PARQOR Monday AM Briefing #37
PARQOR Monday AM Briefing #37
The stories and trends in OTT streaming you *need* to know for this morning & the week ahead
Good morning,
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A short essay on WandaVision and Disney+
If you follow me on Twitter, you have likely seen me tweet weekly about WandaVision. I had a good exchange with The Verge’s Julia Alexander about the show: she is a fan, and, as much as I appreciate the complexity of visual and narrative storytelling the show is pulling off, I am not a fan.
Polygon’s Joshua Rivera has written the most eloquent version of my perspective in “WandaVision’s biggest antagonist is the Marvel Cinematic Universe”:
So yes, I like the MCU, and find Wanda and Vision’s comic-book history compelling. I also like the extraneous bits of watching MCU projects: observing fans piecing together narrative puzzles in forums and social media, coming up with ideas of my own, and waiting to see how right or wrong we all are.
None of this has anything to do with telling a story, or enjoying one. This is what video games commonly call lore: something that has the cadence of a story, but might as well be a Wiki entry. It’s narrative ephemera that can enhance, but never substitute for, the experience of watching a character overcome an immediate conflict or emotional struggle.
What WandaVision is missing is the sense that anyone in the story is being confronted with the opportunity to change, and wrestling with what it might mean to embrace it. There are binary choices (like, will Wanda move on from her loss and lift the hex that’s holding Westview hostage?) but nothing more complicated, because neither Wanda nor Vision have well-developed interior lives. They have the raw materials for rich character work, but no foundation to build them on.
Julia’s last point in our exchange is worth highlighting here:
The experience of watching and enjoying WandaVision is subjective, that’s fair. So, whether I don’t like it or Julia does, the reality is Disney+ has 95MM+ subscribers, worldwide, who matter more than either of our perspectives.
Of course, that global audience is actually much bigger, something which a tweet from Parrot Analytics CEO Wared Seger on Saturday suggested:
Parrot Analytics is a helpful lens here because they monitor demand for a show across search traffic, social video platforms, illegal streaming, and social sharing worldwide. So when a show like WandaVision shows up at number one worldwide, it tells us is that a substantive critique like Joshua Rivera’s, one that I agree with, does not reflect what is driving broader audience demand for the show.
So what does drive demand for WandaVision, even if there are objective problems with the show’s structure and narrative?
One answer is obvious: there are many MCU fans like Julia and Joshua who like, if not love, the MCU. But there’s another answer, which I remember from a podcast conversation a year ago between The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Stratechery’s Ben Thompson: Disney wants to learn more about its "billions" of fans worldwide who may not go to theaters or theme parks, and Disney+’s price point makes it easier to reach more of those "billions" of people.
That lens suggests the Parrot Analytics data is telling two stories:
There is enormous demand for Disney content, worldwide, perhaps in the billions; but
Not all of that worldwide demand has access to and/or wants to pay for Disney+ at its current price point.
Given the growth of piracy, and that Disney+ is nowhere near Netflix’s reach, that story is not surprising. But, given Disney+’s low price point relevant to other streamers, it is a little bit surprising.
What doesn’t add up for me is how a “weird”, imperfect MCU show is succeeding with both groups of audiences, globally, in a way that “weird” MCU content should not.
Arguably, at #1 worldwide, WandaVision is at Avengers: Endgame levels of demand for a show whose Rotten Tomatoes scores (92% critics, 80% fans) mathematically mirrors the difference between critical and audience reactions to the quirkier Ant-Man and The Wasp (87% critics, 75% average audience score) than to Avengers: Endgame (94% critics, 90% fans).
In terms of box office, Avengers: Endgame is #1 all-time, and Ant-Man and the Wasp is 19th of 23 MCU movies, to date. If past is precedent, WandaVision is over-performing with audiences as MCU content.
Signals from available data and critics chatter is that “weird” and imperfect is over-performing extraordinarily with MCU Universe content, both paid and free. Something else, something more is going here.
There are two simple, obvious answers. First, lying in these few quantitative and qualitative signals from the market suggest that Disney has hit the jackpot with Disney+, even in the implied piracy. There are audiences Disney is serving unusually well, and there are audiences in the “billions” they still have yet to reach.
Second, a simpler takeaway: there is rabid demand for MCU Universe content that the Disney “flywheel” had built up for 2020 and, pre-COVID, was ready to serve starting with Black Widow last May, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier last August, and then WandaVision in November 2020. With delays, it has been simply unmet for over nine months, now, and WandaVision is now meeting it, albeit imperfectly.
So, as an imperfect show that is over-performing relative to past imperfect MCU content, WandaVision tells us just how rabid, or inelastic, demand is worldwide for MCU content. But, it still doesn’t feel like a reliable signal for what’s to come for Disney+.
Must-Read Monday AM Articles
In Mic Drop #17, I “mic checked” a prediction that Amazon is going to have a better story for IMDb TV with its OTT advertising data than Amazon Prime Video will have with its data in 2021. IMDb TV also announced distribution for its app on XBox.
Back to Disney+: it seems to be on track to catch Netflix, but in relying so heavily on cheap subscriptions in India to get there (30% of its existing subscriber base), it may have “an ARPU problem”. It is launching Star on Tuesday (February 23rd), which is promising will offer “more choice for what they call 'me-time,' the time when the kids have gone to bed. … That is really where Star comes in."
