The Media Odyssey

Marion Ranchet: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Media Odyssey podcast. That is Evan Shapiro,

Evan Shapiro: and that is Marion Ranchet.

Marion Ranchet: This week we're going back to school. We're gonna grade our own homework, our own prediction for 2025. Evan and I, I had 15 Eva at 10. If you wanna go back to that episode to cost check, cross reference, go for it.

That was one of our first episodes of the podcast. But so today I'm gonna be very ethical and honest. I'm gonna grade myself like that, Evan?

Evan Shapiro: I will be neither of those things.

But here, you're here to check me on my grades.

Marion Ranchet: I am. I am. I will you

Evan Shapiro: A and me to check you on yours.

Marion Ranchet: Go for it. But again, I'm very honest and ethical, so

Evan Shapiro: We'll see, we'll [00:01:00] see.

Marion Ranchet: Okay, okay. Let's get started. I picked four. You picked five. What's the number one prediction that you had for the year that we're gonna grade right now?

Evan Shapiro: So the prediction I knocked the furthest out of the park would be that it would be the year of YouTube on television. I made this prediction at the end of last year, and what I said was this was gonna be the year that YouTube finally got recognized as proper TV. And what happened?

As a result, not as a result of my prediction, but what happened ensuing my prediction was that YouTube starting in April, became the number one channel on TV in America every month since April, and not just the number one channel on TV, the number one publisher of all content on television. YouTube, by itself, without shorts, without YouTube tv, without mobile, without desktop.

YouTube on television beats all of Disney combined. [00:02:00] That's ABC, ESPN, Hulu and the rest. It beats all of NBC Universal combined. It beats all of Paramount, which includes CBS combined. It includes, it beats all of Fox. Which is Fox News and Fox TV combined.

So I don't think, and then when you look at the conversation around YouTube ads TV this year, it dominated pretty much all of the major media conversations of the year, including being central at MIPCOM and being a huge story in the Upfront.

So yeah, I think I gave myself a grade of A+ on this. I don't see how you could see otherwise.

Marion Ranchet: No. I'm giving you that A+ too. That was one of my predictions as well, where I went a bit too far is I said that they would go beyond the 15% market share, and I was wrong. I think the highest they've done this year is 13.9.

But I completely agree with you. I will say what's been fascinating is [00:03:00] aside from them, breaking that market share. You can see that they've invested a lot of time, and of course money, to also build themselves up, right? Build that narrative. They didn't leave it to the industry to speak to that, which was very much the case these last few years, right?

They were kind of quiet and they've spent the year. Very much, starting with brand

Evan Shapiro: Reaching out. It's not just promoting themselves, but reaching out to partners like BBC Studios and ITV and Hallmark and other partners around the horn, making it easier to work with them or yeah. More understandable on how to work with them.

Marion Ranchet: I agree. Yeah. And I think MIPCOM was the epitome of that, right? That was the top, that was the summit, that was the first time that they came to that market, which feels fascinating. I told them it was like, what? And they had never been let alone, with that level of brand presence.

Yeah, I think they were unavoidable. It's gonna be interesting to see [00:04:00] what happens next year. Okay, let's move to prediction number two. This time it's one of mine. So I said that Netflix was not innovative enough. And I said that they needed to get out of their walled garden, that they needed to become more of a hub.

And I feel that they've done that. So spoiler, I've, I'm gonna grade myself an A.

Evan Shapiro: What are you giving?

Marion Ranchet: An A.

Evan Shapiro: An A?

Marion Ranchet: An A, not an A+, but I think that the deal that they've made with TF1. So starting summer 2026, we're gonna see TF1, which is the biggest commercial broadcaster in France with its own corner, with it's live TV channels, it's 30K plus on-demand library, et cetera. I know that TF1 is gonna be selling the advertising against that program.

Evan Shapiro: So the live feed is actually gonna be inside? Wow.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. That's what I've, I'm being told, which is fascinating because that's a major change in the product itself.

Because we're [00:05:00] talking not just one too, but there's like a lot of, there's several TV channels. There's the fact that they put content ahead of the broadcast available on demand. There's the fact that the minute it's live, it's also available on demand. So this is gonna be very demanding. And so what I've been told is that the two teams are working hand in hand to change the product to that end.

I, yeah I'm gonna give myself an A.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah. And I, I'm sometimes loath to give Netflix its flowers 'cause I feel like they're in completely untransparent about their business operations. Yeah. But if you take that TF1 deal. And then you look at the Spotify deal that they just announced, where they're going to be taking video podcasts from Spotify on their platform, and you look at the amount of YouTubers they're bringing on the platform as well.

They seem to be signaling to your point, that they're opening up their business to new lines of thinking. And I do think they, they are, they continue to be [00:06:00] as, again, as much shit as I tend to give them. Again, it's almost entirely about their lack of transparency, not about their business practices.

They are the best TV channel on the planet Earth. I don't think there's any question about that. Premium TV channel on the planet earth. They have really been great at innovating when they need to, and they very much seem to be ramping that up right now. So I agree with your grade.

I agree with your A.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, you are? Good. I feel good about that. The one thing I will say is when you were saying that they're innovating when it's time, I will say I feel that on podcast they are late to the game.

Evan Shapiro: A little bit. Yeah. They ceded that so much to YouTube, but the in, in partnering with Spotify in particular, they solve problems for two companies.

