Inside Tubi’s global sports strategy: The rise of free streaming

In this episode of StreamTime Sports, co-hosts Nick Meacham and Chris Stone sit down with David Salmon, EVP and Managing Director of Tubi International, to discuss the platform’s rapid global expansion and its unique advertising-led streaming model. They explore how sports are becoming a key driver of engagement for Tubi’s international growth, particularly in emerging markets like Mexico. Plus, the duo previews what to expect from the SportsPro Media Summit 2025 in Madrid.

 

Key Points:

• How is Tubi expanding globally as a free, ad-funded streaming platform?
• What role does sports content play in driving Tubi’s growth in emerging markets?
• Why are advertising-led models resonating with younger, cord-cutting audiences?
• What challenges and opportunities lie ahead for mid-tier sports federations?
• What can attendees expect from the SportsPro Media Summit 2025 in Madrid?

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the next episode of
Streamtime Sports. My name is Chris Stone, the
community lead, joined as alwaysby our CEO, Nick Meacham.
Now Nick, we're recording this on Friday morning.
It's October 17th. I don't say this to be
braggadocious because until the other Joe is back, I don't
really care too much, but the man over my my left shoulder,
right shoulder. If you're watching the video,
Jamar Chase had an absolutely incredible game last night.

(00:29):
I was pretty the Bengals were always going to lose that game
anyways. But what I will say, Nick, the
Bengals winning on a Thursday just frees up my whole weekend
because there's no stress. There's there's nothing to worry
about. It's almost like rewatching your
favourite movie, right? I'm going to sit down on Sunday.
I'm going to watch football, butI already know the ending
because the Bengals have alreadywon.
So it's like just getting to enjoy something for the joy

(00:50):
that, you know, you don't have to worry about what the what the
chase might be or what the the dramatic ending might be like.
I already know the ending. The Bengals have already won on
Sunday. I can just sit down and just
just watch football. I'm very happy for you.
Out of interest, how do you watch typically watch a game
like that? Because it starts at like what
starts at 1:00 in the morning roughly in the UK.
Well, it's perfect because we'retalking about stream.

(01:11):
I'm sports, one of the sports subscriptions I do pay for.
I do pay for NFL Game Pass by the zone.
There was a time when I was younger and perhaps maybe filled
with more optimism, I would stayup and watch the Bengals live by
a game pass. These days it is not worth my
lack of sleep. So typically, like this morning,

(01:31):
I woke up at 6:00 and basically pretty much within about an hour
of the game finishing, the zone wraps up in multiple different
ways so you can have the full replay.
Which I don't know why anybody would ever voluntarily choose to
watch ads. But like it's 4 1/2 hours long,
but has all the all the commercials, all the halftime
show, all that stuff. They do the 40 minute version,
which is how I watch any non Bengals replay game.

(01:53):
You can do the short highlights,but they've now introduced as of
last year, an ad free 1. So it's kind of sits between the
full game replay and the 40 minute version.
So basically you've said one of the things you don't like about
the 40 minute is you don't get any of the commentary in between
plays. This basically shows you
everything. It just it cuts out all the
commercials, cuts out half time.So it runs about two hours.

(02:13):
So full game replays about 3 1/2four hours playing on the game,
40 minutes, somewhere between 40and 40 five.
The ad free version is somewherebetween 1:45 and two hours.
So if it's the Bengals, I will watch the ad free full replay.
So there you go. Like you get you get multiple
choices. It's quite nice.
Well, no, I, I've, I've got it now as well actually.
And I, but I've never endeavoured trying anything over

(02:36):
the 40 minute. I do watch the 40 minute often.
I try to pick one game where I pick a 40 minute condensed and
then then sometimes I'll try some others, but I'll only watch
her for a bit because I just want to feel.
Yeah, many for like a bit of fantasy purposes like and more
about yeah, how does that playerlook in real life?

(02:57):
The itest sometimes. So I might watch a couple of
drives and just see what the thegame felt like.
And then I normally go to the the five minute version, but I
find the five minute, it's too short.
It's too short. Yeah.
I feel like if you want to get agood feel for the game, it's it
is just I mean, it is just highlights, but it is just the
key highlights. But I feel like you miss so much

(03:19):
in that 5 minute version. So but I noticed that I think we
may have talked about this before.
I'm having Deja vu moment here, but there's a 15 or 20 minute
version that NFL. That's on YouTube.
That's on YouTube. Yeah, and that's good.
I like that's. Very good, yeah.
Yeah, I just, I'm a bit curious as to why either a the zone
hasn't found a way to also include that version just

(03:41):
because it's already in existence, because I feel like
it's it's it would sit nicely onthat platform, complemented by
all the others they have there. But look, really, really happy
for you to get give you. I know that when when the
Bengals win, you're a happier man and I I'm I'm expecting to
be even more productive at work wise as well.

(04:02):
But what I've found that blew meaway for that game.
I watched just the the quick highlights on that was the
average age of the two quarterbacks is like was it 81 I
think for the 2 or 82? The combined age.
So fun fact, Nick, I was listening to this.
This is only the 4th time 2 quarterbacks over the age of 40
have played each other in a start.

(04:23):
It's a bit of a trick question. Can you name the other
quarterbacks in the three matchups or any of the
quarterbacks? Wow.
Here's where's I'll tell you, Nick, the quick the trick
question part of it is it's actually been the same 2
quarterbacks in all three previous games, really.
Yeah, OK. It's not Brady and Manning, is

(04:44):
it? Brady is one of them, the other
one played in the NFC South. I'm not cool with my divisions.
NFC South. Black and gold, Roethlisberger
Black and gold. But the other black and gold?
The true gold. True, I'm having.
I'm so bad with these types of. Drew Brees.

(05:04):
Ah, true. Of course.
The Saints, yes. So I do now.
That you say that as soon as yougive me one of the divisional
play teams. Yeah, I know all four.
Yeah, but I can't don't know where's where.
Oh, interesting. Oh, wow.
OK, cool. Well, yeah, I mean, like maybe
it was me, you know, a little shiny light of hope that
basically, you know, I've still got a chance if these 4 year

(05:27):
olds can basically play the mostathletic sport in the world
where they drafting like crazy athletic quarterbacks.
They can run, you know, 100 metre sprints in like 11 seconds
and also throw the ball 70 yards.
And then you've got these 41 year olds.
I mean, Joe Falco doesn't even he looks old than 40.
I have to say. Would that be the beer the and

(05:48):
actually Aaron Rodgers, to be honest, with that grey growth
coming through, it just makes itages them even more.
But yeah, fair play. So yeah, good for you.
Congratulations. And actually, well, good, good
for me a little bit because I had, although I did trade way
Jamal Chase in one of my teams, so.
I've got him in two teams so that helps.

(06:08):
I traded him away. I I gave up on him a few weeks
ago. I did it for Josh Jacobs, which
was kind of has worked out pretty good, but that that game
was incredible. Anyway, we we need to we need to
move on, but always good to get turn on the the phone and check
out some of the highlights in the NFL.
I'm I'm I'm addicted and if anyone look anyone who's
listening, we talk about it a lot.

