Yet Another Value Podcast - Zack Silver on Liberty Media Investor Day and CuriosityStream (CURI)

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

Zack Silver, an analyst at B. Riley, recaps what happened at Liberty Media's Investor Day, including Liberty's bullishness for tech companies, Liberty's plan to launch a SPAC, and how Liberty has handled the pandemic overall. Then, we discuss his newest coverage, CuriosityStream (CURI), a new streaming service that recently went public through a SPAC.Chapters0:00 Intro and Background3:30 What separates the best buy-siders Zack interacts with7:00 Shentel (SHEN): the most interesting stock in Zack's universe9:20 WideOpenWest (WOW): the most undervalued name in his coverage11:30 Takeaways from Liberty Investor Day14:20 Liberty SPAC discussion21:40 Does Liberty have tech platform envy?23:10 How did Liberty respond to the pandemic? Were they aggressive enough?25:50 Zack's bull case for SiriusXM (SIRI)28:00 Brief technical issues causes Andrew to slightly panic28:45 Technical issues end, panic stops, SIRI bull case resumes36:59 CuriosityStream (CURI) background and overview40:34 Why would someone pay for CURI when they have Netflix?44:30 Is CURI better as an acquisition target than standalone?51:41 Can CURI succeed if Discovery gets more serious about D2C?56:50 Is Zack more worried about Discovery or Netflix competing with CURI?1:02:10 If CURI works, what do they look like three to five years from now?

Hello, and welcome to the yet another value podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Walker. And with me today, I'm excited to have my friend, Zach Silver. Zach is an analyst over at, I call it FBR all the time, but it's B. Riley now. He covers kind of the TMT space for B. Riley, including one of my favorite sectors, a lot of the Liberty companies. So, Zach, how's it going? It's great. Thanks for having me on, Andrew. Appreciate it. No, I appreciate you being on. And let me start the podcast the way I do every podcast, and that's by pitching you, my guest. You know, in general, I kind of avoid sell-side research. I find most of it is kind of, if you want to know the consensus and if you want to invest with the consensus, you go to sell-side. So it really focuses on kind of the trees and misses the forest, you know, what's next quarter's EPS number versus is the scoring value. So I avoid most of it.

I can count on one handful, the number of cell-side analysts I talk to, respect, listen to, and you're one of those analysts. So it's great to have you on the pod. I love reading everything you put out and appreciate. you being on here. So that pitch out the way, you know, why don't you give us just a quick background of you, B. Riley, and what you cover? Yeah, that sounds great. Well, you know, first time caller, a long time listener, a big fan of the podcast. And for, you know, B. Riley in general, I think that, you know, standard kind of run in the mill, investment bank, focused on

small and mid-cap equities. A couple, there's a, we actually, I think, own the one of the top three appraisal and liquidation companies for retail, mostly, you know, asset-heavy, inventory-heavy companies, and pretty diversified platform there. It's pretty interesting. The sector that I cover, again, you have T&T, focus a lot on the Liberty names, focus on kind of the old-school broadcasters, radio and TV stations, and also sort of have a great. exhausted the entire universe of small and mid-cap cable and wireless, which there are not many. Not a lot, no. But, you know, enjoy thinking about, you know, the future of cable and in the sort of small

mid-cap context. Perfect. So let's just start with your coverage universe. You know, it's pretty eclectic. We mentioned a couple of the Liberty guys, you know, Formula One, Ghiba, Series XM, super small cable companies, legacy radio. There's some broadcasters in there. and now you've got a startup streamer, curiosity stream, which I think we're going to be talking

about at the end of the podcast. So all of it's kind of loosely media. Is that really what connects at all, just loose media? Or is there anything other kind of connecting force behind what you cover and what you look to cover? Yeah, I mean, I think that one kind of thread that runs through a lot of the coverage is just the John Malone Liberty Complex. And that's, you know, born out of when I came to, I guess, be Riley now, the analysts that

I joined under a guy Barton Crockett was sort of a long time self-side analysts covering the liberty names and inherited a lot of those and sort of look for tangential opportunities in the sectors that they focus on. And, you know, that that's where cable and wireless came from. That's where some of the legacy media came from and, yeah, generally focusing on media and cable and wireless. Perfect. And you're unique to this podcast. You're the first sell side person we've had on. So I guess one of the questions I wanted to ask you, which are listening to might be interested in. Like, when you deal, obviously as a sell side, your job is kind of connect by side and companies put out research reports that by side finds interesting, you know, buy, sell, all that tip stuff. But what do you find really separates kind of the best by side people who you interact with, with kind of your run of the mill people that you cover and who you use you? but what are the questions or the way they interact with you that separates them? That's a really interesting question.

Yeah, I think that I would first say that all of the bifiders that I interact with are, you know, incredibly smart and know everything, you know, super well. I love all my children. Yeah, exactly. I would say that, you know, ones that are really focusing on industries that are in flux and change and how things may look years from now versus, you know, again, this, you know, coming quarter are the ones that, you know, I think lead to the most fruitful conversations, you know, looking at sectors and companies from different angles, kind of bucking the consensus, being, you know, somewhat of a contrarian, if you will, is often leads to the best conversations. I mean, I think that, you know, everyone, you know, in, you know, in, Your side of the world is so smart that, you know, there's very little that, you know, they have some intro conversations on, you know, kind of folks that are newer to the stories.

But by and large, I mean, most folks that I speak with know their stuff. So the ones that can really approach things from, you know, a totally different angle and will actually, for me, you know, they'll bring something up that I've never been thought of. I mean, those are the most valuable conversations that I have with the by side. Okay, no, that's great. And do you find, like, the ones who are bringing self up that you've never thought of or something, are they coming to you and are they saying, are they bouncing an idea off you? So, you know, over the summer, I kind of thought a company might be hitting an inflection point. Do I bounce it off you or am I coming with a fully kind of baked to you? Hey, I think this inflection point's happening. Am I wrong here? Am I missing something? Does that make sense? Yeah, I think that, you know, it's a mix of both. I mean, there will be some that will quickly point out something that I've missed. And sometimes, you know, it's just, it's something that I just disagree with them on.

You know, something that's not black and white. And, you know, sometimes it could be, oh, I've never really thought of that way. You know, it's a good way to look at it. Other times it will be folks that, you know, are deep in a position and they, you know, are, you know, maybe I have a less foolish or less bearish view on something. and they want me to sort of reconsider my thinking on that. You know, oftentimes I'll, the things that I've researched are pretty well researched, and I won't.

