Roku's streaming TV ambitions "We're the gateway to TV, not the streaming wars."

Roku, the world's No. 1 TV OS company and streaming platform, has announced its Global TV Gateway. It wants to be the first gateway to streaming and content.  Being the gateway to the audience is crucial, as the content that follows popular content like the NFL is also rewarded. It's a strategy as valid today as it was in the 1960s.

Roku is a streaming platform that lets you binge watch streaming service in one place. Recently, it has been strengthening its content business by running Roku channels. They are also creating original programs.

In the Headliner Conversation with Charlie Collier, President of Entertainment, Roku at the Variety Technology Summit at CES2024, Roku's Chief Content Officer explained that as the entire TV market moves to streaming, Roku will lead the way.

글로벌 1위 TV OS회사이자 스트리밍 플랫폼을 운영하고 있는 로쿠(Roku)가 글로벌 TV게이트웨이를 선언했다. 스트리밍과 콘텐츠를 보는 최초 관문 역할을 하겠다는 것이다. NFL 등 인기 콘텐츠 뒤에 편성되는 콘텐츠 역시 반사이익을 얻는 만큼, ‘시청자를 끌어들이는 게이트웨이는 매우 중요하다. 이는 1960년대는 물론이고 지금도 유효한 전략이다.

미국 1위 TV OS플랫폼은 로쿠

찰리 콜리어 로쿠 콘텐츠 최고 책임자는 CES2024에서 열린 버라이어티 테크놀로지 서밋(Headliner Conversation with Charlie Collier, President of Entertainment, Roku)에서 전체 TV시장이 스트리밍으로 옮겨가는 상황에서 로쿠가 TV시장의 변화를 주도할 것이라고 설명했다.

콜리어는 서밋 진행자 공동편집장 신시아 리튼(Cynthia Littleton)과 가진 인터뷰에서  로쿠 플랫폼을 ‘미국 1위 TV운영 플랫폼(he number one TV operating system in America)’으로 자칭했다. 그는 “TV보다 더 앞서 프라임 타임 시리즈가 방송되는 스트리밍이 로쿠”라고 설명했다.

2022년 스트리밍 플랫폼 로쿠(Roku)는 전 폭스 엔터테인먼트(Fox Entertainment)와 AMC엔터테인먼트에서 근무했던 찰리 콜리어(Charlie Collier)를 영입했다. 오랜 기간 제작 전문성이 있는 그를 영입해 스트리밍 오리지널 콘텐츠 제작을 강화하기 위해서다 콜리어는 이전 AMC네트웍스에서도 이사로 근무한 바 있다.

TV의 첫 경험을 제공하는 로쿠

콜리어는 “우리는 TV의 경험(experience of television)을 제공한다”며 “크리에이터이자 프로그래머로서, 프로그램은 우리 팀이 작업하고 있는 프로그램은 멋진 오리지널 프로그램”이라며 “우리는 전부는 아니어도 대부분 TV의 도입선 프로그램(lead-in)이 될 것”이라고 강조했다.

도입선 프로그램(Lead-in program)이란 시청률을 이끌고 시청자를 유입시키는 프로그램을 의미한다. 로쿠는 일종의 스트리밍 플랫폼이다. 로쿠를 설치해 사용하면 여러 스트리밍 서비스를 하나의 플랫폼에서 구독할 수 있다. 아울러 자체 광고 기반 무료 채널(FAST) 로쿠 채널(Roku channel)도 운영하고 있다.

콜리어는 “매년 가장 가치가 높은 새 프로그램이 무엇인지 알고 싶다면  방송사들이 NFL 플레이오프 뒤 어떤 프로그램을 편성하는 지를  확인하라”고 강조했다. 그는 “1960년대와 70년대에도 그랬고 지금도 마찬가지다. 실시간 TV 시장에서 신규 프로그램에 가장 영향을 미치는 것은 리드인 프로그램”이라고 설명했다.

시청률을 견인하는 리드인 프로그램 및 시스템 중요

이와 관련 콜리어는 폭스가 일요일 NFL 경기 후 댄 하몬 새 애니메이션 시리즈 '크라포폴리스(Krapopolis)'를 선보였을 때의 시청률이 높아졌고  CBS역시 골든 글로브 시상식 이후에 새로운 콘텐츠를 방송했는데 반응이 좋았던 것을 지적했다.