(06:29):
Tell us what you think. Do you want to keep hear us
hearing our antidotes around thethe NFL and if you want, do you
want more or, or do you want to join our fantasy team, which I'm
fantasy competition, which I'm thinking about setting up for
next year. So I let us know what you think.
Yeah, join the Sports pro fancy absolutely about that.
But to your point, Nick, we willtalk business and one of the
things coming up, big business, it's almost in a month from now

(06:51):
almost to the day, if we look forward is the Sports Pro Media
Summit in Madrid. Now immediately, Nick, we have
had some conversations, It's gone through different
iterations. It's been the Sports Pro OTT
summit, it's been Sports Pro Madrid and now it is Sports Pro
Media Summit. It's gone through some different
iterations. We've talked in previous
episodes over the years kind of that evolution was to recognise

(07:13):
that OTT at one point was the big shiny thing.
And now it is one part of all the different layers of media
that needs to go on. Whether that's your linear
broadcast, whether that's what you're doing on social media and
YouTube, you know, it's just onepart of the the whole pie.
But one of the things we are introducing for this year's
Sports Pro Media Summit, that's a little bit different.
If you're at Sports Pro Live, you may have experiences is

(07:34):
we've introduced some new forms into the event.
And then I guess Nick, maybe thebest way to describe it is it's
almost kind of a mini event within the event.
And the idea being that I think sometimes you go to events and
you just don't go deep enough. Sometimes, Nick, like we find
some of the content, it only scratches the surface.
So with these forms, we're trying to go really deep into

(07:55):
specific topics. So one of them we have, we have
a YouTube form, we have a socialmedia content creators form.
We have a technology form. One of the other forms that
we'll kind of highlight today because it's relevant to our
interview, we're doing an advertising form, but the idea
is kind of giving these two hourblocks, 3 hour blocks.
So we're going to deep dive intosome of these topics.
And one of the things we're going to try to do here of

(08:15):
stream time or the next couple weeks is bring you a couple
interviews from some people thatwill be speaking.
It's sports Pro Media Summit, Just give you a little sneak
peek on these. They'll have their own separate
interviews there. But just for you guys to get a
little bit of a a taste of some of the deep dive stuff that
we're going to try to do in Madrid.
So Nick, I don't know if you want to put another spin on that
or how that sounds to you. If I've done that correctly, you
know, it is new. So everyone's got their own take

(08:36):
on it. Yeah, no, no, I think you did a
great job. But look, the the Sports Pro
Media Summit is really built. I put it, we basically sit back
and we put on the, let's say theCXO hats of sports properties
all across the globe. What are the biggest focuses
they have right now in the industry?
And now with the media Summit, we've been able to focus on all

(08:56):
the key topics under one under one roof with a regards to
sports media. So you'll have loads on media
rights, you're going to hear loads of different great
examples of successful OTT platforms that have been
launched and also some of the challenges they faced along the
way. And really things like
advertising, we've been talking loads about we had to have a
deeper focus on that. So you're going to hear from

(09:17):
companies big and small, from Google to the zone and of
course, Toby about how advertising is playing a role in
and around sports and sports streaming and, and, and they see
revenue generation around the live, live and non live rights.
And so I'm really excited about this event.
I think it's the most both the most breadth and the most depth

(09:40):
in any event we've ever had. Particularly it's the Ferrell
event in Madrid, which is, I'm not even sure how many years
it's been now. I think it must be nearly 88 or
9. Eight or nine, Yeah.
Yeah, but I'm as excited as everfor this because I think there
are so many layers to the sportsmedia strategies that sports

(10:01):
properties are trying to undertake and we're trying to
really go deep on all of them here.
So I don't think there's anything like this in the
industry that that covers the business basically art and
science, the business and the tech, so to speak of social
media, of production of content,whether it be live or non live,
again through the eyes of the sports properties themselves or

(10:21):
for the platforms. And indeed going still keeping a
huge focus on streaming and OTT,which is still such an important
area of focus for everyone from top tier right down to the
smaller challenger organisationsthat do exist.
Exhibit of the the example we had on a pot a few weeks ago
with David Guinan. Yeah.
Well, one of the people that is going to be speaking in Madrid

(10:43):
and some of that you got the opportunity, Nick to to have an
interview with prior to is DavidSalmon, who's the EVP Managing
Director for Tubi International.Now Tubi is someone we know is
very heavily in the advertising space, but they were founded
based you, you know, in the US North American market.
But David's 3 minutes to start spreading that internationally.
So maybe just give people a little bit of a heads up sort of

(11:05):
kind of what they can expect. And then I think sort of as well
kind of we know the advertising space is growing.
Tubi is build a successful business and is growing in
sports and sort of why sports isso important for the advertising
model. But sort of what does that look
on an international stage? Because I would say it feels
like some of that stuff is a bitmore advanced in, you know, the
US, but it still feels like the Europe you're still talking

(11:26):
about your Sky Sports, your zones.
It doesn't feel as advertisementdriven and sort of maybe David
gives a little bit of insights into what he sees, how they can
duplicate some of the success they've had and other markets
where they're founded as they expand.
Yeah, it was great to talk to Dave and I've spoken to him in
the past offline as well. And he comes with such an
incredible background. Like he was one of basically the

(11:47):
founders of IMG Arena and, and basically what became Endeavour
Streaming. He was the CTO there and at
Endeavour. And indeed IMG is part of that
business for well over 10 plus years.
I think it might have been closeto 15 if I remember correctly.
So he's been in the thick of launching, launching a real

(12:08):
tech, tech focused organisation and business that's been super
serving sports for a long time. He's had to go through the, the
journey of being part of all thechanges that went through
Endeavour and IMG alongside whenthe sports industry was going
through so many changes along the way.
And when I saw actually, when I saw him first get this role, I

(12:29):
was a bit surprised because he had had the CTO as the, the job
title for and thinking wow, ACT OS going into an ND and EVP role
to lead this business across so many markets.
But then when you speak to him, very quickly you realise why,
because he he wasn't wearing thetraditional just CTO pure tech

(12:49):
hat. Before he was part of the Co
founders. He was part of the the fabric of
what endeavour streaming came tobe and indeed what they built
over time. And now he's leading a really
exciting journey that Tubi is going through.
And obviously the Tubi really came to prominence.
For those that aren't quite familiar with it or may have

(13:09):
forgotten, they are basically probably the number one AVOD
platform in the US owned by partially owned by, I think it's
Fox, if I remember correctly. And they were Co streaming the
Super Bowl and got incredible numbers delivered, largely
flawless experience relatively to what we've seen in the past

(13:30):
at an incredible scale. And that really put them on the
map, I think internationally to be paying more attention to what
they're doing. And now when you have a, an
organisation like Toby coming into play in markets, I think
David's across about 10 of them from, from memory, you've got
the UK, Australia and Mexico, all very interesting and
different and journeys. Like really interested to hear

(13:53):
how they are approaching it, whether it is the use of sports
and, and what they're doing to maximise the value that live
sports does bring to the table, particularly with advertisers,
but also how they just even managing what, how they manage
the platform to make sure engagement and consumption is at
its highest. And they've got an incredible

(14:13):
catalogue of stuff. And given David's background in
sports, it's great to hear from someone who is at leading
basically a a huge expansion of one of the world's leading
advertising LED streaming platforms.
Yeah. That that sums up perfectly,
Nick. And like I said, definitely
stick tune, stay in tune for therest of the episode.

(14:34):
But again, also it just gives you a little bit of a taste.
If you've not already gone your pass to the Sports Pro Media
Summit. David is going to be one of the
featured speakers along with others.
Like I said, the particularly like if you have an interest in
advertising, going to be a wholededicated space Fair.
Like I said, there'd be other ones on YouTube, specifically
social media, content creators, technology, other different
areas that I think hopefully by bringing this interview with you

(14:55):
from Dave, it just gives you a bit of, you know, what you would
be in store coming to the Media Summit from there.
So from here, we'll hand things over to your interview.
Nick. Sounds good.
Thanks, Chris and everyone. If you are interested in coming
to the Media Summit, reach out to either Chris or myself and we
might be able to sort out a special, Oh yeah, Springtime,
Springtime sports podcast, a special offer for the event.