But, you know, a lot of times they'll bring up new ideas that I haven't thought of. And, you know, a lot of times it's just they're fleshing out an idea, you know, about a sector or about a trend or about a specific company where, you know, they'll use me as a resource, particularly if they're newer to the story to sort of help kind of crystallize their thoughts and kind of get the other side of the table, if you will. Perfect, perfect. And now we're going to spend most of the podcasts talking about first Liberty Day, which happened last week and then CuriosityStream.

But just before we dive into those, you know, obviously you cover 15 to 20 stocks or so. What's the most interesting name in your coverage universe right now, do you think? That's a great question. I think that there are a couple that jump out at me. I would say that in terms of a company that's really in a state of flux and there may be some opportunity. And again, because I am on the south side, I have to stay consistent with my opinion. But I would say that one that is interesting, you know, for better or for worse, is one that I know that you're familiar with Shentel, which they just, the background on them is they were. a Sprint affiliate and controlled sort of the Virginia and West Virginia territories.

And basically, when the Timo merger went through, Timo decided to reclaim the subscribers in Shentel's markets. And what will happen is that Shentel has also got a fairly substantial broadband business that they've been focused on expanding throughout this rural territory where there's not a whole lot of competition, and it's very difficult to justify sort of an overbuilder in those markets, almost like a cable one type story. And what will happen with Shentel is they'll have this very large infusion of cash when they sell the wireless business to TMO. And it'll be interesting to see what they do with that broadband business because, you know, in those rural

markets, I think that if they're able to execute, right, I mean, they've got a pretty long runway for growth. It's funny you mentioned Shentel because I agree it's really interesting and especially I think you initiated coverage on it maybe two years ago or so from remembering correctly. Yeah, I think it was September 18. Yeah. And I remember when you initiated, I had been looking at it separately and you and I went back and forth on it a lot because there were a lot of moving parts and stuff. And actually last week, I judged a stock pitching competition for Warden's undergrad. I can't remember if it's undergrad or grad school, but I judged a stock pitching competition. And someone in Shetella as a short, I was like, they did a very nice job covering the thing.

But I was like, this is a really interesting situation. I was trying to refresh and all the stuff you and I talked about over the years. So that's the most interesting name. What about, you know, I think you've got buys on about 10 to 12 of the companies you follow. If somebody called you up and was like, hey, you know, of the companies you buy, what is the most undervalued company right now? Not the most interesting, but most undervalued. What stock would you be pointing them to?

Yeah. I mean, I think that we've, you know, talked about, wide up and west, about wow. And, you know, it's the one I was looking for, Zach, right there. Yeah, we, I think that when you look at that, you just look at the valuations for broadband providers. You know, there's, I think the leverage is hairy in the ownership, the low liquidity, but you look at some of the valuations that these broadband assets have gotten recently in the market. And you look at wow sitting there, I think, probably at around six and a half times next year's Evita, some more, you know, EBITLS KAPX at, you know, kind of low teens range. And it's just on a private market basis, it is wildly more valuable than what the market

gives a credit for today. And I would say that that's probably, you know, glaringly undervalued, you know, just based on this argument about private market value. Look, I think especially when you start talking, you know, your coverage, you've got the legacy radio companies, you've got some of the broadcasters and stuff. We're not going to talk about those. But there's a lot of stuff where I think you look at the private market value and it's probably these trade too cheaply.

But a lot of those do have what I would say, terminal value questions. And with WOW, the thing I like about that is, first we'll start with the disclosure. Nothing on here is investing advice. Wow is a small cap with a lot of leverage. And it's kind of, the stock's a little bit on the liquid side. But when you look at that, I think management's gotten disciplined. They're not going to be overbuilding as much. They're really going to focus on kind of increasing penetration,

juicing that cash flow and paying down debt. You look at the multiples. You know, I'm biased here. You know I've got a position of the stock and I love it. But I think it's really interesting as well. But let's turn to some other interesting companies. We were going to do this podcast last week. We pushed it to this week because we realized, hey, Liberty Investor Day,

Zach covers three of the companies. I love Liberty. Everybody who follows me knows that. Why don't we do it this week? And we can talk Liberty Investor Day. So Liberty Investor Day was last week. You cover three of the Liberty companies, Glibea, which is their, it's really their position in Charter, but it's also an Alaskin cable company. You cover Sirius, which Liberty basically controls to Liberty Serious. And you cover Formula One. So let's talk Liberty Investor Day. Any big takeaway surprises, either in the companies you cover or the companies you don't cover for them. Yeah, I mean, obviously it was a little interesting being all virtual this year. And I thought that, you know, the opening dialogue that Maffa gave. And it was interesting how they touched on a lot more industries and a lot more broad themes than usual. Obviously, the most interesting thing that came out of that was, I guess, their LMAQ, the SPAC, which, you know, it was superfluing. I wouldn't say it was surprising. I mean, given that it's similar to how, you know, they, they invest and how they, you know, have executed, you know, deals over the last, I guess, multiple decades. But, you know, to the announcement that they're going to be, you know, kind of jumping into the SPAC wave was, you know, certainly interesting. It'll be, you know, curious. I guess, I guess, They really won't talk about sort of the target or anything like that. I mean, there won't be able to say much until, you know, something's announced. But, you know, it would be interesting to see what they do with that, particularly given that, you know, you've got the founder shares at F1.

I don't think they can do anything really in motorsport because that would have to be something that would go to F1. I mean, they would have to kind of have first preference on that. music kind of similar where you know serious i would assume would have kind of first crack at that and you know sports in general uh you know maybe that that's an avenue but uh yeah it'll be interesting to see what they what they look at with that i mean they they talked a lot about uh globality and about platforms and aggregators and finding one of those that you know is kind of on the comm is is something that i think would be uh you know really interesting for them

But I mean, the problem is that if you're an aggregator, you're probably have, people probably know about you and you're probably too big to buy. So that's, that, that'll be interesting to see, you know, when that plays out. I guess they have two years to find a target for that. Why do you think, so I agree, the Liberty spec was one of the things, you know, look, when you raise 500 million of dry powder, basically, and you're going to get a basically 20% incentive fee on it, that's always going to be a pretty interesting thing. but I guess some of the things that jumped out of me of the spec.

