State of Streaming Podcast

Covering the topics, trends, people, and acquisitions shaping Streaming TV.

State of Streaming Podcast is a news podcast hosted by State of Streaming, with 47 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

State of Streaming hosts State of Streaming Podcast, a news show with 47 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  Episode #7

  Why Platform-Reported Measurement Is Wrong and How to Solve It | Moe Chughtai, Global Vice President at MiQ

  Sep 29, 202623 minS5

  Have a question? Send us a text! Tim Rowe sits down with Moe Chughtai , Global Vice President at MiQ, to untangle the fragmented state of modern television and how advertisers can responsibly measure multi-channel media allocation. The episode dives into the evolution of "Total TV," bridging the gap between walled gardens and the open web, and why true measurement requires looking beyond platform-provided metrics. The definition of TV is now entirely generational. What constitutes "TV" completely changes depending on who holds the remote. For older generations, it remains the traditional cable box, but for Millennials, it is streaming-first, and for Gen Z, TV means YouTube and social video before anything else. Advertising must follow the consumer, meaning buyers have to operate across multiple ecosystems—often needing at least three different platforms to achieve true CTV scale. 01:27 – How MiQ’s AI tech enables traders to run 45 campaigns a month compared to the agency average of five 02:50 – Why getting CTV scale requires buying across at least three platforms, including walled gardens like Amazon and Google 07:21 – The "Total TV" framework and how younger demographics view short-form social video as primary entertainment Platform-graded measurement is creating massive blind spots. If an advertiser relies solely on a buying platform to measure its own success, the numbers will inevitably overstate performance and claim overlapping conversions. True measurement cannot be graded by the platform selling the media. Advertisers need to elevate their data strategy above individual platforms to identify overlap, measure cross-channel frequency, and spot wasted ad spend across both the open web and streaming investments. 10:30 – How overlaying location data with CTV and social investments helps national brands eliminate local media wastage 13:17 – Why relying on platform-reported performance leads to overcounted conversions and critical business blind spots 13:50 – The shift toward independent measurement partners and digital MMM solutions to track true cross-channel performance Walled gardens are finally lowering their defenses. After years of locking down data in response to privacy regulations and competitive fears, the major walled gardens are starting to open up. Platforms are realizing that to secure ad dollars, they must allow marketers to bring their own data in and take actionable signals out. With clean rooms and integrated measurement providers gaining traction, the binary battle between the open web and walled gardens is turning into a collaborative spectrum. 15:23 – How Google’s Ads Data Hub and Meta’s clean rooms are signaling a shift toward more open data sharing 16:06 – Why YouTube remains the dominant global video player, with 60% of MiQ's YouTube ads running on the big screen 18:23 – Moe's two-year prediction on walled gardens allowing more data in and out to satisfy marketer demand Connect with Moe Chughtai on LinkedIn · MiQ

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #6

  How to Solve the Live Sports FAST Monetization Problem | Keith Bedford, GM EMEA at Wurl