(15:17):
Just just give us a shout and we'll we'll see what we can do.
So David, it's been a while since we've last spoken, but
great to have you on the stream Time sports podcast now.
There's so many areas I want to cover with you.
We've spoken before about lots of things happening on the
industry and, and your with yourbackground.
I think there's some interestingstuff.
I want to cover what's happened now in sports, but now your role

(15:38):
as MD of Toby International. You've got quite a fascinating
set of markets to be across A tobe is quite AII use beast in the
nicest sense of a sense of the word, but it's expanding rapidly
and it's something to get a lot of the attention of the sports
industry as it grows. It's it's breadth of of a
content in library. So just I guess take us into

(16:01):
David like what is to be both maybe comparing a little bit
with what it is in the States because obviously that's it's
it's home base and then what you've now grown it to across
the world. Yeah, for sure.
Well, I so, so Toby, I mean, I'll kind of go back to Toby's
founding story because I think it sort of tells, it sort of
provides a bit of narrative for the, for the growth we've seen
up until 2025. S Toby was originally founded in

(16:24):
2014 over on the West Coast in the US And like many tech
companies, it has a big pivot inits history.
So originally when it was when it was kind of founded, it was
founded as a business called Adrise.
And Adrise was being set up as an adtech platform to support
the major Hollywood studios. To be itself was launched as a
brand to essentially prove the advertising integration model,

(16:46):
to be able to sort of provide a demonstration of what you could
do with Adrise as a piece of technology.
It picked up a tonne of a tonne of steam, a lot of user
attention, a lot of user adoption.
And they ended up pivoting the business to really make to be
the hero brand and to go all in on this kind of DTC vision of
free streaming for everyone. The business kind of grew
really, really rapidly up until 20/20.

(17:07):
It was then acquired by Fox and in particular over the past five
years, it has really kind of gone from strength to strength.
So we're now kind of at 100 million monthly active users.
We're available in 11 markets, including all of North America
and we passed a billion dollars in annual revenue this year.
So the business really has become a bit of a juggernaut.
The kind of footprint is startedin the US, scaled out to Canada,

(17:31):
Australia, Mexico, Central America and most recently we
launched in the UK back in July last year and so.
What are some of those other markets and really obviously
that is what you're responsible,responsible for is all these
markets outside the US, right? Yeah, for sure.
So the the kind of longest tenured of those markets is
Canada where Toby has a really, really big footprint.
We're a kind of leader in free streaming in that market.

(17:54):
We reach one in three Canadians of the age of 18.
So we really do have, you know, a, a kind of a real fondness for
that market and a really big user base.
Our fastest growing market at the moment actually is Mexico
where we've embarked on a really, really interesting kind
of very sports forward strategy that's kind of unique to to be
globally. And then our youngest market,

(18:14):
but one obviously I'm fairly familiar with is the UK, where
since we launched in July last year, we've seen some really
quite amazing growth and a lot of adoption.
In particular in a market that is always being defined by free
streaming. We've still really managed to
find a home by offering a really, really diverse selection
of really brilliant content fromkind of Hollywood studio licence

(18:36):
films all the way through to kind of endless box sets.
So the kind of weird, the wonderful, the brilliant abroad,
it really is a something for everyone experience.
So let's talk about the sports equation there.
Where does sports fit in to the business?
I mean, to be made the the headlines, particularly this
year globally with its success around delivering the Super
Bowl, that's obviously in the US, but it's got it's no

(18:59):
stranger to live sports rights, that's for sure.
So just talk a bit about where sports fits into that and to
that content mix. Yeah.
So, so, so sports plays an increasingly significant role to
to the way that TV thinks about its content mix.
But it does vary per market in the way that sports rights are
typically going to be sold on a per market basis.
And it means that therefore you will have a slightly different

(19:19):
approach because your portfolio is going to change. the Super
Bowl itself was a real coming out party for Tubi, both on the
sports side. But but I think more generally,
it was a real demonstration of the scale of of kind of Tubi's
footprint in the US in particular.
We were the exclusive digital destination for the 2025 Super
Bowl in the US. We peaked at 15.5 million

(19:41):
concurrent consumers delivered in 4K low latency, completely
free. I think over the course of the
weekend, Toby reached 24,000,000unique viewers for their kind of
game day programming. And it really was an opportunity
for us to demonstrate the technical capacity of Fox and of
Toby. Interestingly enough.
I mean, that was probably a fairly unique event in the way

(20:02):
that the Super Bowl is just generally a unique event in the
sports landscape in the US But we have also then been sort of
adding. Sport in lots of different ways
to our programming mix. So some of it will be live, like
whether it's the Super Bowl in the US, whether it's League MX,
the Mexican Premier League available for free onto the
Mexico. But we also lean in a lot to

(20:23):
some of the kind of shoulder programming and lifestyle
programming that surrounds sports that's better consumed on
demand. Like a good example of this, we
actually released a really brilliant documentary about
Naomi Osaka that came out just before the US Open this year.
And it was particularly timely because she managed to get all
the way to the semi finals. There's like a really beautiful

(20:44):
story called the second set about the kind of process of
returning to professional athletics after having her first
child and talking about the kindof struggles of trying to be a
professional sportsperson alongside being a full time
mother. And those types of stories we
think to be as a great platform ultimately to tell them.
At the same time, you know, overthe past couple of quarters, we

(21:05):
released a really brilliant exclusive documentary about kind
of Draymond Green, the NBA basketball player.
We had a brilliant six part series about Cam Ward called
Zero Star that was available in the US, which again, it tells a
slightly broader story. It isn't totally focused just on
the live experience, but about some of those Evergreen moments
that really shaped these sports people.
The thing with the thing, the Toby that makes it quite unique

(21:27):
and special, particularly at thetime of launch was its focus on
an ad, an ad supporter, ad funded business model.
Just talk us through. I mean, and also just take a
step back there. Fox has been Fox and Fox's
ownership has always been forthright in the fact that they
were very patient waiting to come to market while many of the
other streaming competitors haemorrhaged, let's say lots of

(21:49):
money trying to get ready for this, this new era of streaming.
Fox, I think basically I would say Fox kind of won a lot of a
lot of that with the best, one of the best approaches in the
market as a result of that. And Toby was really that sort of
turning point I guess in their approach to taking on streaming
as a key vertical. But again, big ad funded first.

(22:10):
Just talk a bit about that Toby's approach.
How is it driving revenue? Is it just through traditional
ad funded programmatic? What is the different levers
you're able to pull to maximise the value of the content you
have on platform? Yeah.
So, so Toby as a kind of Tubia'splatform has always been 100% ad
funded, 100% free for consumers to use.

(22:30):
We do this through offering definitely this kind of
traditional rotational advertising products, pre rolls,
mid rolls and those are kind of bought and sold both
programmatically also on a kind of direct upfront basis.
We sort of operate across those different brand advertising
markets. I would say like the way that
we're relatively unique. I mean, for one thing, our

(22:52):
entire user base is addressable,which is like a really, really
big win for advertisers. One of the problems with the
kind of bolting on of advertising tiers that a lot of
the SVOD platforms have done over the past few years is that
actually there are entire cohorts of users that you can't
access. If you're an advertiser trying
to buy through those platforms, you know, they all have the most
expensive tier available. That potentially means you get

(23:14):
no advertising at all in your experience.
And whilst it's great that consumers are, you know, some
consumers were able to sort of opt out based on preference, it
does mean that for brand advertisers looking for reach,
they can't address those consumers through those
channels. The other thing that Tubi's
always offered, and it's been a big part of the kind of more
general Fox pitch, is that we offer really amazing access to

(23:37):
kind of younger, more diverse, incremental audiences.
You know, more than 50% of our audience in the US, they're Gen
Z or they're millennial. You know, it's a very different
demographic set to the ones potentially you'd buy through
broadcasting cable. 67% of our users are cord cutters or cord
nevers, which means if you're a brand advertiser looking for
reach, if you're spending that money through broadcast or cable

(24:00):
channels, you're not going to beable to access these consumers.
And it means that every dollar spent on Tubi offers really,
really strong incrementality, which is what a lot of marketers
and brand advertisers are looking for when they think
about where to deploy their capital.
And then one of the ways we've actually been able to to sort of
manage the balance of offering advertising, but really also
driving a lot of consumer attention and engagement has

(24:22):
been by being very judicious about how we think about ad
load. So to be as a platform targets,
it's between 4:00 to 6:00 minutes of ads per hour of
playback for kind of contrast. So if you look at something
which has extremely high ad loadlike U.S. cable, that's going to
be 15 to 17 minutes of advertising per hour of
playback, which as a as a European feels quite astonishing

(24:44):
anyway. But even, for example, in the UK
during kind of the sort of peak times in broadcast TV, so kind
of in the evenings on an ITV or a Channel 4, you're going to get
up to 12 minutes of advertising for our playback.
So we're going to be less than half of that.
And this is alongside us offering Hollywood titles,
endless box sets, amazing Indies.

