Latest / The Media Odyssey / GOOGLE & DISNEY EARNINGS BREAKDOWN
Transcript
- Evan Shapiro: [00:00:00] Hello, how are you? Marion Ranchet: I'm good. How are you? Evan Shapiro: Welcome to the Media Odyssey Live. That is Marion Ranchet, Marion Ranchet: and that is Evan Shapiro. Evan Shapiro: I'm coming to you from Boston. Where are you? Marion Ranchet: Still at home, Amsterdam. No traveling for me. You are the jet setter. Evan Shapiro: You make Amsterdam seem boring. It's not. It's the loveliest place in the whole world. So stop complaining. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, it is cozy. I feel better here than, wherever you are. Evan Shapiro: In the US maybe? Marion Ranchet: I haven't said it. I haven't said it. You've said it. Evan Shapiro: Okay. So what are we doing today? Marion Ranchet: Okay, so this is our third coverage of earning season. We're doing that live. That means that guys, bring questions wherever you are particularly because this week we're both on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Substack. Talk about multi distribution. Evan Shapiro: First time ever, first Substack live. Congratulations. Hey, everybody out there. Thanks for joining. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, and so bring your questions, but we're gonna be talking about two companies, maybe a third. We always have, we're [00:01:00] always keen to speak to as many earnings as we can. Evan Shapiro: Drop your questions in whatever chat that you're on, and they will come to us and we'll answer them at the end. But let's jump right in. It was a big media business newsweek. So let's jump in. Who's your first company that we're going to? Marion Ranchet: so I think we should talk about Google. Evan Shapiro: Okay. Marion Ranchet: Can I say it? It's almost boring. They're so successful. It's come on. Evan Shapiro: But there, there's a little drama there. Marion Ranchet: Okay, so let's take a look at numbers, right? So did you make one of those cool charts that you make? Evan Shapiro: I did. This is our first screen share. So I can only see the slide. Can you see the slide? Marion Ranchet: Yes, absolutely. I feel like we're on a zZom now, but I can see the slides. Evan Shapiro: A Zoom Live. Go ahead. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, when I look at when I look at Google, they bid expectation. Having said that, they still saw the stock dropping. So we'll be talking a bit about that. I think, of course cloud, 48% growth, super impressive. I think the one thing that I see here, and I wanna have your take on that is right away I'm [00:02:00] seeing that YouTube is below the 10%, and to me, Evan Shapiro: Missed expectation. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Yeah. To me it's saying that perhaps the ads revenue growth is stalling a little. What? What are you thinking? Evan Shapiro: So there's a couple different things to take away from this. I'll address the YouTube of it first. You're right. So fourth quarter revenue growth, slowing and missing expectations. The whole market shifted down yesterday. Google is not ahead of the market on losses yesterday, so I don't think there's any an up or down reaction here because they beat expectations on both bottom and top line. YouTube missed. In fourth quarter, growth was less than 10%. To me, that's a sign that this is a maturing product to a certain extent. But secondarily, I think what it really says is that there's a big move into mobile social and that the majority of growth and upside in fourth quarter, which was a decent fourth quarter for the ad market and see Meta's earnings a week ago as a [00:03:00] sign of that, the majority of the upside went to TikTok and Meta in fourth quarter. And that's a troubling sign for YouTube. I also think it means they need to focus a little bit more on mobile to a certain extent. They're so focused on TV. I talk about that a lot. We talk about that a lot. But I do think they need to concern themselves with their mobile product because I think 26 is gonna be a more mobile heavy ad movement than it is a television heavy. Even for connected televisions, which is gonna grow mobile and social, I think is gonna outpace even the growth of connected television in 2026. Marion Ranchet: How come? Evan Shapiro: The other thing I'll say and I'll hand over the mic in a second, is that I think this is the only company that understands AI, and I think that's why they didn't get really badly bashed yesterday, even though they're double more than two X-ing their investment in infrastructure, especially in AI. When you look at this cloud revenue and you look at their search revenue, which is not diminishing in the phase of AI search, [00:04:00] this