  Sep 24, 202628 minS5

  Have a question? Send us a text! Tim sits down with Keith Bedford , GM of EMEA at Wurl , to map the infrastructure gaps standing between live sports and FAST monetization — and what Wurl is building to close them. Recorded ahead of Sportel and Mipcom, with a Part Two already locked in. Live sports on FAST went from less than 3% of viewing to an entire content category in A year ago, live sports made up less than 3% of all FAST viewing compared to nearly 20% on traditional television. That gap is closing fast — Man City launched a channel going live on match days, UEFA landed on Tubi with highlights and women's Champions League content, the Bundesliga kept a Friday night game for Samsung TV Plus while selling Saturday rights to Sky. The rights model is diversifying. The platforms are filling up. The ad infrastructure hasn't caught up yet. 1:37 – Man City's live match day channel and why it's unprecedented in the UK market 2:10 – UEFA on Tubi: highlights, women's Champions League, and what rights they kept 4:48 – The Bundesliga case study: Saturday rights to Sky, Friday nights to Samsung TV Plus The programmatic problem? If nobody knows it's live, nobody bids like it's live. In a programmatic bid stream, a live Champions League match and a three-year-old highlights reel look identical without metadata. The CPM is the same. The opportunity isn't captured. Wurl has spent most of the year building a live event API that pre-sends event IDs, metadata, and timing into the bid stream — essentially a sports TV guide for media buyers and planners that tells the market what's live, when, and what content surrounds it. It's not live yet. But it's close. 7:57 – Why FAST ad monetization is still a mixture of pre-sold sponsorships and programmatic 9:30 – Why walled garden OEM data creates fragmentation for advertisers trying to reach across platforms 16:23 – Wurl's live event API: pre-sending event IDs and metadata so planners can actually plan against it Someone still has to press the ad button - what about AI? All this technology and AI, and the best way to insert an ad break into a live sports stream is still a human being pressing a button in real time. Wurl uses AI to model when game breaks should happen, but the final call is manual — because if it's live and the game overruns, an automated system gets it wrong. The investment they've made is in making that human intervention smarter, faster, and more frequent so more ad slots get filled at better rates. 12:50 – What Wurl does: playout, channel distribution, and AdPool across every major platform 14:22 – Why live ad insertion still requires a human in the loop 15:10 – How Wurl's ad break model creates more inventory and better metadata in the same workflow The three reasons FAST live sports channels fail: the TV, the home screen, and the cross-marketing. Keith's honest diagnosis of why good content still doesn't find its audience. First: consumers don't know the free channels exist when they buy the TV. Second: if the content isn't on the home screen, it might as well not exist — and getting home screen placement requires an active marketing strategy with the platform. Third: almost nobody is cross-marketing their FAST channel across social, YouTube, and Instagram, which is the only place to find the audiences who aren't already looking. Two tiers exist: brands that understand marketing, and brands that ignore it entirely. There's no middle. 19:39 – Why consumers don't know they have 300 free channels when they buy a new TV 20:30 – Why home screen placement requires an active strategy, not just distribution 22:01 – Why cross-platform marketing is the missing piece for almost every FAST sports channel Connect with Keith Bedford on LinkedIn · Wurl Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today!

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #5

  How Direct CTV Buys Become Programmatic Winners | David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising

  Sep 22, 202621 minS5

  Have a question? Send us a text! Tim Rowe sits down with David Nyurenberg , SVP of Digital at InterMedia Advertising, days before the Ad Exchanger Awards Gala at Programmatic I/O — where three of InterMedia's projects landed five finalist nominations. The episode unpacks all three: closing the conversion loop on direct publisher buys, privacy-safe show-level targeting at scale, and what happens to performance when you separate good news from bad news using AI. Direct publisher buys in CTV have been dumb buys. That just changed. More advertisers buy direct-to-publisher in CTV than the industry realizes — better rates, no middleman fees, upfront commitments, JBP spend requirements. But the tradeoff has always been measurement. Publishers had no visibility into which slices of their inventory were driving conversions, which meant they couldn't optimize. The buy either worked or it didn't — a roll of the dice on CPMs that aren't cheap. InterMedia closed that loop with Tubi, NBCU, and Paramount by placing publisher pixels and feeding conversion data back in real time. All three publisher tactics became the top-performing placements across an entire major buy. 3:09 – Why direct CTV buys have historically been "dumb buys" — and why that matters at scale 6:53 – Why DTC and mid-market brands are existential for legacy CTV publishers competing with Meta and Google 9:04 – The result: Tubi, NBCU, and Paramount tactics outperformed every other tactic across the entire buy Show-level targeting without knowing the show name. Privacy-safe and scalable. David has been banging the drum on show-level transparency for years — because you can't optimize toward content that drives performance if you can't identify the content. The first solution used metadata matching: zip code, time of day, channel, and network cross-referenced against an airings table to deduce what show was on and bid accordingly. It worked. It didn't scale. Pier 39's content ID solution hit scale — assigning a unique ID to every show without revealing the title, then tying that ID to conversion data so the algorithm knows what to buy more of. You give up the show name. You get the performance signal. 12:20 – Why show-level transparency is the gap holding CTV back as a true performance channel 13:14 – The first approach: metadata matching via zip code, time, channel, and Grayston airings tables 15:07 – The Pier 39 solution: random content IDs tied to conversions, scaled through Pontiac Intelligence Good news outperforms bad news. The data is now in. News is efficient and it converts — older audiences, disposable income, high engagement. But many advertisers still won't buy news on CTV because brand safety enforcement is harder than in display: no keywords, just moving sound and image. Anokey AI's contextual technology solved it by segmenting news into positive and negative sentiment in real time. InterMedia ran a scientific split — positive news versus negative news versus all news bundled together, with deduplicated audiences and a control line. Positive news outperformed both the negative-only line and the everything line on a cost-per-lead basis. Good news is good for your bottom line. 16:52 – Why news performs in CTV — and why most advertisers still won't buy it 17:21 – How Anokey AI segments local news by sentiment in real time on CTV 19:00 – The result: positive news sentiment outperformed negative news and the control line Connect with David Nyurenberg on LinkedIn · InterMedia Advertising Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today!

