Paul Gluckman

NAB is canvassing NAB Show “alumni” who haven't registered for the April 23-27 event at the Las Vegas Convention Center to ask if the show’s health and safety policy was holding them back. A simple three-question survey asks past show participants where they stand about plans to attend. For those who answered “not sure,” NAB asked if COVID-19 “health concerns” were the reason for the “indecision,” or if it was the show’s health and safety policy. They were offered a promo code redeemable for a free exhibits pass. “We hope the COVID situation continues to improve and our Policy evolves so that you are able to join us in Las Vegas this April,” concluded the questionnaire. The policy requires all NAB Show audiences to be fully vaccinated and recommends but doesn't require booster shots. NAB also recommends masks but doesn't require them, after Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) lifted the state’s mask mandate for indoor public venues earlier this month (see 2202110020).

When CEO Nikesh Arora joined Palo Alto Networks in June 2018, its “mean time” to respond to cyberattacks was measured in days, he told an earnings call Tuesday for fiscal Q2 ended Jan. 31. “For someone who did not work in the security industry, I found that a little flabbergasting,” said Arora, who earlier had worked at SoftBank and Google. “We challenged our team internally” to convert Palo Alto’s response time to seconds or minutes “because that's the only way we're going to have a chance” to protect customers, he said. The company still sees “an evolving and complicated threat landscape,” said Arora. “We have highlighted in the past that cybersecurity is at the front and center of all conversations around risks and threats,” he said. “We believe cybersecurity will continue to become more and more relevant and important. With increased reliance on technology in the prevalence of cyberattacks, there is an ability to disrupt businesses and critical systems, making cybersecurity an area that will need continued focused investment.”

Xfinity's U.S. pay-TV customers can access 150 hours of Beijing Olympics coverage in 8K via an NBC Olympics VR by Xfinity virtual reality app, said Comcast Friday. Live and on-demand coverage of six popular sports will be available “in an immersive 180-degree environment,” it said. “Select events will offer viewers the option to switch between different cameras.” Coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies also will be available, as will features and highlights from 10 more sports, it said. Comcast previously used the Olympics as a platform for upscale video and audio experimentation, having announced plans last summer to deliver the Tokyo Olympics to X1, Flex and Stream customers in Dolby Vision HDR and Atmos surround audio (see 2107140035). The Olympics VR app is available for download at the Oculus Meta Quest 2 online store. It supports the Oculus Quest and Quest 2 VR headsets and the Oculus Touch controller, says the store. It lists the app as having been released July 9, which would have been two weeks before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics. Facebook parent Meta owns Oculus.

Demand "far outpaced" the capacity improvements and increased shipments that Microchip Technology achieved in fiscal Q3 ended Dec. 31, said CEO Ganesh Moorthy on a quarterly call Thursday. Microchip draws most of its revenue from sales of microcontrollers for a wide range of consumer and industrial tech applications. Its “unsupported backlog,” defined as undeliverable orders from customers unprotected by long-term supply agreements climbed significantly, compared with the unsupported backlog exiting the September quarter, he said. Despite 30% year-over-year revenue growth to $1.76 billion, “we exited the December quarter with the highest unsupported backlog ever,” said Moorthy: “We continue to experience constraints in all our internal and external factories and their related manufacturing supply chains. ... We continue to ramp our internal factories as fast as possible, and we are working closely with our supply chain partners to provide wafer foundry, assembly, test and materials to secure additional capacity wherever possible.” But judging from the magnitude of the current demand-supply imbalance, plus “the rate at which we are able to bring on new capacity, we continue to expect that we will remain supply-constrained throughout 2022 and possibly beyond that,” said the CEO. After five quarters of the semiconductor crunch and now into the sixth, “there is really no line of sight to having demand/supply coming back into some form of equilibrium,” he said.

More than 3.5 million “fully paid” Peacock subscribers have watched WWE content since the WWE Network moved to the streaming service last March, said WWE President-Chief Revenue Officer Nick Khan on a Q4 call Thursday. The WWE Network had 1.1 million U.S. subscribers when the Peacock deal was closed in January 2021, “and expanded audience and viewership, led by a strong in-ring product and the right partner and platform, has created wins for all parties,” he said. The Peacock arrangement shows “it's evident that the marketplace puts considerable value on our IP, which has allowed us to drive more value for existing partnerships and enter into a number of new categories,” said Khan. “We currently have over a dozen scripted and unscripted projects sold based on our IP. ... Those are with existing content partners in the U.S., in addition to new buyers, networks and streamers.” The WWE stock closed 8.2% higher Friday at $51.71.

