The Media Odyssey

TMO - MIP London (Audio Only) Final
===

Marion Ranchet: [00:00:00] This is Evan Shapiro.

Evan Shapiro: That is Marianne Ranchet. Welcome to the Media Odyssey Live 2025.

Host: Please welcome warmly Marion and Evan to the stage.

Evan Shapiro: So, correct, correct me if I'm wrong. This is the first time we've ever been on the same stage together, correct?

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, first time on the stage, first time next to each other, not on a Zoom to record this thing. I like, I like this.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, it's pretty nice.

Marion Ranchet: It's pretty cool.

Evan Shapiro: [00:01:00] How many here have listened to the podcast before? Okay, correct. It's a high percentage of what I'll call a nice sized audience. Um, because people are listening and they won't know. It's, I think, very apt that we are here at MIP London, the first ever MIP London, doing our first ever live podcast.

The first ever live podcast on stage at a MIP. Because we hatched the plan to do this podcast at MIPCOM.

Marion Ranchet: MIPCOM, yeah, four months ago.

Evan Shapiro: Over at least one bottle of rosé, right?

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, Sonny, Sonny Can, we were just having a chat, and all of a sudden he's like, I think we should do a podcast together, and of course my answer after five seconds was "Hell Yeah," and in four months, we've done this.

Like, I wrote about this a few days ago. Honestly, I don't know how we did from, you know, ideation to actually, we have, this is nine or ten episodes already. It's insane, but we love it. We're happy to hear that you love [00:02:00] it. A lot of people have said that they're listening when they're at the gym, walking the dog, you know, happy that we can keep you

Evan Shapiro: On the toilet.

Marion Ranchet: No one said that, but I have the image of a lot of, well, yeah, maybe, but I have the image of a lot of people. Exercising, sweating, you know, listening at the gym, sweating, listening to us, but that's okay.

Evan Shapiro: Sweating to us. Well, so thank you very much.

Marion Ranchet: But thank you for your attention. 'cause we know you have a lot of opportunities, so thank you.

Evan Shapiro: And if you haven't yet subscribed, you can subscribe with this QR code, which made a great comeback during Covid.

Marion Ranchet: And we're old, so we do QR codes.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, we do. Right? Well, but it's a comeback kid. I think, one of the new technologies. So today we have a theme. And the theme of our podcast today is the state of the content economy, which I think is also very apt for the first ever MIP London.

And we put together a bunch of data. This is from Ampere Analysis, great research firm, really great product and interface to use. And you can [00:03:00] see where all of the content is coming from, all the content investment is coming from. Apologies. You can see it's shifting from commercial broadcast to premium streaming, SVOD, streaming services.

What does that chart say to you about the state of the content economy?

Marion Ranchet: I love that little wave, and we see how it's, it's swapped, right, in a few years time. I love the fact that it shows that there's a lot more opportunities for you guys as producers, distributors, to pitch and, and sell your content.

Now, of course, having said that, there's pretty much the same amount of money now. I think in 2024, something around 247 billion spent, only 1 billion coming on top this year. So, there's more people to sell to, but they have the same amount of money, so there's definitely more competition for you guys.

And we'll speak to that a bit later, but [00:04:00] depending on the genre. You cater to

Evan Shapiro: De genre.

Marion Ranchet: De genre.

Evan Shapiro: Very French.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Well, I am French.

Evan Shapiro: It's that kind of witty, intercontinental banter you get on the podcast.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, I'm teaching this guy what's happening on this side of the world, you know? Open is the horizon.

It's important, very important. Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: Socialism. So, which I admire.

Marion Ranchet: Oh, you do, and you envy us.

Evan Shapiro: I covet, I covet. Yeah. I covet your socialism. So, um, but you're right, the money is shifting. It's shifting to two distinct areas are growing. AVOD and SVOD, which are increasingly the same thing. Isn't Netflix with ads also AVOD?

What do you think? Is Netflix with ads also AVOD or is it still SVOD? Hybrid?

