February 5, 2025 • 30 mins
How do you measure a year? Audience research firm Luminate does just that in its newly released 2024 Film & TV Year-End Report. Two top Luminate executives – Marc Hoebich, executive VP and head of film and TV, and Carolyn Finger, senior VP of consumer success and product – break down the report and its findings.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with
industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My
guests are Mark Hobick and Carolyn Finger of Illuminate. Illuminate
is a data and insights company that focuses on audience
measurement for the entertainment industry. It's a corporate sibling of Variety,
(00:31):
under the umbrella of our parent company PMC. Of Late,
Illuminate has gone hard on the business of measuring streaming
TV viewership. That's a lot harder than it sounds. Illuminate
executives crunch numbers all day, every day, but they also
stop every so often to produce long term reports to
(00:53):
give real insights into what's going on and how things
are changing in this very dynamic marketplace. The twenty twenty
four year end Film and TV Report was issued late
last month. It's linked in the show notes to this
episode and the Variety dot com story for this episode,
and as advertised, it is packed with insights. Mark is
(01:16):
executive vice president and head of Film and TV for Illuminate.
Carolyn is Senior VP of Consumer Success and Products for Illuminate.
The three of us have known one another for a
long time through many different jobs. I think that comes
through in this conversation. There is a lot of laughs
and a lot of shorthand from people who know and
(01:38):
respect each other a great deal. That conversation is coming
right up after this break, and we're back with a
(02:00):
conversation about the year in streaming TV with Illuminates. Markobick
and Carolyn Finger. Thank you so much for joining me.
This is fun because I've known you both for so
long and I know you both to be absolute aces
at what you do, so, dear listeners, you could not
get a better overview of what the streaming landscape has
(02:25):
wrought in twenty twenty four than these two. So thank
you for coming all the way up from the seventh FLOORA.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Thank you for having us. Yes, that was a full
disclosure that had to happen at each.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Other, Yes, one hundred percent. No, I've learned a lot
from both of you over the years. I would like
to start just by throwing it out to both of you.
What you know. You crunch the numbers all day long.
I know hourly you're looking at data, and you're refining
and really getting great insights and great information as you
took that step back and looked at the kind of
(02:58):
the long the long term of the year, As you
took that step back and looked at the landscape of
twenty twenty four, what top line what stood out to
you as surprising? What didn't you know by doing this
report from your day to day, hour by hour efforts.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
For me, I think one of my kind of top
level takeaways is really when we look at the content output,
and we're looking at it on the TV side, streaming
and linear together, when we look at that, while we
saw a lessening of the decline year over year, we
(03:36):
still saw a seven percent drop and that really was
effect from the reverberations we're feeling from the strikes.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
And you're talking about total volume, total content.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Of series premiers. Yeah, thank you. And you know, in
twenty twenty three we saw a seventeen percent drop, So
a seven percent drop is an improvement in that we're
declining less quickly in terms of the number of series
premieers we're seeing, but very significant. One of the really
fascinating parts to the report is that while we see
a seven percent drop in the overall number of series released.
(04:09):
When we look at episode orders, the episode orders declined significantly,
so well we see this moderation of decline on the
series side. The episodes, we saw almost a twenty percent
drop year over year from prior year, and that trend
has continued now two years in a row. Was seventeen
(04:29):
percent in twenty twenty three and then almost twenty percent
in twenty twenty four. And that is the media companies
are really being more stingy with when they're doing series
or ordering series, just taking fewer episodes, and of course
that impacts our entire entertainment ecosystem for writers, producers, directors,
actors who really rely on those episodic orders.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I would say, yes, I agree, and also I guess
in the biggest picture to me, all of the sign
posts are looking towards kind of risk mitigation for the studios.
And what I mean by that is, you know, we
have these terrible strikes, so we have this huge reduction
in production, and.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
That was the reasons for the seventeen for a large
part of the reason for seventeen percent in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Is that accurate, Yes, But then the strikes are over,
you know, happiness reigns again in the land. But no,
not really because then we're having these, uh, you know,
this contraction on corporate level where there there's kind of
fear about I think number one, there's a fear around
(05:38):
TikTok and what are they you know, can they invest
in all these shows? Who's the audience for shows? So
it's all kind of spelled out. They're trying to find
different ways to produce fewer things, have more things that
are part of a franchise or existing on peace, safer things,
safer things, you know, the limited series which we can
(06:01):
talk about. You know, all of these things are kind
of spelling a net loss I think.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
In the entertainment ecosystem. Yeah, and I like your answer
kind of change mine, you know, but I think, you know,
risk mitigation, and through this study we really see what's
working and what's not working in terms of the risk
of mitigation strategies. But yeah, I agree with what you
said one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
We did see in the report that the volume of
limited series has has definitely come down because people are
I think, because people are focused on those renewable resources,
and also people are spending money on sports as opposed
to spending you know, ten million dollars an episode on
a six episode series like gee, who could have seen
that that wasn't exactly sustainable, But so it seems like
(06:48):
a good idea at the time, exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
But is there is there any discernible, any any quantification
of like fewer series overall and an emphasis on shows
that they hope to renew, you know, a limited series
is limited until until it works and then yeah, right,
But is there any quantifiable that that you know, focusing
on fewer shows has better results because you know, you
(07:13):
can market more heavily to one show really really promoted
to be you know, really promoted to an audience as
like this isn't just a one off, but you know
you're going to want to watch Noah Wiley or you
know other people in these settings.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
You know, I don't think we are evidence has seen that.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
The thing I would say is that we do know
that P and A really matters, you know, promotion advertising
when we look at film, and this is a theme
I think throughout content that we're seeing is that you know,
to what you're getting at that if we have fewer titles,
(07:53):
are we able to kind of promote those more and
really get through the clutter and audiences can find that
the recommendation just govery is a huge issue for the streamers,
it's a huge issue for everybody because we have so
many choices of content.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Because of the emphasis on completion rates in streaming. It's
it's just it's different. Things don't have the same kind
of breathing room that they once had with linear where
they were dropping one episode weak and you could kind
of see week to week. If you are in a
scenario where like Netflix, where everything is dropped all at once,
(08:26):
and maybe there is that initial m and a push,