Spotify very much needs this.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: And I think Netflix very much needs this. So it's a true win-win. And so again, like kudos just when you think they're not going to innovate, they pull these things out of their hat. [00:07:00] Just when we thought they weren't gonna innovate they added ads.

I don't think they've done a tremendous job of that to date, but they are continuing to innovate in the space.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. They're investing more and more in sports in Europe. It's been told that they've been bidding for the Champions League ultimately, did not get it Paramount Plus and some others were already like,

Evan Shapiro: And even look at the Warner Brothers bidding that's happening right now. This is a bidding cycle that Netflix would've traditionally sat out. I don't think they're gonna wind up with it. But the fact that they're in it and they made an all cash offer, the only all cash offer says to me things are changing inside the boardroom at Netflix.

Marion Ranchet: There's never a dull day. This industry and insane. So we're Friday, what are we, 5th of December. And we were talking about M&A. We were talking about who's gonna get Warner Bros nd today we get the news.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah. It broke last night overnight. Lucas Shaw broke it, [00:08:00] and it's that, I'm gonna put this in correct terms.

Warner Brothers Discovery has chosen the bid from Netflix. As the winning bid to acquire, not the entire company. But the streaming division and the studio division only, not the linear networks division. So we talked about the Netflix bid for Warner Brothers Discovery, but the saga continues. There's a hostile takeover bid by the Ellisons and Paramount and Skydance.

They're going directly to the shareholders with a tender offer of $78 billion in cash, $30 in cash per share, plus the assumption of $40 billion in debt. So that's $118 billion offer. If you wanna keep going on this story, stay tuned to Marion's Substack Newsletter, my Substack newsletter, and both our feeds on LinkedIn.

Marion Ranchet: Okay, so how about prediction number three, what you got for me?

Evan Shapiro: So this is another one. I feel like I knocked [00:09:00] completely out of the park. Again, I tend not to make opinion-based bets. I tend to look at the data and then bake the bets based on the data. So late last year, I looked at all the data and I made a bet that this would be the year of the creator, in addition to being the year of YouTube on television, the year of the creator.

And again, I think it's hard to argue with that not coming true. Every main conversation. MIPCOM let's go back to that. As a case study, was themed the creator economy. We mapped the creator economy with Shira Lazar. This year we spoke about it at Adweek, but everywhere we went you conference by conference, the creators were at the set Cannes Lions MIPCOM, IBC they were at the center of everything and in the ecosystem itself, whether it's fast signing all these creator deals to be hiring Rich Bloom who was on the pod and doing you know him, he's the head of creators there, and [00:10:00] they have a whole creator section there.

Now it just was at the center of the cultural and media business conversation all year long.

So again, I'm giving myself an A plus on that one.

Marion Ranchet: I'm approving, stamp of approval from me. Wow. Okay. Yeah, so I had big media investing in creators and creators, buying creators. So I think I was right on big media going after creators, not so much on creators going after some sort of consolidation, I think this hasn't happened.

So that could be a 2026 thing. This is the honeymoon between big media and creators and I think we're gonna see a lot of test and learn and some experiments are not gonna pan out. And I feel that some creators will go back thinking, yeah, that's not my world. That's not how I wanna do it. And therefore they will look for ways to actually resemble big media a bit more.

And one way to do that is to go after other creators, other [00:11:00] companies someone like that to

Evan Shapiro: Roll up to roll, do a roll up. Yeah. It's interesting. I think MrBeast kind of personifies all of this. Yeah. First of all, he just got a two season additional order for his game show on Amazon. So not just one season, two seasons. Yeah. The most expensive game show in the history of television.

Secondarily, he's also building a major enterprise there. They just, he just hired some big executives from around traditional media to run monetization for him. He's starting a mobile company, so I do feel like MrBeast Industries is turning into a major. Mainstream media enterprise and, emulating mainstream media.

Just really quickly, there are a couple of things about these predictions and the reason I chose these were not just because I did so well on them, but because I think they'll have implications into next year.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: So for YouTube in particular, going back a prediction. It's very cyclical. So YouTube had a big lead over the summer, and then the lead got smaller in the fall because broadcast and [00:12:00] cable have football. But if you look at the year on year growth, YouTube continues to grow and mainstream media doesn't.

In the case of the creators, the way I would apply this to next year is. I think you're gonna see many more big mainstream publishers behave much more like a creator. Yeah. I think next year is the year that Disney finally leans into the creator economy and starts putting actual content up, not just commercials.

Same thing with whoever buys Warner Brothers. I think you're gonna start to see people emulate BBC Studios and ITV and Zoo55 and you know the other folks we've been highlighting on this podcast and leaning much more into the creator economy, to the point where I think most of the growth in the creator economy, the rest of this decade, is actually gonna come from mainstream publishers and not creators.

Marion Ranchet: Well, so that's a great point because very often we pit the two against them,

Evan Shapiro: against each other.

Marion Ranchet: This year has been a, that [00:13:00] bridge that everyone was looking for, but I agree with you. It's a mindset. It's a different way of doing business. And at the end of the day, who has the know-how to turn this into this industrial complex that you love to mention? It's big media. Agree with you a hundred percent, unfortunately.

Evan Shapiro: What's your next prediction?