is the only company in big tech that understands AI. Sorry. Go ahead. Marion Ranchet: So a few things. Number one, why do you think that mobile and social is gonna outpace TV, CTV this year? What's the reason behind that? Evan Shapiro: Facts and math. It's just, it's where the money is moving. Money is moving into influencer and creator and mobile first marketing in a tremendous way. A lot of what used to go to cable is now going to Instagram and TikTok. Think about that for a second. There's $13 billion in local midterm advertising coming. This year, $13 billion in midterm advertising in America alone. That's a record. The majority of that growth is gonna go to mobile, to targeted, mobile on the fly advertising to Gen Z, young millennials, very urban audiences of all races. And so if cable wants to compete, they're gonna have to be able to speak [00:05:00] to that. But that, that, this to me says television is great and it's a big growth engine, and you're gonna see Instagram and TikTok move to TV this year, but, in fourth quarter, at least, this says to me, especially when you compare it to Meta's earnings, the majority of the upside went to mobile in fourth quarter. Marion Ranchet: So you're thinking that this 2025 year where it was the year of YouTube on TV was a bit of the, it was misguided. They pushed too hard? Evan Shapiro: No, not at all. Not at all. No. What it speaks, and if you look at their whole year so when you look at, hold on one second. This slide is very telling why I'm very bullish on, on Google. Yeah they missed expectations. They only grew 9%. All of television would love a 9% growth, right? Marion Ranchet: No, that is true. Evan Shapiro: And when you look at total revenue for the year, the television bet paid off tremendously. YouTube outpaced Netflix revenue total. YouTube alone. Now, this is both subscriptions and advertising, [00:06:00] right? And advertising hit a record too. Google now has the same number of subscribers across premium and music and Red and all the other stuff as Netflix. And I think this speaks to why Netflix is trying to grow itself to become YouTube doing podcasts and creators and all this other stuff. So I don't think it was a mistake. I think, and yes, last year was the year of YouTube on television, and that was great. This year is the collision of the creator economy and mainstream media. YouTube on television is now mainstream media. And so they really need to concentrate on something they've been sleeping on for a while, which is mobile, shorts, to compete. Meanwhile, Instagram and TikTok are coming to television. Yeah. Netflix is adding a mobile product. Disney is adding a mobile product, so it's gonna be the mix of mobile and TV that really matters. And so to me, if YouTube wants to get back to double digit growth quarter on quarter, they really need to focus on [00:07:00] TV plus mobile. Marion Ranchet: It's quite fascinating because it feels very, I'm gonna say it, 2016 or 1996, but be multi-device. No, but that's fascinating because that means that a lot of those companies still have, one thing they're struggling with is because the ecosystem is so fragmented in the way we consume content, the devices that we use Evan Shapiro: and the way we buy content. And the way we buy content. That's exactly right. Marion Ranchet: But think about everything we do is just a mismatch of all of those things. And it feels like companies are struggling to push their boats across all of that ecosystem at once. Evan Shapiro: But part of that is the HoldCo fucking shit show. Omnicom and IPG were so concentrated on merging, and Publicis is so concentrated on growing in face of that competition. They still buy mobile, social, digital, and television, even though they're both video separately. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Fucked up. [00:08:00] And it's one of the major reasons why efficacy is down on television. If we bought them together. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: And really measured together. Google is one of the only companies that can actually do that. Disney is designing itself to do that. Netflix is des. I think that this is the year where that thing selling across both, especially as $13 billion in political advertising pushes through the pipes. That's gonna be really crucial. Marion Ranchet: The other thing when I read the earnings, so looking at Gemini, right? And the number of monthly active users, we're talking 7,500, monthly active users. I think that's fascinating. And the same way that YouTube was, very much seen as the Trojan horse for so many years and still is, I think Gemini is next. And so this week again, we've had an announcement of, this time