(25:04):
So we really think it offers really brilliant value to
consumers. It definitely.
Sounds that way. I mean, how are you getting now
that the big challenges being for some time is to see for the
industry's been waiting for moreadvertising investment to come
from the the advertisers and that seems to be picking up a
lot of steam now. But just how, how are you
managing the flow of advertisingin particularly because you're

(25:27):
across international, I'm guessing a lot of that spend is
coming out of the US still, but how much of that versus your
international, how much is local, how much is
international? And is there a particular
strategy you need to take basically to maximise the fact
that you're advertising any platform while the others
aren't? Yeah.
So I would say, so in each of our markets, the vast majority

(25:48):
of our revenue is going to come through sort of domestic
advertisers or it's going to be Hulk Hosen agencies buying on a
domestic market basis. So it's not like for example in
Canada, most of the revenue comes through the US, It is
domestic Canadian advertisers looking to access kind of reach
for Canadian consumers. I mean, I mean definitely there
is increasingly and you see thisboth on from a consumer basis as

(26:11):
well as an advertiser dollar basis.
There is now a bit of a shift happening where traditional
advertising dollars that would have gone through broadcasting
cable are now shifting into premium CTV inventory, which is
great because obviously we're kind of big beneficiaries of
that as a sort of tailwind in the industry.
And actually, I do think you canalso over exaggerate that

(26:33):
transition both on the engagement and the dollar side.
People a lot of the time sort oflook at the US and use that as a
as a great example of what's happening globally in terms of
the shift of attention. We're now more than 50% of time
spent in front of ATV now is spent in streaming services.
But actually the UK is sorry, the US is a bit of a leader in
that in that way. So in Canada, it's actually

(26:55):
still 80% of time spent in frontof the TV is still actually on
broadcast. So again, it's one of those
things where maybe the rhetoric is slightly, slightly ahead of
the reality of where consumers are spending their time and
attention. But nonetheless, we do have an
expectation in particular as whether it's sort of the
Netflix's of the world, the Amazon Primes, the Youtubes are

(27:15):
starting to get these tier one live events and make them
available exclusively through streaming.
That is going to start to shift dollars because eyeballs will
move with them and ultimately brand marketers won't reach.
And that will be where you startto find it.
So you talked about how the ads are being sold.
How are the ads being served? You know, we're seeing different
types of technology come to the fore.

(27:36):
And with your background, which we'll talk about a little bit in
a second, you've got a strong tech background.
I'm sure you're paying a lot of attention to to that side of
things. How are you just using
traditional ad breaks? Are you using overlays?
Are you using what different other techniques are you using
to bring in ads into the experience?
And obviously just not disrupting, but I guess making

(27:57):
sure that you're maximising the advertising opportunity.
Yeah. So, so to be, I mean partly, I
mean based on its founding story, advertising has always
been a a first class way of the way we think about sort of to
be's product offering. Advertising is a kind of a key
pillar. So the way that we think about
the, the, the stakeholders that,that we're ultimately
responsible for serving, whetherit's advertisers, whether it's

(28:19):
consumers, whether it's content owners, we want advertising to
be, you know, a really integrated part of that
experience rather than it being sort of disruptive, you know,
coming in right at the wrong moment during a particular piece
of content or interrupting the, the climax of a, of a particular
like a thriller or a horror filmor whatever.
So we are definitely, we, we do kind of use traditional ad

(28:41):
breaks where you'll have pre roll pods, mid roll pods.
There's a lot of stuff there that is a lot smarter than you
would be able to ultimately drive through traditional kind
of TV advertising experiences. So for example, you know, you
can obviously have much better personalization and targeting.
And then also even kind of, you know, as you move down the
funnel to outcomes and sort of alot of the measurement tools

(29:04):
that are in place, we've obviously spent a lot of time in
investment making sure marketershave all of those available.
We also are are seeing I think like a lot of our our kind of
competitors a lot of focus on new ad products that go beyond
the kind of traditional rotational media of pre roll and
mid roll. So whether it is integrated
sponsorship experiences built into the actual product

(29:25):
experience kind of whether it's thematic takeovers, whether it's
pause ads, whether it's the ability to as an advertiser buy
out sponsorship of a single asset and make it available ad
free for consumers. There are lots of these
additional ways for brands to ultimately really drive these
high impact moments. So with the different markets

(29:47):
you're across one of the, and obviously how are you deciding
which market to ultimately go and launch it because you've
picked, you've picked 11 markets, there's a lot more out
there to potentially get you keep launching into.
So this what is the tipping? Is there a tipping point?
Are this key, are this key things you're looking at in a
market to, I guess make that decision to to pull the
proverbial trigger? Yeah, we're, we're kind of,

(30:10):
we've been thoughtfully expanding over the past five
years. It hasn't been a sort of spray
and spray approach where we try and kind of get everywhere and
then see whether or not we can add value to consumers.
We tend to look at a combinationof competitive set in any
market. You know, we we want to know
that there is space for what we offer for consumers.
We also will look at content availability, making sure that

(30:30):
we can offer something that's really compelling and that sort
of breaks through with consumers.
And then we also look for for sure at the advertising
landscape, is it sufficiently mature to be able to support an
advertising only business at ourscale.
So it's sort of a combination ofthose factors that really then
just drive our decision making as we think about expansion.

(30:51):
So why not then go down and thisis obviously the question you
get is why don't go global? Why have you taken a market by
market approach? Because you'll see a lot of
streaming platforms now launch and they immediately try to be
global from day one. Now they obviously comes with
lots of risks and costs associated to which I'm guessing
is a deciding factor. But why the approach to be very

(31:11):
thoughtful about each market? I would say, well, I mean, I
will probably start by saying I don't know how many streaming
platforms have genuinely tried to go global.
Some of them will, for example, just make their content
available globally. But I, I don't know if that's
really going global. It's more you, you happen to be
in a market where somebody couldstumble across your platform.
Going, going global itself I think is significantly harder

(31:33):
and there aren't that many, manyreally major global video
platforms. I mean really the only two I can
think of would be Netflix and YouTube.
I think in each market you want to make sure that you are
crafting an experience that really fits consumer
preferences, really fits, kind of fills a gap in terms of like
consumer demand. And that takes time, it takes

(31:54):
investment for sure. I mean, I think our CFO would
have a heart attack if I said we're going to need to go
global. But it also it requires us to
put together an experience that we ultimately believe has a
right to compete in that market.And just coming in with a sort
of relatively thoughtless mishmash of content and hoping
that consumers, you know, if youbuild it, they will come as a

(32:14):
strategy that I don't think works.
And and ultimately, I think markets are too mature and
competitive across the board forthat to be a strategy that
anyone should pursue. So you said it's mature.
How much more maturity do you expect to happen at a, at a
decent, a decent click, a decentrate to get you guys into a

(32:35):
position where you can really unequivocally say we're
successful in that market? Because I'm sure that it's the
jury's out always for everyone, I guess pretty much in this
industry, at least for the near future.
But you know, in the UK and markets like that.
Is there anything, how much moregrowth and maturity do you need
to get comfortable with where you're heading?
So I mean, we, we tend not to have sort of 1 objective metric

(32:57):
that's going to drive whether ornot kind of we have product
market fit. I think in all of the markets,
we want to see our footprint growing.
And we know that we're in a partof the industry that is scaling
very quickly. You know, in particular, sort of
whether it's CTV advertising, whether it's CTV consumption,
these are markets with good structural tailwinds behind them
as people shift from broadcast into digital.