but if it doesn't get that audience initially, then it's
much harder, I think, to get Yeah, so you know
it gives in, it takes.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
That's a that's an interesting question. So if not naming
names or anything, but a six episode limited series drops
and if people do you see that, like if people
don't go to it, you know fairly soon to episode
one or two, like they're never going to go check
out They're certainly never going to go check out the
rest of it. But like it is it a time
sensitive thing, is what I'm saying. Like once at premieres,
(09:02):
they if you don't go to it, it's really hard
to get people to it a month or two later.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
We see in streaming definitely the sampling and that those
first twelve weeks is really critical. And the other thing
that we know from the streamers and our discussions with
our partners is that that ninety percent completion rate is
very very important in order to get a second or
third season, order to get those multiple season orders. So
(09:28):
you know, we can see that in the data and
in the importance of it.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Yeah, and that's also important, you know, speaking of strikes,
you know, with the arrangements to get more residuals for streaming,
that time frame is kind of baked into that as
well as you know, the number of subscribers who are watching.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Does it follow? Do you think that as the streamer
is starting to realize that that, you know, maybe they're
not going to do a twenty two episode procedural, but
like Max with the Pit I believe is like fifteen
or sixteen episodes. Do you think that when we're talking
next year about about the twenty twenty five repart you
think episode council will start to inch up?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
I hope.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
So we did get I mean we you know, Channing.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Dungey actually made this announcement actually at Variety and in Tech.
I remember when she talked about the John Wells series
that they're bringing back, and they were very happy to
announce they were looking at twenty two to twenty three
episode orders. So I think there is that awareness of
this is an underserved type of content that we're just
not producing at the same volume that we are. So,
(10:34):
you know, our latest sort of feedback we've gotten from
the streamers when we've sat down with them has been
their focus is really looking at content with a global footprint,
not US centric content, and time will tell whether that
translates into more episodes or not. But I don't know
(10:57):
if they're seeing that quite yet at the streamers that
they need to be producing more episodes, because as the
data is showing us, they've in fact and cutting back
now for two consecutive years in terms of episode of orders.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
And then let's talk a little bit more about comedy,
because I did notice it very very noticeable in the report,
all those nice color codings, very noticeable that CBS is basically,
I mean CBS is basically the only the really only
big brand broadcast or streaming that has a real big
comedy business. Netflix of course has a lot of comedies,
but in terms of elementary yeah, oh for sure, it's.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Absolutely, oh absolutely, but I mean really, but just in
terms of in terms of volume, and you know, the
conventional wisdom for decades has been, you know, you can't
just have one comedy on an island. You've got to
have a you've got to have an environment. And CBS
still seems to be kind of the last that still
has that has that environment, although you know each network
(11:54):
does have a few, but CBS seems to be Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, I think comedy is really seen as very specific culturally,
and in a world where we're looking at global distribution
for so many of these titles, it's just a harder sell.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
And interesting like Netflix has had a it's been a
buzzy hit. I haven't actually looked at the numbers, but
buzzy hit with National Treasure Ted Danson A Man on
the Inside, and that's a remake of a I can't
it's a I believe from Eastern Europe there was a
form of French. I think you're a French series or
remake and I wonder if that you know that, especially
(12:28):
as you know kind of it his play in the
Awards game. I wonder if that could be a model,
you know, see if streamers will see, like maybe take
the elements, the bones of comedies that are working in
other places and try to adapt them for us and
vice versa. I mean, that's not a new phenomenon, but
I wonder if there will be you'll see more of that,
(12:49):
because my goodness, we do need laughs.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
What I think may have helped fill in the gap
with comedy is maybe unscripted, even though we've also seen
unscripted yeah, declients, but yeah, I think things like Love
Is Blind or The Real Housewives, you know, I think
people laugh at yeah, a lot of those things as well.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Sometimes you laugh with, but sometimes.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
You laugh at for sure.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
And unscripted, I think is a really interesting thing for
us to talk about because we've seen where this you know,
during the strikes, unscripted was one of those things that
was protected. Yeah, but when we look at the actual data,
we had declines in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty
four for unscripted year over year, we're looking at eight
percent drop and unscripted across broadcast, cable and streaming, And
(13:41):
I think what's going on there. My personal take is
that we have It's not that we've exhausted ideas, but
unscripted reality program in particular is so concept driven, and
you have got to have that innovation of concepts. And
if you look at the top show the unscripted shows,
you've got Love is Blind, Love Island, a lot of
(14:06):
shows around Connection is So Angry. Oh stopped me in
my tracks. If you wanted the talkings to you, I'm.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Sorry, don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
We'll be right back with more insights from luminates Markobick
and Carolyn Finger right after this break, and we're back
with the rest of our conversation about the year that
was in twenty twenty four with illuminates Markobick and Carolyn Finger.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
It's hard to understand why unscripted is declined, but one
of the things, you know, speaking what you're saying Mark
about it's so format driven, all of those kinds of
just little snippets of schadenfreude like you can get on
short form content. Oh true, you know. I think maybe
some specific influence have kind of filled in.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I think social media is part of that fix of
seeing real people misbehaving or what have you, and that
is something that you can get on TikTok and for
now and Instagram in various places.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Right, yeah, no, it's it's really interesting another you know,
in the continuing with the down trend here animation also,
I saw you know, big decline, and you would have
thought that that would have been.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
A little more strike resilient from that impact.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
But well, for the I think sag aren't the many
of those actors in stories, so I'm assuming that's why
they weren't able to do that. But also it does
seem as though from a production standpoint, there's so much
competition for access to animation studios and the production timeline
(15:55):
is so much longer that that could maybe have played
a role as well.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
And then say, time we have seen animated features, they've
had some real home runs. So maybe it's just kind
of a world. You know, we've all known that, you know,
Fox for whatever reason kind of has that magic magic
wand on the adult animation, and virtually everybody else that
has tried it, virtually everybody else has really has really struggled.