Marion Ranchet: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: Alright, we'll have to, this will be our breakout session at next year's MIP London.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, I don't want to do SAVOD, are you the one who brought this thing?

Evan Shapiro: SAVOD. Yeah, I killed it though, I knew my mistakes.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, [00:05:00] I don't like it.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, Pedro Pina was on stage talking about how much money YouTube wasted on their originals, and I couldn't get him to pin down to a number. Right? Um, but, uh, he did admit that they weren't good at it and that they moved on fast from it. So I admit that SAVOD is dead. But when you continue through the data, you can see that original production starts in the United States are down 40 percent since pre Strike.

Right, so this incorporates the strike time in it and when you look at pre strike and post strike, you can see that production starts for I believe all kinds of television are down 40 percent in the U. S., they're around, they're down about 20%, around the rest of the world, and we have that broken out by TV.

Just for those listening at home, watch it on YouTube. Fuck it.

Marion Ranchet: It's the biggest podcast platform. They just released the data. A [00:06:00] billion listeners ever. So that data you were not able to get from Pedro.

Evan Shapiro: So Pedro, if you were on with us earlier today Yeah. Which you couldn't have been if you were listening or watching 'cause you're physically here.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah. They'll get FOMO, but that's okay.

Evan Shapiro: Right, exactly. Pedro was on here and he said they were announcing a big number about podcasting. Yeah. Specifically. So I mentioned that. YouTube was streaming 400 million hours of podcasts to viewers on TV, YouTube, on TV every month. 400 million video hours of YouTube podcasts on television alone every month.

And then later today.

Marion Ranchet: They said like an hour ago, a billion, uh, watchers of podcasts. Every month on TV.

Evan Shapiro: Right. So the reach watching about

Marion Ranchet: So do watch the Media Odyssey on YouTube because we went

Evan Shapiro: Good plug there.

Marion Ranchet: Audio and video. Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: So what's happening there in that, with that, uh, aside, is that displaced hours [00:07:00] on television set, on YouTube, on other things like sports and other live events, like Jake Paul, a YouTuber slapping an old man around a boxing ring for about two hours.

Marion Ranchet: You say that every time.

Evan Shapiro: and breaking Netflix, um, as a consequence. But production starts for TV are down about 20 percent globally, less so for film starts. So about 20 percent for TV production starts, and that is non fiction and fiction, I believe.

And it's down about 4 percent for total film productions. And this speaks to, there are less scripted pieces being made. There are less episodes often per, uh, per series being made. And a lot of this money is being diverted to other places. And you, were looking at data about specifically sports and streaming over the last couple of years. Yeah,

Marion Ranchet: So despite what, uh, Rita Sting said, you know, we will never do ads, we will never do sports, you know, I. So they're into [00:08:00] sports right now, and of course it's starting to show and shift that money away from drama and the rest. If you look at data for the last few years, you're seeing the growth of streamers in spending on sports.

So, plus 6 percent since 2020. So just in, you know, four years time, five years time. Then you're seeing the broadcaster are still, they're still holding their share. Those who are decreasing at a global level is pay TV, right? And so for sure, even if you have Kelly, is it Kelly Day from Amazon?

She says, yeah. Yeah, no, I'm not shifting money, you know, away from drama, et cetera, for sports. Yes, the sports business, it's an expensive business to be in. And so, for sure

Evan Shapiro: But Jassy definitely said that during their earning season. He said, we're moving money into more sports, and we're going to pivot to selling other people's channels, which I think means that they're going to be. They're one of the biggest green lighters of [00:09:00] original scripted and non fiction programming out there.

But it's also telling that their last big investment in non fiction programming was Mr. Beast at a hundred million dollars for one game show. So that's, I think, a really telling thing, but generally speaking, down 20 percent globally, 40 percent in the U. S., this means fewer. We were talking about this earlier, there, I think a lot of people in the television production business, um, who are really flourishing during peak TV.

