Natural Language Processing analysis of how global business sources are viewing streaming video competitors

Monday, May 6, 2019

Disney+ v. Apple TV+

Both Apple and Disney had video streaming showcases in the last 60 days. Apple's March 25th announcement of its TV+ service yielded yawns. Disney's unveiling of Disney+ elicited enthusiasm. Steve Jobs grunted in his grave as Disney outperformed Apple.

Disney provided specifics on content, pricing and release date. Apple paraded out star power, but provided scant detail about its  TV+ offering.

A Word2Vec analysis highlights the difference.

We used Word2Vec to process the 1731 articles that appeared on Dow Jones/Factiva during March and April in which the words streaming and video appeared adjacent to each other. (Factiva is a global news resource with over 32,000 premium publications.)

Here are some of the top words closest to Apple TV+ according to our results. (Word2Vec processes raw text and positions words in a high dimensional vector space where semantically similar words are placed at nearby points.):

('jennifer_aniston', 0.739),
('steven_spielberg', 0.719),
('oprah_winfrey', 0.700),
('reese_witherspoon', 0.697),
('hollywood', 0.660),
('celebrity', 0.656)

And here are some of the top words appearing closest to Disney+:

('disney', 0.860),
('pixar', 0.655),
('star_war', 0.619),
('marvel', 0.609),
('pricing', 0.551),
('national_geographic', 0.546)

The Word2Vec/Factiva analysis demonstrates how evident it was to the news media that while Apple pulled out star power, few specifics on programming and pricing were given. On the other hand, Disney+'s neighbors in this vector space were brands, as the company detailed content on the service as well as pricing.

We are in the opening moves of a video streaming chess match. Apple is a wannabe player, driven by a shift to services in the face of stalling iPhone sales. Major assets include:

  1. 1+ billion devices in customer hands and pockets
  2. creative talent wanting to work with the company
  3. $250B of cash powder on its balance sheet

But the company's original programming budget for Apple TV+ is modest -- a mere $1-2B drop in its cash bucket.

Apple is tiptoeing into original content. The program emphasis looks to be family-friendly, even  Disneyesque. Too bad for Apple that Pixar is not an asset in the estate of Steve Jobs.

Over the next few years, Apple+ and Disney+ will likely be marching side-by-side in the upcoming streaming wars. For now, Disney has a clearer vision of the direction of the march.

No comments:

Post a Comment