Starz, even “in a very competitive environment,” added 1.7 million streaming subscribers in fiscal Q3 ended Dec. 31, including 600,000 domestically, said Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer on a Thursday call. Lionsgate entered the fiscal year having “significantly ramped” its investment in Starz original programming, but COVID-19-driven production delays on multiple series, including an 11-month delay on “fan favorite” Outlander, “pushed back the full benefit of that investment,” he said. “This resulted in diminished subscriber growth in the first half of the year relative to our expectations.” The company sees “subscriber acquisition months” as “really key” for driving the Starz business, said Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch. “When you look at the original plan versus where we are today, it's about a total of 50 months of subscriber acquisition opportunity that we lost by moving content around,” he said. Outlander is “one of our big tent poles,” a “huge fan favorite,” he said. The series draws about 7 million “multi-platform views a week, which is one of the bigger shows on television, a very passionate fan base,” he said. “Missing a year of that content, it really hurts the subscriber growth, and you saw that in the first half of the year.” The eight-episode sixth season is scheduled to debut March 6. As a major feature-film studio trying to strike the right balance between theatrical exhibition and direct-to-consumer streaming, Lionsgate has shown it can make profitable films that “live comfortably” in both the theatrical and subscription VOD worlds, “from day-and-date multi-platform releases with a 92% profitability rate to larger movies that will benefit from hybrid releases,” said Feltheimer. “As a studio whose signature has always been diversified slates, allowing us to play in every space, our ability to tackle the challenges of a shifting and uncertain box office is more of a natural evolution than a pivot.” The way the industry is “shaping up” among the “broad-based” streaming services, “everybody is really competing to be that first SVOD in the home,” said Hirsch. “Couple that with the fact that we believe that there's going to be four to six SVODs per home, it sets Starz up to be this really great premium add-on tier as a way for those broad-based services to compete.” Lionsgate Class A shares closed down 8% Friday at $13.54.

Semiconductor supply availability at Nokia “continues tight,” said CEO Pekka Lundmark on a Q4 call Wednesday. “There are still going to be, at least in the first half of this year, situations where people live more or less hand to mouth.” Nokia finished 2021 with 3% “top-line growth” over 2022, he said. “That growth could have been a bit higher, had there been more components -- semiconductors especially.” The chip crunch caused a “revenue shift” from the second half of 2021 to 2022, he said. “We are not out of the woods yet. We have managed this very challenging situation very well without any major casualties or any major customer losses.” But the situation “calls for continuous day-to-day management,” he said. Nokia American depositary receipts closed down 4.2% Thursday at $5.72.

Chip demand is “extremely strong across the board,” said Qualcomm Chief Financial Officer Akash Palkhiwala. “We are continuing to see demand outpacing supply.” It put second-sourcing plans in place “very early in the process,” he said. “We have three second-sourcing parts, especially in the mid-high tiers that are shipping at scale now, and that shows up in our financial performance.” The worldwide chip crunch is easing, but “we would ship more if we could,” said CEO Cristiano Amon. Qualcomm is standing by its previous forecasts that the industry will ship more than 750 million 5G handsets in 2022, which would be about 40% growth from 2021, said Palkhiwala on a call Wednesday for fiscal Q1 ended Dec. 26. The stock closed down 4.8% Thursday at $179.10.

Though 2021 was “one of the strongest years in PayPal’s history,” with 18% year-over-year revenue growth to $25.4 billion, “exogenous” factors “did impact our results,” said CEO Dan Schulman on a Q4 call Tuesday. “Supply chain issues disproportionately impacted our cross-border volumes and our small business merchants,” while inflationary pressures “impacted spending within certain segments of our user base,” he said. Rising threats from COVID-19's delta and omicron variants cut travel and event bookings, and the elimination of government stimulus “had an impact as well” on consumer spending, said Schulman. “E-commerce growth rates during the holiday season were lower than industry expectations despite a strong two-year growth rate of almost 50%, and we are also lapping some of the strongest quarters of growth in our history. Even so, we once again grew our market share and came within our revenue guidance for the quarter.” The stock plunged 24.6% Wednesday, closing at $132.57.

E-commerce via YouTube is an “additional layer of opportunity” for Google, but an area “where it all feels very early to me,” said Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai on a Q4 call Tuesday. “We’re making it easier for viewers to buy what they see and simpler for advertisers to drive action with innovative solutions like product feeds and video action campaigns and emerging formats like live commerce.” YouTube’s commerce capability is focused on “onboarding merchants and all the back end so that we can have the broadest and the most comprehensive inventory available,” said Pichai. “Our partnership with other e-commerce platforms is a basic foundational layer we are putting in.” Though it’s “pretty early” in the initiative, “there’s a lot of pilots underway,” including “shopping livestreams” with brands like Walmart and Target, he said. “There’s a lot more to do,” he said, “but I find the opportunity space here pretty broad, and it’s exciting.”