Marion Ranchet: Okay, my next prediction, I'm not gonna go with one where I was right. I'm gonna mix and match. Whoa. And I'm gonna go with one where I was wrong. At the top of the year I said that, so we all know that CTV is extremely fragmented, competitive. And what I said is that it would get vicious because essentially all of those companies are fighting for the same brands and TV sets, right? The, that world is not getting bigger. You just have more people competing to be

Evan Shapiro: The competition's getting bigger. But the addressable audience is not.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, exactly.

That did not happen. I feel like not much has happened in that space this past year. It's been [00:14:00] very much business as usual. What I've seen is companies improving their lineup, right? So all of these guys wanna be global. It is essential for them to build a channel store where they have every apps the best of global and local.

That was the job that I was doing at Roku and I know how difficult it is because you need to be, on a country by country basis. So I think it's been business as usual. It's been improving the UX/UI, improving the tech. We've seen also some folks making interesting partnership on monetization.

So TiVo and Titan in Europe are doing an ad monetization partnership, so it feels Titan is gonna be selling the inventory of TiVo. Not super clear how that's gonna work. Are we saying that TiVo sells? And then number two is Titan selling against not so sure.

Evan Shapiro: And then here you have Amazon and Roku combining for an ad tech.

Marion Ranchet: Exactly. And then, we've had our friend Matt Henick from the Trade Desk. So they've [00:15:00] spent, the year pushing, their agenda, right? Their vision of how they wanna be in this market, but we've yet to see them, launch on an actual device.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah.They launched a partnership with DirecTV, but that's a different version of the operating system. It's not a, it's not an OEM partnership, but then you have our friends at Whale TV who were also on the pod and they've got a really innovative business model.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: But for the most part it does feel like the CTV OS business is a bit stuck. Yeah. And I think part of that is it's not always easy to monetize.

And the investment isn't always as readily available for these types of big swings in OS as they might be, let's say in streaming or in some other aspects of the business.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, I think it is, after years of, extreme growth, new players, it's been let's consolidate our internal things. Next year, I'm wondering if we're not gonna be looking at pure consolidation and we've [00:16:00] been, I think. The industry has been waiting for this. Everyone feels there's too many people, right?

So Titan just secured a 50 million series A funding. So they have big plans. So I wonder

Evan Shapiro: Then here in the States you have Vizio, who is now embedded at Walmart, and that's gonna add 5 million new television sets to their sales base every year with them acting as the operating system inside Walmart's Store brand TV sets.

So that'll be a major thing. I will be very interested to see how that integration affects the rest of the ecosystem. To date, it is not evident that integration is fully jelled.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: Nor that it's really produced any kind of major revenue or other type of advantages in the marketplace other than the number of TV sets that they're gonna sell.

So that's obviously advantageous, but I'm eager to see what they come out with now that they're living together in an ergonomic [00:17:00] basis.

Marion Ranchet: I think we're gonna have to wait and see with CES and when we see

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, that's true.

Marion Ranchet: The TV cycle is March, right? So new TVs are coming out in March.

Evan Shapiro: CES is where you see some of the innovations.

Yeah.

Marion Ranchet: You've seen new deals in retail. 'cause someone who could be badly hurt by the Vizio Walmart deal is Roku. That's a biggie for them. But, so I'm gonna give myself a C.

Evan Shapiro: Wow.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: Wow. Okay. All right.

Marion Ranchet: That's, that's in my role.

Evan Shapiro: I would give you a C+ because I do think if you look at the Vizio thing, that Titan deal, the Amazon Roku thing, and by the way, when Amazon and Roku combined, there was a lot of buzz around the industry about that good and bad.

I think it's a huge advantage for both of those companies. I think there are a lot of other players who were like, holy cow. Yeah. What does that mean for us? So I'm gonna give you a c plus.

Marion Ranchet: Oh, I love that. I'll take it. I'll take it. Okay, cool. Prediction number four.

Evan Shapiro: So my next prediction is one I didn't get a hundred [00:18:00] percent right.

I said at the end of last year that this year would prove AI to be two things at once, a very unsexy kind of boring success and a completely over-hyped bubble. And I think I've, I was right a little bit on both. So if you look at the earnings reports of Meta, Google, Amazon, and Nvidia from this past quarter, what they show is profitability and revenues have increased at each one of them, but not through selling AI subscriptions to consumers but by maximizing and and optimizing their backend operations to improve targeting, to improve engagement. Really behind the scenes really boring and unevidenced stuff to the naked eye.

So I think I'm right there, but I also still see, for example, open AI [00:19:00] with crazy valuations based on direct to consumer businesses. And you see this wild, gyration around Sora this fall. And I think people still believe that selling subscriptions. Directly to consumers and AI making movies. And there was this, a lot of buzz around Coca-Cola's AI ad that's really the business of AI.

On the flip side, you look at NVIDIA's stock this year, NVIDIA's stock, it's now the most valuable company in the history of mankind which is a bit of hyperbole.

If you look at their stock performance and their market capitalization over the course of the year, their market cap has gone up and down a total of $3.2 trillion. Just the delta in their stock this year was $3.2 trillion. Then you look at the fact that OpenAI is gonna lose, they just issued papers for investors that shows they're gonna lose $74 [00:20:00] billion in 2028.

They're gonna lose about $16 billion next year, $74 billion in 2028, and they're gonna go public at a trillion dollar valuation next year. I think I was right in that is just crazy bubble-licious. Yeah. There's no way to justify $3 trillion in stock swings with Nvidia. It's all based on rumor and speculation. I think open AI's valuation is outta control and doesn't, isn't really merited, and I think there are a lot of a AI valuations that way.