(16:19):
So it really does seem like it's a you know,
a feature, a feature animation for family audiences and and
you know, it just doesn't translate to two series anymore.
I wanted one thing that really also in the report
stands out. You do beautiful job of kind of laying
it out Star Wars fatigue people. I mean, it's very
(16:42):
it's very clear, and that's you know, that's got to
be a concern for Disney because that lucasfilm that has
been a real, real pillar of their strategy there. Now
as soon as we say that, they could have a
show that comes out, you know, comes out next month
and all of a sudden, we're not talking about it.
But both on the feature side, that's been very well
documented and on. But the viewership declining for season twos
(17:03):
and things is really significant.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I think the franchise fatigue is really interesting. That's one
of my favorite parts of the report as well. You know,
when we look at some of the biggest franchises in streaming,
franchises are incredibly important to the streamers in particular because
this issue of really having a universe that people can
access relatively quickly. But if we look at Lord of
(17:28):
the Rings, the Rings of Power season one, which was
released in twenty twenty two, the twenty twenty four second
season did not perform nearly as well. Similarly, for Marvel,
we know that Agatha all Along, which I personally really enjoyed,
and Echo performed under twenty twenty three releases, Low Key
(17:48):
Season two and Secret Invasion.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
And it really.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Speaks to the importance of franchise management for these media companies,
and if they are spread too thin, if they're doing
too many things that are not really focused on these franchises,
you can get to a place where you're just not
going to get the same result. And it's unfortunate something
(18:15):
like The Rings of Power again really enjoyed it. Fifty
eight million dollars per episode. They've spent almost a billion
dollars off the two seasons that have been released thus far.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Beautifully shot.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
I know you have some thoughts about.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
For me, it was you know, I'm a nerd. I
you know, I love my Hobbits. It just somehow it
was too densely plotted for me or something, which is
that's saying a lot after reading the two towels.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yes, one of the starkest pages in their report is
the share of original viewing chart. I mean, it makes
it Crystal Claire. Not that there was much doubt, but
you know, now we have the pie charts. If there's
a pipe chart, it's official. There's Netflix and there's everyone else.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
For original streaming content to share, Netflix to share is
sixty three point five percent. Literally the rest of the
competition combined doesn't even come out for originals for originals,
which you know, which is such a huge part of this,
such a huge part of the marketplace.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
I think Netflix defines an audience differently than all of
their competitors, except for maybe Prime, but you know, Prime
is there to feed the Amazon machine and does that
pretty effectively. You know, Netflix is looking I don't think
they're looking at like an audience. I think they're looking
(19:44):
at kind of the world, and so they don't feel
as though they have to have something that fits into
a particular brand. I mean that's just my you know,
kind of armchair thing. I feel like Apple TV they
have a more boutique kind of a pro coach to
TV and a more boutique audience. True, but bless them
for it, you know, I would say, like, for me,
(20:07):
the big surprise in some ways is Max. I don't
want to pick on anybody, but I'm you know, I
remember that a certain CEO was brought in from the
cable world, and there had been a lot of success
with a lot of unscripted franchises, and the brands have
been a bit diluted, and HBO has always been speaking
(20:30):
of boutiques. So there just isn't enough there to propel
its audience share. But I think to me, in some
ways they're the most vulnerable of all of these.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
My my takeaway is that when we look at the pie,
what's really interesting. I think Netflix and Prime sort of
we expect to see those in one and two, but
that we see from an original content perspective, Paramount Plus
is in third position, and Apple TV is in fourth position,
followed by Who and then Disney Plus. It's really interesting
(21:03):
because you think of Disney Plus and all of the
content there, but just from an original title perspective, they
just haven't released that many titles in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, and Prime is you know, Prime is second at
eight point five percent, Like I just that's sixty three
that's sixty three point five percent.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Is very overwhelming.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
It is interesting, and you know, following along that in
terms of other surprises, it was a surprise to me
and I watched this stuff and cover this stuff every day.