이렇게 시청률을 견인하고 시청자를 끌어들이는 리드인 프로그램에 로쿠(ROKU)의 방점이 찍혀 있다는 것이다. 콜리어는 “ 적어도 (신규 프로그램) 시작 부분에는 시청자가 있기 때문에 그렇게 되는 것”이라고 덧붙였다. 그는 “우리가 TV로 연결시켜주는 리드인 프로그램을 구축하면 시청자는 더 이상 단순히 프로그램이나 채널로 이동하는 것이 아니라 실제 경험을 통해 호스트(주인)가 되고, 우리는 그 경험의 호스트가 된다(the hosts of that experience)”고 강조했다.

<콜리어 대표와의 버라이어티 인터뷰 주요 내용>

콜리어

we do that, can I just say, you know you're in Las Vegas and you're in a windowless conference room listening to me. And that is a cry for help. I mean if you think about it, you should go to the spear, actually take a photo, say you were there and place a bet. It's nice to see you. I appreciate everyone coming early.

사회자

We know Roku is moving in sports betting.

콜리어

Take a look. What you're about to see is a path through Roku that a user might take and and it is accompanied by elevator music that will make you out more meaningful ways, how to not just get offers like that from an advertiser, but how to find just a click or two away your favorite shows in any genre, in this case food. Who doesn't love who doesn't love food? I found myself inside of hot ones, because they recommended it to me. And it's kind of amazing that hot ones can sit beside Gordon Ramsay, and all our original. You're super served by one interface

Wow, they sent you the long version. Anyone got dinner plans? You get the idea. So what's happening? And truly actually this is fundamental if you didn't, by the way, this is an entertainment Summit. So I'm gonna lean forward and talk to you like I'm talking to you. Forgive my back for a second but if you think about the pengeneric and he said all TV will be streamed. And he said it long before it was cool. In, you know, after the turn of the century Ted Turner of streaming, right, yeah. And we still believe that's true. We're driven by the notion that all television will be streamed, and it's happening. And so half the broadband households in the country,before they do anything, they hit the on button and it's a Roku journey that they're taking. And I love experiences. I think the world is so enamored of experiences, television and you don't just go to channel 35 anymore and find that for me would have been MTV or ESPN. Now you turn on and you go on a streamers journey and we're gonna host that streamers journey. And as a programmer, I get to build the lead in to every show that you care about, including our originals, which are terrific, or if you love food, we're going to show you the best way to get what you want in a really delightful simple way and use I mean, food is a good example. I'm kind of sorry that John Stein loaf of random brothers discovery, because maybe not five years ago, but 10 years ago, you wouldn't have had that ability to have you know, you have your own original shows but you can also put you can take out into that you can not only just serve you can not only serve the channel of Food Network or cooking channel, which is not a Roku, which is a Warner Brothers discovery product. You can take those channels but you can also take individual shows and curate them. I don't have to tell you as somebody who grew up in the cable business, that is such a that is such a that's such a paradigm shift away from how you grew up in the business and how you know, because Because exclusivity was you know, obviously was one of the things that was that drove cable and drove broadcast. When you talk to whether it's advertisers or creative community partners. How do you explain the opposite but I mean, I know you've just talked about the opportunity.

But do people get what Roku is? Oh, yeah, I mean, first of all, again, if you've got, you know, almost half the country, gets their television through roku. So television, someone I had a client meeting this morning, and they said, oh my goodness, you've got all the beauty of television and all the brains of digital and let me just start let me just specifically that means that that about half of the TV households in the country have a Roku box or they have access to they have subscribed to a road no no. So to Roku you buy a Roku television or a Roku device.

And that means when they turn on the television, the homescreen they see is the one you saw there,and that begins their choice. Now some we may host them right into Netflix or Disney plus, but more often than not think about this. We did 100 billion streaming hours in the last 12 bucks. 100 billion streaming hours and that means if you think about the power for marketing, your questions are so relevant to what we do. They all talked about how they're streaming and there's television, we're going to bring it together. And again, that's what Roku does, and we can do it for all of television. So we will drive you know, such a significant amount of their impressions that if you look at our advertising, what's remarkable is were proof of concept for all the people who just said how much data they have when they advertise on our platform because it works because if you just naturally you've got to go through the front door to get to where you're going and we make it a delightful ad supported proudly ad supported journey that helps you get to the content you want.

