‘Strictly Business’ Live on Streaming’s Changing Economics, the Future of Moviegoing, M&A on Ice and More

The emergence of streaming’s new Big Four. A look at the future of moviegoing and the near-term future of AMC Theatres. A blunt discussion about how the ultra-progressive regulatory regime in Washington, D.C. is choking Hollywood by putting the chill on M&A activity.

Those are among the hot topics discussed in a special bonus episode of “Strictly Business,” Variety‘s weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. This installment features highlights from Variety‘s annual Entertainment and Technology Summit, a daylong event held Sept. 26 at the London Hotel in West Hollywood.

Laura Martin, senior entertainment and internet analyst for Needham and Company, and Hernan Lopez, founder of Owl & Co. consulting firm, joined “Strictly Business” hosts Cynthia Littleton and Andrew Wallenstein for the final session — a lively discussion about the major themes that arose during the day.

Martin was quick to point to the stasis in Washington, D.C. for mega media deals — or big M&A of any size — among regulators at the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department. If Vice President Kamala Harris wins in November, Martin warned that Hollywood should expect more of the same.

“So we’ll just have status quo. No mergers. Big is bad. It takes Amazon 14 months to buy MGM, which is a $10 billion acquisition for a $3 trillion company in an asset they had nothing in before. So it just makes it hard with a lot of uncertainty to try to do mergers, and unfortunately, that’s just going to put more companies in the traditional Hollywood space out of business,” Martin said. “Because Paramount shouldn’t be independent. Fox is too small to be independent. A lot of these are just too small now, given that their competitors are YouTube and Amazon Prime.”

Lopez, a longtime Fox executive who went on to found the Wondery podcast network, brought out his own analysis to make his case for the emergence of a new Big Four platforms in global streaming: Netflix, YouTube, Disney and Amazon. He argued that the 21st century media business will increasingly revolve around those companies that capture proprietary first-party data about consumer behavior. That’s the pot of gold for businesses that need to serve up content on a global scale and deliver targeted audiences to advertisers.

“It is really about how to make the most out of each customer that you have and each hour of engagement that you have, and how to get that extra hour of engagement for less,” Lopez explained.

Among the Big Four, Amazon has a particular advantage thanks to its heft in e-commerce. The mothership Amazon platform is as good an engine for finding movies and TV shows — with notable exceptions, of course — as it is for finding a new sweater or a bulk deal on kitchen garbage bags.

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“Essentially, when you search any one title, you’re more likely to find it on Amazon than anywhere else, and because of their economic model, every time a customer engages with Prime Video, they’re more likely to spend on on Amazon,” Lopez said. “That’s a half a trillion consumer business. So you can almost think of it as a marketing engine for Amazon and one that is going to become profitable on its own very soon.”

RELATED CONTENT: Biggest Takeaways From Variety’s Entertainment and Technology Summit

The episode includes highlights from the summit’s one-on-one conversations with AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron, Warner Bros. TV Group chairman Channing Dungey, D.C. Studios co-chairman and co-CEO Peter Safran and Tim O’Brien, chief revenue officer for mobile gaming firm Scopely. Multihyphenate podcast hosts Whitney Cummings, Lamorne Morris and Iliza Schlesinger close it out by discussing the harsh financial realities of being a touring comedian these days and the importance of maintaining authenticity behind the mic.

“Strictly Business” is Variety’s weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. (Please click here to subscribe to our free newsletter.) New episodes debut every Wednesday and can be downloaded at Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Google Play, SoundCloud and more.

(Pictured: Variety VIP’s Andrew Wallenstein, Needham and Company’s Laura Martin, Owl & Co.’s Hernan Lopez and Variety‘s Cynthia Littleton)