It was a surprise to.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Me that Fool Me Once was Netflix's top title based
on the Harlan Coben book. And I know he has
a massive and I believe, you know, maybe not worldwide,
but it has international fans, and I got to believe
that that fandom, yeah, helped helped drive and he's a
very well established author with a real a really specific
brand of storytelling. But you would not I would not
(21:58):
have cited that as the number one did that? But
I know that you've crunched the numbers on a week
you know, daily and weekly basis. But did that in
that year end sense? Did that really? Did that stand
out to you as kind of a surprise that that
would at year end that was the big show. Now,
as I understand, Squid Game may have knocked it off
its perch now that now that it's been out for.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Yeah, for tea English language also.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So yeah, we're only doing ro only measuring English language
in this particular study. So you know, Fool Me Once
they also had the benefit of premier in January first,
twenty twenty four, it had the whole year. And what's
interesting is when we look at that top ten list, yes,
seven of those titles are Netflix. But when we look
at the other three with them that top ten land
(22:49):
Man on Paramount Pair plus Taylor Sheridan, Yes, you love this.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
I can't believe it's out in the world.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
But yeah, but even among the Taylor Sheridan shows, it
wasn't among the most talked about, which is interesting because
the interest that that chart, there's a gap between like
the cool factor and buzz factor. And of course we
are in a bubble, we are in the creative community bus.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
But I didn't hear so many people talking about it,
but obviously America and Canada. Yeah, there's kind of.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Like the People's Choice Awards. You know, it doesn't line
up usually with the oscars, but it does tell you
about what the broader audience is responding to.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
And keep in mind that Landman didn't not all episodes
had been released by the time we got to the
end of the year, So we're doing that without all
episodes being available, which is a tremendous accomplishment.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Yeah, he is, Taylor sharedon got to give to him.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
He is tapping into some fortant. I mean, he just
I mean, you know, John Ham like has great cast
and has enough like there's a great balance of absurdity
and yet truth. Somehow that's what's.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Any Tulsa King is number five in the list.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
So with that's off, Yeah, let's close out our discussion
here with the subject of a topic that is kind
of appropriate to the world that we're living in right now.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Horror. Yes, but there's a lot of interesting data in
there about how it's a clear box office driver and
it is also, you know, very efficient box office because budgets,
you know, versus like a blockbuster movie or even a
big animated feature like they can you know, they can
really do horror on a beer budget and get champagne
box office.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Well, horror is one of those genres
that has a built in fan base that is very
committed to showing up and seeing those titles in theaters,
and they're also reliably profitable, and that's a heady combination. Now,
when we look at the budget for a film, we're
typically looking for box office to be two point five
(24:52):
times the budget for it to really be considered a success,
and then anything above that can lead to a runaway hit.
When we look at the top ten highest grossing horror
films from twenty twenty four in their budgets. What's interesting
is that we see things like the Substance. The production
(25:14):
budget on that was seventeen million dollars and a bit
more than that, the box office was over seventy seven million,
So just a tremendous success. And we see that again
and again. Alien Romulus also highly profitable, A quiet Place
Day One very profitable. So it's just the gift that
(25:34):
keeps on giving these two and the Substance.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Nobody on the planet, on the surface, even with Demimore,
nobody on the planet would have said, yep, that's going
to get five Oscar nominations. That also was really was
really telling. But great work is great work is rewarded. Actually,
I really want to close with a question that tacks
back to the way things work. I'm still I still
(25:59):
have a harder time wrapping my head around millions or
billions of minutes viewed versus old fashioned ratings and share
what do you think in terms of from your experience
as researchers, the focus on minutes versus ratings, which were
you know, translated by demographic and everything they were.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I think it was just what I grew up with.
But what is do you think is tracking the minutes viewed?
Is that a better measure? Is that a more accurate
yardstick or is it just a different form of you know,
it's just a different form of ratings.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I am very passionate about this, you know. So I
think minutes watched is a really it's a really inaccurate
way of measuring success because it rewards longer form content.
So comedies, which traditionally are shorter, are always at a
disadvantage in that world. If we're just talking about television
(26:57):
the real way, and this is the streamer are coalescing
around this as well. A more accurate measurement of success
is views, and that is simply taking the total minutes
watch and dividing that by the runtime. And that's something
that we actually provide through our SPM product, But our
(27:18):
rankings are still measured based off of minutes watch. So yeah,
I hear you.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Yeah, It's kind of like, you know, the news used
to be packaged in a very specific way, and you
only kind of saw the news that was presented to you,
and now it's like we see, you know, the ticker
tape of everything in real time. And I think that's
kind of what minutes is where you can see everyone
who's tuned in for one minute and you know, decided
(27:46):
to click on something else.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
What's the holy grail that you as researchers that you
can't get your hands on, but you'd love to In
terms of data, data about shows, data about viewing, viewership, engagement.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
It's first party data, it's party data. It's what we
all want.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Listen up, streamers, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Listen up. And you know I will say, you know,
there is a light at the end of.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
The tunnel because I'm not at liberty to kind of
talk about those companies, but we are in active talks
with certain streamers to actually share first party data. And
that is if you had asked me two years ago
when we were first building SBM, if this were a possibility,
I would have told you they're never going to share.
But I do believe that a day in the future
(28:31):
we will have first party data and that will change everything.
Will really have transparency there, and that'll be good.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
For the industry. And I would say, on top of that,
accurate demographic data based on kind of all devices, because
we don't really have a great line of sight on
who's watching everything and how they're watching it, and that's
the secret to getting the young.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
I would like to throw in there that I'm always
I've always enjoyed looking at regional data. You know, what
is the.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Southwest watching versus what is the Northwest? And that that
just seems to be more and more elusive, elusive, or
it just won't you know, they won't, they won't divulge it,
and that.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
It is now like Southeast Asia.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Right exactly, Let's narrow it down a little bit.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
But yeah, well, this has been a fun, fun conversation
with two people who know their stuff right and left
and upside down and backwards. Thank you so much. I
really appreciate it. I really appreciate all your work and
the you know, ability to bring some sense of what's
you know, what's actually going on out there. We don't
have to just take their word for it. Thank you
so much for legend.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Thank you, thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us
a review at Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. We love
to hear from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com
and sign up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter,
and don't forget to tune in next week for another
(29:58):
episode of Strictly Business.
Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with
industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My
guests are Mark Hobick and Carolyn Finger of Illuminate. Illuminate
is a data and insights company that focuses on audience
measurement for the entertainment industry. It's a corporate sibling of Variety,
(00:31):
under the umbrella of our parent company PMC. Of Late,
Illuminate has gone hard on the business of measuring streaming
TV viewership. That's a lot harder than it sounds. Illuminate
executives crunch numbers all day, every day, but they also
stop every so often to produce long term reports to
(00:53):
give real insights into what's going on and how things
are changing in this very dynamic marketplace. The twenty twenty
four year end Film and TV Report was issued late
last month. It's linked in the show notes to this
episode and the Variety dot com story for this episode,
and as advertised, it is packed with insights. Mark is
(01:16):
executive vice president and head of Film and TV for Illuminate.
Carolyn is Senior VP of Consumer Success and Products for Illuminate.
The three of us have known one another for a
long time through many different jobs. I think that comes
through in this conversation. There is a lot of laughs
and a lot of shorthand from people who know and
(01:38):
respect each other a great deal. That conversation is coming
right up after this break, and we're back with a
(02:00):
conversation about the year in streaming TV with Illuminates. Markobick
and Carolyn Finger. Thank you so much for joining me.
This is fun because I've known you both for so
long and I know you both to be absolute aces
at what you do, so, dear listeners, you could not
get a better overview of what the streaming landscape has
(02:25):
wrought in twenty twenty four than these two. So thank
you for coming all the way up from the seventh FLOORA.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Thank you for having us. Yes, that was a full
disclosure that had to happen at each.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Other, Yes, one hundred percent. No, I've learned a lot
from both of you over the years. I would like
to start just by throwing it out to both of you.
What you know. You crunch the numbers all day long.
I know hourly you're looking at data, and you're refining
and really getting great insights and great information as you
took that step back and looked at the kind of
(02:58):
the long the long term of the year, As you
took that step back and looked at the landscape of
twenty twenty four, what top line what stood out to
you as surprising? What didn't you know by doing this
report from your day to day, hour by hour efforts.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
For me, I think one of my kind of top
level takeaways is really when we look at the content output,
and we're looking at it on the TV side, streaming
and linear together, when we look at that, while we
saw a lessening of the decline year over year, we
(03:36):
still saw a seven percent drop and that really was
effect from the reverberations we're feeling from the strikes.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
And you're talking about total volume, total content.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Of series premiers. Yeah, thank you. And you know, in
twenty twenty three we saw a seventeen percent drop, So
a seven percent drop is an improvement in that we're
declining less quickly in terms of the number of series
premieers we're seeing, but very significant. One of the really
fascinating parts to the report is that while we see
a seven percent drop in the overall number of series released.
(04:09):
When we look at episode orders, the episode orders declined significantly,
so well we see this moderation of decline on the
series side. The episodes, we saw almost a twenty percent
drop year over year from prior year, and that trend
has continued now two years in a row. Was seventeen
(04:29):
percent in twenty twenty three and then almost twenty percent
in twenty twenty four. And that is the media companies
are really being more stingy with when they're doing series
or ordering series, just taking fewer episodes, and of course
that impacts our entire entertainment ecosystem for writers, producers, directors,
actors who really rely on those episodic orders.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I would say, yes, I agree, and also I guess
in the biggest picture to me, all of the sign
posts are looking towards kind of risk mitigation for the studios.
And what I mean by that is, you know, we
have these terrible strikes, so we have this huge reduction
in production, and.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
That was the reasons for the seventeen for a large
part of the reason for seventeen percent in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Is that accurate, Yes, But then the strikes are over,
you know, happiness reigns again in the land. But no,
not really because then we're having these, uh, you know,
this contraction on corporate level where there there's kind of
fear about I think number one, there's a fear around
(05:38):
TikTok and what are they you know, can they invest
in all these shows? Who's the audience for shows? So
it's all kind of spelled out. They're trying to find
different ways to produce fewer things, have more things that
are part of a franchise or existing on peace, safer things,
safer things, you know, the limited series which we can
(06:01):
talk about. You know, all of these things are kind
of spelling a net loss I think.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
In the entertainment ecosystem. Yeah, and I like your answer
kind of change mine, you know, but I think, you know,
risk mitigation, and through this study we really see what's
working and what's not working in terms of the risk
of mitigation strategies. But yeah, I agree with what you
said one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
We did see in the report that the volume of
limited series has has definitely come down because people are
I think, because people are focused on those renewable resources,
and also people are spending money on sports as opposed
to spending you know, ten million dollars an episode on
a six episode series like gee, who could have seen
that that wasn't exactly sustainable, But so it seems like
(06:48):
a good idea at the time, exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
But is there is there any discernible, any any quantification
of like fewer series overall and an emphasis on shows
that they hope to renew, you know, a limited series
is limited until until it works and then yeah, right,
But is there any quantifiable that that you know, focusing
on fewer shows has better results because you know, you
(07:13):
can market more heavily to one show really really promoted
to be you know, really promoted to an audience as
like this isn't just a one off, but you know
you're going to want to watch Noah Wiley or you
know other people in these settings.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
You know, I don't think we are evidence has seen that.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
The thing I would say is that we do know
that P and A really matters, you know, promotion advertising
when we look at film, and this is a theme
I think throughout content that we're seeing is that you know,
to what you're getting at that if we have fewer titles,
(07:53):
are we able to kind of promote those more and
really get through the clutter and audiences can find that
the recommendation just govery is a huge issue for the streamers,
it's a huge issue for everybody because we have so
many choices of content.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Because of the emphasis on completion rates in streaming. It's
it's just it's different. Things don't have the same kind
of breathing room that they once had with linear where
they were dropping one episode weak and you could kind
of see week to week. If you are in a
scenario where like Netflix, where everything is dropped all at once,
(08:26):
and maybe there is that initial m and a push,
but if it doesn't get that audience initially, then it's
much harder, I think, to get Yeah, so you know
it gives in, it takes.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