And if you remember, John Landgraf, coined the term Peak TV a number of years ago and it was not a compliment, it was a warning. Right? We are making too much television. Even if it's really great, we're making too much for the average consumer to watch. And that's really one of the key factors of we're writing to a new normal here, as far as the level of production wants to go.

And I think there are a lot of people who work in production and various distribution arms of the content economy, and they're saying, well, when is it going to bounce back to the new normal? And I think this is the new normal, isn't it?

Marion Ranchet: [00:10:00] Yeah, and actually, shout out to Guy who, so after Landgraf saying Peak TV, Guy is saying 75 Peak TV, so that's the new normal, right?

So in 2024, essentially, we're back at 75 percent of pre, pre COVID Peak TV, and he sees this as the new, as the new normal.

Evan Shapiro: As the new normal, 75%, and by Guy, you mean who?

Marion Ranchet: Guy Bisson from Ampere.

Evan Shapiro: Okay. I don't,

Marion Ranchet: he's not my buddy. So

Evan Shapiro: This guy?

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, Guy.

Evan Shapiro: Uh, some guy. It's a guy . And so, I think we have to as an industry, and there's a whole corner of TikTok and other social media dedicated to people talking about what's happening in production.

I was speaking to a decent sized producer, independent producer of non fiction content here in the UK and they said the orders just aren't there the way that they were. You know, then you look at Mr. Beast getting a hundred million dollars.

So there's two things one money is moving towards sports for [00:11:00] the streamers and that's where a lot of this investment is going. But also for Disney and the Major League Baseball are parting ways, over price, but that's because they're gonna get a higher price from another streamer.

So, their money is being moved into sports and away from scripted entertainment programming. In addition to that, more and more of the content economy is gonna be consumed by the creator economy. And I think for those people who wanna continue to make great content, non fiction and scripted, if you don't understand how to pivot to speaking directly to an audience, it's going to be increasingly difficult to make a full business model work. Because a lot of the value that would have normally come from gatekeepers for big green lights are, is moving. The advertising support for it and other, uh, other dollars are moving into creator platforms. Like YouTube, like Amazon, like Meta.

You know, a huge percentage, around 60 percent of all ad dollars goes to just three platforms. [00:12:00] And so, what's interesting when you look at this slide, and we talked about this a little earlier, and you look at where the movement is going towards YouTube, this is on four screens, but also on televisions for younger consumers.

Producers, platforms, publishers, you can ride this wave.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, it's not doomsday. I think when people look at that chart, they're thinking, and also it's because, so Pedro wasn't like that, but on the French market, we had the MD of YouTube saying that YouTube was the biggest TV channel in France. You can imagine the reaction of French broadcasters, like, ugh.

Because it's, you're not comparing apples to apples when you, when you do that. So, when you see this, you're like, oh, you know, it's over, they've won. But I don't think that's the discussion to the point Pedro was making earlier.

Evan Shapiro: I get a lot of grief from people, including on stage earlier today, for saying, you know, YouTube is the new TV.

But it is different because there is a way, as you were saying, for you to be [00:13:00] included in it.

Marion Ranchet: And again, they're not playing in the same field. So Pedro said it, they're a platform, they are not here to produce content, they are here to make a platform where you, we put content and so that's to point about waving taking that wave.

I think actually when you look at that number Netflix is contributing to that number, BBC, anyone who has a YouTube channel is putting content out there, is contributing. So in a way that's where it's tricky to show it like that and I understand why some people are giving you grief for that.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah Well, it makes for a good headline.

Marion Ranchet: Everyone else?

Evan Shapiro: I am in business.

Marion Ranchet: You're very American.

Evan Shapiro: You're very French.

Marion Ranchet: I know, and I love it.

Evan Shapiro: That's the kind of answer you get on our podcast.

Marion Ranchet: Even the Brits love the French more than, uh, than they do.