First, why do you think they assigned it to Formula One? Because, you know, Liberty, they've got Liberty Serious Formula One and Atlanta Braves are all under the same roof. They could have assigned it to any of them. They could have done equal weight throughout the three. John Malone, actually, most of his money's in Liberty Serious. So you would think if you wanted most of the upside, he would either do this personally or he would have put it in Liberty Series. So why do you think they put it in Liberty Formula One?

Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I mean, I guess that there's, with Liberty Series, I mean, they're clearly focused on chipping away at that discount. I mean, I think if you introduce the additional complexity at Liberty Series, I mean, that you're going to have a lot of a camp of shareholders that's probably pretty frustrated because you're trying to clean up the structure and compress this, you know, I think it's a 35% discount to Sirius at this point. you introduce more complexity there with LMAQ, and that's probably something that I would argue that it's not going to help close the discount. The Braves probably a little bit too, you know, a liquid. I mean, I know that there's, it's smaller. Again, I mean, I think that a lot of what they talked about at the investor day, was looking for a clean sort of value for the Braves. And they were talking about the Mets and, you know, the EV per win.

I could not believe they came out with EV per win. It was more of a nice twist than a real valuation metric. Yeah, I think I glossed over that one. But that, you know, if that's a priority for them, you know, it's, that's certainly not going to help the, you know, getting a clean sort of value for the. the braves and the battery. And I think Formula One's the remainder. And I don't think there's been a huge sort of an AV disconnect at F1 relative to the intrinsic value. The only thing that struck me with the formula in spec, and I agree with everything you just said, you know, Formula One

basically had to get bailed out in March and April because of the pandemic. You know, Sirius took their Live Nation stock and they gave them a little upside. You know, it was a, it probably ended being a pretty good deal for Liberty Series. I didn't like it at the time, and I still don't love it for a variety of reasons, but it worked out well for Liberty Series. And I almost wondered if the Formula 1 Spat, if Formula on getting the Founder Share was a little tip to them, right? Like, hey, you know, the capital structure was a little mismanaged. We had to bail you up. Here's an extra, you know, the founder shares would be worth $200 million when the deal's gone. Here's a little extra tip for you guys. Though at the same time, you know, you're dealing with a Formula One that just had to get bailed out,

and now you're tying up a little of their cash for the SPAC and the forward purchase and everything. Yeah. Just a little odd to me. Just a lot to me. Yeah. It's a great question. And yeah, I do think, I mean, there's a lot of liquidity at that tracker now. You know, I think they have $2.6 billion or so.

Yeah. And, yeah, I think that a lot of investors that I speak with and, you know, a lot of what I'm thinking about is how are they going to deploy, you know, that capital. It seems like they've weathered the pandemic storm at this point in 2021 should be a much more normal year for the operating business. Yeah. And so you don't have, the other thing is, you know, obviously everyone loves to play the parlor game of who are they going to buy. And the big question is like at this point, there's 200 SPACs out there. You know, there are private equity funds with tons of money. The tough thing with the SPAC is you don't have any operating synergy.

So you really have to go buy something and be kind of the highest bidder. I was racking my brain trying to think of targets. It's tough. Nobody can ever really call one of these things, but there was nothing that kind of jumped out as you as, hey, this is an obvious Liberty SPAC target. There's nothing on the private side that I look at that really jumps out at me. You know, they had a slide in there that were talking about how maybe there's a disconnect between the medium term value of some public and private companies.

And obviously it would have to be private versus. kind of the short-term, you know, what the markets or what the valuations implying for those businesses or maybe the company's runway if, you know, the pandemic kind of drags on. So, you know, I think home furnishings was a category on that slide. So I don't think they're going to pursue anything in that category. But, you know, it's interesting to sort of, you know, a lot of these facts, you know, the electric vehicle ones that are generating, you know, no revenue, but are getting of religious valuations. Yeah, it's insane.

Right, and it seems like they will employ a disciplined approach, as they always do, to valuation. So it'll be interesting to see what they come up with. The two that I was just kind of tossing around my mind, just completely randomly, was if Peloton wasn't public, I could see Peloton in a lot of ways. I mean, obviously, Greg and the whole Liberty team love Peloton, but there's also a platform a community. There's a bunch of different aspects that kind of touch on a lot of things that Liberty's played on. The other one that kind of struck me, and this might be more a

Q-rate acquisition, but have you seen the S-1 for Wish that new, that new S-1? Yeah, I have not gone through the S-1, but I mean, I saw that they filed. Yeah, interesting. For listeners, Wish is basically like they do Facebook ads and they say, hey, you can get a pair of headphones for $4, right? Which, you know, on Amazon they'd go for $20. But you have to compromise because I think the quality might be a little compromise. It's not going to be next day shipping. You know, the shipping is going to be 30 days from now and all the sort of stuff.

But it did strike me as, you know, it had some plays on Zoo Lilly and Q-Rate and stuff. I could see something like that. But yeah, there is nothing that super jumped out of me. Formula One, if they put it in the Liberty Braves, I could have seen them saying, hey, you know, there are a lot of sports owners who are attached to real estate and casinos who are hurting right now. I could have seen them getting more aggressive on, like, you know, Houston Rockets, Tillman Furtada, he owns Golden Nuggets Casinos and stuff, getting aggressive there. But it doesn't seem like it's going to be an individual sports team.

So, yeah, kind of tough to say. Yeah. And I mean, I do think that they were really, it seemed like Malone's, you know, the CNBC interview that he did. And, you know, some of their, the things that came up in Q&A and in Greg's prepared remarks. I mean, they, you know, I think are keenly focused on platforms and on aggregators. and to find something that's maybe an early aggregator is interesting. I mean, you mentioned Peloton. That's something that I thought of as well, you know, a business like that,

you know, I think is something that they seem like they're attracted to at this point. Maybe like a Peloton competitor, like I think Lulu Lemon owns mirror, but you could see like the mirror, which is a mirror that you just, if I understand, you connect to, like maybe one of those subscription services. What about you mentioned the aggregators? And another thing that jumped out to me was Malone, between a CNBC interview where I think it was a Symbi interview where he said, I'm selling assets to buy commercial real estate and hard assets. And then Greg, I was shocked by the first thing

Greg's comments were was Zoom is going to benefit hugely from this pandemic. Don't look at it as a tech company or don't look at it as just like Video Connect. We're doing Zoom right now. It's going to become an aggregator. And I'm super bullish Zoom. Malone said he'd buy Facebook and Amazon stock right now. you know, it almost seems to be like they wanted to own the assets that they don't currently own, if that makes sense. Yeah. Were you into that? Or did you kind of get that sense?