That's a that's an interesting question. So if not naming
names or anything, but a six episode limited series drops
and if people do you see that, like if people
don't go to it, you know fairly soon to episode
one or two, like they're never going to go check
out They're certainly never going to go check out the
rest of it. But like it is it a time
sensitive thing, is what I'm saying. Like once at premieres,
(09:02):
they if you don't go to it, it's really hard
to get people to it a month or two later.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
We see in streaming definitely the sampling and that those
first twelve weeks is really critical. And the other thing
that we know from the streamers and our discussions with
our partners is that that ninety percent completion rate is
very very important in order to get a second or
third season, order to get those multiple season orders. So
(09:28):
you know, we can see that in the data and
in the importance of it.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Yeah, and that's also important, you know, speaking of strikes,
you know, with the arrangements to get more residuals for streaming,
that time frame is kind of baked into that as
well as you know, the number of subscribers who are watching.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Does it follow? Do you think that as the streamer
is starting to realize that that, you know, maybe they're
not going to do a twenty two episode procedural, but
like Max with the Pit I believe is like fifteen
or sixteen episodes. Do you think that when we're talking
next year about about the twenty twenty five repart you
think episode council will start to inch up?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
I hope.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
So we did get I mean we you know, Channing.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Dungey actually made this announcement actually at Variety and in Tech.
I remember when she talked about the John Wells series
that they're bringing back, and they were very happy to
announce they were looking at twenty two to twenty three
episode orders. So I think there is that awareness of
this is an underserved type of content that we're just
not producing at the same volume that we are. So,
(10:34):
you know, our latest sort of feedback we've gotten from
the streamers when we've sat down with them has been
their focus is really looking at content with a global footprint,
not US centric content, and time will tell whether that
translates into more episodes or not. But I don't know
(10:57):
if they're seeing that quite yet at the streamers that
they need to be producing more episodes, because as the
data is showing us, they've in fact and cutting back
now for two consecutive years in terms of episode of orders.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
And then let's talk a little bit more about comedy,
because I did notice it very very noticeable in the report,
all those nice color codings, very noticeable that CBS is basically,
I mean CBS is basically the only the really only
big brand broadcast or streaming that has a real big
comedy business. Netflix of course has a lot of comedies,
but in terms of elementary yeah, oh for sure, it's.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Absolutely, oh absolutely, but I mean really, but just in
terms of in terms of volume, and you know, the
conventional wisdom for decades has been, you know, you can't
just have one comedy on an island. You've got to
have a you've got to have an environment. And CBS
still seems to be kind of the last that still
has that has that environment, although you know each network
(11:54):
does have a few, but CBS seems to be Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, I think comedy is really seen as very specific culturally,
and in a world where we're looking at global distribution
for so many of these titles, it's just a harder sell.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
And interesting like Netflix has had a it's been a
buzzy hit. I haven't actually looked at the numbers, but
buzzy hit with National Treasure Ted Danson A Man on
the Inside, and that's a remake of a I can't
it's a I believe from Eastern Europe there was a
form of French. I think you're a French series or
remake and I wonder if that you know that, especially
(12:28):
as you know kind of it his play in the
Awards game. I wonder if that could be a model,
you know, see if streamers will see, like maybe take
the elements, the bones of comedies that are working in
other places and try to adapt them for us and
vice versa. I mean, that's not a new phenomenon, but
I wonder if there will be you'll see more of that,
(12:49):
because my goodness, we do need laughs.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
What I think may have helped fill in the gap
with comedy is maybe unscripted, even though we've also seen
unscripted yeah, declients, but yeah, I think things like Love
Is Blind or The Real Housewives, you know, I think
people laugh at yeah, a lot of those things as well.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Sometimes you laugh with, but sometimes.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
You laugh at for sure.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
And unscripted, I think is a really interesting thing for
us to talk about because we've seen where this you know,
during the strikes, unscripted was one of those things that
was protected. Yeah, but when we look at the actual data,
we had declines in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty
four for unscripted year over year, we're looking at eight
percent drop and unscripted across broadcast, cable and streaming, And
(13:41):
I think what's going on there. My personal take is
that we have It's not that we've exhausted ideas, but
unscripted reality program in particular is so concept driven, and
you have got to have that innovation of concepts. And
if you look at the top show the unscripted shows,
you've got Love is Blind, Love Island, a lot of
(14:06):
shows around Connection is So Angry. Oh stopped me in
my tracks. If you wanted the talkings to you, I'm.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Sorry, don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
We'll be right back with more insights from luminates Markobick
and Carolyn Finger right after this break, and we're back
with the rest of our conversation about the year that
was in twenty twenty four with illuminates Markobick and Carolyn Finger.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
It's hard to understand why unscripted is declined, but one
of the things, you know, speaking what you're saying Mark
about it's so format driven, all of those kinds of
just little snippets of schadenfreude like you can get on
short form content. Oh true, you know. I think maybe
some specific influence have kind of filled in.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I think social media is part of that fix of
seeing real people misbehaving or what have you, and that
is something that you can get on TikTok and for
now and Instagram in various places.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Right, yeah, no, it's it's really interesting another you know,
in the continuing with the down trend here animation also,
I saw you know, big decline, and you would have
thought that that would have been.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
A little more strike resilient from that impact.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
But well, for the I think sag aren't the many
of those actors in stories, so I'm assuming that's why
they weren't able to do that. But also it does
seem as though from a production standpoint, there's so much
competition for access to animation studios and the production timeline
(15:55):
is so much longer that that could maybe have played
a role as well.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
And then say, time we have seen animated features, they've
had some real home runs. So maybe it's just kind
of a world. You know, we've all known that, you know,
Fox for whatever reason kind of has that magic magic
wand on the adult animation, and virtually everybody else that
has tried it, virtually everybody else has really has really struggled.