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #4

  How Video Podcasts Became Streaming TV | Emily Williams, Consumer Expert at MRI-Simmons

  Sep 17, 202625 minS5

  Have a question? Send us a text! Read the MRI-Simmons Video Podcast Report: mrisimmons.com Tim sits down with Emily Williams , Consumer Expert at MRI-Simmons, for a return visit built around fresh data from their annual podcast study — 10,000 US podcast consumers surveyed, weighted and projected to the total US audience. The topic: why the definition of a podcast is breaking down, why that's actually good news, and what the numbers say about where streaming, podcasting, and creator content are all converging. Only 36% of podcast consumers still define a podcast as audio-only. In 2021, that number was over 60%. The format-first definition of podcasting is collapsing — and Emily's data shows it happening faster than anyone expected. Today 13% of podcast consumers define a podcast as a video program on an app. Another 8% — roughly 7 million active podcast consumers — say they're not even sure how to define a podcast anymore. Emily's read: podcasting isn't losing its identity. It's becoming bigger than the format that originally created it. 1:26 – How MRI-Simmons surveys 10,000 US podcast consumers annually and what the study measures 3:00 – How the definition of a podcast has shifted: from audio-first to format-agnostic 4:47 – The 8% who actively consume podcasts but can't define what they're consuming 96% of podcast consumers still listen to audio. 89% watch video. Video isn't replacing audio — it's adding to it. The winner-versus-loser framing the industry keeps reaching for doesn't match the data. Nearly three-quarters of podcast consumers — 74% — say video is an enhancement to audio, not a replacement. Two-thirds say they prefer to watch video when it's offered. And 53% say that when they're watching a video podcast, they ignore the video and just listen anyway. The availability of video matters more to consumers than the constant visual attention. They want the option. They don't always use it. 9:00 – Why video and audio are complementary formats, not competing ones 10:20 – Why 53% of video podcast viewers ignore the video while listening 11:30 – The multi-platform consumer: TV at home, audio in the car, clip on Instagram at night Social media clips have officially replaced word of mouth as the #1 way people discover podcasts. Up until 2024, the number one podcast discovery mechanism was a friend or colleague recommending a show. Starting in 2024, social media surpassed verbal recommendations. Today 44% of podcast consumers discover shows through social media — ahead of recommendations, app directories, online searches, and advertising. A two-hour episode generates dozens of short clips. Those clips circulate on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. The show finds the consumer before the consumer finds the show. 18:07 – How social media surpassed word of mouth as the #1 podcast discovery channel in 2024 18:30 – Why video creates the short-clip discovery engine that audio alone never could 19:45 – Why consumers discover the clip before they discover the podcast — and why that's lower friction 23 million consumers say podcast time is replacing streaming time. Netflix is paying attention. Podcasts are not just another content category for streaming platforms — they are increasingly a competitor for the same hours. 23 million consumers say their podcast time is replacing video streaming. Another 32 million say it's replacing traditional live TV. Nearly 60% of podcast consumers say they find podcasts more engaging than TV. And 70% say they actively seek out other content from publishers once they find a program they like — TV shows, movies, live events, merchandise. That's not passive media consumption. That's fandom. That's why Netflix and YouTube are in a bidding war for creator franchises. 12:54 – Why streaming platforms see podcasts as a competitor for attention, not just a content category 13:30 – Why 55% of podcast consumers — about 50 million people — go to YouTube for podcasts 16:21 – Why streaming services acquiring podcasts are buying loyal audiences, trusted creators, and communities By 2031, we'll stop asking whether something is a podcast or a TV show. We'll just ask whether it has an audience. Emily's five-year prediction: the podcast-versus-TV distinction disappears. The relevant distinction becomes scripted versus unscripted. The future media landscape will be organized around creators, communities, and interests — not formats. Brands that create belonging and give audiences reasons to return will win. The format will be irrelevant. 21:19 – Emily's 2031 prediction: the end of the podcast-versus-TV conversation 21:45 – Why scripted vs. unscripted is the distinction that actually matters to consumers 22:10 – Why the future asks "does it have an audience?" not "is it a podcast or a TV show?" Read the MRI-Simmons Podcast Study highlights deck — free: mrisimmons.com Connect with Emily Williams on LinkedIn · MRI-Simmons Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today!

