David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, recently spoke publicly at an investor conference, talking a lot about the future of the streaming market and the company's current growth strategy.
Zaslav expects streamlining within the major streaming platforms, but not necessarily because of mergers (M&A deals take a long time to negotiate and government regulators are increasingly scrutinizing antitrust investigations into M&A). Zaslav's streamlining comes more from two or more collaborations, and he predicts that in the future, much of the content may be done by multiple platforms. "I personally think that if you package a very good product with other products, such as each streaming platform promoting the number one content with the second to fifth content, and set a separate subscription price, this is obviously a good thing for consumers and will also reduce the user churn rate of the platform."
Zaslav said that after the merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery Channel, the newly formed Warner Bros. Discovery Corporation (WBD) has found a business "fulcrum," such as the implementation of direct-to-streaming. However, from the perspective of profitability, the films under this model are still in a state of "lagging behind", "The performance of movies on WBD's streaming media platform, at least for now, is lackluster, which has neither reduced user churn, nor increased the number of subscriptions, and even reduced the overall content quality." But Zaslav has high expectations for the upcoming summer release of "Barbie Live Action" and "The Flash", hoping that these two high-profile works will improve the situation.
In the current environment where major companies are implementing efficiency and throttling, Zaslav especially values the word "throttling" - he just took office and stopped undefined film projects such as "Batgirl", as well as other unprofitable drama content. But he will fully support popular dramas with "double high" attention and discussion, such as "Succession" and "White Lotus," which are currently highly competitive in the streaming market. Zaslav insisted that the most-watched content be kept on his own platform and not shared with other platforms, stressing that "according to previous surveys of viewing habits, most viewers will only follow three or four dramas in the same time period, and the WBD must retain the most competitive content." ”
As for how to balance tightening costs with retaining users, Zaslav only revealed that the company has been spending too much before, and now it can save money while maintaining the quality of content. "We don't say no to promising projects. In fact, with integration, we can spend a lot less. ”
Zaslav said a number of environmental factors, including the economic downturn in North America, have put a number of industries in a difficult position over the past year, including the advertising market and the streaming market. He borrowed the weather metaphor from today's situation, "The advertising market downturn is like rain, and streaming platforms are expanding at an irrational rate, like high winds, making the whole circle stormy and chaotic, but now, I think the weather is improving." ”
Image: Douban, etc
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