Evan Shapiro: Uh, well, and more than Americans because we suck right now. But I think, uh, what's, what's key here is it's hard to get inside the economics for the general producer of Netflix.

Well, even if you work with [00:14:00] them, the cost plus model is not what it used to be. And it's not going to necessarily going to go back there. On YouTube, yes, you're splitting 45 percent of the ad income with YouTube. But they're putting you in front of, they're, they're on every television in the world. There is no television that doesn't have a YouTube app installed.

Right? And it is very often the first channel that older and younger consumers will increasingly, uh, use before they check out other channels, even Netflix. In your case, whether you're a publisher or a producer, the opportunity is to take 55 percent of dollars you're not currently getting. And what this data, in particular, this slide here, demonstrates is there's an entirely different ecosystem of viewing in the UK for those people under the age of 35.

This is how they watch. You can participate in two of the top three in a very meaningful way. TikTok is hard to monetize, but it is great promotionally. And if there's a great interview that [00:15:00] I did with Lynette Zolik, uh, it's on my sub stack, which is Media War and Peace. What's your Substack?

Marion Ranchet: Streaming Made Easy

Evan Shapiro: Streaming Made Easy.

Um, you can subscribe to both right now. We'll wait. That didn't get as big a laugh this time as it did earlier. You've heard the joke. So the, the, um, but if you watch it, she'll say, talk about using TikTok to drive subscriptions. For their channels on YouTube and views of documentaries that were 20 years old 'cause it had a snake and a fly in it.

Marion Ranchet: Mm-hmm.

Evan Shapiro: So what else about, you were looking at, the content economy through the lens of sports and dramas and comparing them to each other, and specifically here in the UK and you had some data around UK, uh, green lights and commissions.

Marion Ranchet: So, in terms of who buys, UK content, it's, you know, mostly broadcasters, still, 50%. 35 percent streamers, SVOD, and now 15 percent AVOD, and that's, I think that's [00:16:00] very interesting. We had Tubi earlier today. We're going to have a guest in a few minutes.

Evan Shapiro: From LG Ads, it's not a mystery.

Marion Ranchet: Well, he's, yeah, not yet though.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, yeah, but we haven't revealed who.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, that's true.

Evan Shapiro: Could be Mr. LG himself.

Marion Ranchet: Oh, yeah, I don't know who that is, but okay. You'll get, yeah, you won't be disappointed. He's going to be a great guest. But so, yeah, there's a lot of new opportunities with AVOD streamers, right? And it's no longer this thing where it's just old content, library content. You know, again, Tubi, the Superbowl, uh, making moves in, you know, first window titles, etc.

Evan Shapiro: Originals. They talked about doing 300, uh, originals, uh, on that. They have this new Stubio, Stubio, which is their studio with Tubi. Get it? I didn't make it up. They did. That was their joke.

Marion Ranchet: Yeah, that was kind of weird, actually.

Evan Shapiro: But, if you look at, if you look at where the money is coming from, there are only two areas of real growth on this chart.

And that is SVOD. With ads, so [00:17:00] SAVOD. Uh, and Avod. Um, and AVOD is going to be one of the areas where if you are producing content that you're going to look to distribute, either on a rev share basis or sell. Tubi says they were green lighting things. We're going to talk to our guests in a second about them curating their own channels.

Um, and so when you look at where the industry is headed, and you look at this slide, don't see danger, see opportunity.

Evan Shapiro: Um, look here and, and look in your own home. Who here has anybody in their home under the age of 34, who watches television? Raise your hand. So most of the audience here. Look at their habits.

They are doing what the, most of the consumers are gonna wind up doing. And you have an opportunity to ride along, regardless of whether you're a publisher of IP, and you have a large library, or you're someone who wants to build an audience around a piece of intellectual property, but is striving also from, for feedback from an audience member as well.

That's what's, these [00:18:00] channels are also really good, good at.

