Happy Hump Day War & Peaceniks!
Spring has sprung, the Ides have passed, and our Brackets are being decimated. Which means that the 1Q of 2022 is very nearly here, and it’s time for our 1Q Media War Grades. Here is my ongoing scorecard for the major media players.
Here are my 1Q Grades for the Media Warriors:
APPLE: Another record-breaking earnings in 2021. Landed MLB. In the hunt for NFL Sunday Ticket. AppleOne Bundle still needs work. Apple Music surpassed by Amazon Music. We expected more. Grade: B-
AMAZON: Closed MGM deal. Fastest growing Ad Biz in the Ad Biz. AWS on fire. Fire TV pivot from dongles to TVs. Amazon Music surpasses Apple Music to become #2 after Spotify. The Post-Bezos era is off to a bang. GRADE: A+
Disney: 130 million streaming subs, beating estimates. The Disney Bundle is killing it. Everyone is talking about Bruno. Aikman to MNF. Ads added to Disney+. Huge embarrassing fumble on Don’t Say Gay. Indian Premier League at risk for Hotstar. Dirty laundry aired daily. GRADE: B+
NETFLIX: Beat profit projections for 2021. 222 million subs. Sub growth slowing. Model inflexibility hurting international growth. Games and podcasts aren’t addressing underlying issues. GRADE: C+
DISCO-BROS: Merger approved. GRADE: PENDING
COMCAST: Beat 2021 profit expectations. Killer Super Bowl. Reclaiming their content from Hulu. Olympics did not medal. Broadband sub growth slowing. Peacock remains a mystery. GRADE: C+
META: Profits down. User growth slowed. Brand in a spiral. Market cap down by 40% YoY. Zuck has no oversight. GRADE: D+
ALPHABET: Beat 2021 profit and revenue projections. Cloud business up 45%. Android TV OS has new deals with TCL and Sony. CTV Ads up 50% YoY. GRADE: A
MICROSOFT: Activision acquisition. Cloud business is booming. PC software biz slowed. Playstation is walloping XBox. GRADE: B+
Paramount: 54 million total streaming subs. Pluto revenues up 45%. Yellowstone rides high. Ad biz flattened. Still no streaming bundle. GRADE: B-
SPOTIFY: 180 million paying subs. Ad revenues up 40%. Paid sub growth slowing. Bungled Rogan reaction. Pathway to profitability mostly cloudy. GRADE: C+
SONY: Spiderman home run. Venom kills. Playstation humming. Big Bungie jump. Music sales are meh. GRADE: A-
SAMSUNG: Record year in TV and phone sales. 100% growth in CTV ads. CTV ad share still has SO Much room to grow. GRADE: A-
ROKU: 45% CTV ad market share - more than all other competitors combined. Revenues slowed and missed expectations. No apparent international strategy. TCL stepping out with Android. Market cap down 73% since July. GRADE: C-
NVIDIA: ARM deal fails. Record revenues in gaming and data. Overall revenues up 53%. Market cap up 100% YoY. Now bigger than Meta. GRADE: A+
Want to dispute a grade? Comment below!
At 4p EST/1p PST today, I’ll be going into detail about all these grades, and making predictions for the last 3Qs of 2022, in our monthly WebinWar and Peace! The meet-up is for Premium Peaceniks ONLY. The link and password are below the paywall.
Hope to see you there!
Enjoy Today.
ESHAP
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Media War & Peace to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.