Then I think most of the stuff like we were just talking about. Operating systems on television sets, discovery will be improved through ai. That is really boring to think about, but it is really going to be the success.

Wow. So I feel like it mostly came true, but I don't think it was as big a bubble and the bubble didn't pop this year, which I actually anticipated it might. And also, I don't think people really grok that the AI being a [00:21:00] boring, sexy beast is really the way to go. So I'm giving myself a B on, on that prediction.

Marion Ranchet: I, I can live with that. I will say that I think this year was too soon for the bubble to burst. We're still in that moment where, 'cause so what ChatGPT is three years old. So we're in that moment where all of these companies, this one company, comes on top. Some are following, some are trying to catch up. People are throwing money at this.

But where I agree with you is number one, it's not panning out in terms of, oh, this is supposed to make everything so much better and easier. Not so true, like that. And to your point I did a, an event a couple of weeks ago where I had folks from two companies Liberty Global and Media Distillery, and they were talking about use cases, and they spoke about the most boring, use case, which I will share with you, which is that they use AI to avoid scams.

And so it's an AI that [00:22:00] speaks like a grandmother that keeps. So essentially there's a lot of

Evan Shapiro: How I turn the clock on my VCR?

Marion Ranchet: Exactly. No, but so what he was saying was there's a lot of scams of older people. So instead of having older people having to face this in front of those scammers, there's this AI that speaks like a grandmother and that it, and he saying all that time taken by our AI to speak to this thing is, a lot of older people not being scammed. That's the kind of use cases that you know.

Evan Shapiro: But that's, we spoke about discovery. Yeah. That's what it should be used for. It should be used for making sure people pay less for their health insurance. It should be used for there are all these use cases where it actually will efficiencies and stuff that humans just don't have the attention span for frankly. Yeah, that's what ai, the great use case, populating spreadsheets for me based on earnings reports. That's a really good use case.

Yeah, so Paul doesn't have to do it [00:23:00] and ChatGPT can do it. Unfortunately, Paul is more accurate than ChatGPT and Gemini are right now.

So it's still not perfect either. Is the other thing I just think the whole revolution around AI is gonna look a lot different than people think it's going to.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Agreed.

Evan Shapiro: So what's your next one?

Marion Ranchet: So apparently I cannot count because I said that yours was four when it was five. So I'm grading a D in math. Honestly that tracks I was always really bad at math, so this is completely normal.

So the next one that I have is one that I'm very proud of. And this one I even wanna do not a plus, but exceed. Okay. Which was about European broadcasters. The fact that this year would be a year where they would get more collaborative than ever.

And amongst themselves, with streamers, et cetera, et cetera, and Oh boy, like my list. Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: This started being right, like [00:24:00] the, as you were saying it, it started being right. Yeah. So it, yeah. You were really out of the park on that.

This one's extra credit. Not just an A, but extra credit.

But talk about the examples because there are a lot.

Marion Ranchet: I won't go into details. So the first one is TF1, Netflix. I won't go into that one, we talked about it.

I have France Televisions joining Amazon Prime Video as a channel. So it's a free one as a channel and an on demand brand corner that happened in July right after the Netflix TF1 deal.

RTL going after Sky Deutschland. Media for Europe, MFE going after Prosieben during the summer. And then right now they've just invested additional 30% in Impresa, which is a Portuguese media group.

So MFE is Italy, Spain, Germany, and Portugal.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah. For for now.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, for now. I thought that maybe MFE would go after ITV, maybe they were amongst the bidders, but it so [00:25:00] happens that Sky is going after ITV and I know for a fact that another prominent broadcaster also gave it a try at ITV earlier that year and is not so happy to see this deal being,

Evan Shapiro: That deal is not done.

Let's,

Marion Ranchet: It's not done. But it's looking, it's public. And let's see. So all of those deals, it shows, number one

Evan Shapiro: There's also the ad cooperation between Sky ITV and was it Channel 4 in?

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. But these, so these guys have been working together for years, right? So Sky, Channel 4 and ITV, they've had different versions of ad tech partnerships.

Evan Shapiro: But not be able to buy across all of them very easily. That was a new thing.

Marion Ranchet: That's the promise. Yeah. And they're another example. Yeah. And they're going after SME, right? So that's their thing. That's the angle. And they announced that during Cannes Lions. So across the year it's been a number of moves. And so we've had also so many moves with Disney Plus with ZDF, Disney Plus with ITV, Disney Plus with, was it [00:26:00] Atres.

Disney Plus is using broadcasters to do branded hubs within Disney Plus to get that local taste.

Evan Shapiro: And Disney understands the broadcasting business incredibly well. It's a mainstay part of their business. Yeah, I think when I first heard you predict this, I thought it was gonna be only I thought, it was gonna be a focus on, European entities partnering with European entities. But when I look back at your prediction, you also said, and also working with streamers.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: And yeah, I think what's become clear in the last 18 months is that the European broadcasters, commercial and public, have realized there's no way that they can compete individually by region with the major tech streamers and providers out there, that they're gonna have to either work with the big tech companies, which, why not?

There, there is a great advantage there to TF1 in the Netflix ecosystem, to France [00:27:00] television in the more users, more revenues, they don't have to build the tech. So there's huge advantages there. So it seems and they've gotten the memo to really start looking beyond the edges of their own offices to find solutions.

