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š„ Ronaldo scores YouTube records
Plus: Will.I.Am launches AI Radio, and Nike + Disney partner up
Oli Thomas
August 28, 2024
ā Best of the Rest
Welcome to another whistle stop tour across the media verseā¦
The big news story was Ronaldo lighting up YouTube. The fastest channel to hit 1M subscribers (in less than 1 hour), and on track to break further records given the channel is already at just under 50M subs in 6 days.
This highlights the relevance of YouTube as a viable path for athletes when their playing career is over. Historically there have been 3 options available:
Coaching
Broadcaster / Pundit
Business investments
Arguably the 3rd one is a no brainer when you're sitting on a pile of cash and time on your hands. But it doesn't sustain the fame to which theyāre accustomed. Hence the Coaching and the Media jobs become attractive. But these are all limited by geography (you can only manage one club or broadcast in one territory at a time).
YouTube is global TV; not limited by territories and timezones. And the earnings (and fame) potential is therefore at a multiple. Mr Beast makes around $5 Million per month from an average of 400M views to his channel. Ronaldo will be hitting these sorts of numbers pretty soon.
He's currently earning $200M+ a year. Less than half of this is for playing football. But when he stops playing, his commercial value will fall unless he can retain public interest and appeal.
The YouTube channel is the perfect vehicle to sustain the fame and sponsorship value whilst bringing in a new revenue stream.
Vamos š
Will.I.Am launches AI-powered radio
It was National Radio Day in the US last week (who knew?) and Will.I.Am took the opportunity to present his new interactive, AI-powered radio platform.
Claiming to āreimagine Radio the way the iPhone did for the Telephoneā (ah, the classic āweāre the iPhone ofā¦.ā analogy), each station has an AI host that āwelcomesā you, and then combines a feed of (AI-powered) chat and music. One of the differences versus similar AI-radio tools is that the user can interact with the host.
Not sure Spotify, iHeart or Global will be ripping up their strategic plans just yet, but an interesting one to watch.
Source: FYI.me
Read more here
Is TV out of touch?
Carol Vorderman isnāt my usual go-to when it comes to keeping a finger on the cultural pulse.
But she had a point this week in her lecture at the Edinburgh Festival when she talked about TV no longer being ārepresentativeā of large tranches of society. Describing it as a āmessā is a bit extreme. But her point about a lack of representation, echoed in the MacTaggart Lecture at the Festival, is fair.
UK PSBs continue to put out world-leading content but, in chasing IP that will resonate with global audiences, its all become a bit āsameyā and less representative of UK life. Think more spy dramas, true crime and sports documentaries, and less Only Fools & Horses, Airport, and The Inbetweeners.
Read more here
Best of the Rest
CONTENT:Nike and Disney announced a multi-year partnership to launch a number of co-branded products, content and experiences, all promoting sports and creative play for kids.
TECH:Meta & Spotify criticised EU privacy regulations around AI, claiming its holding back innovation (eg. they canāt train AI models on public data in the EU yet).
CREATORS:More creators are signing up Product deals, this week it was Blippi (one of the biggest YouTubers in the Kids space) announcing a tie-up with Reebok.
STREAMING: Its looking like the Paramount x SkyDance deal is on, expected to close in early 2025.
YouTube now accounts for 10% of TV in the US
Nielsenās latest viewing report showed that YouTube was the first streaming service to account for 10%+ of TV viewing in the US.
There is a growing gulf between Netflix and YouTube, who together account for nearly 20% of all TV viewing and half of total Streaming, and the other SVOD and AVOD platforms.
Its a similar picture in the UK, where Netflix accounts for 8.6%, Amazon 3.0% and YouTube - although not split out - will account for a big chunk of the c.21% to other āVideo Sharingā platforms.
Source: Nielsen
Read more here
Spotify amps up video advertising
Spotify is a dark horse in the race for video ad dollars.
Think about it - some of the most watched content on YouTube is music videos. Some of the fastest growing content on YouTube are Podcasts. So as Spotify enables more of its content to include video - now with 250k+ shows with video - it feels pretty well placed to suck up eyeballs.
However, advertising still only accounts for 12% of total revenue, so its now pitching hard for monetisation.
Its got a long way to make a dent on YouTube though: Spotify made $2Bn in ad revenue in 2023, YouTube made $8.7Bn in the last quarter aloneā¦
Read more here
Pick of the posts
It was a close one between this and Oasis announcing their reunion tourā¦