(33:19):
I think the thing we're always looking for is increasing
customer engagement and making sure that we're building brand
affinity that breaks through both with consumers and with
advertisers. And if that's what we're seeing,
if a lot of those sort of healthmetrics are going sort of up and
to the right, that lets us know that we're solving a problem and
that we're well positioned. So what I, I recently saw that

(33:41):
you were out in Australia for a big launch.
What are you, how different is the ultimate platform?
And you, you've, you've intimated that there are some
things you're looking at and some changes you make market to
market. What are some of the
differences, perhaps say, looking at the Australian New
Zealand platform to what you've launched at the UK?
So I would actually say Australia and the UK are quite

(34:03):
similar, but Australia and the US would be quite different in
terms of the experience. And that's partly due to the
sort of maturity of our product offering in those markets.
And it's also to do with like strategically how we're
positioned. So in Australia, for example, we
offer 100% on demand service, whereas in the UX we also have

(34:24):
both on demand as well as then alarge kind of live channel
experience driven by a combination of Live Channels and
fast channels. So that would be kind of one of
the very kind of different product features.
We also have varying content licencing in each market based
on how we ultimately want consumers to understand the to
be value proposition. It's not the same in every
market. The US has by far our largest

(34:46):
content offering in the US market.
We offer 300,000 movies and TV episodes.
I mean, it's just a staggering amount of content.
It's the largest premium contentlibrary in the world.
And in Australia, we offer the largest in that market.
We're at about 125,000 movies and TV episodes.
But obviously it's kind of been slightly dwarfed when you
compare to our US footprint. So I think you would tend to

(35:08):
find that our positioning reallydepends well or at least the
product offering depends on our positioning.
What is the problem we're looking to solve with consumers?
And, and I would say obviously the US is almost mature market
because it's the one we were founded in and launched in.
It is the largest of the marketsthat we operate in.
And therefore, a lot of the time, it's going to see early
investment in areas that potentially we then look to

(35:30):
expand across our international footprint.
One thing that strikes me with the 2B business is you're going
into markets, you're being strategic, but the fact that you
don't have that subscription channel is it makes it
interesting because then your marketing side has to really
change. You are focusing on the content
even more. You're focusing on the

(35:52):
experience, I'm guessing with how you are marketing it,
whereas I feel like a lot of theother platforms that are
subscription first I so focus onprice marketing that that's all
you end up seeing and that's maybe a bias or a subjective
view, but I feel like that's constantly in your face.
Do you think that is that one ofthe reasons I even saw that

(36:12):
you're the CEO who's exit Vimeo as well and who's recently, I
think fairly recent, somewhat recently joined the Tubi
business has emphasised the tagline that because Toby will
be free forever was the line. Just why is there such a double
down on that? Is it because it really helps
the storytelling part of the brand of the platform?
Because I still the flip side ofthat could be everyone will tell

(36:33):
you you need to be maximising the value of your rights.
So hybrid is the best approach and creating an alternative
solution makes a lot of sense. So why are you really doubling
down on the advertising part of it?
So, well, so I think kind of there's a few things that to
sort of unpack that one thing isdefinitely for a lot of the
subscription platforms, you're right, a lot of them market
positioning has to focus on price because it's, it's like

(36:57):
the big barrier to entry for being able to understand the
value of those services. And it's something that we're
ultimately not constrained by. You know, the experience for a
big SVOD platform is that they probably got to hit you with
enough information about a couple of really, really big
upcoming releases with big starsin and then an idea of pricing
and potentially some sort of a promo deal to sort of drive you

(37:19):
through the funnel from awareness to consideration to
conversion. The to be model is much easier.
We go from awareness to conversion immediately because
the moment you click on, for example, you turn on your Roku
TV and you see a tile from to befront and centre in the home
screen. The moment you click on that,
you're in that experience, you're watching that content.
So for us it's very low frictionand it gets users to the point

(37:42):
of value immediately. So it does give us a lot of
flexibility in terms of how we position ourselves.
I also think it means that we don't have to obsess as much
over individual single blockbuster titles that we have
to break the bank to ultimately support.
So an example of this would be like just say that there is a
new season of The Witcher comingout.

(38:03):
You can guarantee that every single consumer is probably
going to get targeted with some sort of kind of pre launch a
campaign that talks a lot about sort of, you know, the witch are
being front and centre. And that when you as a user of
Netflix log into the homepage, you're also probably going to
see it front and centre because they want to drive all of their
consumers into that single title.

(38:26):
But that will be regardless of whether I'm predisposed at all
to watch it and there is kind ofa cost to me as a consumer
having a piece of content that potentially I'm not likely to
watch being front and centre. The Tubi model is very much
around the idea of we want to offer ultimate choice.
We actually don't want a single title to have to make or break

(38:46):
our quarter. We want people to always see
content that's hyper relevant totheir personalised preferences.
And as a business, Tubi has spent a lot of time and
investment building out machine learning based personalization
and a lot of the discovery algorithms that drive the
experience to be able to get consumers into the areas of

(39:06):
fandom and passion that they really fall in love with.
And AT2B, we have this this termof getting users into their own
personalised rabbit holes. We know that choice and
preference is very diverse and we want to be able to super
serve every single consumer on our platform.
So the of the markets that you cover and work across, what are,

(39:26):
what are the main areas? I mean, some of them might be
obvious, but can you go in a bitof detail as to just where is
Toby being consumed? And is it pretty consistent
across the board market to market?
Is it mainly just unconnected TV's?
And if so, what sort of scale isit within different platforms
that you're finding the engagement as well?
Just give us a bit of a sense ofwhat that behaviour you're
seeing around consumption looks like.

(39:47):
So, yeah, so Toby is is predominantly consumed on smart
TV and that by when I say smart TV, I really mean CTV, right?
Whether it's whether it's a box that you plug in like an Apple
TV, whether it's a dongle like akind of like a Roku, whether
it's, you know, an integrated experience like the kind of
Samsung smart TV operating system that actually sits in
your device when you plug it in.We're available on all of those.

(40:09):
Our model is about being extremely ubiquitous and
available everywhere on the biggest screen in the home in
different markets. Mostly based on device
penetration, we will find that we will have, you know, in North
America, everybody knows that Roku has a really, really big
footprint. Amazon Fire has a really big
footprint. You know, there are a number of
others. Google TV in particular has a

(40:29):
lot of penetration. So we will find that we'll be
more heavily weighted on those devices in those territories.
As you shift across into Europe,actually, you tend to see, for
example, I think Samsung smart TV's are the kind of #1 device
in terms of distribution. So we'll find that our weighting
will sit slightly different in every market, but we are
primarily consumed on CTV and that's really where most of our

(40:50):
engagement sits. You can also get to be on your
phone, you can kind of watch it on the web, but generally if
people want to settle into a 2 hour movie, they generally tend
to find themselves gravitating to the sofa in front of the
bigger screen in their homes. Are there any interesting
consumption behaviours that you see differ from say, like Costa
Rica and Ecuador to A to AUK in Australia?

(41:13):
Well, I mean obviously the kind of content mix is extremely
different in so for example in sort of Mexico and Central
America, a lot of our consumption comes from people
either consuming, we have this really brilliant premium sports
offering available in Mexican and Central America.
So right now, if you are like a die hard soccer fan and
obviously those kind of Mexico and Central America, those are

(41:35):
markets slightly defined by soccer and the kind of, you
know, the consumers sort of loveof the game.
If you're a die hard soccer fan,you will have an amazing home on
Tubi because we have completely for free live league MX, which
is Mexican Premier League, League MX Feminine, which is the
Mexican Women's Premier League. We have English Premier League
available on on Tubi. We have league on available on

(41:57):
Tubi. We have MLB available.
I mean it really is an astonishing breadth of sports
content. So in those markets where I mean
partly because of the content, we might skew a bit more male,
but we will also see people really gravitating towards more
of the live experience. Whereas in the UK actually, we
tend to find, for example, that we have certain fandoms that
really gravitate towards Tubi asbeing their home in the living

(42:19):
room. So people who really love
horror, we have look a very diverse and a very broad mix of
that type of programming. People who love murder mystery,
people who love kind of thrillers.
We found some really, really interesting areas where we seem
to have these kind of power users who really enjoy the depth
of the programming we offer in that space.
And that would be quite distinctfrom the way that people consume