Erich Schwartzel of the WSJ dove into Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s decision-making, to date, and especially how his reorganization has been playing out within Disney ($ - paywalled). It’s a profile of a confident decision-maker who understands the moment, and is not afraid to make uncontroversial, perhaps problematic, decisions.
Like Netflix, which smells weakness in Disney’s animation strategy, HBO Max is now adding more than 300 hours of content, and it will launch a new preschool brand, Cartoonito, and work to bring more young girls and family viewing into its mix with new concepts that feature female protagonists as well as a weekend family block. This piece for Deadline summarizes the strategy, and what it implies for the future AVOD service (which I remain unconvinced will be branded HBO Max).
Apple is also senses an opportunity in animation, announcing its multi-year content partnership with David Ellison’s Skydance Animation, which is run by John Lasseter (formerly of Pixar) and president Holly Edwards.
Business Insider reported that WarnerMedia slashed the number of ad agencies it uses around the world from more than 3,000 to a few dozen and started pushing its properties like HBO Max and DC Comics to use those agencies to save money. Forget cost-cutting… how does a media business find itself with 3,000 agency relationships three years after P&G and Unilever began cutting ~$1B in spend? That seems like an unusual legacy.
If WandaVision showrunner Jac Schaeffer’s interview on the Top 5 TV podcast was a must-listen on the production process for the show, this interview with co-star Kathryn Hahn (who had a big reveal in Episode 7 last week), has a must-read interview in Decider. And, on the topic of the quality of WandaVision, it is worth reading Director Martin Scorcese’s Il Maestro on Harpers.org, and this BBC Entertainment piece questioning whether algorithms are to blame.
A piece in Digital TV Europe argues that “AVOD presents a significant opportunity for local players to dominate the OTT space in Europe.
In FierceVideo, a piece highlights data that reflects how “The rise in OTT video adoption and binge viewing among older consumers raises an interesting question about whether streaming services need to adjust or rethink their ideas around UX/UI to meet different preferences or needs.”
TikTok is launching on smart TVs in France, Germany and the UK as part of a play to move into people’s living rooms and diversify its audience. MMA promoter UFC also inked a multi-year partnership with TikTok, under which UFC will produce live content on the social-video. YouTube’s TikTok-competitor Shorts, which is already available in India, will launch in the United States in March.
YouTube Originals Chief Susanne Daniels told the Television Critics Association that the slate of upcoming unscripted programming “highlights the commitment YouTube has to Daniels’ strategic vision, which aimed to move YouTube out from under the crushing competition of subscription-based services and focus on feeding a massive international audience with free programming that can be monetized with advertising.” (free - registration required)
Adweek has a good post on how Peacock is leaning into comedy and reality content to complement its existing lineup of library titles (free - registration required)
Discovery+ hired another former Hulu executive, former head of marketing Patrizio “Pato” Spagnoletto, after hiring former head of ad sales Jim Keller to run its U.S. Digital Ad Sales. In other Hulu news, Disney-owned FX Atlanta star Donald Glover exited his deal with FX for a multiple-year, eight-figure overall deal with Amazon, which includes a new Mr. & Mrs. Smith series with Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
Miles Surrey of The Ringer writes about Apple TV+’s For All Mankind, “It’s still unclear what the endgame is with For All Mankind—both as a television series, and how it fits into Apple TV+’s larger ambitions as a still-nascent streaming service.” Also, Apple TV+ arrived on Chromecast, Google TVs from both Sony and TCL, with expansions to other Android TV-powered devices in the months to come.
Former Fox Executive Patrick Crakes (NOTE: one of the best follows on Twitter about sports) predicts the “pressure to bundle video and services together will lead to a dizzying array of options that will give most consumers a large portion of the choice and flexibility they’ve been promised over two decades”. Here’s my problem with the argument about bundling, in one tweet:
John Cassillo of TVREV has a summary of upcoming expiration dates for Sports Media Rights deals in Current TV Deals and What’s on the Horizon
Alex Sherman has two pieces worth reading on CNBC, one about how Super Bowl ratings “reflect how American media has fragmented”, and one about “How to tell who's winning — and who's losing — the streaming wars”. Whereas the first one is informative, the second is valuable specifically for how it summarized the power of Netflix’s and Starz’s respective market strategies.
YouTube TV is testing a bundle of HBO Max, Showtime, and STARZ, normally worth $35, priced at $30 as an “Entertainment Plus” add-on. Joe Adalian of Vulture has a good summary of how the other streamers are attempting at discounted bundles.
BBC Studios has launched an ad-free subscription streaming service, BBC Select, in the U.S. and Canada. It is initially available on Amazon Prime Video and the Apple TV app. BBC Select will feature content that is focused on culture, politics and ideas.
According to data from SafeBettingSites.com, the number of Twitch streamers jumped by 150% year-on-year and hit almost 9.9 million in January 2021.
Last, in a year where streamers will inevitably dominate the awards, the Los Angeles Times has a bombshell of a piece reporting that Golden Globes members accuse Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. of self-dealing, ethical lapses.