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STREAM TV EUROPE UNPLUGGED · The Media Odyssey

• TMO - VIDAA (audio v1) === Evan Shapiro: [00:00:00] The slowest to adapt to streaming are boomers and X-ers, and they are a disproportionate share of the population here compared to the rest of the world. So Marion Ranchet: says the oldest guy on this pod. I am guy, yeah. Okay. Evan Shapiro: I have sunglasses on. Marion Ranchet: Welcome to the Media Odyssey podcast. That is Evan Shapiro, Evan Shapiro: and that is Marian Ranchet. Marion Ranchet: We're live from Stream TV Evan Shapiro: in Lisbon. Marion Ranchet: We loved it. It's been. A big few days, right? Evan Shapiro: Yeah. It was an inaugural, edition of Stream tv, Europe. I think we surpassed attendance expectations, and what, vibe Check, what did you think? Marion Ranchet: Vibe Check Lisbon. Amazing. I think it's very important, number one, to have an event in Lisbon. Number [00:01:00] two. Evan Shapiro: that was my idea, so I will take credit for it. Yes, it was. Marion Ranchet: I don't like when things aren't coming from me, shit. So yeah, I think the fact that it's a European event, number one, super important, Lisbon important as well because you, you need to find places that are attracting people. We don't wanna go to the same cities, across the region. So that was a big draw. And yeah, I'm excited. The vibe was amazing, fun. Everyone is super happy. Yeah, I think everyone was surprised that the team managed to bring so many diverse and senior and people in, in, in this first edition. Evan Shapiro: You programmed, you had a session that you programmed, called a workshop, which was amazing. And you had a great curated, panel list there. You also, gave this great report at the beginning of it. Can you talk about that a little bit? Because I was, A: jealous, 'cause it was so insightful. But you did, you did a [00:02:00] survey, you commissioned or you worked with, another team to do a survey. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, absolutely. So this is actually, there's a little pin here, which is, it's a living room. It's a sofa, it's a partnership with, RTL at Alliance. We commissioned a survey. We surveyed 15K people. Yeah. Across great European territories, the US and China. China was new, new country in Europe, Hungary, and they've been doing this for a few years now. But we teamed up to, I think, amplify, the release of the report and have a bit more than just data, but, making sure that you could have a read on, on, on that data. Evan Shapiro: Can you talk about, some of the revelations that came out? 'Cause there was, it was overall about where people watch when they share content, what did you find that was most interesting to you? Marion Ranchet: Number one, the prominence of the living room for Europeans, by large. So 83% of European are, watching video content [00:03:00] and. By that, we're, we mean any sort of video content, on the big screen in the living room. One of the stats that I think I loved the most was, and that was surprising to me, it was that 68% of Europeans age 18 to 34, value watching, co-viewing, co-watching, with, family, friends. Within the living room and the premise of the report, we really focused on how this is a place where people connect, at a point in time where, there's a lot of conflicts, in the world, there's a lot of fragmentation. It really felt like this was a place where people could connect, enjoy content. And what matters, at the end of the day, is the impact it has on, the amount of people watching. So we had data on the co-viewing index of, titles watched in the UK in 2025. But what matters is that the ad recall is 23% higher within [00:04:00] the living room. So all of those things are showing that yes, we're doing a lot of things on our phones, but there's a bit of that, fatigue and people wanna reconnect. So I think that was exciting. Evan Shapiro: And they wanna share, they wanna view with other people. That was, I'm not surprised that people watch TV together, but I was surprised at the numbers, the size, the share of people who say that you are usually watching with other folks. That was amazing. Marion Ranchet: And the, it was interesting to see how, 'cause what we were, the premise was also, we don't wanna talk about just fragmentation. We were focused on what is bringing. Not just the viewers together, but the, industry. And there's room for everyone. Everyone is serving a different need. and when you look at, for example, we, had data on, so Netflix, it's very much a couple or a two people, watching, thing, right? YouTube was more solo viewing tv, at large. And VOD was more, family group of, people five and more, et [00:05:00] cetera. So everything you know is. Is here for a reason. And that pushes the ultimate, premise was to say that's why people are working together. And so we spoke about why all of those deals happen in