Marion Ranchet: Folks need to be reached everywhere, right? So this morning, I had Max, with, uh, Scott Young. He's the guy behind the Olympics on Max and so much more. And, he said we have to be everywhere and every, every ecosystem feeds the core, the core business somehow.

And so when I look at that chart, I'm thinking about Disney. The, they went full circle a few weeks back. Took a content creator, so a YouTuber, the guy who does the French Hot Ones, the Spicy Show. So this guy, 15 years ago, was doing, you know, short, uh, short form content. Uh, it was on YouTube, it was on Pay TV.

And the second season is a very different format. It's, you know, a full season, 40 minute episode, etc. What they did is that they put the first episode for free on YouTube, on their channel, but on that YouTuber channel. They garnered, like, you know, 5 million views for that [00:19:00] first episode. In a way to tease people to, and then they bought, you know, sponsored ads and the likes to just drive people to subscription.

So, all of this can be a flywheel if you see it like that.

Evan Shapiro: You have to see your intellectual property hub, and all these as spokes thereof. Speaking which.

Marion Ranchet: The IP, right? The IP and the core

Evan Shapiro: and then all of these potentially, I mean, not all of them, some of your competitors, but also think about all the models as well.

So what's represented here in the top four, is a wide array of business models. And that is exactly how the consumer consumes television, a wide array of business models. In the end, consumers, G.W.I. did a piece of research. Consumers don't really care about the business model of the platform. They care about the content first, right?

So they will find it wherever it goes. And now it's an even split between free ad supported streaming, SVOD paid streaming and pay TV and broadcast. And so [00:20:00] with that in mind, we're going to bring our guests to the to the stage here. We have Ryan Afshar, who is the head of publisher and platforms for LG ads here in the UK.

Welcome, Ryan.

So FAST has entered FAST. I've, you're the second fast interview that we've done today. Tubi's here. Pluto's here. LG ads is here. Samsung was here. Samsung is here. In an ecosphere that has a long tradition of free television, free over the air television, where does FAST fit in and why, why is LG ads here in this market investing so heavily?

Ryan Afshar: First of all, thank you for having me. And, um, when they asked for a headshot, I didn't realize it was gonna be the size of a billboard.

Evan Shapiro: I think it looks really good.

Ryan Afshar: Thanks for

Evan Shapiro: Screenshot of that and send that to me.

Ryan Afshar: Um, no, it's great to be here. Yes, I mean, I work at LG, as you know, I oversee all of our publisher [00:21:00] and platform partnerships, programmatic platform partnerships.

You know, as you know, LG is a global TV manufacturer. We have 200 million devices globally. And, you know, it's well documented in, in the, in the last couple of years, we've, we've made a lot of noise around our ambitions to become a move towards becoming a media and entertainment platform business.

And so, you know, we have our fast service LG channels, it's available in 29 countries, it's free. And that includes both AVOD and FAST. Um, and so that's, that's kind of our foray into, you know, that kind of content ambition. Um, included in that is the launch of LG1, which is our kind of, yeah, first owned and operated, fully curated, fully scheduled by us internally.

And, it's been, it's been really well received from our viewers. Um, you know, we've seen

Marion Ranchet: Where did you launch that? Which markets?

Ryan Afshar: We've launched that in the EU five markets. So we started with the UK and Germany. Then we rolled out to [00:22:00] Italy, Spain and France, and we are considering, uh, Netherlands as well.

So, yeah, really.

Marion Ranchet: Yes, please.

Ryan Afshar: But, um, no, and I think, you know, that's, I mean, we've seen some great slides today, um, around that shift. We see the big shift from A to streaming, and then into kind of ad funded models as well. You know, as on our devices, we see in Europe about 60 percent of viewership is streaming.

So, you know, there is obviously a place for linear. We know that people watch all your

Evan Shapiro: That's across all your devices?

Ryan Afshar: That's across all our devices.

Evan Shapiro: So that's, that's what data will do for you is you have, you know, real screen level data emanating from that. Not specific around consumers, but what is watched streaming versus broadcast versus pay TV.