it's it's a Liberty Global who made a deal to have Gemini inside its devices, et cetera. So whether that's a connected TV a set box. [00:09:00] We spoke about Apple last week. All of these guys are taking Gemini inside. And yeah, I think that's that fascinating. And that speaks to, I think what you were saying, the fact that they're spending so much, but they're already seeing the, maybe not the dollar to dollar return, that level of investment is paying off because there's so many different places where they can recoup those AI investments. Evan Shapiro: They're the only, they and Microsoft are really, Apple could, but Apple seems to have surrendered their AI work to Google. Marion Ranchet: I don't think Apple should but it's a different discussion. Evan Shapiro: Yeah, we can talk about that. But Google is the only, when you look at all the uses of AI across the ecosystem, and especially as companies like Amazon continue to report their earnings, Alphabet is the only one who seems to have the true understanding of AI working. Meta does understands it too. It is about keeping people on platform, serving ads better, about making things more efficient, firing a whole bunch of people. That is the Meta strategy. Alphabet's is to replace its [00:10:00] search with AI. To put it into all of its office suites. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Mail, et cetera, sheets and all that kind of stuff. And they're the only one who really seems to have understood. It's not an individual product. It's the, it's a woven into a suite of other products. Like email, you don't pay for email. You don't pay for search. Most people won't specifically pay for AI. It'll be built into a suite of services. Alright, we should move on. Marion Ranchet: Absolutely. Evan Shapiro: We have we have other folks to talk about. Who's next on the agenda? Marion Ranchet: Let's move on to Disney. Evan Shapiro: Okay. I, yeah. Start. What were your reactions? I'll pull up a slide. Marion Ranchet: Well, of course you look at revenue and you're like, 5%. That's it? That's not much. And minus nine net income? So I have to say I was a bit disappointed. Of course, then you had the, they flashed us the CEO change, and so everyone can focus on the new CEO. But what was your take on on those [00:11:00] results? If you manage to show them up. Evan Shapiro: Yeah, I did. There was a mistake on that slide there, but the one thing is that you're right revenue was up only 5%. Net income for the quarter was down 9%. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: That's not a great story. That's a really shitty story. But what I did show there, which was a relatively incorrect on the slide which is why I pulled it down. Live tv, our live web, live LinkedIn live substack is that their net income grew 140% year on year. And the revenue was up around five or 6% for the year as well. And that's driven entirely by the streaming services, bouncing back and suddenly getting its way to profitability. The other part of it was parks and parks absolutely crushed it. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Had a record quarter had a record year, and that's one of the reasons why Josh D'Amaro was named CEO. It's one of my predictions for the year was that Iger would announce the CEO in the first quarter earnings, by the way. Marion Ranchet: Kudos. Because for those who don't [00:12:00] remember, basically, yeah. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Marion Ranchet: He was supposed to leave at the end of the year. He's actually, Evan Shapiro: I said they were gonna accelerate it and that's exactly what happened because he's tired of this bullshit to be blunt. And this is really the more I important thing is when you look at the entire second Iger tenure, it's not a great story to be blunt. When you look at the last 10 years of Iger at the helm of Disney, it's not a great story. Yes. Marvel, yes. Pixar. That's all early days, right? But when you look at the Fox acquisition in particular. Terribly handled. And when you look at the CEO's succession terribly handled and it really stagnated this company. It froze them in place for the last, for this entire decade, frankly, for the entire 2020s, they've been stuck in neutral. When you look at their, my map from 2020 and my map from this past week, they're exactly the same price. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Market value that's not, that flat is not up. [00:13:00] Not in this market. And when you look at their enterprise value, they're down 12% since they bought Fox. And by the way, the Fox acquisition is the comp for the Netflix acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery. Same price, basically same strategy. And Disney's still underwater $60 billion on that deal. So I think Iger, he leaves the company to D'Amaro in pretty decent shape, but it's scorched earth for the last 5, 6, 7 years from my perspective. I don't know how you feel 'cause this is a very American story for me and I actually take it personally as somebody who grew up on Disney. I don't know what your impression of where Iger leaves Disney for tomorrow is. Marion Ranchet: Honestly as a European, as a French, if I were not in this business I could not care less. I don't think anyone knows. Yeah. People watch Disney content. Evan Shapiro: The most thing ever by the way. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, but we have Evan Shapiro: Fuck you Disney. Marion Ranchet: No, but it's not that, but how can I, Evan Shapiro: Ratatouille [00:14:00] Don't you even like Ratatouille? Marion Ranchet: Oh, I love Ratatouille. It's actually one of my favorites. No, but we care about Disney content in Europe, we subscribe to Disney Plus in France. We even have, parks, right? We have Disney who's turning 30 or whatever. But I don't think, yeah, we have the same it's, I don't know. I don't to explain, it's important, but we're, it's not like it's a national treasure, right? So it is very American, even if it has a global, a global aura. I think one thing that I wanted to point out on this, and I wanna get your take because. So if this new guy is coming in East Parks, which you know, yes, it's a driver, but a couple of weeks ago you said that you guys, particularly in the US you would have stagflation, which I know you love to make up words and things. Evan Shapiro: That's not a made up word. That's not a made up word. Marion Ranchet: It's not made up? It sounds made up. Okay. Evan Shapiro: It does sound made up. It's a portmanteau. It's a portmanteau, which is a French word. Marion Ranchet: Okay. I did not. Okay. Evan Shapiro: It's [00:15:00] stagnation and yeah inflation. Marion Ranchet: Interesting. Evan Shapiro: I didn't make it up. Let's put it away. Okay. It was made up at one point. I did not make it up. Marion Ranchet: Okay. Okay. Cool. But my thinking is two things. Are we, so number one parks greats, but if stagflation does happen, is that very same healthy to have too much of your revenue and growth coming from that part? They can't keep increasing prices, ad nauseum number one. Evan Shapiro: That's a big part of why they were up, is they? Marion Ranchet: Exactly. So same people going, 'cause a lot of Europeans are saying they're not gonna be traveling to the US so that has to impact the part. Evan Shapiro: You do have the French, you have the French one. Marion Ranchet: We have the French one. Evan Shapiro: Japan as well. So Marion Ranchet: There's one in Asia, one in the Middle East, et cetera, but it's nothing compared to the one in the US. Evan Shapiro: So there's two things about that, is parks is very up and down, to your point, it is entirely tied to the economy. 100%. And that is a very difficult, by the way, so is subscription to a certain extent. It, that's part of it. The other thing I would say is the last time they hired a [00:16:00] parks, the head of parks as their CEO, after Bob Iger, it didn't work out so well. And one of the major reasons is that the parks folks don't always know how to deal with talent. Marion Ranchet: No. Evan Shapiro: And so I think the most important thing that happened wasn't Josh D'Amaro's promotion to CEO, it was them retaining Dana Walden. Yeah. The best talent manager and creative executive in the history, certainly on earth right now. After Iger, I would say. And so she, she is just terrific. I was at an Emmy's award ceremony where she got a lifetime achievement award from Ryan Murphy. He just kvelled about her for 20 minutes. Marion Ranchet: Wow. Evan Shapiro: So you don't normally see that about an executive from a talent as notorious as Ryan Murphy. So that was a good sign for the company. On the other hand I, this company is not necessarily positioned for growth. It just isn't. And I think given who they hire, Marion Ranchet: Yeah, Evan Shapiro: I think it's very likely, especially 'cause sports was [00:17:00] shrunk. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: And was not profitable in fourth quarter mostly because of rights fees. Yeah. And that sports business, ESPN, which is now spinning out as its own streaming service, that's gonna be a more and more expensive business to run every year. And then you've got the broadcast network, same thing, almost entirely live sports, news. I think you're gonna see with this new administration, those two properties spun out. I think Marion Ranchet: That was my thing. Evan Shapiro: ABC, ESPN will get spun like Versant because this is not Bob Iger anymore. Marion Ranchet: Okay. Evan Shapiro: This is a very different point of view between Dana and Dana has no interest really in ABC and ESPN. ABC's now basically live sports and television and they lost the Oscars. So I think you're gonna see that that the traditional, the trad TV division gets spun out. Yes. Marion Ranchet: But so you think ESPN would be in the mix? Because when you look at what matters to most streamers, sports is always at the top of the list. The challenge being that, yes, of course it's expensive, for them, it was like 1% revenue growth, [00:18:00] but we're talking minus 23% in, operating income. So it is just just like AI for others, this is a simple, so you don't, you think really that, spinning out ESPN is the right way to go. So removing ESPN, ABC? Evan Shapiro: No, I don't think it's the right way to go. I think what they're doing right now, the strategy today is to milk. Is to milk the profits from the traditional television business and funnel them into streaming. And that has been the, they have been the only one of the traditional media companies to make that work. Fox sold it off, basically. Yeah. Warner Brothers is failing, obviously. Obviously NBC gave up and failed and gave up 'cause they're spinning out. So no, they're, they are the only one who are doing it properly, I think. But they're still not really. When you look at Hulu, it's a very successful platform. The internationalness of that is not necessarily baked in yet, and frankly to your larger point, they still don't bundle parks, Marion Ranchet: Yes, Evan Shapiro: Disney plus, they [00:19:00] still don't bundle subscriptions to Disney plus with the parks. Marion Ranchet: They could do that now with this guy. Evan Shapiro: So we'll see. But I think sports is gonna be a really important part of that. No, I don't think you can separate live sports from the rest of your business and succeed. NBC, split news. Anyway, we can go into the whys. I don't think so, but no, I don't think that's the right approach. I also don't know any, I have zero insight. Marion Ranchet: No. Evan Shapiro: I think the biggest growth for Disney over the next five years and the biggest growth for all traditional media over the next five years is to bear hug the creator economy. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: To lean into, sell, putting their content direct to consumer, not just through a paywall, but free. Disney is gonna add vertical to their their streaming platform. Will it be free? Maybe. And so maybe that's their YouTube and Instagram and TikTok killer. But I think if they embrace the creator economy and sell at Disney's great, the best in traditional media selling [00:20:00] advertising, if they bundle that all together, again, it goes back to what I was saying about Google. The intersection of mobile and TV. I think that's where their strength can be. Marion Ranchet: This to me is the closest thing to a flywheel than, just a Google and others, right? They have a lot of those touch points. So yeah, absolutely. One thing about vertical and everything, I think this is about bringing more social first experiences to Disney Plus. So I don't see how this will be made available for free. I don't see that happening. Evan Shapiro: A couple different things. There's a question about this in the chat actually. Pascal asked "Any insights on why Katzenberg's Quibi failed in light of all this vertical hoopla that's going on right now?" Yeah. He spent a hundred thousand dollars per minute, fucking stupid. Disney recently distributed the entire High School Musical on TikTok. Marion Ranchet: On TikTok, yep. Evan Shapiro: In five minute increments. And has millions of people watching it and commenting on each chapter. [00:21:00] That is a classic example of how to give it away for free. You're not gonna sit down and pay for that necessarily, but will you watch it, parts of it, especially, when you're on a bus or at a doctor's office, and then comment with your friends and share it amongst all your friends. Yes. I think there's a really crucial thing to understand here. Heated rivalry, the red hot hockey show. Do you know how that got picked up originally? Marion Ranchet: No. Evan Shapiro: As a novel, but the reason it became a viral hit was BookTok. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Vertical, direct to camera. Book readers. Book Fans. Porn, soft porn book fan. Talking about the book, it became so popular on BookTok, it got picked up as a television series in Canada. Then Netflix picked it up and it became, or not Netflix, it's Max. HBO Max picked it up and it became a massive hit, buzzy hit. There's a great way to give away vertical as a development tool. Buy a novel. Create a book chat. Disney's not gonna be able to do that, certainly not on Disney Plus, but on [00:22:00] Hulu, maybe. Hulu is a massive young person's platform. I think arguably more accurately on Shorts, on Reels, on TikTok that's how to lean into that. Marion Ranchet: Yeah I see the value of putting, vertical and social first features within a streaming service, but that mishigas sometimes that doesn't work. We expect and do different things with different platforms and therefore Disney's job is, yes, they can do that on Disney Plus, but I agree with you put that on social, on YouTube and build that conversation off platform, so to say, and find a way to make it worth it back to be owned and operated. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. And I wanted to throw this slide up before we left because this shows what's going on in the industry right now. Netflix is hyper-focused on this acquisition, had Sarandos spent all day testifying on the hill yesterday, right? Meanwhile, his company is frozen in place and turning into Disney. Remember that enterprise value down 12% since they bought Fox from [00:23:00] Disney? Netflix, enterprise value, their market cap has dropped $163 billion since they started bidding on Warner Brothers. Meanwhile, they've bid up Warner Brothers by 133%. Paramount's market cap would had been, which had been growing after the acquisition of Sky by Skydance has shrunk 17% since they started bidding on this. This has frozen the industry in place and it's not healthy for Netflix. It's also really not healthy for the all three companies who are wrapped up. They're stagnated, they're stagflated right now. And so I think this is really interesting and crucially, when we talk about the competition for these companies, when you look at Google and especially when you look at that, that revenue growth and then you think about Netflix's enterprise value dropping $163 billion, then you look at Tubi, who was part of the Fox earnings yesterday. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Their revenue grew 19%, year on year. In fourth quarter, they had their second profitable quarter. [00:24:00] Anjali Sud is running the fuck out of that business. It was the one big highlight from their business. Cable grew but that's a dying, we all know about what's going on there. Fox is Fox, but Tubi was the star of their earnings call and for YouTube, FAST surpassed Netflix in fourth quarter for television engagement in the United States Marion Ranchet: On the Gauge? Evan Shapiro: Yeah, on the gauge. So when you look at Tubi, who had 3% Roku, who had 2.5%, and then you take Samsung TV plus who's not on there. Marion Ranchet: No. Evan Shapiro: And you take the rest of them, they're at, they're higher than Netflix in fourth quarter and they're probably gonna wind up, and that was with Netflix's massive December. So if I was YouTube and I was Netflix, that's who I would be most worried about right now. Marion Ranchet: If I were these guys, I'd be worried about anyone. They're just competing for time. We all know that, right? It's the same amount of time. On the streaming, the FAST streaming piece, I disagree. So number one, Roku went 3%, which is an all [00:25:00] time high. Evan Shapiro: But yeah. Marion Ranchet: What bothers me with this is that within the Roku channel just like YouTube, it's not just FAST and AVOD, there's premium subscription, which is like seven, Evan Shapiro: But, yeah, but that Roku is just Roku Channel. Marion Ranchet: Are you sure? Evan Shapiro: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. That's just Roku channel and Tubi shows up there at a pretty high percentage. Those are just the channels. That is not, because there's no aggregation in the Gauge. It is just channel by channel. When you go to the distributor one, Roku is just Roku. Marion Ranchet: No, but, so there, I think that's where I'd be interested. We need to break it out because I'm talking about the Gauge. Evan Shapiro: That's hundred percent just Roku channel. Marion Ranchet: The Roku, yeah. But inside the Roku Channel, you have FAST channels, AVOD, and you have premium subscriptions. Evan Shapiro: No. Marion Ranchet: Yes. Evan Shapiro: I don't think their premium is counted in that. Marion Ranchet: It should because it's within the Roku Channel, right? Evan Shapiro: It should, but I don't believe that Nielsen, look, I have all of my real problems [00:26:00] with Nielsen. Their transparency on what the fuck they're measuring is. Yeah, hard premium. Why is Samsung TV plus not on the list? I know they're as high as Tubi or maybe even as high as Roku, but they're not measured on the Gauge for some fucking reason. Why? By the way, that's a problem at both sides. Both Samsung and Nielsen need to work that the fuck out, so we can see what's going on, both of you. Anyway. but the, I have it under very good understanding that the Roku on the gauge is just Roku Channel and Tubi is just the Tubi channel. Marion Ranchet: Again, in Roku channel, you can stream FAST Channels, watch AVOD and subscribe to premium subscriptions. I'm not talking about what's happening on apps on Roku and that is the distributor. Evan Shapiro: You're talking about Howdy or whatever their subscription. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's included in there. I could be wrong. Marion Ranchet: There are 72 premium subscription inside the Roku Channel that are managed by Roku. If it's not in the Roku channel then where the hell is it? Evan Shapiro: Let's find out. We'll find out. Marion Ranchet: [00:27:00] I promise you. We're gonna have to find out, so if anyone knows on the chat, please help us. I was at Roku but at the time I don't think the Gauge existed. I have no, Evan Shapiro: The Gauge didn't exist, that was a long time ago. The Dark Ages. We have Tom Christmann, Chrismann two Ns, had a really good comment here, which is the vertical movement. First of all, vertical, just really quickly on verticals, I know you think vertical is a bit full of bullshit and we agree on the current state of vertical. So the current state of vertical and everybody's reporting vertical revenue numbers right now, they're getting them from sources that are not that reliable. So let's not pay too much attention to what's going on. The other thing to know about the current vertical movement, the micro drama movement, is that it's a Ponzi scheme. These apps are paying more to acquire and install apps, acquire customers than they're earning in revenue, period. End of sentence. That is the truth. That's why their productions are such low class, soft core porn. Alright? There is a movement afoot to turn it into something else. Other [00:28:00] genres. Murder porn. True crime porn will work in vertical format, game shows, dating shows will work there. Yeah, so micro television is gonna be a movement, but it's not gonna be the same kind of gamification behind apps. People are not gonna download tons of more apps. What Disney did is a good example. What Netflix is doing to add free premium content vertically to their platform is a great example. What Proctor and Gamble is doing with 50 episodes of a micro soap is a good example on TikTok, on Instagram, what Bill did with Roomies, which is a micro comedy on Instagram and TikTok. These are really good examples of what's gonna happen. So vertical's gonna, premium vertical and television together as an ecosystem, that's gonna be the big advertising story in my mind this year. And Tom Christmann said the vertical is, those chapters is exactly how Dickens sold his stories originally. Absolutely right. In small chapters to keep you going. He got paid by the [00:29:00] word we should remember. Marion Ranchet: I don't need to be sold on that. I don't buy micro drama. I called it a BS hype at the top of the year in one of our episodes. A hundred percent. Okay. I think that's it, right? We're coming at half an hour guys. Thank you so much for coming. Next week we have Amazon coming up. There's Sony. Roblox. Tell us in the comments, which ones you want us to cover? It's taking place on the 12th, which is next Thursday. It's gonna be a bit nicer, friendly from a time perspective because we're doing 5:00 PM CET, which is 4:00 PM GMT, which is 11 EST, which is 8:00 AM PST. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah we wanted to, this is a anomaly. We'll be in a better hour for the west coast moving forward. Marion said, there's a ton of earnings coming out between now and next Thursday, including Amazon. Tell us who you want us to cover. Beatrice, I heard you. I will let Marion finish her point more often. [00:30:00] Marion Ranchet: Thanks Beatrice, I know her. Evan Shapiro: I will work on that, I apologize Marion for interrupting you and to anybody. And this was great. Thank you though. A lot of people showed up across platform, more than a hundred people showed up across platforms. Thank you so much. This is really fun for us. We're gonna keep doing this as long as you keep showing up. Let us know what you wanna hear about Marion, thank you. So great to see you. I love working with you as have a good end of day for you. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, good afternoon for me and have a good day, mate. See you soon. Cheers. Evan Shapiro: See you soon. Marion Ranchet: Bye guys. Evan Shapiro: Bye.