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #3

  How 'No One Died: The Wing Bowl Story' Was Made for Streaming | Pat Taggart, Director

  Sep 15, 202624 minS5

  Have a question? Send us a text! Tim sits down with Pat Taggart , filmmaker and founder of Sky Blue Creative, to discuss his new documentary No One Died: The Wing Bowl Story — the 26-year history of Philadelphia's most chaotic winter tradition, and what self-distributing an independent film in today's streaming market actually looks like when the major players come calling with contracts designed to take everything. A radio joke in 1993. 30,000 people in an arena by the end. Al Morganti threw out a throwaway comment on the air — the Eagles are never going to the Super Bowl, let's have a chicken wing-eating contest instead. Two guys at a folding table in the lobby of a Ritz-Carlton-caliber hotel. Two hundred drunk Philadelphians showed up. The hotel told them never to come back. The next year, 700 people showed up in an ice storm to watch year two at Mike Schmidt's bar on Market Street. It grew from there. 3:01 – How a passing comment on Philadelphia sports talk radio became a 26-year tradition 4:15 – Year one: a folding table at a hotel, 200 hooligans, and a horrified management team 5:39 – What the Florida Film Festival reviewer called "strangely heartfelt" — and why they were right For 364 days a year, the participants were anonymous. For one day, 30,000 people knew their name. Landscapers, security guards, plumbers, mailmen. Wing Bowl gave regular people a moment that almost nobody gets — walking into a packed arena with 30,000 people on their feet screaming for them. The community that formed around it was a brotherhood and sisterhood that reunited every year. The chaos on the surface was real. So was everything underneath it. 5:54 – Why Wing Bowl was as much about community as it was about spectacle 6:46 – How Pat approached the tonal shift from harmless joke to massive cultural event 17:41 – The universal story: the little guy getting their shine, freedom of expression, a runaway train A truck exploded in the parking lot. A man was attacked by dogs carrying grilled cheese. Someone ate three candles. The behind-the-scenes stories that didn't make the final cut are as good as the ones that did. Mitch Williams — the relief pitcher famous for giving up the World Series-winning home run to Joe Carter — parked his truck over smoldering tailgate embers and it blew up. A Wing Bowl qualifier was attacked by stray dogs on his walk to the studio because they smelled the grilled cheese in his backpack. One contestant's qualifying stunt was eating actual wax candles. Pat had 40 characters in the film and says he could have made another film with 100 more. 14:59 – The Mitch Williams truck explosion story that didn't make the cut 15:30 – The grilled cheese dog attack that almost got a guy disqualified 16:10 – The candle eater and the philosophy of finding the best collection of characters possible Two of the largest production companies on the planet made offers. Pat walked away from both. During COVID, major streamers were buying documentaries at massive multiples — seven figures for content that wasn't even exceptional, just available. The pendulum has swung hard in the other direction: $300,000 documentaries now selling for $30,000 because filmmakers have no leverage. Two major production companies approached Pat about Wing Bowl. Their contracts would have removed Pat as director, removed the producer, severed all financial and name attachment, and given them full narrative control. Pat said take it out of the contract. They said that's not our intention. He walked. 19:23 – Why the major streamers are now buying $300K documentaries for $30K 19:48 – What the production company contracts actually said — and why Pat walked 20:30 – The self-distribution decision: aggregator over distributor, creative control over upfront money Self-distribution is more expensive upfront. It's also the only way to keep the film you made. Pat went through an aggregator instead of a traditional distributor to get the film on Prime Video, Apple TV, and YouTube. It cost more out of pocket. But the film that's on those platforms is the film he intended to make, and he's still attached to it by name and financially. His wife's cousin asked if it was on Fandango. It isn't. Discoverability in a world of infinite shelves is the next problem — and it's the same problem every content creator faces. 18:53 – Why Pat passed on Fandango and chose to stay on three major platforms 19:11 – The discoverability problem: you have to be in all the stores, on all the shelves 20:30 – What self-distribution via aggregator actually costs and what it protects Connect with Pat Taggart on LinkedIn · pat@skybluecreative.com · wingbowlmovie.com Thanks to Looper Insights for sponsoring today’s show! Ready to unlock your streaming strategy edge? Head over to mystreamingvalue.com to compare CTV home screens and find out which spaces are worth the most. You’ll even learn exactly why Fox was willing to pay $22 billion for Roku. Stop guessing and start scaling—visit mystreamingvalue.com to get your free insights today!

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on State of Streaming Podcast. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.