I mean, it's certainly what, you know, the way that they were, uh, the, the way that they were talking about, you know, some of these businesses. I mean, if you think about, you know, another Liberty type, uh, company, you know, IAC. I mean, it seemed like some of those, you know, businesses. I was thinking the exact same thing. Yeah. Yeah. And, but yeah, I think that, you know, that they, they seem like they, you know, with the companies that they, I mean, they seem like they're in a, they like Live Nation still. I mean, they seem pretty bullish on, you know, a lot of the businesses. And, you know, they've done a lot over the past year to make sure that they're well capitalized. And I think that there's going to be a lot of, you know, longer term tailwinds for a lot of these companies and the portfolio from the pandemic.

What about speaking of the pandemic? So another thing that jumped out to me, there was a line where they said, hey, when the pandemic hit, we separated in two teams, a red team that would go raise liquidity. And I think most of who would agree the red team did a fantastic job. You know, every Formula One was facing some issues. They got Formula One settled. All of their companies have raised exchangeables at really interesting rates. Like, if the country shut down for another year, I don't think any of their companies would have liquidity issues at this point. So I think that Red team, got to work. They did a lot of stuff and they did a great job. They also said we separated into a green team and the green team was focused on taking advantage of the pandemic and opportunities. And I think a lot of people were surprised about how kind of quickly the pandemic was forgotten. You know, you basically, if you didn't buy something in early March, in late March or early April, you kind of missed it. But I couldn't really, I'm wondering if the green team was up for net because I couldn't really think of anything the green team did. Can you think of any, like, you know, Liberty strikes and takes advantage of the pandemic opportunities?

Yeah. I, you know, I think you got to tip your hat to the Red team, like you said. But the, I think it's exactly that. I mean, things recovered much more quickly than I think there was probably any time to really go out and take advantage of some of these dislocations. you know, at the same time, and you had the backstop of the Fed and yet, you know, the credit markets were reopened pretty quickly. And I think that that's just it. I mean, there probably just was not enough time to really get out and, you know, take advantage.

I mean, if, you know, this had gone, you know, a couple more quarters, then absolutely. I mean, I think that they probably had, you know, with the liquidity that they had at some of these companies, you know, they're probably still. their opportunities out there. But at evaluation, that was attractive to them. And I think that this would have had to drag on for a little bit longer than it did for, yeah, to give the green team proper kudos, I guess. Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. No, it's just, you know, Liberty Series buying Live Nation from Formula One, you know, my issue with the deal wasn't that it was a good deal for Liberty Serious. I thought it would probably work out well for them. But my issue was more,

if I wanted Live Nation, I could go buy Live Nation stock, you know, the best deal you could do in like this pandemic was go buy live nation stock from Formula One and kind of reattribute. You know, I've just been disappointed by the lack of, you know, serious XM was that's of the financial crisis. They bought for what, like 10 cents a share and now the thing's $6 and they pay five cents per year in dividends. Right. Speaking of Sirius XM, obviously you cover it.

I don't think, I think the team's been great. You know, last year's Investor Day started with the power of the year, right? I think they've known all along podcasts. was going to be big. I don't know if they've executed as much. Series X-M, it's a little bit of a battleground stock, right? It trades at 20 plus times EBITA. A lot of people say satellite radio is going away. You know, you take your iPhone, you plug it into your car. You can listen to Spotify on there. But that's been the bare case for years. You've got a buy case on Sirius. Yeah. What do you see in Sirius? Like, why are you so comfort

with the terminal value? And how do you see this evolving over the next couple years? Yeah, I think that it's a great question. And Sirius, you know, I think it was hard to argue that in the depths of April, I mean, just like many things, I mean, Sirius, I think was, you know, touching the four handle. And, you know, the business, it became clear pretty quickly that the business was not going to be impacted as much as the market, I think, initially thought. You say that, but Sirius XM is one of those ones where I was actually nervous, right? Because nobody's doing their commute into work anymore. And I was like, if you got Series XM, a big use case is probably, I drive 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes at night. I listen to Sirius XM. Cancel that because I'm not going to be driving to work for 18 months.

A lot of news, you know, I thought the economy be worse for a while, so not a lot of use, new car sales and stuff. But I was really worried about a lot more churn than they started. And the business is just humming. But please go ahead. Yeah. Well, I think that's a great point. And I agree with you.

I mean, the fact that there was not. material uptick in churn was pretty astonishing. And as serious, they have a couple of drivers of churn, and one of them is the involuntary churn where you're going and you're buying a new car and you are counted as a in the churn figure. And that obviously got a benefit. But at the same time, involuntary churn was, you know, up a little bit, but not much. And non-pay, the third bucket, you know, just bounced back card payments was, was actually, yeah. Oops. I think we lost Zach for a second here, having some internet issues.

We will see if we can get them reconnected. Oh, man, Zach doesn't come back in the next 10 seconds or so. We're going to have quite an editing genre. I think they said maybe improved. And part of that was, I've been tweaking. Hey, Zach. is improving. But I think it speaks to the resilience of the. Hey, Zach, can you hear me? We lost you for about 20, 30 seconds there. Yeah. Let's, um, Andrew, can you, can you hear me now?

I can hear you. Can you see me? Yep. Okay. It said, yeah, it was a unstable connection. No worries. The, um, yeah, what I was saying, I don't know what I cut out, but, um, I think that, the fact that churn has stayed at level at pre-pandemic levels despite serious being a largely discretionary not largely but a hundred percent discretionary expense and one that's you know probably not as important as you're clearly not as important as things like home broadband and and other um you know communications entertainment expenses that you may have um i think just speaks to to the value of the service. And, you know, people coming in and, you know, getting, getting back on

the road is probably going to help that metric. I mean, I think that there, the fact is that you've got, I think, 110 or so million cars on the road is serious now. Over the next five years, there will be, I think, double that number, 200 million cars on the road that have serious installed. By the way, it's going to also be 80% of those cars in five years, new cars are going to have this 360L, which is going to be a better experience with them. It's going to allow them benefits on the sales and marketing side. It's going to allow them more personalized offerings. And I mean, I think if you just run a, you look at even, you know, serious stable sort of operating cash flow and, you know, very sort of asset light business besides the satellite launches that they have. And you look at what

they've done on the, you know, on the sherry purchase side and very generous returns of capital shareholders. I mean, it's not difficult to get to a stock that's, you know, meaningfully higher than where we are today. And not to lead the witness here, but one of the interesting things with Sirius XM that I've always talked about is, you know, it is not lost on Greg and team as we talked about the power of audio, right? They led that, they led with that last year. That was the highlight of their Investor Day presentation. And Sirius XM has a lot of podcasting capabilities, I would say, right? They're not doing it right now, but they've got all of Howard Stern stuff.

