Media

Stocks

Tik Tok

  • TikTok is a phenomenon.
  • Their rise had a lot to do with a huge advertising campaign in the US
  • This stat is staggering – for a period in 2018 “nearly 22% of all ads seen by U.S. Apple device users on Facebook ad network came from TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin”
  • As the article points out this actually provides more evidence of Facebooks dominance.

Stocks

Netflix Accounting

  • A good article on accounting at Netflix.
  • In short, it analyses content amortisation accounting and shows that this line item is being understated, boosting earnings.
  • A staggering stat is that Netflix content spend went from $2bn in 2011 to nearly $14bn last year.
  • This might not be relevant for the share price for now but is still worth knowing about.
Stocks

Behind the Scenes

  • In investing one mostly hears from the CEO, CFO, and investor relations. It is important to dig deeper.
  • One vital function is the Chief Technology Office (CTO).
  • Here for example is an excellent post from the outgoing CTO of New York Times.
  • The legal department is also interesting. Here is a fascinating podcast featuring the general counsel of Netflix.
  • Incidentally also the first lawyer hired by the company when they were still sending DVDs and who now heads up a team of 650 people.
Stocks

Barry Diller Interview

  • Worth listening to Barry Diller on the picture right now.
  • Barry acquired Expedia right after 9/11. Saying “where there is life there is travel“.
  • He described today as cataclysmic, no sharp reversal and not being analogous to 09 or 9/11.
  • Diller spoke of advertising as particularly hit as of Q2.
  • Expedia (he is chairman) typically spends $5bn per year on advertising but revenues at zero it will be lucky to be $1bn this year.
  • On that topic this is a good article describing what is happening at GOOG and FB in terms of advertising.
  • Despite their strong positions and likelihood to gain share things are looking bad.
Stocks

Disney

  • This is a chart of the top app downloads in US. Check out Disney.
  • “The launch of Disney+ in mid-November was unprecedented in the U.S. Its 31 million downloads in Q4 2019 was more than double the total for the next closest app, TikTok.” 
  • It was still top despite launching Nov 12 – some way into the quarter.
  • Source: Sensor Tower (lots of good app stats inside report).
  • h/t The Big Picture.

Stocks

Spotify

  • Great article on Spotify.
  • “The rise of AirPods, smart speakers, and other wearable devices may not signal the onset of a true platform shift, but it undoubtedly represents a transformational evolution in the way we will consume media — and this emerging paradigm of distributed, “eyes up” device interaction directly benefits audio more than other content categories.“
  • Nice table comparing the music services as well.
Tools

2019 Internet Trend Report

  • Mary Meeker’s latest Internet Trends Report is, as always, interesting.
  • It is a treasure trove of information to do with Internet and Media.
  • For example this chart showing that in the US the amount of time spent on mobile surpassed time spent watching TV.
  • More snippets to follow but the whole report is worth a flick.
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