Marion Ranchet: That's that. That's fantastic. The collaboration I think that is much needed to understand this is how you grow now and thrive. It will be interesting to see maybe five, 10 years time, what does that mean? Ultimately, because I wrote a piece this week about the fact that ITVX premium and RTL plus join Amazon channels, and I said, it's not just a distribution add-on, it's product substitution.

You are merging inside Amazon channels. I understand why they're doing it, but this is very dangerous and tricky. And so maybe in five to 10 years this will be seen as the year where oh my God, they gave the keys to the global guys. Who knows?

Evan Shapiro: Could be.

Marion Ranchet: Okay. I'm not gonna try to give you the number of this next prediction. I'm just gonna ask you [00:28:00] what is your next prediction,

Evan Shapiro: My next permission. That's what I've been doing. Why bother with numbers would just data, right? So my next prediction. Again pretty accurate it turned out that M&A and again, I looked at the environment and made a prediction based on what was actually happening.

And what I said was that M&A would shake up and change the media landscape forever. And if you look at the deals that were on the table just prior to the end of last year, it was pretty evident that was gonna happen. Skydance and Paramount had not yet been culminated and come to fruition or consummated, I guess you could say, which is really gross.

And, and a lot of other things were in the works. The Versant thing was out there, but it hadn't happened yet. So now all of that happened, and then you look at what happened with Warner Brothers Discovery, thinking about splitting up, and now they're selling, and now there are these bidders.

You look at the OMG IPG deal, which was on the table last year, but now it's been [00:29:00] approved. You look at the MFE Prosieben deal is another great example. The year really was framed by mergers and acquisitions, either activity in particular or thought process, which is now currently, I think, ramping up even further.

One of the other elements I added to that prediction was that the current administration here in the United States was going to be the backdrop. Yeah. That it was gonna accelerate. So TEGNA and and Nexstar, you look at that's sitting on the desk of this administration right now. In previous administrations, that one would not even be considered 'cause it breaks a specific FCC rule for penetration for a local provider of broadcast, but it's gonna be seriously considered.

Then the Warner Brothers Discovery Disco Brothers bidding auction is gonna be decided based on who Trump likes best. No, there's absolutely no [00:30:00] way that Netflix or Comcast is gonna wind up with that property because it's not gonna be approved by his flying monkeys at the FCC and the Justice Department.

And so the only one that makes sense to vote for is the Paramount one, 'cause that's the only one that will get through. And again, in previous administrations, there is no way that deal would allow CBS, CNN, and TikTok to wind up in the same family's hands. There's no way that would get approved by either the Justice Department or the FCC or Congress.

In this environment, anything's fair. All is game, so it's gonna be just friends owe Trump that wind up with these acquisitions.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah it's a great time for corporate America, right? This presidency. Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: Or corporations worldwide. So I gave myself an A+ on that one as well. I don't know how you feel about that.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Absolutely. And I have to say that I don't know if I had a prediction on [00:31:00] consolidation. I have, I did not see coming, I did not see sky IV coming, but very interesting, right? In Germany, it's the commercial broadcaster going after the paid TV.

In the UK it's the other way around. It's the paid TV who's going after the commercial broadcaster.

Those deals I did not see coming, but I also wonder whether those are needed. Meaning for example, Sky and ITV. I don't know what's that's gonna do.

Evan Shapiro: I dunno what the advantage does. I don't know who,

Marion Ranchet: I don't see it. Yes.

Evan Shapiro: I don't know who it advantage is and I, it's basically Brian Roberts out of ideas, which he's been his entire life looking for activity to hide the fact that he has no idea what he's doing.

He's in America, he's splitting up. His company and in Europe, he's trying to combine them.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. No.

Evan Shapiro: And remember this is the same company that bought Sky TV for $39 billion after a huge bidding up auction with Disney. And then had to write down [00:32:00] a third of it a couple of years later. This is not, these are not smart moves necessarily.

Marion Ranchet: I, yeah. In some markets you need cons, consolidation. It means like being together is stronger together here they're just gonna be the biggest ad sales companies in the UK combined those two.

Evan Shapiro: In a shitty ad sales market too. It's not it's not like the world is scrambling for more impressions in the UK right now.

If anything, there are too many impressions on the table to sell.

Marion Ranchet: Absolutely. Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: To go back to the Netflix and Warner Brothers one right now, the deal that's best for the shareholders, the employees, and the consumers in the United States would be the Netflix deal.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, I agree. '

Evan Shapiro: cause you've posited this, there's almost, no consumer who doesn't have both HBO Max and Netflix.

And so that actually saves the consumer money, Netflix and Warner Brothers Discovery have very little overlap. They don't want the [00:33:00] linear networks, they want the studios, but Netflix really needs the infrastructure of Warner Brothers that they're bringing to the table. So the fewest number of employees would suffer in that case.

It's an all cash offer. The shareholders are better off in that case. That's a merger that makes a shit ton of sense. It will not be approved by the shareholders because it'll never get approved by the government because Donald Trump doesn't like Ted Sarandos.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: That's fucking mind blowing.

Marion Ranchet: It's pathetic. They're pathetic.

Okay, cool.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah. So on that tone, what's your next, what else? And this is your last prediction. So these are 20, 25 predictions that we both made. This is your last one that we're gonna grade ourselves, which is it.

Marion Ranchet: So that was about European pay TV players and telcos investing or leaning more into streaming.