Europe. May that be Netflix and TF1, Amazon France. It's very much everyone playing, each other's strength. And yes, it's fragmented, but we're pushing, and especially in Europe, I think we're pushing the batteries to say we can do great stuff together. Evan Shapiro: What was your, favorite panel other than your own? Marion Ranchet: I have to say this was. About a similar topic on, we were looking at 2030, but it could have been 2040 or plus. Are we going towards super fragmentation or super aggregation. And so I had TF1 on the panel. I had Samsung, with Benedikt Frey from Samsung Tv Plus we had Vincent Stevens from Telenet. And it was interesting to see each of these [00:06:00] guys are making moves, to be. Entry points, right? To be the aggregator. Someone who's making your life easy as a viewer. And everyone has its own, strength and, weaknesses. And I, pitted, Vincent and Benet a bit against each other because, they're very much fighting for, being that entry point. We talked about the Netflix TF1 deal, so it's gonna be early summer release. It's gonna be interesting to see, What that looks like. but no, so that was really cool. I really loved that one. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. I was lucky enough to have TF1 on stage as well. That was a good panel, right? Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: So that was, me, Pedro Pina from YouTube again, our bring our band back together. Yeah. But, Julian, from, TF1, who runs, digital there, and, Gaspard G who is this amazing young French create news creator. And it talked about the collaboration between TF1 and Gaspard G. [00:07:00] And what I hoped to accomplish there was to give everybody a blueprint for how big platform brands like TF1, the biggest broadcaster in France, the biggest news organization in France, can act like a creator, think like a creator, and collaborate with creators and, Gaspard G he's a really impressive— Marion Ranchet: Yeah, he was really good. And it was, it could. It was interesting to hear no one peeping when he said that he had what, a 50 people team? Yeah. Evan Shapiro: 20 people. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, 20 people plus 40 contractors, et cetera. It's, again, because there's still a bit of that. Oh, it's just kids, in the living room. And you said he started at 10? Yeah. So he is been doing this for 18 years. I think he's earned the right to be professional, considered a professional creator, and not just, an influencer or or whatever. I really love that you did that because I think, and this is something that was said during my morning, that the UK is often at the forefront of a lot of the changes that we're seeing. I think it's a bit of a language thing. A lot of [00:08:00] the US companies, when they go next, whether that's a Netflix or YouTube trying to, expand, they always go to the UK 'cause same language. And so there's a bit of that, UK versus Continental Europe. And someone said that, outside of the UK we didn't see a lot of, partnership with YouTube, and clearly that wasn't true. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. And then, later, actually today I had, CazéTV Live Mode on, so Live Mode is, a live sports broadcaster on YouTube. But they're gonna have 104 FIFA World Cup matches this year in Brazil, more twice the amount that Globo the national broadcaster is gonna have. And they're gonna be broadcasting 34 matches here in Portugal as well. That was another, I think, really revelatory discussion on where live sports is now becoming a creator, outlet, not just, vlogging [00:09:00] or any other kind of direct to camera stuff. Marion Ranchet: Regarding World Cup, what's, you may not know that because it's the round footballs, but there's never been that many teams. It's gonna be a lot of teams. So that's a big new change. It's a—— Evan Shapiro: bigger, yeah, bigger, Marion Ranchet: So more games, not a friendly time zone for regions for Europe, where a lot of the fans are. And there's a big question around who's gonna win, not the World Cup, France is gonna win, of course, but more around who's gonna win? Is it the broadcasters or is it TikTok and YouTube and others? The reason being that there's so many games, the time zone is not friendly. Therefore, some people are saying in industry that perhaps the highlights package was actually better money spent than actually spending so much money on, on, on the right themselves. So interesting to see that, Cazé's gonna have so much versus Globo. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. and America [00:10:00] is going nuts for this, which I think will be good for the sport ultimately. Yeah. I'm. People play soccer in, the US but it's not at the level that it is in, the rest of the world. And you can't get tickets. You cannot get tickets. Marion Ranchet: Is it a price thing or because everything's gone? Evan Shapiro: It's all gone. Marion Ranchet: Oh, wow. Evan Shapiro: People are like scrambling and scalping all over the place. But yeah, and New York is completely sold out. LA is gonna be, think about LA 'cause it's basically getting two markets in Los Angeles get the US and Mexico. So yeah, it's gonna be a, real, I think amazing event, this summer. So what do you think, I, we talked about the vibe. It was a great vibe. I opened the conference with a speech and I said, a lot of times when we come to these conferences, they wind up being group therapy sessions. Everybody's bitching and moaning about the state of the industry, which I [00:11:00] get it, there's a lot of chaos and a lot of disruption in our, industry, but it feels like there's more complaining than there is action. And, I said. Stop it. and I think, I don't know if that was the reason why the tone was set, but I think everybody here feels very optimistic. They're looking for collaborations. Yes, there's issues that we all are facing here, but this felt like progress here. And, someone asked me yesterday, there's been a palpable shift. In the traditional players' approach to social media and social video. And someone asked me for, was there a moment in time that I felt that shift happened? And I think it was, I think it was MIPCOM last year. Don't you think that's, that was when everything changed? Marion Ranchet: Yeah, I would've said the same thing. I was at the conference mid last year and I left and I felt, bummed. Kind of where are we going? And I felt exactly what you said about the group therapy. Then we went to MIPCOM [00:12:00] and so mind the, over presence of, some companies. I, I love, everyone getting a bit of that light, but I think they really managed to jazz things up and it's been continued. So agree a hundred percent. I feel it's been these last few months, but I think 2025 was... Yeah, it was, something happened last year. Evan Shapiro: They discovered that, there was no resisting it anymore. You had to lean in and at least test and learn. And it does feel like so many more companies, major traditional media companies are testing and learning in a way that they just hadn't before. Yeah, Marion Ranchet: That's true. Evan Shapiro: and I, it felt this, felt exciting. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: For the first time in a, while, a conference felt like, "Oh. I can, see a future". Marion Ranchet: "I can see what's coming", yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. I it's gonna be interesting to see. I'm not going to Denver. You will be there. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Marion Ranchet: But interesting to see if you feel that same vibe, in a few [00:13:00] months time in the US 'cause, it's trickier for you guys there. So Evan Shapiro: yes and no. If you look at the pressure that public broadcasters are under here, there's mergers and sales and all these other things happening in this market. I had, Banijay on stage and they talked about the All3, acquisition. Yeah. And just this week, Disney announced layoffs. Sony announced layoffs. So it is a, it is a worldwide kind of malaise that the industry has been in. But you're right, the commercial media, 'cause there is no public broadcaster— PBS, God love them, is not funded at the way that public broadcasting is here. And it's not truly a public broadcaster in the same way. There is no sector like that in the US to help keep things alive. And, Ben Keen did this really good speech, here, where he talked about how the global commissioning [00:14:00] and, especially here in Europe is, plummeting. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: And a lot of the money is being moved into sport. And there's just fewer things being bought and sold. This is really affecting the US entertainment economy. So it will be interesting to see. I do think though the optimism and the, positivity, I think we, have hit a critical mass here. I think, one thing, I think we're finally starting to see the generational shift in leadership at some of these companies. There weren't a lot of super old bosses on stage. Marion Ranchet: You were the oldest. Evan Shapiro: I was the, I was probably the oldest on most of the stages that I was on. Julian from TF1 is a relatively young man. I thought it was a, a. I think there is this, turning point we're hitting and I, we've talked about this. I think the generational shift in leadership is, has to be part of that. And I'm feeling that wave happening. Marion Ranchet: So maybe we can [00:15:00] move on to our guest. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. So let's conjure our guest. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Who is he, first of all? Marion Ranchet: So Denis Ostir is the editor in chief, at V, formerly known as, Vidaa. So let's bring Denis on stage. Evan Shapiro: Thanks Denis for coming. Marion Ranchet: Does it work? Is it gonna work? It's gonna be funny. Okay, cool. Evan Shapiro: Thanks so much for joining us. We've been friends for a minute. We first connected on LinkedIn. You slid into my DMs with a lot— Denis Ostir: That sounds really bad. Evan Shapiro: it's, and it was, really bad. No, you, always pepper me with interesting factoids about the rest of the television world in a way that really helped educate me. You were really formative in me understanding specifically the universe that you two, are native to. Which is this connected television operating system world. First of all, tell us quickly for, the audience out there. What is V? Denis Ostir: So we're a smart TV platform. We're like a platform [00:16:00] that is, that has been out there since 2014. We used to be part of Hisense, then in 2019 they spun us out. We've got an OS. That OS is now expanding to be a full platform, including all sorts of stuff like payment, V shops, and all that stuff. We're on about 50 million connected TVs across the world. We were just told that we're gonna be number three this year. In Europe, which is amazing. Evan Shapiro: I saw that, the announcement. Denis Ostir: Yeah. Which is amazing. Yeah. so we're, an OS smart TV platform present across the world. Very strong in Europe. Also growing, popularity also in, LATAM, Southeast Asia. We're gonna get into the US markets slowly, but that's a whole different beast. We're putting it aside for now, but we're gonna be getting into the market as well. But that's what we do. Evan Shapiro: And Guy, your CEO, gave one of the most entertaining speeches I've seen. And he's a very charismatic gentleman. Denis Ostir: I love working with him. By the way, you should see the exchanges that we've got this, like whew! Evan Shapiro: Yeah. He's, he is an entertaining cat there's no question about it. But he talked a lot about everything you said. There's a shopping application now [00:17:00] coming. I think the most fascinating part of what you were doing here is announcing this new measurement tool that's gonna take on the classic measurement tools around the world called V Index. can you talk about why the company decided to do that? What it is, how it works? Denis Ostir: It's pretty simple. Like the measurement system that we currently have on TV is two separate things. Depending on how the signal gets to the TV, we're measuring the same eyeballs on the same device at the same time, two different ways. So if it's a signal that is coming through the antenna through cable or through traditional distribution methods, we say it's a radio, right? And if on the same device it is coming through, let's say, streaming like a, like the internet, we call it impressions, right? Now we're measuring it this different way, and we're also selling it a different way. One of it's being sold using CPMs, normal digital. That's what we do. And the other one is being done selling GRPs. TRPs, right? The normal broadcasting model. It just doesn't make any sense. You don't need [00:18:00] two separate ways of measuring, selling on the same device, especially if there's a significant discrepancy between the two. Currently the CPMs on TV, if you just, if you do the math and you figure out how much it is value, you can talk, 8 to 10 times less is what we value. The same eyeballs on the same tv, at the exact same time, looking the same content, just because it's coming through a different signal. And long term, this is gonna be a huge problem for the industry. Money's shifting towards digital, and if we continue to value the same apples this way, there's not gonna be any money. We're not gonna have money for people that are creating content, and that's gonna be a huge problem. I know it sounds maybe like a Don Quixote kind of a way. Now why are we coming here trying to rescue the industry? But it's a serious problem that we need to address. So what we're doing with V Index, we're trying to merge these two things. We've got the data on what is being watched on terrestrial television. We can do ACR, we can do, also we can pair stuff with, with, the tuner, for example. And also know inside of streaming what's being watched. All of that together. We're trying to create a [00:19:00] unified measurement system, and we're calling it V Indexes. We, hope it's gonna be an open index. Guy openly invited everyone. Evan Shapiro: Listen. Yeah. What does open index mean? Denis Ostir: Yeah, it's any, anyone can contribute. Let's, figure we're, coming forward with an initiative. This is the V index. If somebody else wants to join, if somebody else wants to, work with, work on it with us. Sure. Come over, let's figure out how we can make the measurement system on a TV better than it's right now. It's just because it doesn't work. Marion Ranchet: So you're trying to put to, to bring on the market a standard, something by which everyone is measuring, the same thing, the same way. I have to say I love that 'cause we've spoken at length. About fragmentation these last few days. And, but to your point about that group therapy is everyone agrees on, the, diagnostic, the disease, but no one really does anything about it. So we've seen small things being done and I'm thinking about, I had a panel with, Testlio. They do crowd testing, at large. So that wherever you are, [00:20:00] regardless of the device you are trying to bring the best customer viewing experience, everywhere, despite the fact that the world is so fragmented. But other than that, everyone is complaining, but then everyone is still defining things differently. Yeah, siloing, not really, sharing any data—— Evan Shapiro: relying on Nielsen. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. So it's interesting. Someone said, let's stop, it has a purpose. It's been useful, but it's just like—– Evan Shapiro: It's over, man. Marion Ranchet: But I mean it's, yeah, it's better than nothing is the extent of what is getting said. You think so? Evan Shapiro: I don't know if it's better than nothing. I, really, I think that's why I'm so fascinated by this, index. You're doing this from a monetization standpoint. This is to help your people who advertise on your platform measure the effectiveness of your, of their advertising. But I think, if you look at the gauge that they just dropped for February today, by the way, yesterday, they, they're just monkeying around with it in a way [00:21:00] that is just not helpful to the industry. They combined VERSANT and NBC and gave them their own number. These are two different companies now. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, absolutely Evan Shapiro: Not airing the same thing. And it's just, it's clearly a money grab for them trying to renew their contract with Nielsen. But why so you, are inviting folks in, to co-measure with you, Denis Ostir: Absolutely. Evan Shapiro: To index with you, and you've invited the other OEMs in particular who have, access to all the screens all over the world. Why do you think they haven't joined you yet? Denis Ostir: We just started this, is something we've announced that I think was at CES we announced for the first time. Yeah. Now we're gonna roll it out, show it to everyone. This is how it looks like. I think people are just hesitant to do it right now. Nobody knows how it's gonna look. We're gonna, we're gonna show it and say, listen, this is what we think the idea is. I'm pretty sure there's gonna be people that are gonna be against it. There's gonna be people that are gonna be disappointed. There's gonna be people that have been always relied on the zero rating statistics to increase their viewership. Those are, there's gonna be pushback on it for sure. Why they haven't joined, because they [00:22:00] haven't, they haven't felt the need and there's a little bit of a distrust. Also, people are still relying on their own silos. People think that their data might be better than ours or, but we need a universal standard. We've got tons of data, like Return Path data has been out there for a while. We just have to smartly utilize it. We're gonna be able to accurately measure and very important like that. I can't stress this enough. We need to make sure that five years down the road, the people that are producing content are gonna be get, are gonna get paid the way that they should get paid. If we could do it, continue down this path. And the number, the amount of money going to them goes down, no one's gonna make content. And then the whole system breaks down. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Denis Ostir: If there's no content to advertise against... Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Six, $6 of every 10 of advertising on the planet Earth goes to just three companies. And that share gets larger every year. Denis Ostir: And do those three companies produce content? Evan Shapiro: Yes. They do. Amazon, Marion Ranchet: Amazon Evan Shapiro: Amazon does, yeah. But no, the other two don't really produce content Meta and Google. And, the flip [00:23:00] around that is, I was talking to somebody who operates, I think six or seven FAST channels last night, and he was complaining that the FAST ecosystem is not turning into the revenue generator that everyone thought that it was going to. And I said it's because no one knows who's watching. There was somebody else on stage, earlier today who he was asked, okay, so how's this FAST channel doing? What's your monthly average users or anything? He's like "I don't know, I can't tell you because we don't get any data from the OEMs". But you're, looking to fix that problem. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. I heard they get data and I've seen it myself. But the challenge again, to the point you're making is that they're giving different data sets. So someone said it's not true anymore to say there's no data, it's not it's hours— Evan Shapiro: It's hours watched. Marion Ranchet: No, there's more. No, they, get more than that. But the, challenge is again, a viewing session, an active user, all of those things are defined differently. So he's like I cannot understand and, draw any decision strategy from [00:24:00] that because it is a lot of, fragmented data. So I love that you are doing, you're doing that, but can I ask you something? Because I think one of the reasons why right now no one has joined, so far is right now it's, on paper. It's a concept, so you need to launch it. The question I have for you is that you are saying it's an open standard in a way. What will it take to integrate that within any one system? Because that's also the first question. If people want that, they want it to be easy to use, implement, et cetera. Denis Ostir: That's where we need industry input. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Denis Ostir: Very simple. What we're saying is we've got the data. This is the way that we see the data working out. If somebody wants to integrate the data into their reporting systems, come to us with an API. Whatever you feel is the right way of doing it. Again, this is a call more than a, more than setting a standard and saying, this is the official measurement system that is gonna replace anything that's out there. No, it's a call that says, listen, this is what we what. This is the information that we've got. This is how people are watching TV today. Come join us. Let us know how we can make it better together. Yeah. Evan Shapiro: So you say you have access to [00:25:00] all this data. What are you seeing? What are, some of the trends or what are some of the a-ha moments? And you're, a very, you're a student of the industry. You're not just a practitioner. What are you seeing from the data that you have access to that is interesting, as a trend? Denis Ostir: First of all, dominance of some players. That's for sure. And it's beyond what we think is the dominance, right? It's much further than what we feel—— Evan Shapiro: Like who? Denis Ostir: Like the big platforms. The, global platform like, the Netflix, the YouTube and so on. The, dominance is, obvious. We're seeing a strong shift in, in streaming. Not as strong as the hype that is around it. It's moving towards streaming. Absolutely. But if you look at the attention that streaming is getting, compared to broadcast, is still strong. We're still seeing, half of consumption is still broadcast. Evan Shapiro: Again, that, that is because Europe, which is where most of your, footprint have such a rich history and tradition of free public broadcasting. Also, Europe is super fucking [00:26:00] old. And so the slowest to adapt to streaming are boomers and X-ers, and they are a disproportionate share of the population here compared to the rest of the world. So... Marion Ranchet: Says the oldest guy on this pod. Evan Shapiro: I am the oldest. I have sunglasses on, but go ahead. Yeah. Denis Ostir: No. One thing is this is what we're seeing also, we're seeing a significant trend, like the streaming is picking up in places where we don't expect, we wouldn't expect it to, pick up so quick; Africa. Crazy for streaming. It looks like we just skipped a couple of generations. Everyone's just going towards streaming. Evan Shapiro: It's also super young territory. So half the population of Africa, half the population is under 20. Denis Ostir: Yeah, it's super young. They're going into streaming on TVs, by the way, on TVs very much. South America's also quite quick. Southeast Asia also, but with particular type of stuff. One of the things that I'm seeing is FAST, for example, still represents a very small percentage of consumption of devices. I think it's related also to, just again, we're in Europe. In Europe, broadcast is so strong. [00:27:00] People have HB TV, red button. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Why do you need more free tv? Denis Ostir: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Yes. Denis Ostir: So that's also leans into our strategies. Listen, we're not gonna have 7,000 channels of BS. Our focus is on having high quality channels. We've even gone down now from a hundred to probably 80 channels we're gonna have on FAST, fully integrated into the platform. Those are some of the trends. Evan Shapiro: But you said something interesting when we prepped for this, pod, which was you, called the herd, so you cut down from a hundred to 80, but the actual viewing time went up. Denis Ostir: Went up, yeah. The average, the viewing time went up by about, Evan Shapiro: So fewer channels, more engagement Denis Ostir: Fewer channels, more engagement. Like paradox of choice. People are coming into, they see, a number of channels, like 200. Whoa. I'm scared of it. Get the hell out of here, right? Over here with focus, we see that, by the way, it also focus forces us to be more creative in terms of how do we promote content, how do we get