(42:41):
content in in Mexico and CentralAmerica, which is more sports
defined because of the content mix.
Interesting. I mean, reflecting on your
background, if you ever think you'd be working across horror
horror titles as your your main focus?
I would say as somebody who's worked in video his entire
career, I don't discriminate in the pixels.
It's really just about creating a flawless experience that
consumers love. So reflecting on the fact that

(43:04):
you have invested into sports rights in the Latin American
market in particular or in New Mexico, just why was that, Why
was that able to happen? Was just market dynamics
basically, It wasn't that the rights were there at a good
enough price to pull that pull again, pull that lever and make
that move or was there somethingelse that played that you
thought you'd trial a heavier investment perhaps into sports

(43:27):
there versus others? And so a bit of all of the
above, I mean, in particular there was an amazing opportunity
for us to acquire what is a really, I mean probably is the
market leading sports rights offering in that market has
incredible breadth and the kind of content available on Tubi,
it's kind of astonishing it's available for free.
We also however are definitely we have a very strong

(43:48):
partnership with with the kind of Fox Group who are really now
expanding their footprint in Mexico and in Central America.
And really we see Tubi as being a very complimentary partner to
the pay TV and the SVOD offeringthat they have in market.
You know, we can offer incredible reach, we can offer
awareness, we can be complementary distribution for
some of the premium rights that otherwise would sit exclusively

(44:11):
in the kind of pay TVNS for Windows.
So it really for us it was a bittime and place in the way that
kind of that does drive businessdecision making a lot of the
time, even if people claim it's deep strategy.
And then the other side is really definitely leaning into
wanting to better understand howsports can be a predominant
factor in the to be value proposition in a single market.

(44:34):
So in those other markets, let'ssay the UK is an example, it's
quite competitive or dominated, I should say, by, by Sky and
others like that. Where, where are you at in terms
of looking at bringing more livesports to the platform and, and
in markets like Australia and New Zealand, which obviously has
a hugely, again, competitive live sports rights market.
Yeah, I, I. Mean the UK in particular, I, I

(44:56):
think right now we don't have any immediate plans to add live
sports to the experience. We really feel like what we
offer as the largest free long form kind of content catalogue
in the market. We're already finding a lot of
engagement and product market fit.
We don't know whether or not we'd really solve a problem in
delivering sports in the UK. It's already super served by

(45:19):
whether it's Sky, whether it's TNT, whether it's kind of, you
know, the amazing sports packages that a lot of the PS BS
have as well. It doesn't feel necessarily like
there's an easy gap in the market for us to fill.
And in the end again, like to bealways anchors its decision
making on. Does that solve a problem for
consumers? Can we add real value that
potentially exists that is yet not yet being met?

(45:42):
And I think ultimately for us inthe UK right now, maybe this
will change depending upon how you know the next set of right
cycle shake out. It doesn't feel like maybe
there's a great space for us to play in sport.
I mean, it feels like that you would definitely solve a problem
for consumers that is the the excessive cost that goes with
buying access to some of these rights.
But obviously that market conditions play a pretty big

(46:02):
role in terms of driving enough revenue to support that with
with immediate with media rightsfee that comes with those
rights. So yeah, I'll just.
I would I would also say, I mean, I do, I do think that so
we will continue to expand the sports offering onto the in the
UK, But again, it will most likely be very on demand
focused, right. It's going to be telling those
brilliant stories that surround sports rather than probably

(46:24):
being the home of one of the like premium catalogue off like
one of the the premium tier one sports rights offerings.
A lot, a lot of the the media rights model and approach is, is
under has been under question now for quite some time.
And then with your, with your background, which I want to
bring up in just a second. But what's your view then on the
current way that is operating doyou think there?

(46:46):
I'm not too familiar with how much that differs from when
you're buying catalogues and different titles that aren't
sports related. So maybe give us a sense of how
different they work and whether you think that does need to
change to open up the opportunity for the some sports
that are funny more difficult toget access to the right sort of
investment and visibility. I mean, I mean, in general, I

(47:09):
would say the sports rights market definitely is.
It's going through a big period of transition as the kind of
traditional buyers start to findtheir purchasing power is, you
know, starting to slightly creepdown.
But that is in some places beingoffset by some of these major,
you know, kind of global tech enabled media businesses,
whether it's the kind of Netflixs or the Disney Pluses or

(47:29):
whatever coming in and starting to select a lead by sport.
It does feel like we are now fairly firmly out of the era,
however, of large agencies beingable to buy massive sports
portfolios and ultimately sell all of them in one go to a
single broadcaster because of the insatiable demand for
potentially a Tier 1 sport. You know, and that was a key

(47:51):
dynamic that probably subsidiseda large number of the mid tier
federations for kind of the last1520 years.
The the way that content is licenced for sports.
And on the instincts side, they're quite different.
Typically, you know, if we were looking at, for example, the
some of the kind of Hollywood packages which we might kind of
acquire from some of our our kind of studio partners on the

(48:13):
West Coast, Those will be kind of acquired on a very different
basis to a, for example, like acquiring whether it would be
like Premier League rights or League MX rights or anything
else. Some of that is going to be
duration, some of that is just going to be volume of content.
You know, obviously a sports federation is going to be quite
limited by the number of events that they can avail because, you

(48:33):
know, if it's the Premier League, at most it's 380, but
then you're going to lose the 3:00 kick offs and then you're
going to buy discreet packages. So it keeps skinning it down.
A lot of the time when you're buying studio titles, there's
always going to be a conversation about cost, but
there is going to be a a larger breadth of selection just
because of the volume of movies and TV episodes that have been
produced over the years that still offer massive value to

(48:54):
consumers. Now you've talked about the
number of titles, you mentioned that a few times and that is
quite a lot of content. How, how on the platform are you
making it? So basically, what sort of
technology, what sort of innovation are you using to make
sure that the right type of content is being served when
people get on platform? So Tubia's Place, I mean, I
think partly also we've been very lucky that we have sort of

(49:15):
founded as a business kind of inSan Francisco kind of very much
of that Silicon Valley culture where everything's extreme,
extremely, sometimes excruciatingly data-driven as an
organisation. And that means we've put really,
really high investments into recommendations and
personalization algorithms that underpin every decision that's

(49:35):
made for how we present content to consumers.
So from the moment that you landon the platform, we're making
sure that your homepage is different from my homepage, kind
of more similar to the YouTube programming model, where every
single person's youtube.com is atotally different experience
based on preference to be more closely mirrors that.
And obviously we don't have the sort of unlimited kind of UGC

(49:57):
catalogue that someone like YouTube ultimately has.
But the way that we approach discovery is the same.
We want every consumer to see content that is personalised for
them, rather than ending up witha single small merchandising
team putting a title that you'reunlikely to watch front and
centre and cross their fingers and hope that you're going to
click it. And one of the things that we

(50:18):
notice as we launch in differentmarkets is a lot of the time
we're competing with broadcast services.
So kind of beeve odd offerings that really don't pay any
attention to personalization. Every single time you open the
homepage of a major vivod service, it's as if somebody's
hit a reset button and forgottenall of your preferences.
The only thing that matters is the current top TV show based on

(50:41):
their programming window, but that actually doesn't link
directly to your preferences as a consumer.
The 2B model is much more and you open the homepage and it's
going to get better and better and better as you engage because
we'll be able to more deeply understand your preferences and
then discover, you know, and really surface those hidden gems
for you. So with your background being,

(51:03):
you know, I'm bringing that up alittle bit now as obviously you
were CTO and endeavour streamingand so you were in the thick of
going to the technological side and the product side and working
on some of the biggest platformsin sports to make sure those
experiences were harness. Firstly, I've got to ask how are
you able, how have you found stepping away from being in the
the weeds of the tech and focusing on what is, I'm sure

