“We solve the challenge once and then make it available to everybody. It’s not really rocket science. It’s just a way to get scale and to be able to offer all of this at a fairly reasonable cost versus developing it over and over again.”
Jonas Engwall, CEO, Bedrock Streaming
Bedrock Streaming runs one platform under M6+, RTL+ and Videoland. That’s 10 million subscribers, 45 million users across 6 countries. Each service pulls the roadmap somewhere and the others switch it on when they see fit. M6+ pushes hardest on advertising and came off 54 World Cup matches this summer. RTL+ migrated in April. Music and audiobooks sitting alongside video, which the others don't carry. Videoland's acquisition of Viaplay's Dutch business tilts it towards sport now.
Sky and WOW are next in line. Since the deal closed on 1 June, the group announced that RTL+, Sky and WOW would fold into “an integrated video infrastructure”. We know now who’s gonna be that integrated infrastructure…
Competing with global scale out of a single market is, in Jonas Engwall’s words, “mathematically very, very challenging”. If so, why haven’t we built a pan-European technology stack then? I put it to him that the reason Europe still won’t share a stack is ego and control. Local broadcasters spent five years and a lot of money building their own hubs. Nobody wants to be the one who scraps it. I’m convinced they will have to down the line.
Netflix spent $3.4 billion on technology and development last year and that's before the CDN. DPP has built a benchmark, with Bedrock Streaming's support, for what that spend should look like against revenue. DPP reckons Netflix comes in around $1 in every $10 it takes, based on the 2024 accounts. On 2024 revenue, that's about $3.9 billion of plumbing.
After years of growth at all costs, it’s time to take a look at streaming’s profitability and that’s exactly what we’ll be taking apart on stage during Streaming Made Easy Live with Jonas Engwall (Bedrock), Rowan de Pomerai (DPP) and Bjarne Myklebust (NRK).
We also get into the prediction he got badly wrong five years ago. And what happens to YouTube and Amazon, whose whole job is helping you find something to watch, once an agent does your looking for you.
Watch our full conversation 👇🏻
That’s it for today but before you go:
🗞️ The full program is now live!
Here’s what we’ve been cooking for you guys throughout the summer:
→ Inside the Netflix and TF1 partnership, with Emma Lloyd (Netflix) and Laurence PERA (TF1).
→ The Format Playbook: how The Traitors turns risk into a sure bet, with Taco Rijssemus (3rivers).
→ Six years of FAST, from the two people who built it, with Sidharth Jayant (Rakuten TV) and Chris Gregory (Samsung TV+).
→ The Media Odyssey Podcast recorded live: streaming's path to profitability, with Jonas Engwall (Bedrock Streaming), Bjarne Andre Myklebust (NRK), Rowan de Pomerai (DPP), Evan Shapīro and myself.
→ Capped, frozen and still expected to deliver: the state of European public service media, with Lieven Vermaele (VRT), Serge Schick (France Médias Monde) and Christophe Chantraine (RTBF).
→ AI in Action: three live demos back to back, with Jon Block (Syllepsis), Gilles Domartini and Kübra Güven (Cleeng), Paul McCormick (EPAM).
→ The future of the living room, and whether you're ready to shape it, with new research from Tom Smith (FX Digital).
→ The Subscription Economy, with Giles Tongue (Bango).
Full running order in the image below. Spots are filling up fast, so register now. Readers of SME get 15% off on all passes here. Hope to see you on the 10th!