people, how do we improve discoverability... it's much easier. It's easier to discover good content if you have 80 channels in a particular market, right? Don't forget Europe, it's 47 different markets with 80 channels. It's still a lot of channels you [00:28:00] have to manage, but it's much easier for you to focus, get the right content in front of right people, than to have 800 channels here you go. We went from 120 to a 100, we increased in the, like the next month, 20%. Of the viewing time. Marion Ranchet: Oh wow. Denis Ostir: And the average time spent also increased, about the same. Evan Shapiro: And so your, title is Editor in Chief? Denis Ostir: Yes. Evan Shapiro: What does that mean? Denis Ostir: Sounds way too fancy than it actually is. Evan Shapiro: It sounds like a newspaper job. Denis Ostir: I actually come from journalism. That's the thing is I come from journalism. I worked in journalism for 20 years, broadcast journalism. So I know the value. For me, content is super, super important. So what we do is we cherry pick every single channel that we're bringing on a platform. We audit it. We have huge fights with, our partners, even though they're our partners, but we have fights: is this channel appropriate for this market? Should we have it, should we not have it? Because I have this, sword over my head that says a hundred, right? I cannot go over a hundred, or now it's gonna be even 80. So that's my role. I go through the content, I verify it's good, I talk to our partners, and then most importantly my team, then we keep stay in contact with our [00:29:00] partners. Every month we have a call, we have a call. What is new? What is coming? What is worth promoting? What's the movie? What's the show? What should we do? News channels, entertainment channels, kid channels, all of them. And then we do a strategy on how we're gonna promote it. We don't have a huge team, but what we do is then expose it, to make sure that, when Davos is happening, we promote Davos. If the new Adam Sandler movie is coming, we promote the new Adam Sandler movie. This is what, this is the Editor in Chief, I take care of content. Marion Ranchet: And, so you spoke about measurement at the top and I think, ultimately, one of the reasons why you wanna fix that is because you wanna improve the monetization. And so what are you seeing from that standpoint, right? And across the board, it doesn't have to be just, fast, et cetera, but 'cause I see that you are also monetizing the onscreen, what are you doing in this space to make sure that, as you are not a device man manufacturer, but you work with device manufacturer, we all know there's no value in the hardware. All the value is in the software and it's the platform. How do you monetize that platform? Denis Ostir: So we don't sell the ads [00:30:00] ourselves. That's the most important thing. Like one of the things that we're pointing out that people are looking at us this way is we wanna be a platform. I don't wanna be in the content game. I don't wanna be in the ads game. I'm a platform. I'm purely a platform allowing people access to 50 million people's home, right? This is what we're doing. So how do we monetize? We partner with the big guys out there. We've went away from the strategy of having 7,000 DSPs plug into our system and then bidding who's gonna pay us 4 cents? Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Denis Ostir: CPM Marion Ranchet: And take a cut on the way. Denis Ostir: It's crazy. Evan Shapiro: It's a race to the bottom. Denis Ostir: Exactly. So what we've done is we cut that off. Now we're partnering with big broadcasters, the likes of TF1, Canal+ —— Evan Shapiro: So they sell your inventory Denis Ostir: That's what we're doing. We're partnering up with them. By the way, the cool thing is it actually helps them. Again, those are the people making contact, right? If we're giving our inventory to them, they're able to benchmark that inventory to their own inventory and they're able to sell it at a premium. If we wanna undercut them, they have to go down. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Denis Ostir: Which also reduces the amount of money they make. So they're the best resellers. They have the logic, they have the sales [00:31:00] teams. We've partnered with a whole bunch of them. That's what we do. And we do that both on the home screen, which is the, there's a huge banner up there. We have, streaming inventory as well on our channels. That's what we do. Some of the partners even allow us to sell inventory inside of their own applications because we have good, relationships. And we do it very smartly. We try to balance it out with content promotions, sold ads, just to make sure the user experience is important, 'cause this industry, we need to start focusing on the first in front of the screen. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, absolutely. Denis Ostir: That's super, super, super important. We don't, we shouldn't forget about them. Marion Ranchet: So maybe we can take a look at a few quick trends. We've heard from here and I wanna have your take because you said that he was in your DMs and every time I was pushing something, he is always doing exactly the same, is like he's calling me on stuff or calling the industry on stuff. Denis Ostir: Yeah. Marion Ranchet: One that I know you have very vocal, huh? Yeah, very vocal. But he has the experience. The data. So I'm, good with that. But one thing that we've, so we've, done a podcast with, the founder of Holywater Tech, vertical video. So I wanna have your [00:32:00] take. Evan Shapiro: Yeah, that was a great session. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, that was a great session. The guy was amazing. Amazing. But, so of course, what we're seeing right now is that you see the industry wanted to have a bit of that vertical love coming to the big screen. Do you believe in vertical video content on the big screen? Denis Ostir: So let me tell you, so everyone right, talking about this vertical, let's bring it's. Am I allowed to say soft porn? Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Denis Ostir: So, vertical drama—— Evan Shapiro: She's said way worse. Marion Ranchet: No, you said soft porn last time. I did not say, oh but—— Evan Shapiro: ——softcore porn. Marion Ranchet: Oh, you said softcore porn. Denis Ostir: Vertical drama is very, first of all, it's not about the format. We can figure the format out. That's not the problem. The problem is the content. Why have all the social media platforms that have tried to be on the TV with their own content failed? Because the way that we consume content on a small screen is super personalized. It's me looking at my screen, my TikTok. We had TikTok on the tv. It failed. Why? Because I don't get my [00:33:00] family to watch like these videos. No, I, by the way, I watch cobbler videos, people that are fixing shoes. I have this weird obsession with them. I'd be ashamed if my family saw that. It's like I, it's, an individual device and you... and this is what it is. Evan Shapiro: Think other people have other things that are way more shameful. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Yeah. Denis Ostir: But I'm saying now imagine like short drama falls into this category. People love them on their phone because it's private. Yeah. Private is like my little thing and I watch through it. I don't think it's gonna work. I think the format of the short drama Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Denis Ostir: Is good. I think it can work if we, find the right content for it. Currently we haven't found it yet, we're still looking for it, but the format that we have on the, mobile phone, I'm pretty sure it's not gonna... Evan Shapiro: and Bogdan, yesterday, when we did the pod with him, he, said, they're moving into other genres. That they know they have to move beyond the softcore porn, he called it that. True crime, mystery detective shows, sports, that type of stuff. But do you think vertical will work on the television? Denis Ostir: No. It's gonna be, it's gonna be [00:34:00] done. I've seen stuff in China, for example, from Tencent or Bytedance, where they take a vertical video and they make it into a 16x9 in a way you wouldn't even imagine was ever filmed in a Marion Ranchet: Yeah Denis Ostir: 9x16 easily. I don't think the format's gonna work. It's gonna be done in some sort of like 16x9 way or one by one. Somehow the format is gonna change the content itself, meaning the short clips that could work. I don't, see a problem with that. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, I see this more as a way to discover and get more content. Not really its own thing like you would do on a mobile, but again, I'm happy to be proven wrong. Evan Shapiro: My, my, thought is vertical premium TV is gonna be a thing, but it's gonna be on the phone. Marion Ranchet: On the phone. Evan Shapiro: It's not for the couch, it's for the toilet. It's not for the couch, it's for the bus or the doctor's office. It's for the between times. Denis Ostir: You don't sit down for, you don't sit down in front of the TV for two minutes. But you wouldn't sit down— Evan Shapiro: To get the weather maybe, but then go to my phone, yeah. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Absolutely. Evan Shapiro: That was a very old man statement. Marion Ranchet: Denis, thank you so [00:35:00] much. That was amazing. Evan Shapiro: Yes, it's been great. It was great to be with you in, real time, in real space. It's always great to have to see you in person with you, in person. This has been amazing. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Our first stream TV, Europe. This has been the Media Odyssey Podcast. That is Marion Ranchet, Marion Ranchet: and that is Evan Shapiro. Evan Shapiro: We'll see you next time.