(51:26):
must are pretty robust and broadbusiness and commercial remit
being across so many different markets?
Is that shift being quite straightforward for you or did
you have you found that actuallya bit of a challenge not to try
and jump into the product side too much?
Look, I'm, I'm careful not to not to trend anybody's toes.
I think it's definitely been a bit of a pivot, but my role

(51:47):
actually, so my kind of history sort of what was IMG and then
subsequently became Endeavour. So I helped set up IMG Gaming
which became Angie Arena, the kind of sports betting side of
that organisation. I ran engineering, product
operations, basically everythingthat wasn't the commercial side.
And I actually then span out thepart of the business that I ran
into a wholly owned subsidiary that was later called Endeavour

(52:09):
Streaming. During that period, whilst I was
the CTO, I also had quite a broad commercial remit, helped
build a lot of the partnerships,you know, really helped doing a
lot of whether it's the pitches,the stakeholder management.
You know, it was a bit of when you're in those organisations
that are, you know, operating like startups, you do wear a lot
of hats. And I think really about my role

(52:30):
here as kind of a continuation of the same thing.
The sensitivity I have to technology probably helps me be
a better colleague with our engineering and product
partners. It means I'm not constantly
coming to them and starting every sentence with, oh, I just
have an easy change I need to request because I understand the
complexity of managing road map stakeholders, all of those
things. But it also means that I would

(52:52):
say to be to tell the story of what makes to be special.
It does require a little bit of an understanding of how we're
different, and part of how we'redifferent is the extraordinary
technology platform that we ultimately run on.
How we found then I'm going to say is a shift from moving from
say more of the sports world andworking with different sports

(53:13):
stakeholders on their platforms and so forth into an
organisation like to be in therefor part of this bigger huge
media organisation. Did you find there was a real
difference in I guess the technical capabilities and
understanding and just how much more mature that is as an
industry around streaming that? Was there anything really clear

(53:37):
that that jumped out at you whenyou when you stepped into the
role? So I mean there are definitely
different, there are some quite obvious differences between kind
of sports streaming and then sort of entertainment streaming,
which is more the space that Toby plays in.
Even if we do have sports as part of our strategy.
I think some of those are obviously a lot of my time when
I was working in subscription based streaming on the Endeavour

(53:59):
streaming side, right when we were launching WWE Network and
making sure that consumers around the world could pay in
their preferred currency on their preferred platform through
their preferred in app payment provider.
It was like a lot of complexity built into building those
subscription tools, voucher tools, payment gates.
I mean, you you do spend a lot of time having to get that right
because you know, conversion is such an important part of that

(54:22):
journey. I think on the Toby side, I
mean, Toby as a business just has so much scale.
You know, with 100 million monthly active users, it really
then requires you to, to pay a lot more attention a lot of the
time to the data and to be a lotmore naturally data-driven
because you, you really have theability to, to kind of to look

(54:43):
at engagement through a slightlydifferent lens just because of
the scale you operate at. And I also think it forces you
to, to look at problems like content discovery in a very
different way. The kind of the way that I would
frame this would be in sport, the most premium thing is the
live edge. So like with sports rights, for
example, the vast majority of them are being acquired for that

(55:05):
live moment that people are consuming.
And because of that, it means the way you think about
discovery is just how do you getlive front and centre When
somebody opens UFC Fight Pass? How do you make sure the paper
view is in position 1 and is getting them into it with the
least friction possible? When you have then an
entertainment experience where actually the premium is really
based around personalization, it's around the idea that

(55:28):
everybody has different tastes, different preferences, different
fandoms. You actually then place a lot
more of your investment in your time focused on discovery
personalization because you wanteverybody's homepage to be
different. So you do have these quite
distinct models that are tied tothe way people think about the
value of the underlying content.And I think from transitioning

(55:49):
from sports into entertainment, I realised how little I
understood about that whole personalization and discovery
world. But also I kind of look at my
colleagues at Toby and think howgood it is that they don't have
to understand all of the esoteric details surrounding
payment processing on a global basis.
Making sure that you have sort of very specific anti piracy

(56:12):
tools in place to guarantee thatyou're knocking bad actors who
sign up for a subscription and then immediately terminate it.
Sort of. It's a very different
consideration set. So looking to back to that, that
time for you and I'm sure you'rekeeping at least half an eye on
on that industry and then what'sgoing on there.
Obviously Endeavour streaming has recently been acquired as
part of acquired by Delta Tray and as part of was obviously

(56:37):
part of the bigger, bigger Endeavour Group, which has gone
through quite a bit of change and change of ownership and the
like over the last year or so. Firstly, talking about that type
of that type of industry, that type of business built around
building platforms for that are subscription LED platforms
primarily in sports. What's your view on that as an

(56:59):
industry now? Do you think they need to
redefine as an industry that theapproach they have been taking
around building direct to consumer and OTT LED platforms?
Is subscription still the right model there or do they need to
be looking at other approaches, which there are plenty?
So. I think, I think for sports
federations in particular mid tier sports federations that are

(57:19):
getting squeezed now by the kindof unbundling of kind of
broadcast packages. I think it's a really hard
decision to make. You sort of you've always been
able to rely on potentially yourbroadcast revenue coming in, you
know sort of in a very predictable basis.
And all of a sudden you are seeing a lot of fragmentation
and potentially your reach really starting to diminish,

(57:41):
which it's going to put pressureon every commercial relationship
you have, whether it's your broadcast or whether it's your
sponsors. I think for all of these, all of
these federations, there is a huge opportunity to embrace the
fact that you can now reach consumers through a tonne of
different channels that didn't used to exist and they do as a
kind of mid tier federation. And well, frankly, any sports

(58:02):
federation, you should be focused on constant
diversification of your business, making sure that you
are building relationships with your fans across multiple
platforms. So whether it's an algorithm
change, whether it's the fact that the broadcast model is
going to gradually become unbundled in various ways at
different rates, you want to be able to make sure that that
isn't a single point of failure for you.

(58:24):
I do think we've probably gone past the point where every
sports federation wants to kind of launch their own Netflix.
You know, there there was a lot of that type of discussion
probably from sort of 2016 through to about 2022.
I think people have realised howcomplicated and expensive it is
to really build the requisite amount of scale and skill sets

(58:46):
and whether you're working, for example, with a third party
platform like an endeavour streaming like a Delta trade,
like a view left, like a stay live right.
There's quite a few people who still operate in that space,
whether or not you're sort of working with like a you know,
you want to work with a third party partner like an indemo
streaming, a delta Trey, a view lifter stay life.
Like there are still lots of very credible options who can

(59:06):
provide you with a kind of, you know, Netflix in a box type
experience. Actually, the complexity in the
investment a lot of the time comes through customer
acquisition. It comes through needing to
build distribution partnerships with CTV manufacturers with
third party platforms holding marketing and promotion for you.
We're kind of long past an era of if you build it they will

(59:27):
come. And actually a lot of the time I
think sports federations have maybe under emphasised how
complicated and expensive a lot of that user acquisition was
actually going to be. And because of that, they they
sort of I think people have got increasingly realistic about
understanding that maybe you canbuild something that's that's in

(59:47):
that more niche space that is a subscription offering for power
viewers, but you shouldn't assume that it's going to take
over the world. So naturally I completely.
Agree. And I think naturally what's
manifested from that is now people are looking at other
alternatives, other approaches, a hybrid, a multi faceted
distribution approach. And also there of course YouTube
is becoming more and more part of that conversation.

(01:00:10):
What's your view on whether, if someone's looking to look for
different distribution channels,whether they should be putting
legitimate rights on a platform like that and trying to lean
into that advertising economy that exists there?
Naturally, being on YouTube, youhave to be there in some way,
shape or form. If you're a whether a sports
property or or a platform itself, you need to have
something visible there. But do you think that is a a
viable Rd for sports to be really focused on putting their

(01:00:32):
live content at the moment or should they be pointing them
elsewhere? I think it's, I mean, it's
clearly a credible path, but I, I do think it's a very, very
difficult path as well. I, you know, trying to compete
for attention on YouTube means you're competing with the world
of creators. You're, you're competing with,
you know, an incredible mix of content that a lot of the time

(01:00:55):
means you won't get front and centre because you become kind
of commoditized into a tile in this aggregated experience that
has more content than the world could ever watch in our
collective lifetimes. I think it's definitely a
complementary distribution option.
I think for some sports, in particular in dark markets, it

(01:01:15):
can be a great way to kind of offer power users a way to
consume your content where you don't have broadcast support,
but you're looking to minimise your, your kind of costs and
level of investment. Do I think that it's a credible
path for tier one domestic rights holders to put their
content free on YouTube right now?
It doesn't feel like necessarilythe ARPU's going to pencil out.

(01:01:36):
So looking back at now back to what's happened there in terms
of Delta trade acquiring and indoor streaming and obviously
their focus, they do more than just OTT platforms, but that is
really has been their bread and butter for quite a long time.
What do you, what do you see that looking turning into?
What's your view? Do you think it'll just be a
more an expansion having the biggest and most robust client

(01:01:57):
base and finding different ways to bring that to life?
Or will there be any other changes that you would expect
perhaps for for them to be considering to tackle a changing
marketplace? I mean, I to me it feels like a
lot of that consolidation is probably a little bit inevitable
in a market that is maybe shrinking in different ways.
Like there are new opportunitiesin certain places, whether it's

(01:02:20):
emerging markets, whether it's, you know, particular new sports
aggregations, whether it's smaller federations looking to
build like power user experiences.
But generally, I mean, the sort of trend I talked about earlier
where maybe every federation is no longer kind of kicking a
football around in their office and humming and haring about
whether or not they should go direct to consumer.
I think it means that there probably is a bit of

(01:02:41):
compression. And therefore as margins start
to get pulled down, you inevitably see consolidation of
businesses that maybe used to compete for the same clients.
You know, they do have an amazing stable of clients now
when you combine the kind of thethe existing Delta trade client
base with that like real blue chip selection of businesses
that that kind of ran on top of Endeavour streaming.

(01:03:02):
It also, by the way, will be like an amazing opportunity to
kind of consolidate a really, really experienced set of
engineering teams and you know, really build a kind of best in
class video engineering group that ultimately, you know, will
kind of exist in Europe and be able to build these brilliant
consumer experiences. I I would say probably, and
again, I've been, I have no insight into the way that Dolce

(01:03:23):
Tray are going to approach this,but they will need to keep
layering on incremental areas ofvalue that they can offer sports
federations to become a bit moreof a one stop shop.
You know, I think you can probably see this in different
places in the sports media industry, but people are trying
to layer in additional areas of competency to be able to capture
probably more of the kind of engagement with a sports

(01:03:46):
federation than potentially you would do if you're like pureplay
kind of OTT white label partner.And and that's probably
happening at different areas in the industry, but in particular
that that's probably what the the kind of dose track position
feels like. In simple terms, building
instead of looking for more clients, building out the
existing value of those accountsis definitely asked to be a key

(01:04:06):
focus. We've seen some of those betting
companies, obviously you're familiar with that market being
very good at focusing and of expanding its skill set to get
basically get more value out of the out of the client for one of
the more or less harsher, harsher way of saying it.
But that's basically the the name of the game to try and
build on what is quite a small marketplace really in relative
terms, in terms of the top end. Yeah.

(01:04:27):
I, I think I mean like that typeof expansion is a very
traditional way for suppliers tothink about maximising the
lifetime value of their, that sort of business partners.
So it, it feels like a very rational direction to to, to
kind of look at even as you continue to try to target new
clients maybe in Greenfield areas.
So I want to look forward now, look forward to what you see

(01:04:49):
within sports and then we'll go to Toby to to wrap things up.
But with sports, where do you see the future of the industry
going? Like do you think that?
Because I think you probably go back to say pre when OTT became
a thing and there was a lot of excitement about this new era.
Now I think there's is equal amounts of uncertainty as to

(01:05:12):
what just what the future reallylooks like in this fast changing
world of media consumption. Just what do you?
What do you? Think and do you think that
sports and because of its live value is still going to continue
to prosper or do you think it does have some challenging needs
to differentiate further to whatit's offering as a as a as a
broadcast product? A pining on the the future of

(01:05:34):
sports. I think so so so I would say 1
is I think live sports will continue to have a very unique
place in customer engagement andattention and it will continue
to drive eyeballs. I mean, these collective
moments, I think there are fewerand fewer of them in the way
that like fragmentation of consumption means that
everybody's media right now is very different.

(01:05:55):
And the channels through which people consume media are totally
varied. Like the difference between mine
versus somebody who's like 10 years younger than me will be
completely chalk and cheese. I'll spend a lot more time in
front of the TV and I'll spend alot more time on whether it's
short form video, whether it's, you know, kind of very different
models of engagement. But one of the things that does

(01:06:15):
seem to pull people together andreally create those those kind
of moments of of kind of collective excitement,
collective agony, it is sport. So I think there will always
continue or at least in the, youknow, in the medium term, there
will continue to be a big premium placed against it.
It probably however, does mean that there will continue to be a

(01:06:36):
gap between the top tier sports and the top tier federations and
everybody else. And it will probably become a
bit of a haves and have nots story for a period of time.
If I was a federation, I would be constantly focused on
diversification, on experimenting with different
ways to reach my audience, to think about really having

(01:06:57):
incremental revenue opportunities so that you don't
have single points of failure inthe in the like traditional
value chain. And honestly, I sort of think
like the biggest thing that's going to happen over the next
decade is going to be the shift from broadcaster digital, the
kind of final unbundling, which will be accelerated by a lot of

(01:07:17):
the big tech companies shifting into the space and going after
the tier one rights. But I think there's that, you
know, there's that sort of Mark Twain quota.
Like the rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
Like it will also stick around and will continue to be a place
where specific generations consume all of their content,
whether it's news, whether it's entertainment, whether it's
sport. And so completely discounting

(01:07:38):
it, I think doesn't make any sense.
So, so yeah, to me, the unwinding of the broadcast
bundle is probably going to be painful for the messy middle of
of kind of sports federations and the kind of vendor rights
values attached to them. But it doesn't mean there isn't
really unique opportunity to diversify and to make sure that
you as a federation are looking for new ways to build passion

(01:08:01):
from your fans, to create touch points so that you can manage
the message more directly and then ultimately look to sort of
Dr monetization of your fan base.
And so finally, let's go to Tubi.
Now. I'm going to ask you it this
way. I say how much of your time is
spent on focusing on your established markets versus how

(01:08:21):
much time is looking towards newer markets?
So I mean, I would say I'm probably now when you say newer
markets, do you mean potential future?
Potential markets, sorry, yeah. So, so right now we are, I mean,
we're growing so quickly in all of the markets that we're
already in that it is occupying a lot of time just to scale the
organisation to support the massive amount of growth.

(01:08:44):
I mean 100 million monthly active users is a lot of scale
to handle and we want to make sure that we delight absolutely
every single one of them. Having said that, we we
definitely do spend time thinking about what our
footprint could be in the sort of short to medium to long term.
And our expectation is that we are going to be looking to grow
the number of markets we're in most likely within the next sort

(01:09:06):
of 12 to 24 months. Well, look, I'm, I think from my
point of view, everyone and I'vespoken to has been following
your journey and, and Toby's journey very, very closely
because they're quite excited tosee it's its rate of growth and
and obviously aligning that withwhat's happening on the
advertising side of the industry.
It seems everyone is really keento see definitely another
another player continue to grow and scale and become one of the

(01:09:29):
major platforms right across theworld that is hopefully making
more moves into sports and get, I guess, get more about more of
the sports industry's content out out there into more places.
But David, it's been great to talk to you and to hear a little
bit more about what you've been doing with Tubi and also your
thoughts on the industry. And I really thank you for your
time and look forward to seeing you in less than two months time

(01:09:50):
in Madrid at the Sports Pro Media Summit, where you'll be on
stage sharing more thoughts about the state of play.
Yeah, my pleasure, Nick. Great to chat.