You know, they've got those DJs who come out every day and film a lot of stuff. But I've been a little disappointed. You know, they haven't really, they bought Stitcher, they've got Pandora, but I don't think they've really moved a lot into original podcasting. And, you know, it's not lost on the team how much, how valuable original podcasting is. I remember an interview with Greg over the summer where Spotify, signed up Joe Rogan and their stock went up by 15% and then they signed up the Kardashians and their stock went up 25%. And he was saying, these moves are crazy. So it's not lost in them that

the market values this and that they've got a lot of assets, but they haven't really moved in there. How have you thought about the podcasting opportunity for Sirius? And like, do you see kind of hidden value in there or am I kind of just missing it? I think that by large, I mean, the podcasting opportunity for Sirius, I mean, given that so much of their content is unique spoken word content to begin with is largely just a continuation of, of what they've been doing, what they've been doing. I think that it seems like the way that they're going to approach it is have sort of marquee, higher value originals behind the serious paywall

and really have more of a full ecosystem of, you know, third-party podcast and all the Stitcher podcast on Pandora. And they also talked a little bit at the investor day, I think for the first time about this ad-supported serious model, which could be interesting outside of the car to have, you know, serious, you know, either a lower cost serious or just fully ad-supported serious. It isn't clear, you know, how they're going to divvy up the assets between Sirius and Pandora, which I think is what a lot of investors have struggled with with the Pandora acquisition since they did it. You know, it's been a couple

years at this point. And I think that's still kind of to be seen. how they wind up kind of cross-marketing and splitting content between those two services. But I do think that there's, you know, when you look at the moves, Spotify's ad by executing these original deals, you know, that the same value is there for serious. I mean, it's a, you know, it's a subscription offering with a hierarch and better economics and at least right now than Spotify. and the, yeah, I think that you will see them push more into these exclusive originals. I think that they're probably a little bit more rational on the price side than Spotify. Well, I mean, I guess it's, you know, it's in the eyes of the buyer. But I would like to see them get more aggressive with the originals and they certainly have the capital and do that.

Yeah, it's just interesting because obviously it's a different business model. And, you know, Liberty, their famous quote, the past couple of years is business models matter, which I don't think anybody disagrees, but Spotify's over there trying to, they're buying a bunch of podcasts to try to build out like basically the podcast platform, right, where they're going to dynamically insert ads and they've got all this user info. And it seems like serious as assets, but I just don't know how they ever replicate that. So I almost wonder if they're drawing dead. And I agree with you, there's a lot of value. They have a lot of credit card info. Obviously, the business is great,

But those terminal value questions, you know, they weigh in my mind and a lot of investor mind. And that's the opportunity, right? Like if people valued Sirius, like there were no terminal value, the thing would be a lot higher. Any of any last thoughts on Liberty Day, Sirius, anything you want to talk about before we turns a curiosity stream? Yeah, I mean, I guess one thing to note about serious during the investor, I mean, one of the things they talked about. And one thing that I do think is underappreciated about the business is just the off-platform opportunity that they have. with Stitcher, with, I mean, AdsWiz is just a hidden gem in Pandora. I mean, I would argue that that's, that's one of the more valuable things that came out of

that Pandora acquisition was the programmatic audio platform in AdsWIS. And I think that with that combination of assets and now Stitcher, where they have a very large digital audio sales force, a kind of podcast native sales force, and, you know, they've spent a lot of capital investing in ad tech on the audio side. I mean, you just saw one of their announcements recently was NBC News that they renewed their deal with them. But in that deal, I think something that's underappreciated, and this isn't obviously a needle mover for the company, but they're going to be handling all of NBC News, CNBC, all of that

digital audio, all of their podcast, all of their off-platform business. And I think that you'll see them get more off-platform business, and that is, you know, it's a great, you know, kind of high-margin business for them with ads with and with Stitcher leveraging some of that. Well, you know the IR team over there. If you want to tell them, yeah, you have another value podcast. We're very open to being Liberty Spong. I love the Liberty team. I'll link you out. Yeah, they'll send you some swag, I guess, some merch.

Last question on series. We're taping this right before Thanksgiving, 2020. If we tape another pod, you know, after Liberty Day, 2021, is Liberty, have they crossed the 80% ownership threshold of Sirius? Based on the model that I've got here. Oh, we've got him pulling up Excel now. I can see the glow on his face. Yeah, geez. That's a sad state of affairs.

Yeah, it looks like they actually do cross into. right over 80% in the fourth quarter of 21. Okay, perfect. Hopefully they do that. So for listeners who don't follow, Liberty owns about 75% of Sirius at this point. Once they cross 80%, all the dividends from Sirius go tax-free up to Liberty. So everyone's always thought Liberty really wants to get there because those of you who know Liberty know they do not like paying the tax man.

So that would be nice. And that probably unlocks some capital allocation choices for Sirius, like kind of increasing their dividend stuff. Okay, so let's turn over to your most recent coverage. This is the company we kind of wanted to focus on today, CuriosityStream. I think you're the only analyst who covers them. I listened to their earnings call last week, and you were certainly the only analyst who asked the question.

So do you want to give a little bit of background on the company, how it came public, why you're following it, why you like it? Yeah, absolutely. So the company, there was a SPAC called Software Acquisition Group, which was, I think the sponsor, It was a guy who ran a couple of video streaming businesses, and he, the target that they found was CuriosityStream, which is the real focus, and that is a business that I think was started kind of at the middle of this, in the middle of the decade, 2015 or so, but had been incubating

for, I think, much longer. And I'd say that because John Hendricks, who was the founder of Discovery, founded out of his garage and launched, I think, over the, I think, first launch in 1985. He stepped down in 2015. Basically, his thought was that discovery is kind of beholden to a industry structure and a pay TV bundle that's in secular decline. I think that I'm better off starting a new business that's unencumbered from these legacy pressures. and I think that, you know, I'm going to bootstrap a lot of this. I'm going to raise them out that capital.