And I was partly right, I will say B+. And the [00:34:00] reason is it's not on the prediction itself. I will say it, it's on these guys themselves. These companies are very slow to move. So I think every one of them has been looking at doing free streaming for the last four years. Only a handful have actually done it.

So Virgin Media in the UK, Orange in Spain you have players here and there in Germany. I'm thinking, you know Waipu, Zattoo. But these guys are virtual MVPD, so I think it's those are smaller, leaner companies, but not so many of the big guys. We've had Vodafone Germany, they've launched this summer, but it's just like a handful of channels. It feels very much like a beta launch.

The last one, thank you, France is Free. Finally did it. So that was good. So that's gonna shake up the French markets. They've launched a bouquet of 30 channels. They took the opportunity to not just launch those channels, but also launch a [00:35:00] standalone OTT offer, which is the first one really on the French market, where you don't need a set top box to be a subscriber to Free.

That's a big deal. In the States, not a big deal. In France historically we were very attached to our setup boxes, and so all of the telcos, the four telcos were actually still pushing set top box, set box. But now CTV is, taking over the number of homes, relying on CTV to watch television versus pay TV subscription.

I think at the end of last year to took over pay TV, right? And so there's more growth in CTV than there is in pay TV. So finally that happened, but it's been too slow for my tastes. What is your, what is the grade? No brainer.

Evan Shapiro: What is the grade that you give?

Marion Ranchet: I'm saying B+ because it has happened.

Evan Shapiro: It has happened. And it's happened. It's happened here too. DirecTV and Sling both have pretty

Marion Ranchet: Way, yeah, way back.

Evan Shapiro: But I would say the rest of [00:36:00] them, Xumo, which is a kind of joint venture between Comcast and Charter. They obviously have a pretty big FAST and AVOD business, but Sling.

Sling and DirecTV. Yeah. But. There hasn't been a lot of movement in the rest of the MVPD community, so I don't believe Charter or Comcast have a major free offering inside their ecosystem today, which feels like a lost opportunity. And in fact, Roku, which is mostly free in their environment, went the other way and bought Howdy and now have this 3.99 pay TV service or really SVOD service inside their ecosystem.

I agree. I think a B+ is a really good grade, and I agree as well that really the pay TV providers, if they want future-proof themselves, they need a front porch or an off ramp for those consumers to never leave the ecosystem and keep them there for free.

You can still make money off of advertising. I don't know why they are just prepared to abandon users who unsubscribe. [00:37:00] By the way, I would say the same thing with Netflix, and I would say the same thing for all the premium SVOs as well.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. But so all I was thinking all the premium SVOD went hybrid a couple of years ago.

Evan Shapiro: But not free. None of them have a pure, in fact, if anything Peacock went the other way.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, that is true. They don't have a front porch. I don't know if they, I don't,

Evan Shapiro: Conceptually, I guess it makes sense, but if you look at the highest ARPU in streaming: Number one,

YouTube, number two, Hulu.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Hulu

Evan Shapiro: Hulu has the biggest a share of subscribers who are on their ad tier. So it's always the advertising that winds up bolstering the average revenue per user. And so to completely abandon subscribers when they cancel and then have to spend money remarketing to them.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: Without making money on them as a free subscriber with ads, it just doesn't. It does not add up in my head. Yeah. So I hope that people get the message and get into it. [00:38:00]

Marion Ranchet: That ties in nicely with, we won't do predictions this week, this is coming up next week. But, Roku put out their own, and of course, they're preaching their, how do you say it?

Preaching.

Evan Shapiro: Preaching to the choir. Preaching their own hymnal.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, exactly. Because of course they're very free first and Audi an experiment, and I'd be interested to know how many subscribers they've managed to to actually acquire with that offer. But they're saying that, in 2026 is that for 2026, that they think that the premium subscriber will disappear.

Evan Shapiro: What they said was, and I actually wrote about this yesterday, Roku is predicting that the ad free viewer goes extinct. That's specifically how they phrased it.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, but not within 2026, though?

Evan Shapiro: It's a good question. We have to ask them that. But let's put it this way, the stat that they use to support, which I charted on my LinkedIn feed is, and it's also on my Substack, is that in 2025, the amount or the share of streaming [00:39:00] that is ad supported went from 72 or 73% to 81% just this year.

Yeah, I do think that next year, I agree with them and I doubled down on this, that the ad-free viewer will go extinct. And this is what I mean by that. It's, it will be impossible in the United States to spend a week being a regular television viewer.

There are people here who like they only watch movie, they don't watch that. I don't watch TV. Fuck you. Those are the people at cocktail parties. I avoid. You don't watch TV, you're boring to me. You, what do you do? Read who reads?

But what I do believe is if you're a regular television viewer, meaning you watch news, you watch some sports, you watch TV on the regular, I think will be impossible to go a week without seeing ads.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: And therefore the ad-free viewer doesn't mean you won't have ad-free experiences. TVOV, we can go down a long list of [00:40:00] them. But in the average week, you will absolutely see ads pretty much every day that you watch television. And so therefore, I do agree, I think next year the ad-free viewer goes extinct.

Marion Ranchet: I wouldn't go as far as extinct, but I think it will become the exception. I have to say that I've been very adverse and I, but Disney+ I was like, that's way too expensive. Let me get the ad supported except, that right now I'm watching something, I'm binging something. We're getting close to Christmas and I'm like, oh my goodness. And I'm this close to go a free again.

