MoffettNathanson predicts 2024 will be the year linear TV advertising model fails. “We had initial concerns about the early promises of a second-half 2023 recovery […] In all honesty, despite these concerns throughout the years, linear TV has ended up even worse than we expected,” writes Michael Nathanson. Nathanson has lowered his forecasts and he […]

Charlie Ergen has been busy mapping out his chess-type strategy for his combined Dish Network and EchoStar businesses. Now trading under the ‘Dish’ banner, Ergen has spun off a batch of his terrestrial spectrum licences into a new subsidiary and this move helped rocket Dish’s share price by an impressive 41 per cent on January […]

Charlie Ergen is in the process of – in effect – merging Dish Network with sister business EchoStar in a strategy to tap into EchoStar’s cash war chest and in order to further build out Dish’s near-national 5G cellular spectrum in the US. The problem, according to analysts at MoffettNathanson, is that the moves might […]

Denver-based DISH Network, reeling from a shrinking subscriber base and a collapsing share price, has announced that more than 500 staff are being laid off. “Like most businesses, we continually evaluate and make adjustments to ensure we’re set up for long-term success,” DISH said in a statement. “We made the difficult decision to part ways […]

Analysts at MoffettNathanson Research (MN), in a deep dive into prospects for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband mega-constellation, are asking some tough questions. They point out that as well as being head-to-head with Elon Musk’s Starlink, along with other would-be players in the orbital broadband space, Amazon is also facing considerable criticism from its own shareholders […]

Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson (MN) says that while it should be obvious by Disney’ stock price, weak subscriber data, and what he says are the recent inconsistent management comments about Disney’s streaming strategy, that the market has largely written off any optimism about where Disney’s DTC operations can go. Nathanson says he understands the market’s […]

Analysts at SVB MoffettNathanson (MN) recently held their first Media & Internet TMT Conference with a heavyweight portfolio of expert speakers. The consensus was that the broadcasting industry were “relatively optimistic” for advertising demand in the CTV, AVoD and sports-led linear segments. However, speakers were asked about the impact from some network programmers who ‘cheat’ […]

The chair of AMC Networks, James Dolan, helped by a couple of family generations involved in the pay-TV business, has bluntly said that the streaming business model is broken. He added that while some M&A could help, such deals are not the answer. Analysts at MoffettNathanson (MN) agree with Dolan and say that change in […]

A post-results report from analysts at MoffettNathanson (MN) admitted that 2022 was a “challenging year” for Paramount. MN praised SVoD service Paramount+ and its 56 million subscribers (up 9.9 million), but suggested that investors should be focused on free cash flow (FCF) as the true measure of a business. The problem is that last year’s […]

Michael Nathanson, senior analyst at MoffettNathanson (MN), is on record as welcoming the return to Disney of Bob Iger. MN promptly upgraded its advice to clients on Disney last November (to ‘Outperform’) following Iger’s re-appointment. But MN’s latest study lists in some detail the tasks ahead for Iger. “Iger’s return will force Disney to have […]