And then in the food case, we're actually if your food network and I love Food Network, and John's a friend and I think Warner Brothers is a great partner of ours. We're helping build engagement for them because actually, was it Rita who said they need their ads to be engaged with it. It's very different now than it was on pure linear and so we drive engagement. So you know, this works, because you see the people who have all the data putting, you know, a lot of their investment in terms of what we call m&e on the Roku platform. Let me ask you, how do you manage we have such a broad platform, how do you manage the cost basis of licensing all that content? Well, no, it's not license if you think about it in order to get to the show you love and we'll talk about food. You come through Roku and so we are a distributor of their product.

We have inventory and much of their product. We actually look if you want to know how I would have answered some of the questions. broad reach and television is going to be planned and bought on the platform first. I think it should happen now and it's happening more and more. Because what you'll see is that the platforms, by definition, are bigger than pieces. I've known you for a long time. I've made a lot of original shows. I ran a cable network and ran a broadcast network. And what's remarkable is the pieces each of the apps are by definition not going to grow in the same way the platform's will. And so you asked him at the end, what do you think of Amazon coming in?

콜리어 “우리는 미국 1위 TV OS 회사”

I believe, if you look at the history of a lot of different media, let's take the desktop computer there were tons of operating systems right? And when it all came down to it and ended up Mac versus PC, and the others were no longer there. And then you look at the computer in your life right now. That is in your hands. That's your phone. I had a Windows Phone. Does anyone else have a Windows phone? No, no, no windows. It was a great phone, but it wasn't purpose built to be a phone.

And so it got really expensive, I'm sure for Microsoft to scale I had a Blackberry I'm sure many of you and a Blackberry. You get right down to today. Do you have iOS versus Android two operating systems? So the computer that's not a flat screen but a computer on your wall now the one hanging in your living room and your bedroom. That is we are the number one TV operating system in America. Gateway we make sense of this ever expanding universe we host the experience of television and as a creator and a programmer.

The programs that my team are working on are phenomenal original programs and we'll build the lead in for them. We're going to be the lead in most of television if not all of television. And that is an incredibly powerful thing you think about . I was the CEO of Fox entertainment before this. And if you want to look at what the highest value new show is every year, look at what they put behind playoff football because it was true in 1960 and 70 and it's still true today. The single biggest influence on a rating of a new show on a linear service. Anyway, it's deleted. That's it. And so as if it's football it really helps so that's the point why do you pay extra for League and for NFL part of the reason is because then when you launch you know the fox launch crapopolis on the back did a great animated series. I love it.

NFL 등 인기 프로그램 뒤에 편성되는 콘텐츠 반사 이익을 얻어

They value it and they put it behind football. Why did the globes go after football last week. That is why you do it because you have at least for the beginning of the show. Some audience members will be there. If we build the lead into television again, you don't just go to your show or channel anymore, as that very compelling video showed. But you actually get hosted through an experience and we are the hosts of that

사회자 “경험의 중요성”

experience. And compared like comparing your job just three years ago at Fox or just a few years ago at Fox to what you do now Roku it's got to be like three dimensional chess in terms of the pieces that you have to play with it or say you've got the complexity of every business is there anyone here whose business is not more complex today than it was a year ago?

콜리어

We have such an amazing base from which to build if you think about it, people are loyal to their TVs. You know that I don't know how often you change out the flat screen on your wall. But I'm guessing it's every seven to 10 years or so whatever the number may be. People are not loyal to apps and shows in the same way and I look at it and I think how many days a month.

I love the apps of all the people who are up here right before us and they do a great job and they're big partners of ours and we believe in them. But I looked at my own behavior and I said I love Hulu, but I probably go to Hulu for five days a month and I love Netflix but I probably go about the same . How often do you turn on your TV?