(16:19):
So it really does seem like it's a you know,
a feature, a feature animation for family audiences and and
you know, it just doesn't translate to two series anymore.
I wanted one thing that really also in the report
stands out. You do beautiful job of kind of laying
it out Star Wars fatigue people. I mean, it's very
(16:42):
it's very clear, and that's you know, that's got to
be a concern for Disney because that lucasfilm that has
been a real, real pillar of their strategy there. Now
as soon as we say that, they could have a
show that comes out, you know, comes out next month
and all of a sudden, we're not talking about it.
But both on the feature side, that's been very well
documented and on. But the viewership declining for season twos
(17:03):
and things is really significant.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I think the franchise fatigue is really interesting. That's one
of my favorite parts of the report as well. You know,
when we look at some of the biggest franchises in streaming,
franchises are incredibly important to the streamers in particular because
this issue of really having a universe that people can
access relatively quickly. But if we look at Lord of
(17:28):
the Rings, the Rings of Power season one, which was
released in twenty twenty two, the twenty twenty four second
season did not perform nearly as well. Similarly, for Marvel,
we know that Agatha all Along, which I personally really enjoyed,
and Echo performed under twenty twenty three releases, Low Key
(17:48):
Season two and Secret Invasion.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
And it really.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Speaks to the importance of franchise management for these media companies,
and if they are spread too thin, if they're doing
too many things that are not really focused on these franchises,
you can get to a place where you're just not
going to get the same result. And it's unfortunate something
(18:15):
like The Rings of Power again really enjoyed it. Fifty
eight million dollars per episode. They've spent almost a billion
dollars off the two seasons that have been released thus far.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Beautifully shot.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
I know you have some thoughts about.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
For me, it was you know, I'm a nerd. I
you know, I love my Hobbits. It just somehow it
was too densely plotted for me or something, which is
that's saying a lot after reading the two towels.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yes, one of the starkest pages in their report is
the share of original viewing chart. I mean, it makes
it Crystal Claire. Not that there was much doubt, but
you know, now we have the pie charts. If there's
a pipe chart, it's official. There's Netflix and there's everyone else.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
For original streaming content to share, Netflix to share is
sixty three point five percent. Literally the rest of the
competition combined doesn't even come out for originals for originals,
which you know, which is such a huge part of this,
such a huge part of the marketplace.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
I think Netflix defines an audience differently than all of
their competitors, except for maybe Prime, but you know, Prime
is there to feed the Amazon machine and does that
pretty effectively. You know, Netflix is looking I don't think
they're looking at like an audience. I think they're looking
(19:44):
at kind of the world, and so they don't feel
as though they have to have something that fits into
a particular brand. I mean that's just my you know,
kind of armchair thing. I feel like Apple TV they
have a more boutique kind of a pro coach to
TV and a more boutique audience. True, but bless them
for it, you know, I would say, like, for me,
(20:07):
the big surprise in some ways is Max. I don't
want to pick on anybody, but I'm you know, I
remember that a certain CEO was brought in from the
cable world, and there had been a lot of success
with a lot of unscripted franchises, and the brands have
been a bit diluted, and HBO has always been speaking
(20:30):
of boutiques. So there just isn't enough there to propel
its audience share. But I think to me, in some
ways they're the most vulnerable of all of these.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
My my takeaway is that when we look at the pie,
what's really interesting. I think Netflix and Prime sort of
we expect to see those in one and two, but
that we see from an original content perspective, Paramount Plus
is in third position, and Apple TV is in fourth position,
followed by Who and then Disney Plus. It's really interesting
(21:03):
because you think of Disney Plus and all of the
content there, but just from an original title perspective, they
just haven't released that many titles in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, and Prime is you know, Prime is second at
eight point five percent, Like I just that's sixty three
that's sixty three point five percent.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Is very overwhelming.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
It is interesting, and you know, following along that in
terms of other surprises, it was a surprise to me
and I watched this stuff and cover this stuff every day.