And so it makes sense that you would look at that data and say, let's invest in this ecosystem, right?

Ryan Afshar: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, from a viewership perspective, but also I guess, you know, me coming from the outside, there's there's great and greater interest in FAST and the role it plays within, you know, CTV advertising.

[00:23:00] You know, we've heard today from others about the types of content that resonates with FAST, you know for us, you know, with LG One. We've we've really really tried to move kind of first window content But you know, we were experimenting with single IP channels across our service mix genre procedural, uh, procedural kind of episodes work really well.

Um, and there's this kind of term that I've heard come up recently, which is kind of newstalgia, um, which is, which I think is great. And, you know, new audiences to kind of older content, but actually, you know, from a personal level, I've, uh, I've just started watching, re watching The Sopranos again. And what's interesting is my mindset now, It's very different to when I first watched it 20 odd years ago.

I'm showing my age now, you know, now I'm, now I'm less looking to Tony Soprano and the kind of mafia I'm looking at. How is he managing his teenage son? How's he dealing with bereavement?

Marion Ranchet: Cause you get older, so you have different considerations.

Ryan Afshar: I'm watching it through a very different lens. And I think that's something to be said about watching content from, you know, [00:24:00] yesteryear is that where you are, how you view it is completely different depending on when you watched it originally.

Uh, so that's something, something to sort of call out for around FAST and kind of content in that space.

Marion Ranchet: What I think is interesting is that you guys, uh, come from the TV manufacturing business, and not everyone may know that because we feel TVs are expensive, but you're not making that much money from those TVs.

It's a low margin business. And so what you do is fascinating because essentially, once you've sold those TVs, instead of making by selling them, you're making sure that you're in, you're making money every time someone actually turns that TV on. Right? For you and your partners, of course,

Ryan Afshar: Of course. And I'm, you know, I'm not the CFO of the company, so I won't comment too much on that, but

Evan Shapiro: You can't comment on the profit margin, every television that you sell?

Marion Ranchet: We know it's tiny. It's the same for everyone.

Ryan Afshar: I think we all know that there's, there's margins to be made in advertising. We heard from Pedro earlier and [00:25:00] his kind of business models with YouTube. It's similar to us. We want to make money for our content partners. And we're doing that in a really good way.

That will continue, you know. More advertising budgets are coming. I think we've seen that, you know, I think 68 percent is going to be a 68 percent increase into FAST. The IAB recently announced that in terms of investment. So there's a lot more budgets moving into CTV. I don't agree that it's necessarily cannibalizing linear.

I actually do think it's coming from social budgets, online video budgets, search, search budgets, where, you know, now, CTV has all those benefits of digital advertising, measurement, targeting, that you can do, that you couldn't do before on TV.

Evan Shapiro: With better, with better sight, sound, and motion, which is what people really want to invest in.

And, and while it wasn't necessarily a shift in strategy at YouTube, they were following the data. The CPMs on CTV for YouTube, and this actually, you, you mentioned, uh, Pedro. What I found fascinating, and we were discussing this earlier when we were walking through, [00:26:00] is you're the lead in to all of this, right?

You can't on, in an LG home, You can't not go through LG screen to get to these services. So there's this real estate as the lead in to the rest of television, to the television journey, the audience's journey, that you can provide that very few, platforms, devices, players in the marketplace can provide.

And that's one of the key selling attributes of the, of the platform, right?

Ryan Afshar: Absolutely. It's a selling attribute, but it's also, you know, it's worth reminding, you know, we talk a lot in market about what is the role of the OEM in this kind of emerging TV ecosystem. We have three responsibilities.

First and foremost, to the viewer. We want to make their experience of exploring and viewing content the best it can be. Discovering content the best it can be. And, uh, our content partners, be that app or FAST channel partners, we want to help them that their content to be found, you know, discovery is king, but we talk about discovery, sorry, content is king, but discoverability is queen.