And so if you want to talk about broad reach it's an add to your last question. someone said daily broad reach with a bark and daily broad reach is built at the platform level because bless you because you can't turn on what we're human. I never understand during panels when something happens in the audience. Some guy let his phone ring, we all looked at it and no one said a word bless you. Thank you. I hope that's not COVID You didn't just get us all where we are.

Thank you. Yeah, there was this guy in row seven, honey. That's why I can't go to dinner. Thanks, pal. Charlie, I want to talk about this. This is instructive that we could talk this much just about the interface and how it all works. But I want to first of all, congratulations. You just want to know me. A couple of the warehouses. Thank you very much. I can tell you it was so exciting. I was there and I saw them when they came backstage and the exuberance of people you know that did not expect you know perhaps did not expect to win did not expect me recognition. It's always nice to see in a business where a lot of people can be jaded and entitled.

It was nice to see just the sheer exuberance and truly Weird Al Yankovic, right? I grew up with the I remember all the all those tunes, but let me let me ask you on that. So you have obviously a wealth of aggregated content. Yeah, but you also are dabbling more and more in I would say more than dabbling, but also doing more. That doesn't make it sound like I really hear any wind and dab right the same sense but how are you balancing you have we have seen the last few we've seen the last few years peak TV and discontents.

How are you balancing? You know what you can spend on original content while running a profitable business . Well look, I take great pride in running a profitable business. Here's something I say a lot to when I get investment questions when it relates to this too. We are not in the streaming wars again. Roku is the largest television operating system in the country and other countries, and we are not in the streaming wars meaning we are not spending $20 billion and losing money. We are the streaming wars playing out on our platform so that again then we Roku is not in the streaming wars the streaming wars are playing out on the Roku platform. And what that means is if anyone here has a Roku in the last month, you might have seen how Apple launched the morning show. And what they did was they used our home screen and our capabilities to host into television.

You could see them literally use the streamers journey to take our audiences and bring them to an exclusive content which means they value our platform enough to give us things for their viewers and then use our journey to help the viewers find and it's a great series and it's not ours. And then on original programming as you said there a few people here are much more weird than I am. I am as much a fan as you are weird, which was the title of the movie. Weird.

Weird Al Yankovic it was a biopic and if you know weird out it was not exactly based on a true story, but it was fantastic. Daniel Radcliffe, who was up for an Emmy on Monday. Plate we're down and it's terrific. I encourage you to watch TV movies with the top category. That's true. No, it's wonderful if this is an entertainment summit and I've had many lives across entertainment and media and the convergence of all of them which is at the heart of your question is so perfectly placed here because we are making a business you know, we talked to in a different context. If you think about it, if you're bringing a project out today and you're going to an asphalt service, there's a very good chance that the end of your relationship will sound something like this in a press release. We are proud to announce the third and final season of fill in the blank. And as someone who has created television with some of the most visionary show runners and now dear friends My job is actually not to get there. The job is to get them to the point where you can see their vision and conclusion and you all feel like they got to tell their story. And for that to happen. You need to be on a platform where your goals are aligned with the creator's goals and I don't know that there any creatives here but if you're pitching a show, one thing you didn't have to do during peak TV or when I was at AMC, you didn't have to come and understand the model.

But because we're right, but today, it would behoove you before you take what's called Cost Plus or your some entry into a financial relationship with a platform would behoove you to know how they make money. Because for us, we're proudly ad supported and if enough people watch it will be profitable. Here's something that won't win Emmys, but during the holidays, we work with partners of the original programming team to produce some really completely engaging holiday movies. We knew what the budgets were, we had a partnership actually it was sponsored. And we all went into this Teri Hatcher starred and one of them and they were both profitable, highly viewed. And then here's something that happens on Roku. That doesn't happen if you're not a platform. No, this is crazy. The algorithm saw how popular it was and picked it up and served more ads to people who love Christmas movies. And so you can win here at the same time the platform is winning, where it's really the s5 model and where the bubble burst is that a lot of people were going out and spending billions of dollars on content. And their model didn't grow just because people watch because they weren't ad supported or they paid cost plus so the strike so that the the artist wasn't growing with the funding entity and I'd like to see make sure Roku actually builds things that are good for the consumer, good for the business and then good for the partner. So they bring us to passion projects, and that's going to happen more and more. How do you know because I know it can be hard with an original to kind of sprinkle in an original here or there. How do you deal with the need, you kind of need to have a volume of original programming to or maybe because of the way you do it. You have so many leads that you can pick and choose. Oh, here's the deal: if you turn on your television here, go with me and say you believe television now is an experience. It's not just you turn on your TV and go to your show or go to the network actually, you mentioned food network in the world of cable.

There was only enough bandwidth for one Food Network. So once you made basic cable,think about how easy it was to market a brand in the world of basic cable. There was only one Food Network. So guess what Food Network well named was the one or home and garden or ESPN. In the world of the internet. There are no bandwidth constraints. So as I showed you, our job is to if you want to watch hot ones, which I did and somehow it knew I gotta go watch the Pete David, Pete Davidson episode of Hot Hot Waltons and it was sitting next to I was watching next level chef which is Gordon Ramsay and it said do you want to continue watching or do this and so all of a sudden, it's an event for me at the viewer to go find the shows I want and it could sit next to we have a show coming up we announced that today. Did you all miss it? It's called a chain and it's it's really exciting production. Think about this in the context of what we just showed. So the chain which is produced by a couple of guys sitting over there David Davis and craft BJ Novak from the office is behind the chain. And think about this. We all have our favorite fast food chains. Imagine if they took your favorite dish from your favorite fast food chain and put it in the hands of a world class chef. What would they do with it and these guys because pop culture is everything. It doesn't just happen on the show chain fest which you refer to as a who's who event. So there was John Legend and Christie Tegan and there was, you know, Chris Pratt, and they were all sampling the dishes. Tim Hollingsworth and Tim who Yeah, who used to work at the French Laundry and he's putting maple bacon on a donut. It's really pretty great

And we're a bunch of kind of secret pop up events around LA a few years ago and of course everybody wants to go to something you're not invited to so they and then you then BJ very entrepreneurial guy came up with the idea of a festival that is literally celebrating diner food and Denny's and you know the very many, many different brands but think about how we're going to curate that.

So your question was inherently you need a full slate. Well, I'm no more likely to watch the last of us because it's part of a full slate that I am to watch last of us because it's a very good show. And we are the front door and the lead into every show on television. So when we have an original and you saw maybe Martha or the great American baking show or any of the food shows that we make at home, we own that old house franchise and we make originals. Believe me as an event, not because it's part of a slate but because we know who wants to watch it. We are the front door to television, we have navigation that makes you a click away versus deep in the experience and we host the experience to every show so the morning show was an event and so is my launch chain when that comes to last questions for you because we're out of time number one question for you. So is part of your pitch to the creative community that if you make a movie for Roku, eventually you can sell it overseas you can sell it you can you can actually bring in some money off of it in a way that in a way that other streaming content is locked up much for much longer times. And then my very last question for you was.

What is your guilty pleasure dinner?

Oh two. Oh, that's cool. Well, number one, the answer is we have different business models for different partnerships and because I think that's important again, the needs of partners like Eric Ian and Al are weird, where we are the owner of that IP we literally produced it soup to nuts. And then it travels is very different than perhaps an arrangement of someone who comes in with a piece of IP and and he's different from what we're doing the guys from chain and we can build businesses and we can build phenomena and to your point pop cultural resonance that happens way off screen.

And so different horses for different courses a little bit and really we want to be a flexible partner that helps the creative community win the advertising community when and first and foremost, obviously I want viewers to want to watch television. You know, it should be better television for everyone and you should have a better hosted experience on Roku. I love that we get to be the first programmers of a UI. I take them very seriously. And I think if you look in and my forecast for, you know, platform first planning and buying and really in many ways, supremacy on television, if that happens, you're going to have in Roku, not just the biggest but you'll have one that's programmed with personality and when that happens, it should be a better television experience regardless of whether you end up watching your favorite food show or the morning show or or anything else. And then favorite diner. I like fries and gravy.

But late at night preferably sometimes with cheese but I have celiac disease. So I have to be very careful about where I do that. And otherwise, you then don't see me for a week or two but it's a great question. It's what America wants to know. And this special on this chain fest really for foodies and really sounds like a lot of fun currently. Thank you so much. It's fun to be with you.