It was a surprise to.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Me that Fool Me Once was Netflix's top title based
on the Harlan Coben book. And I know he has
a massive and I believe, you know, maybe not worldwide,
but it has international fans, and I got to believe
that that fandom, yeah, helped helped drive and he's a
very well established author with a real a really specific
brand of storytelling. But you would not I would not
(21:58):
have cited that as the number one did that? But
I know that you've crunched the numbers on a week
you know, daily and weekly basis. But did that in
that year end sense? Did that really? Did that stand
out to you as kind of a surprise that that
would at year end that was the big show. Now,
as I understand, Squid Game may have knocked it off
its perch now that now that it's been out for.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Yeah, for tea English language also.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So yeah, we're only doing ro only measuring English language
in this particular study. So you know, Fool Me Once
they also had the benefit of premier in January first,
twenty twenty four, it had the whole year. And what's
interesting is when we look at that top ten list, yes,
seven of those titles are Netflix. But when we look
at the other three with them that top ten land
(22:49):
Man on Paramount Pair plus Taylor Sheridan, Yes, you love this.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
I can't believe it's out in the world.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
But yeah, but even among the Taylor Sheridan shows, it
wasn't among the most talked about, which is interesting because
the interest that that chart, there's a gap between like
the cool factor and buzz factor. And of course we
are in a bubble, we are in the creative community bus.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
But I didn't hear so many people talking about it,
but obviously America and Canada. Yeah, there's kind of.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Like the People's Choice Awards. You know, it doesn't line
up usually with the oscars, but it does tell you
about what the broader audience is responding to.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
And keep in mind that Landman didn't not all episodes
had been released by the time we got to the
end of the year, So we're doing that without all
episodes being available, which is a tremendous accomplishment.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Yeah, he is, Taylor sharedon got to give to him.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
He is tapping into some fortant. I mean, he just
I mean, you know, John Ham like has great cast
and has enough like there's a great balance of absurdity
and yet truth. Somehow that's what's.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Any Tulsa King is number five in the list.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
So with that's off, Yeah, let's close out our discussion
here with the subject of a topic that is kind
of appropriate to the world that we're living in right now.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Horror. Yes, but there's a lot of interesting data in
there about how it's a clear box office driver and
it is also, you know, very efficient box office because budgets,
you know, versus like a blockbuster movie or even a
big animated feature like they can you know, they can
really do horror on a beer budget and get champagne
box office.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Well, horror is one of those genres
that has a built in fan base that is very
committed to showing up and seeing those titles in theaters,
and they're also reliably profitable, and that's a heady combination. Now,
when we look at the budget for a film, we're
typically looking for box office to be two point five
(24:52):
times the budget for it to really be considered a success,
and then anything above that can lead to a runaway hit.
When we look at the top ten highest grossing horror
films from twenty twenty four in their budgets. What's interesting
is that we see things like the Substance. The production
(25:14):
budget on that was seventeen million dollars and a bit
more than that, the box office was over seventy seven million,
So just a tremendous success. And we see that again
and again. Alien Romulus also highly profitable, A quiet Place
Day One very profitable. So it's just the gift that
(25:34):
keeps on giving these two and the Substance.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Nobody on the planet, on the surface, even with Demimore,
nobody on the planet would have said, yep, that's going
to get five Oscar nominations. That also was really was
really telling. But great work is great work is rewarded. Actually,
I really want to close with a question that tacks
back to the way things work. I'm still I still
(25:59):
have a harder time wrapping my head around millions or
billions of minutes viewed versus old fashioned ratings and share
what do you think in terms of from your experience
as researchers, the focus on minutes versus ratings, which were
you know, translated by demographic and everything they were.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I think it was just what I grew up with.
But what is do you think is tracking the minutes viewed?
Is that a better measure? Is that a more accurate
yardstick or is it just a different form of you know,
it's just a different form of ratings.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I am very passionate about this, you know. So I
think minutes watched is a really it's a really inaccurate
way of measuring success because it rewards longer form content.
So comedies, which traditionally are shorter, are always at a
disadvantage in that world. If we're just talking about television
(26:57):
the real way, and this is the streamer are coalescing
around this as well. A more accurate measurement of success
is views, and that is simply taking the total minutes
watch and dividing that by the runtime. And that's something
that we actually provide through our SPM product, But our
(27:18):
rankings are still measured based off of minutes watch. So yeah,
I hear you.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Yeah, It's kind of like, you know, the news used
to be packaged in a very specific way, and you
only kind of saw the news that was presented to you,
and now it's like we see, you know, the ticker
tape of everything in real time. And I think that's
kind of what minutes is where you can see everyone
who's tuned in for one minute and you know, decided
(27:46):
to click on something else.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
What's the holy grail that you as researchers that you
can't get your hands on, but you'd love to In
terms of data, data about shows, data about viewing, viewership, engagement.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
It's first party data, it's party data. It's what we
all want.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Listen up, streamers, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Listen up. And you know I will say, you know,
there is a light at the end of.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
The tunnel because I'm not at liberty to kind of
talk about those companies, but we are in active talks
with certain streamers to actually share first party data. And
that is if you had asked me two years ago
when we were first building SBM, if this were a possibility,
I would have told you they're never going to share.
But I do believe that a day in the future
(28:31):
we will have first party data and that will change everything.
Will really have transparency there, and that'll be good.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
For the industry. And I would say, on top of that,
accurate demographic data based on kind of all devices, because
we don't really have a great line of sight on
who's watching everything and how they're watching it, and that's
the secret to getting the young.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
I would like to throw in there that I'm always
I've always enjoyed looking at regional data. You know, what
is the.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Southwest watching versus what is the Northwest? And that that
just seems to be more and more elusive, elusive, or
it just won't you know, they won't, they won't divulge it,
and that.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
It is now like Southeast Asia.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Right exactly, Let's narrow it down a little bit.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
But yeah, well, this has been a fun, fun conversation
with two people who know their stuff right and left
and upside down and backwards. Thank you so much. I
really appreciate it. I really appreciate all your work and
the you know, ability to bring some sense of what's
you know, what's actually going on out there. We don't
have to just take their word for it. Thank you
so much for legend.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Thank you, thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us
a review at Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. We love
to hear from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com
and sign up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter,
and don't forget to tune in next week for another
(29:58):
episode of Strictly Business.
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