Evan Shapiro: Just 'cause of the ads, is it a heavy ad load?

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Before Black Friday, it was, you had one at the top, 90 seconds.

Evan Shapiro: This is a very heavy ad period you're in by the way.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, I know. But so 90 seconds then, halfway another X and so it's three breaks for a 35 minute Wrexham episode that I've already watched.

Like oof. So

Evan Shapiro: We're hate [00:41:00] binging It's All Her Fault on Peacock.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: It's a horrifically bad television show, but we now need to see what happens. And it, and we have the ad supported version. I don't even know that they have an ad free version on Peacock. And it's a lot. It's 90, it's 60 to 90 seconds of ads in every break.

But you know what? We have found that we use that time to make fun of the show 'cause it's horrific. Or we go to the bathroom or go make popcorn just like we used to when we were kids. We survived with the ads 'cause there's no way I'm paying to watch that terrible television show.

Marion Ranchet: You're paying with your time. Come on. Stop.

Evan Shapiro: I am paying with my time. We hate binged the Beast within me, or Beast Inside Me Too, which is the Claire Danes Show, which is also not good television. I wish there were commercials there to get a break in Claire Danes' lip quivering.

Marion Ranchet: No. I oh yeah, that's true.

I liked the first half and then, got lost on the way [00:42:00] Yeah, it was

Evan Shapiro: It started good. And he's amazing. But holy crap. So this is our last prediction of the year, and it's an unfortunate one, unfortunately.

Marion Ranchet: It's a rough one.

Evan Shapiro: So I predicted at the end of last year, again, looking at the data, last year was a terrible year in the job market in media.

But I looked at the data and then you look at the mergers and acquisitions and everything else going on, and I predicted that 2025, the job market would suck harder than it did in 2024. So far, just through the month of October, more jobs have been lost in media and entertainment.

This is just in the United States. This isn't around the rest of the world. More jobs have been lost in media entertainment just through October than all of 2024.

Which means, and then IPG and OMG just announced 4,000 more layoffs. Paramount has another a thousand layoffs that they're planning. So we're gonna, we're gonna really surpass last year, this year, and next year [00:43:00] after Warner Brothers Discovery gets bought.

And all these TEGNA and Nexstar merge and all these other mergers and acquisitions come to fruition. I think unfortunately, it's gonna be another shitty year in the job market in media and entertainment.

Marion Ranchet: Yes, I agree.

Evan Shapiro: Unfortunately, I'm getting an A++ for something that really reserves an F--.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: And yeah let's leave this here. Let's try to leave this on an up note. What advice do you have if someone right now that is listening to this is facing a job loss or a layoff, what's the advice you would give them? Because we've both faced really difficult times in our employment history before.

What's your word of advice?

Marion Ranchet: I'm still facing it. Let's be clear, huh? Being a business owner you feel that tension in media and entertainment, right? Yeah. November last year lost a client because ad market was soft and they needed to cut. The same thing just happened last week, nice Thanksgiving notes.

It is what it is. And what I [00:44:00] did, and I would advise, anyone to do, is I wrote an email that day to myself that I will read in a year's time. And because what I thought was, because this had happened to me last year and I had to rethink my business, and I've told you and on this pod that this was a year where I was moving away from purely being a consultant and having immediate business.

And thank God I did it because otherwise I would've freaked out when I got that news I did not because I have a healthy, diversified. I have that flywheel. We're talking about that diversification. And so that's because last year I was in that mindset and I took a bet and I looked back and I was like, thank God I did this.

And so right now, writing to myself saying, it's gonna be okay. You are gonna figure it out. And I'm gonna read that email in a year's time. So I would suggest anyone, to do the same.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah I would I, my word advice, so there's a [00:45:00] ton of material on my Substack about career development and pivoting your career and how to do the research and how to update your LinkedIn and how to network and when to network, and putting skin in the game, both financially and from a time and effort standpoint.

So that's, there's tons of that on my newsletter, including the one where I go through the predictions, I link to my canon of career development content. The specific words of advice I would give to anyone listening right now is get past the anger.

Get past, yeah.

Marion Ranchet: That's a fantastic group.

That is a, oh, you fell off the window. Your ego fell off the window.

Evan Shapiro: My ego fell off.

Marion Ranchet: The ego of having your name in the back. Oh my God.

Evan Shapiro: That was a gift from the international Emmy Awards.

Marion Ranchet: I know you said it, but that's so funny.

Evan Shapiro: So the word of advice I would the advice I would give to anyone facing a layoff right now is one, you're not alone in this clearly. There [00:46:00] were more layoffs this year than there were of last year, and then we're not even done the year yet. So there are people out there who you can commiserate with and compare notes with and know that this is not only happening to you.

The second thing would be get past the anger. Get past the upset. This isn't personal as much as it feels personal and. Put your big boy or big girl pants on and get at it. Spend the holidays when it's a little bit quieter and job searches aren't really happening to update your LinkedIn and not just update it with the latest job that you have, but update it and make it sound like you. Make yourself the most interesting person you can possibly be.

Express the things that you've actually accomplished in specifics not jarons, not bullet points, but sentences. And then look at the year ahead and figure out where you need to be so that the line of opportunity runs right [00:47:00] past you. Spend money on conferences.