I think that the TAM's large enough where we can go out. I have my Rolodex. I've got, you know, calling cards in with all the production houses and with all of the distributors around the world. And, you know, let's give it a go and see if we can make this work. And that is really where we're at today. I mean, I think that they're, you know, obviously a very small company. I think they're going to do about 40 million.

of revenue this year, which, you know, but growing at a very, you know, healthy clip. Their strategies is basically a discovery that's built for the over-the-top streaming world where they're basically selling S-Fod, direct-to-consumer subscriptions. They are bundling with distributors across the world, and they've got some other, you know, they're doing the traditional sort of content program sales and, it's an interesting business, A, because if they are successful in establishing a lot of direct consumer relationships, if they sort of become the de facto kind of streaming age service for factual, I think that there's massive value creation there. And if they are, and the other

point is just that the content costs that they, is very low on this actual side. And I think they've said that it's, they're kind of an hour of curiosity stream content is 100,000 or so, whereas an episode of Game of Thrones is 10 million. So they've got, you know, they don't need, they can price at pretty attractive levels, a pretty compelling value prop for the consumer, you know, high gross margins if they are able to get scale. And it's, you know, and interesting, I think it's the only other kind of pureplay video streamer besides Netflix, it's public. So it's been an interesting one to follow. I think there's also

Gaia, though. I do. That is a completely different type of video streaming. That's true. So I've looked at this company a pretty good bit. And I agree with you. It's interesting, but I haven't been able to kind of, as they say, get there yet, right? I think the skews wide. And the two, I'm going to go through the two big questions I have here, right? The first big question is, hey, you know, they're going to do a streaming service of what I think of as kind of Nat Geo or Discovery, right? They're going to give you the streaming service. I think they're going to price it at $3 per month is where they're pricing it. They're still working. But it's obviously going to be cheaper. So what they're really looking for is, hey, you have

Netflix. You want more natural geo discovery type content. Pay us $3 a month and we're going to get this all to you, right? And my first question is like, look, if I have Netflix, I already get planet Earth or whatever they're calling it and a bunch of things on Netflix, how big is the market for people who want this content so much that they're going to go out and pay an additional fee to get this type of stuff? Yeah, I think, I mean, that's what I was thinking about this company and whether I thought that this, you know, five years from now, is this a successful business or not? I mean, that is, I think the key question is, is there enough demand for this factual content where you can sort of make it a standalone service. And I think that based on

looking at some of the ratings that Discovery gets on its layer channels or had gotten across the world based on survey work that we've done in the States around Discovery's, you know, upcoming AllaCard offering, which we can get to, but I think it's something a lot different than what Curiosity Stream is doing. I think that it's become clear that, I mean, this is a, certainly this is a bigger category than I thought it was when I initially looked at this and it's like, this is kind of a niche, who's going to pay for this. But really, it's $20 a year for their annual plan, which is what they're, I think, getting 80% of the new Connects on. And I think that there is probably some value in, you know, a brand safe,

service that is just focused on documentary on factual. You look at Netflix and yeah, they do have a lot of documentaries, but it pales in comparison to what Curie has, just in terms of the categories that they touch. Netflix, I mean, I think it's mostly nature and a lot of science stuff on there as well. But, yeah, Hendricks frames it. He says it's a much broader genre than people give a credit for it. I think it's to be determined. What I do know is, and you know, I'm still, I think the jury is still out there. What I do know is that the value that the market ascribes to these businesses that are able to establish a global brand and have a direct relationship with the consumer. I know, by the way, at, you know, very attractive

economics from a content cost perspective, there's, there's an opportunity for what I think is asymmetric risk reward, where, you know, if they fail, you've got, you know, 900 owned shows and you've got, you know, Netflix may be saying, hey, this is not a bad business to add to our factual content library at, you know, what would probably be something comparable to what we can make this content for on our own. So I think there is a little bit of a floor there. But the upside is just, is pretty remarkable if they're able to succeed. Look, I agree.

The upside's pretty big, right? If you can get a lot of people on this, you look at what these things trade for. So, you know, one of the ways I've looked at to this is like, you know, Disney Plus. If I get Disney Plus, the way they marketed is five channels, right? Like you have Disney Plus and you've got the Marvel channel, you've got the Star Wars channel. You've got the Nat Geo channel, right? And so what I've almost thought about with Hury and Discovery, who I want to talk Discovery in a second as well, but I've almost wonder if they've got more as an acquisition target where they fill in that

channel, right? So Disney Plus already has that geo, but maybe HBO Max, you know, I don't think they've got a lot of documentary service and stuff. Maybe like HBO Max needs that Curie channel, but the weird thing with that is if you're almost an acquisition target, and the reason I bring this up, as you said Netflix might buy them for the library, if you're an acquisition target, they probably don't really care about how many subs and all the tech and stuff you've built out, right? Like they just want to grab your content, throw it on to their service and put it into their library. So do you see any divergence? Totally agree.

Does that make sense? Totally agree. And I think that it's interesting you're bringing up HBO Max because they actually, in the second quarter, I mean, they did, you know, an output deal with HBO Max. Or a sub licensing deal for, you know, a $4 million or so dollars, which is pennies for HBO Max, but huge for somebody with the base. Very meaningful that. Yep. Right. And, yeah, I mean, it totally makes sense.

I'm, you know, getting back to, you know, when we first started our conversation, this around aggregators and around, you know, having global scale, you know, HBOMX certainly doesn't, more domestic. But I think that, you know, for Curie to work, I mean, they're going to have to, they're going to have to find a way to get scale. And that's really going through at this point, you know, they're going to invest. in the direct-to-consumer marketing and in original content that's going to help drive word of mouth. But what they're really leveraging right now is a lot of relationships with distributors

that have a large sub-base that they can reach for a pretty low cost. And I think if they can get enough of that, then at some point they'll be able to transition a more of a DTC model. But it's not out of the question that, I mean, this certainly fits in well with a lot of the, the larger streaming companies out there that, you know, I think in our initiation in front of the movie, Netflix, I think, has a couple hundred factual titles and, you know, five or six hundred, and Curia has three thousand. And in the, this fact, you know, in the merger projections, they're talking about getting to like 10,000 titles over the next five years. One of the things with streaming services, and we're going to come back to distribution

when we talk to discovery, but one of the things with streaming services that I think we've all seen in all of them, we'll even say, look, Buzzy originals are for customer acquisitions, you know, the Martin Scorsese movie on Netflix or, you know, stranger things. That's how you acquire your customers. And then your library is for your customer retention. So your offices and parks and rec, that's really about giving them a lot of hours to watch to hold on to the customers. When I think about, you know, curiosity stream or discovery,

