we've been really committed to that vision.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It also, I think, has been a huge motivator for the people that work on this because now they're working on one platform and it can increase the velocity where they can build things once and not have to necessarily have teams competing against each other. And in many ways, this is what positioned us so well, in my opinion, for things like the exclusive NFL playoff game in January and the exclusive NFL game that we had a few weeks ago in Brazil with the Eagles and the Packers. It's also what positioned us so well as a platform, in my opinion, for the Paris Olympics. And it's because we've had this maniacal focus on how do we get more scale more efficiency with a real commitment to like we want streaming to work like TV. And what I mean by that is you don't think about it when you turn on the TV generally. It's a little bit like electricity.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's all about. I'm ready for it. Okay. And so So GSP is made up now of thousands of people that report into my team that are all across the world. They're in the UK, they're in Lisbon, they're in Prague, they're in New York, like we've got it, we've built one holistic team. And that platform is what powers Peacock. But this same platform is what powers a joint venture that we have in Eastern and Central Europe with PowerMount called Skyshowtime. It's the GSP platform that we've built as one company. It also powers the platform that we launched in over 50 countries in Africa through a venture that we have with a distributor called Multi-Choice. That's also the GSP platform. And next year, we are going to actually migrate now TV onto this one GSP platform. And so this has unlocked tremendous efficiencies across the company for us.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“different platforms in some cases similar features and we recognize that there was an opportunity to consolidate it all under one team which we did and it's called the global streaming platform group which sits inside of D2C i know i'm throwing a lot of acronyms”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Analytics and the reporting. And so, again, you have one team that's looking at that holistically across linear and across streaming. And we've also, back to what I said earlier about D2C, we have one product team and one technology team that's managing a single platform. And this is kind of a really, we haven't really talked about this publicly, but maybe it's just worth just spending one minute on what we're trying to effectuate here is NBC, we've built as part of Peacock, a fairly large team of people that are building out our streaming platform, both on the product side and on the tech and on the engineering side, our sister company, Sky, which operates in the UK, Italy, and Germany predominantly. They have a streaming service that you may be familiar with called Now TV. And these were two different groups with fairly large teams that were building.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“and that vision, which again, I think helps us as we make decisions around content that could potentially play across multiple platforms in different windows. You know, we work very, very closely with the marketing department of MVC. And as you probably noticed, like MVC promotes Peacock and locks up Peacock whenever they're promoting the primetime show. And so we work very closely. The Peacock marketing team works very closely with the NBC marketing team. And we have something which we call Symfony, where we all contribute a certain amount of inventory that we use to cross promote across all of our platforms. And so if you're going to see a show like Fight Night, which is a new show on Peacock from Will Packer, you're going to see that promoted on NBC, on our cable networks, on Peacock, because of how we're partnering on Symphony. And we've done something very similar with like, we've consolidated decision sciences and research, which is really the center of gravity around all the...”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right now we are all part of, as I mentioned, the same group inside, which reports into Mark Lazarus. And Mark Lazarus oversees all TV and streaming. As I mentioned, initially it was like Peacock was like its own separate entity, end-to-end, like own programming, own marketing, own support services like HR and legal, et cetera. Everything was kind of insulated. And we have been methodically breaking down those silos. And so we really believe the opportunity is to come around more shared services. And so as I mentioned, we now have one programming division across the entire portfolio, which reports into Donna Langley, who also oversees our movie studio. And so now when we're making programming decisions for broadcast, cable, or streaming, you've got one group that's overseeing that strategy.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so that influences decisions we're making around. That's a very different dynamic around how you program and manage a service if that's your ambition. But that's where I think we need to go as a streaming platform. And the closest example might be a show like Love Island, which was a huge hit for us over the summer. That show was on five days a week. And so that obviously required you, if you were watching that show, to tune in five days a week. is part of the habituation and frequency that I was referring to that I don't think is really discussed a lot when people are evaluating streaming services.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you probably never turn off your phone. I know for me, it's the first thing I look at in the morning. It's the last thing I look at at night. I even use it as my alarm clock. I never turn off my phone. Now think about your TV. Well, you probably turn on your TV when you want to watch it and you maybe do that a couple of times a day and then what do you do? You turn it off. And so I'm looking at it differently and say, what do you need to do where someone never wants to turn off their TV and they want to open up our app every single day? That to me is the ambition I'm challenging.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, no, I think when you're looking at delivering a streaming service, we obviously need to be available on every single platform and device. But the majority of video consumption is still on the television. And so these distributor relationships are really important. I think we have really good relationships with all the different partners. You even saw that in the Olympics, like Roku, for example, built a fantastic interface to promote the Olympics. Apple and Amazon did a really great job promoting. I'm not trying to name drop any specific platform, but I think we've got the right business relationship where they're incentivized to sell Peacock and participate in our growth. And we benefit also from the placement. What I meant when I said frequency and habituation is I think of it as like, how often Neil Ause? And I can tell you, the average consumer uses their phone or looks at their phone two to 300 times a day.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's so confusing. It's a great show. One son is just a Call of Duty character. I really could just talk about Yellowstone for the rest of the time. You've talked a lot about being the place where the customer goes every day, opening the app every day, having the relationship. A lot of what you're talking about is being the interface for television. But Peacock has to run on devices from Apple and Roku and Google and whoever else on Samsung TVs. All of those companies, they want a P severe ad sales. They want a piece of your subscription revenue. What are those relationships like? Are they in your way? Are they something that you're just handling? Are they not on your mind?”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“New season, in some cases on Paramount Network. And then that was driving people back to Peacock where maybe they wanted to watch it from the beginning or they wanted to catch up. And it became this really interesting infinity loop. And this is the same thing that happened with Breaking Bad when it was available on AMC and another streaming service or Madmen. And so I look at it very differently. I look at it as this is a strength. And if we can figure out ways to continue programming these different platforms that they can continue to drive the audiences in a way that becomes a differentiator and a growth engine for us. And again, it goes back to why we've organized ourselves in the way that we have, which is to really think of it as a portfolio.”
2024-09-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT