http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/2015/09/30/discovery-ceo-streaming-devices-are-dumb/?intcmp=hpdm&intcmp=obnetwork
Discovery CEO: Streaming Devices are ‘Dumb
Discovery CEO: Need to be more rational about streaming platforms
During an interview with the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo, Discovery
Communications CEO David Zaslav discussed why the traditional TV model is not
dead.
“Reed [Hastings] runs a great company. I think Netflix has a fantastic consumer
interface. Rather than talk about Netflix specifically… the way people used to
get TV was through the TV set multi-channel to the home by either a satellite
or cable curated by us in the media business and by viewers making choices as
to what they want. The good news is there [are] a lot of additional players
that want to aggregate content -- that can be a Samsung device, it could be an
Apple device… Netflix… Hulu, Amazon. From my perspective looking at the
industry, all of those are really, this is a little pejorative, it’s an
overstatement, but they’re essentially dumb devices and as great as each of
those aggregators are… they only come to life if you put great content on
there,” he said. Zaslav argued the TV industry needs more of a say on how
content is distributed through streaming video on demand platforms.
“The problem with those SVOD platforms is there [are] no brands, the economics
are really inferior and if we work with those devices and created the right
economic model I think it could be a positive. Right now I think what we are
doing is we’re feeding those platforms. Those platforms are trading at higher
multiples than we are and we are the ones that have the juice. We are the ones
that have the content that bring those alive,” he said.
Zaslav said social devices could be exciting.
“When you think about Facebook, two months ago we sat down with the Facebook
crew, with Zuckerberg and talked about what their vision was and it’s a very
compelling company. Right now we really use Facebook aggressively to let big
social communities know about the shows that we have on our channels everywhere
in the world… It’s a huge vehicle for us,” he said.
Zaslav said although the cable bundle has experienced a slight decline, it’s
still the way people watch TV.
“One of the things about SVOD versus live TV… is a big piece of TV is watching
together. It’s watching and calling your friends and saying ‘have you seen
this?’ or going to work the next day and saying ‘did you see what was on last
night on Discovery or on FOX?’ The SVOD is really an alone platform. I think
Netflix is a great product. HBO is a great product. A lot of those viewing
products you view kind of as an addition to live TV.”
He also discussed the state of the U.S. advertising market.
“The U.S. advertising market is getting better… This quarter we will be up
mid-single digits and so the advertising market is improving. Our share in
general has improved this year. Our channels are stronger… So we are gaining
share, spending more money on content and we committed that over the next three
years, even in a down scenario, we think that the U.S. is going to be
relatively flat. Over the next three years we will see growth,” he said.