yourself. I wonder if their content is more suited towards customer retention than customer acquisition. And I wonder if CuriosityStream has an issue where, yeah, they build out 10,000 titles that are great for customer retention, but they have trouble actually grabbing that customer because they don't have that one title that really grabs you. You know, like planet Earth would probably be the busiest natural show out there or I guess maybe Tiger King if you wanted to call that a kind of natural show, but I don't know if curiosity can really get enough of those things that really grab consumers. Does that make sense? Is that a worry that you have at all? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely something that I've thought about it. And they really are going to need,

you know, new to make new planet Earth. I mean, they're going to need, I think in their, you know, in the road show, they talked about doing, you know, six kind of marquee shows that have, you know, bigger talent or they are more expensive to make. And I think what you need is, yeah, you do need some hits that are going to be buzzed about and be reported about. Obviously, in the factual category, it's, I think, a little bit more difficult to do that than it is, you know, to have, you know, Queen's Gambit that, you know, a lot of people are talking about or, you know, something where it kind of, the story itself kind of grabs you

and it's kind of water cooler, I guess used to be water cooler talk. But I think for them, I mean, you know, get a couple of buzzy originals, you know, get some big name narrators in there. And, but it's really going to come down to, I think, the marketing approach. And they've had a lot of success with direct response marketing

through, you know, Facebook and Instagram and YouTube. And they're doing a, a lot of innovative things on on the marketing side where they're actually paying like let's say it's a youtube uh influencer you know if you will they they will actually go out and and pay one of these influencers who reaches you know a couple million people anyway um to sort of do a co-brand with curiosity stream and i think that's yeah i think that that's a that's nimbleness that they have as as a smaller company that you know maybe the bigger guys are not um thinking about that's that's really interesting because that's one of the things I've always thought is under under tap like

companies using these YouTube streamers or anyone who I mean these things get millions of views and the people who follow them are super passionate like I've always wondered why if you're a and actually some gaming companies have started doing this but if you're a gaming company and you're lost in a game why not pay ninja a hundred thousand dollars to stream your game four times five hours or something you know or you know like I love a binge mode which the podcast that dives deep into different like really nerdy things like Game of Thurons and stuff like if you're launching a game of thirds competitor why don't go pay binge mode $100,000 to review your things and push it out to your fans so that the fans of that show might want to go do it but yeah I do worry just going

back to like you know with Q3 earnings curiosity stream came out with this beyond the spotlight which I'm looking at which you know it tells one of Kristen Bell stories and Shaq stories and Samuel Jackson stories which I love all those guys but I just don't feel like those are really buzzing enough to like grab people but it's interesting they're doing yeah i mean i i think you're right i mean it is it's hard to imagine you know i think you can look to to things like planet earth and i'm sure that they have things that uh they're working on that are they are hopeful that will become you know very buzzworthy um shows but it is it's harder to do in the factual side i think you're right there um you know the benefit is that um you know they do have

a large library. And if you believe that sort of dynamic about new shows or customer acquisition and churn is driven by the library volume, then they're probably pretty well suited for that. So the other pushback, I think, with Curie is, you know, Curie published a slide when they merge and they said, hey, we're merging at, if you buy us, you're buying us for two and a half times forward revenues if you buy us, right? And Spotify, Netflix are the two that they pointed to, I think, where they said, hey, these guys trade at 10 times forward revenues. If we hit on this, we're going to trade at 10 times forward revenue. And I think the pushback would be, yeah, but Discovery trades at two times forward revenues, right? And Discovery, you know, they're getting ready

to launch. They're going to do their big DTC announcement at the beginning of December. And I think a lot of people might say, hey, you're kind of building this up, but all Discovery has to do is launch. And they've already got the catalog. They've already got all this sort of stuff. And they're out there trading at two times revenue, you know, like eight times EBITDA. And they're going to launch. And as soon as they get the tech right, they've got 10 times the amount of catalog you do, plus they do have these buzzy shows, right? And it's also going to be co-branded with, it's not just Discovery. It's going to be Discovery plus Food Network plus all these other shows. So why would you, I pay $20 per month for you when I could go pay maybe $50, $20 per year for you?

when I could pay $50 for Discover and get all that other stuff. Does that make sense? Just the opportunity costs and kind of getting eaten alive by this bigger player? Yeah, I think that we'll be closely watching what Discovery. I think it's December 2nd. Is there sort of the debut and the Investor Day where they're going to unveil the DTC strategy? What my sense around that strategy right now is that it's going to be more like what Fox News has done with Fox News.

where it's going to be a platform for kind of super fans of the personalities on Fox News or on Discovery. So you think about some of the HGTV, I don't really, I don't know their names, but whoever they are, that, you know, America wants. I think Chip and Joanna. Exactly. That's, I was sure. That's the one. So they'll have a Chip and Joanna, you know, channel on the DTC app or, you know, library of special programming. for them. And that's sort of what I've heard. I think that it's difficult for discovery to take

all of their content that is still encumbered by, I mean, the distributors are paying them, you know, billions of dollars for an affiliate fees. And there's going to have to be, you know, either a point of reckoning where the distributors say, okay, we're not going to pay you. We'd love for you to go over the top and use, you know, more of our internet services or broadband. services or they say, you know, you need to stay with us because we're paying all this money, you can't have it both ways. And I think that's going to be a tricky thing for discovery to kind of navigate, and which leads me to believe that the offering is probably going to be tailored more around sort of the reality type personalities that they have, kind of for the super

fan of discovery. I don't know. And yes, I mean, if they're truly going, and pursuing the exact same thing that Curie is doing. I mean, that's a problem. And that's, that's, that's a problem. And it's something that's worth paying attention to. Is that one of the reasons you're bullish on Curie? So like, look, if I told you tomorrow, Discovery is going to put out an announcement that says, hey, none of our channels will be available on cable subscriptions anymore.

You can get all of our channels for $5 per month in this direct to consumer app. that would probably break your curiosity stream thesis, right? But your thesis is almost, hey, they're so wedded. And they're making billions of dollars a year from the cable channel bundle. So there's nothing. But your thesis is almost, hey, they're so wedded to that. They can't put it. So curiosity stream comes in.