And so how do people find that content? And can we reduce the route of time or the [00:27:00] time between turning the TV on and finding the content and what they want? And then finally, if you have an audience and you have great content, well, then of course, that presents really innovative ad opportunities. I'm all underpinned by, you know, proprietary privacy compliant data that we, we, as a, as a platform have access to.

Evan Shapiro: So not only are you the front door to all this content on all your devices, also you're enabling these platforms to get to their audiences in the quickest form and fashion possible, so that your consumers are happy, that they're pleased in the UX that you're providing. I guess my question is, why decide to invest in owned and operated channels?

What is, what do you, what was the opportunity you saw there? What's the genre of the channel, if you don't mind me asking?

Ryan Afshar: It's a big genre. Um, You know, it's you know, overall we want to bring more eyeballs to our service. And so, hence, you know, investing in that first window content. That, that's, you know, the quality of the content that we're, we're bringing on.

Working with the likes of, you know, Lionsgate and [00:28:00] Fremantle and a number of others. So, when the quality of the content in FAST is increasing, then the viewership is following. And that's something we've seen, I'm sure, across other platforms as well. So, that's why we went down the kind of quality route in launching LG One.

It's working. I just want to touch on something you said earlier, Evan, as well. That home screen is a real opportunity, not just for, you know, media and entertainment brands, but other advertisers that want to reach that captive audience, you know. It's probably the most exciting advertising real estate in the last 15 years, if I'm honest.

Like, there's never been before, you know, if you have a 75 inch screen, half of that is dedicated to an opportunity, high attention. And so we've really seen media and entertainment brands lean into helping to define that content, but also, you know, general market advertisers or non endemic advertisers using that space, which is high attention.

And it's often the first ad someone will see when they turn on the TV. I mean, we have a lot of stats of like BBC up there, but as we know, that's, that's a non ad environment. So, you know, some people [00:29:00] turn on the TV and they go straight to doing a workout video, or straight into gaming. So, this is a really good way to cut through and actually engage an audience before they've even gone into any kind of video advertising.

Evan Shapiro: How old is the platform here in the UK? ,

Ryan Afshar: The?

Evan Shapiro: The LG FAST platform. How long have you been launched?

Ryan Afshar: So, the Fast platform launched in 2019. Okay. But our, our web os our operating system has been, has been going since,

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, no, I meant the FAST platform.

So five years a bit, a little bit more, yeah. Um, how do you, how would you say the state of the market is for fast in the UK? And, what would you look at for the year ahead in a successful year?

Ryan Afshar: As I said, I think it's there's a, there's a, 2025 I think is the most exciting year for Europe.

I think, you know, US a couple, two, three years ahead of Europe in terms of fast adoption. Um, there's this kind of really cool poster art that's, uh, which helps me describe this, which is about avocados. You may have seen it, which is like [00:30:00] Not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet. Eat me now, too late. We're in the, we're in the ripe eat me now stage of fast both from a content perspective and an advertiser's perspective.

And so we're seeing content owners really lean into fast where maybe they're a bit hesitant are they going to put their best content out? Now there's more platforms, there's no new OS's, so they're starting to really look at other content to put out there. From an advertising perspective They were waiting, where's the scale? Does the ad funded model work? Is there good measurement, targeting capabilities?

That's all in place, like everything's aligned to be this kind of super right, eat me now sort of phase. So I would say, yeah, this is the most exciting year for CTV and FAST from an advertising perspective.

Marion Ranchet: Love it. I'm going to steal this avocado line. I love it.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Well, I think we have the headline of MIP London. The first ever is "Eat me now." LG ads. Thank you very much, Ryan. Thank you, Ryan. Yeah. You've been a great guest. Thank you.

Thank [00:31:00] you. Thank you for coming to the first ever live podcast at MIP London. The first ever our podcast. This is Media Odyssey.

Thank you all so much.

Marion Ranchet: Time for drink.

Evan Shapiro: Let's drink. Yeah. Let's go drink.