Scott Schwanbeck

🚘📉 SiriusXM Loses Subscribers—but Gains Ground in Podcasts and Ad Monetization. SiriusXM’s Q1 2025 results are a study in contrast: 🔻 Revenue down 4% 🔻 Free cash flow down 36% 🔻 303K self-pay subscribers lost But that’s not the whole story. 🎧 Podcast ad revenue jumped 33% 📱 Social and video ad bookings in Q1 beat all of 2024 💡 Cost reductions—especially in marketing and tech—are on track to save $200M this year With stronger in-car retention, new partnerships (hello, Mitsubishi and Tesla), and a low-cost, ad-supported tier launching later this year, SiriusXM is actively repositioning for a more fragmented and price-sensitive future. 📊 We break it all down—including what it signals for other subscription businesses:👉 https://lnkd.in/eg2SUmCB #subscriptions #streaming #podcasting #SiriusXM #subscriberstrategy

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🚀 Acquisition: Deltatre + Endeavor Streaming 🚀 Today marks an overdue moment in the streaming and live events space: Deltatre has agreed to acquire WME | William Morris Endeavor Streaming, aiming to build a unified global leader in digital and OTT experiences. 🤝 What’s in it for Deltatre? Enhanced product suite: Integrates Deltatre’s D3 VOLT, FORGE, AXIS, and DIVA with Endeavor’s VESPER platform for a full-spectrum digital offering. Tighter value chain: From strategy and consulting through growth marketing and full stack implementation, clients can now work with a single, end-to-end partner rather than juggling multiple vendors. Global scale: This move reinforces Deltatre’s operations across the U.S., Europe, Middle East, and Asia, supported by a more robust engineering and product engine. 🎯 What’s in it for Endeavor? Accelerated DTC growth: Endeavor’s strength in enabling rights-holders’ direct-to-consumer journeys (e.g., UFC Fight Pass, WNBA League Pass) gains scale and new synergies outsourcing to Deltatre. Stronger backing: Post-acquisition by Silver Lake, Endeavor Streaming struggled and now has a future with a specialist provider driving next-gen video delivery. A boost for its ambitions. 🎥 Industry Impact Powerful client roster: The combined entity services marquee names like the National Football League (NFL) NBA, MLB, UFC, UEFA, and WWE offering tiered scalability from global platforms to niche/regional deployments. Market simplification: A one-stop-shop solution simplifies procurement, integration, and support, a clear advantage for complex streaming ecosystems. 👀 What happens next: The transaction is expected to close in Q3 2025, pending regulatory and standard approvals. This acquisition builds a digital-first platform, merging premier technology, global reach, and strategic services. Interesting times ahead as the Streaming industry continues to consolidate! 👏 https://lnkd.in/dq5gzNYj

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CTV is a driving force for digital ad spend growth, but those of us who have been around since the days of "Ad Network 1.0" know that non-transparent "ad bundles" and fuzzy PMPs with fancy logos and no accountability will burn out the minute that the supply - demand imbalance come into play. With the rise of Amazon Prime Video and the growth of FAST channels reaching saturation overload, we are just about there. Program level transparency and full impression-level accountability across all CTV sources is only a matter of time.

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Amazon just took a huge step toward owning your living room. And independent DSPs are cooked! Let me explain what happened ... The Fire TV maker is teaming up with Roku—the #1 CTV platform in the U.S.—to launch a massive joint ad network. Together, they now control access to 80% of connected TV households in the U.S. Amazon’s DSP will power ad placement across both Fire TV and Roku Channel. 💡Why does this matter? Because it’s not Netflix vs. Disney anymore. Arguably it never was. It’s Fire TV vs. Roku vs. Samsung vs. Google TV. Silicon Valley vs. Asian OEMs. This is a hardware + OS war for the TV home screen - and Amazon just moved into a commanding position. If Amazon ends up acquiring Roku (as many now predict for 2026), it won’t just be the biggest CTV deal of the decade. It would be the final blow to independent DSPs like The Trade Desk. I still don't get it!? Because whoever owns the OS, owns the pipes. No OS access = no data, no placement, no power. The Trade Desk has spent years building algorithms to optimize CTV buys. But if Roku and Fire TV stop giving them inventory or data, or price it up, it’s game over. And building a competing OS? Too late. Amazon just blocked the last open lane. CTV ad spend is expected to hit $30B in the U.S. Owning the operating system means owning: ✅ Ad inventory ✅ Audience data ✅ Content discovery ✅ The future of streaming itself. Shout-out to Anna K. for all the killer adtech insights on our flight form Cannes Lions to Vienna. (Anna, I ultimately missed my connection and had to overnight - Tafelspitz at Plachutta made it worth it 😅) 💬 What’s your take: Is Amazon about to buy Roku? And what does that mean for the rest of the CTV stack? #CTV #Amazon #Roku #AdTech

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Love this - AI is the Oppenheimer moment for marketing. It fundamentally collapses the time and cost of production. A $2.5 million campaign that used to take four months can now be delivered for $500,000 in four weeks. Legacy firms that charge based on hours with the 'time-driven' model are existentially threatened by this.

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Here's a great example of AI-first adtech creating real business value for media companies. Aperiam portco Gray Swan is partnering with Operative to bring AI-powered observability to media companies managing converged linear, streaming, and digital advertising operations. GraySwan's agentic AI layer continuously monitors performance signals across supply, demand, pricing, and delivery. It automatically surfaces anomalies, inventory and pricing optimizations, and incremental revenue opportunities in real time. No more hours spent pulling reports or missing critical signals. As Zeev Neumeier, GraySwan's Founder and CEO, put it: media is now a data-driven business, and the power comes from turning that data into action. Proud to support the team GraySwan as they bring this vision to the world's leading media brands.

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Eric roasts the "ad tech haters" after tvScientific sells to Pinterest and Jim Payne explains how app developers can use his new SDK to manage yield using Claude and AI prompting.

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Sanjay Trehan, digital and new media advisor, said, “Compelling content is the initial puller, but the ability to take it to diverse audiences makes it a smart combination. Exclusive and differentiated content will always be at a premium, while these sharing deals are tactical with short-term intent.” Trehan highlighted the tension between consumers’ platform-agnostic behavior and platforms’ need to retain audiences. “Consumers are accessing content anytime, anywhere, across devices. Opening multiple gateways helps cater to this demand. But platforms want to extract premium value. The key is balancing reach with optimised revenue. Smart shared models can provide tactical leverage.” Experts agree that while hybrid models can be lucrative, careful deployment is crucial. Trehan said, “The multiplier effect of multiple gateways can grow the audience and advertising pie. But premium offerings must remain differentiated to attract loyal audiences.”

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AI is helping TV providers maximize ad revenue by optimizing ad inventory and media buying while enabling advertisers to deliver personalized, highly-targeted ads and improve campaign performance in a competitive, data-driven market.

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