I just talked to somebody before we started recording who's spending her own money to go to CES because she knows that she can knock out 15, 16 meetings in three or four days with people who can really advantage her. She's doing the homework now to set up those meetings in advance. She's putting herself out there in the line of opportunity. Look beyond the edges of your own experience into the creator economy. We just talked about how it was the year of YouTube on TV and how big media companies are gonna become much more like creators and creators are gonna become much more like big media companies.

People are hiring in these spaces now, but if you don't train yourself to look for these opportunities and be ready for these opportunities, then those opportunities will pass you by. It is an active pursuit. It is not just brush up your resume, apply for jobs online and hope that opportunity finds you.

That's not the [00:48:00] environment we're in anymore.

Marion Ranchet: You need to set a plan for yourself, right? And writing the journaling, that helps and also, I'm saying this now because this happens, over and over again, all of these things, even people who will get a job now are not safe, three, five years.

Evan Shapiro: If you get a job in a beating media company right now, how safe is that job?

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, exactly. And But we go through the same stuff over and over again. And so that's where the writing, the journaling works for me well because instead of going through the exact same thing every time, I can skip it. So that's what I did this year.

I was like, no, panicking. I've done, I'm already prepared this year. Yeah. I know what's gonna happen next year. And so setting yourself for success. 'cause that's the thing. And I agree on overcoming the anger, the disappointment. It's hard, but the sooner you do it.

Evan Shapiro: It gets, in a way, it really just gets to be a blocker.

It basically defeats you before you get started, and then you don't feel like doing [00:49:00] it, so then you put it off. But if you force yourself, you give yourself a regimen, right? Yeah. I'm gonna do this work for these many hours every single fucking day. Look, this, it is about being, and this is gonna be a cliche, self-starter, right?

No one tells you when you wake up in the morning, there's no one standing over your shoulder saying, you need to write your newsletter today. You need to post on LinkedIn today. You need to prepare for the podcast today. You do that to yourself. And it's that revolutionized mindset. It's not just, Hey, I'm gonna go do my job today, and if I do my job well, I get a paycheck.

It's, I have to work on myself. I have to work on my career today. And to your point, it doesn't end when you get a job. In fact, if anything, it's more urgent when you have a job to network and put yourself out there, if not looking for a job than to just be good at your job that you have. [00:50:00]

Marion Ranchet: I agree.

Evan Shapiro: So it was it was an interesting year this year.

It was a rough year for many people and it's been a rough end of the year for many people. But I also, if you look back at our predictions, whether it's the creator economy stuff that we mentioned, or the cooperation amongst the broadcasters in Europe that you mentioned, or the YouTube of it all, and people really a adapting and adopting to that new mindset. Progress was made. More progress was made this year towards an ultimate new normal than previous years.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: It's not easier to take a layoff in context of that, but at least I feel like there's gonna be new opportunities for all of us who work hard next year.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, absolutely. Cool. So we did an okay job.

I have to say that, I've had, I've been more impartial because I've brought A+ and some B and Cs. There's been a lot of A's for me, but, so I would, [00:51:00] yeah, I would push people to go read the rest of you.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, because there, there are things I didn't get right that got lower grades.

Yeah. Gaming ads in gaming and cultural revolution driven by Gen Z. Retail media being the most important thing in advertising. Those were lesser grades. But I don't like to talk about them on the podcast.

Marion Ranchet: I know.

Evan Shapiro: So go read my newsletter.

Marion Ranchet: I know. Go read Media War and Peace. I'm Streaming Made Easy. I had 15. I've only covered four.

Evan Shapiro: And let's celebrate something really quickly. So your newsletter Streaming Made Easy is number one on the rising newsletters in film and television.

Marion Ranchet: Yes it lasted 24 hours. I'm now number six.

Evan Shapiro: But it hit number one. That's pretty impressive.

And my newsletter Media War and Peace is actually number three on all newsletters in film and television right now. So these are obviously two newsletters you need to read on an ongoing basis.

Marion Ranchet: A hundred percent. There's something happening on Substack the creation of [00:52:00] this film and TV category, long overdue.

But it feels like I've found my people and I'm hanging out more and more on Substack versus LinkedIn.

Evan Shapiro: Are you, those notes that you do those work for you? Do when you do the notes on Substack, are those working for you or do they. Do you see an uptick in track? 'cause you get a pretty good engagement on them.

I just started doing them. It's, I don't really know who those notes are going to and what happens to,

Marion Ranchet: I don't know, sometimes there's nothing, it is hard to know, but I feel overall I feel something is happening by doing more than I used to. Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: Alright, here's a promise we need to make for ourselves.

'cause I think we write really good newsletters, but I don't know that we're great at Substack. So let's, you and I both really promise to get better at Substack next year.

Marion Ranchet: Absolutely. Let's do it. I think I'm better than you already, but I was number one.

Evan Shapiro: Wait. Where are you on the all time list?

I think I'm number three. What?

Marion Ranchet: All time. Which one is that? I think I'm number 11.

Evan Shapiro: Oh wow. Look at you.

Marion Ranchet: I'm coming for you, dude.

Evan Shapiro: Oh shit.

Marion Ranchet: Beware. [00:53:00] Beware of the European lady.

Evan Shapiro: I am always aware of the European lady. This has been a great episode. A lot of fun going back. And we hope you look at our Substack for the full list of all of our 2025 predictions and the updates we made to them.

And tune in next week when we will have predictions for 2026.