They offer hundreds of hours of original programming. And they say, hey, you love discovery. You're cutting the cord. You can't get that anymore. Come get something similar from us right here for $2 per month. Am I kind of expressing your thesis maybe a little more cynically, but does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, I think that for curiosity to really work, it would have to be something where Discovery would have a very difficult time kind of transitioning off of the legacy model. Then again, I mean, curiosity, it's sort of built more nimble than Discovery is to begin with.

and it doesn't have these, you know, linear, you know, whether it be declining TV subs, whether it be a very high cost structure, whether it be more expensive reality type programming, even if that does happen, I still think that curiosity can undercut discovery on price and make the economics actually work better than discovery. So I don't think that discovery making that, I mean, sort of it would not be great for the, sort of the, you know, the stock would get whacked, I think, in the short term. But I don't think it would be the death now for Curie. I mean, it's an important part of the thesis, but it's not the key driver of it. Hey, for years, Netflix was the Albanian army to HBO, right? And they were

that until all of a sudden they were multiples bigger than HBO. You know, I think we've spent the past few minutes, we've spent more time talking about Discovery than Netflix. And I think That's because, you know, you think curiosity's content and you think discovery. Are you more worried about discovery or the discovery piece of it where discovery wants to get into what curiosity is doing? Are you more worried about the first thing we talked about where, hey, I subscribe to Netflix, I can get Planet Earth and four other factual shows. I don't need more.

Why subscribe to curiosity? Which one of those two kind of worries you more? Well, I think that you do have to worry more about discovery. And that's really a function of Netflix is focused. on these big scripted, splashy shows. And they have to be focused on that because that's how they justify the $12 to $15 a month that people are paying for Netflix.

And that's also how they're gonna justify continued arbor growth for the business. I think that if they, it would be strange as a happy Netflix subscriber myself, if all that I saw was factual programming. And I still think that for Curie, there's some sort of brand is not necessarily a competitive advantage, but you can be differentiated and be a compelling enough value. If you market it right, you can get some

consumer adoption. And I think that what they're doing on the distribution side, where they're getting into, yeah, they're leveraging relationships with distributors to, you know, at a lower ARPU, but they're able to get distribution, I think is. is important for them. So I would say that it's really more on the discovery side, I think, is a bigger threat because that's sort of apples to apples competition for Netflix. I mean, I think they're always going to be associated with, you could put a lot of factual on Netflix and you may still subscribe to your, or you may have a differentiated enough

product to still be, you know, valuable to consumers. If this thesis works out, when do you know, when would you know, the thesis is working out, right? Because it takes time to build this scale and get this flywheel. Like, is it two years from now where you can really start saying, hey, they've got acceleration in subs? Is it four years from now? When does the thesis really kind of start to prove itself out? Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, it all starts with looking at, you know, the actual unit economics of the DTC business on cure. And what they have right now is, I think, a monthly turn that's around 2%. Again, the ARPOO at $20 a year and $3 a month is nothing, you know, mind-blowing.

I think it's $2.50 or so. And if they're able to keep driving churn down, they've talked about, you know, potentially, I guess if they're able to keep really driving churn down and and they are generating, you know, they're able to invest enough in the marketing side of things. And I, that's, that was, I was fishing for that word, but that, but around, um, subscribe requisition cost. I mean, that's another big part of it. I mean, they're, they're saying that they're, that SAC is, you know, sub $50 per sub. And I think that over time, if you see them, uh, through some of these distribute these, uh, large distribution relationships and, and through some of the marketing that they're doing, if they're able to actually increase awareness of the service,

increase engagement. So you've got, you know, Cher and SAC, you know, moving in the right directions. You know, I'm comfortable that the business can continue to grow. You know, I think that they, well, if they need more capital for marketing or content, I think they'll be able to go out and get that. And that's really what I'm looking for is just that the unit economics of the DTC business continue and improve and that they're able to get some of these lower ARPOO distribution deals done that they've talked about. And that's, you know, if things fall apart there, which I think when you brought up Gaia earlier, and that I think is what has, you know, been really challenging for them is that it's just too small of a market and it costs them an arm and a leg to acquire

new customers and their churn, you know, I think has been kind of, you know, it's just, you know, it's theoretically, the, you know, these older cohort should, the turn should be going down, but it's not. Guy, guy's an interesting comp because a lot of the stuff, you know, it's alternative truth, which I'll leave it to the listeners for what they think. It's a nightly view for you. What's that? Is it a nightly view for you?

No. But, you know, a lot of this stuff is literally like, hey, dinosaurs are the ones who built the pyramid six thousand years and stuff. I say literally, it might not be exactly that, but it's very close to that. And if this past, if you just saw me anything, is that there's a bigger market for that than I thought. The guy has still had kind of trouble getting the flywheel going. Last question from Kerry. Curie, you know, starts hitting their metrics and starts sitting the flywheel.

It's proving out. If we come back three to five years and revisit Curie and the thesis has worked properly, do you think it's just their standalone? They've probably issued some equity to keep that flywheel growing, buy some more content, but they're just growing as a standalone? Do you think they're, they're standalone, they've issued some way, but they've bought some other verticals, right? Like maybe they've gone out and bought, I don't want to say Gaia because they're probably not getting into alternative truth, but maybe they've gone out and bought like a, you know, a Nat Geo or something else.

Or do you think, hey, you know, this has started to have been proven out, it's working. And we talked about, I think this is a channel under another umbrella. HBO Max has come and bought them and they have the Curie channel, similar to South Disney Plus as the Nat Geo channel. Which one of those three do you think is most likely if this is kind of working out and proving? know. Yeah, I think that probably the second one and that they, you know, they're hitting their metrics. The engagement is good. And, you know, they're able to actually generate consumer awareness and build a brand for the service. They're getting distribution, you know, global distribution through these providers. But there's going to be some inflection. If this does work,

there's going to be some point where you'll start to hear them talk about, okay, you know, we have built a big enough brand at this point and enough of an identity and enough consumer awareness that we can really start to try and focus on the distribution deals that they're doing with cable and wireless broadband providers across the world. They're very different from the linear deals that you, you know, you're familiar with with the cable TV networks. So they would be able to wean off of those deals much more easily. I could see them, you know, at that point, they would have capital to,

more capital to invest in marketing for the DTC service. And I think along the way, yeah, there probably are a couple of, whether it's libraries or whether it's kind of other, much smaller kind of niche, you know, they're pretty small at this point. So I don't know how you get much smaller, but probably on the library side or maybe, you know, vertical integration on the production content side, you know, where they would do some deep.

deals. Perfect. Perfect. Anything else we should be talking about Curie or are you ready wrap it up there? I think, you know, it's, again, it's early. I think that all the pushback that you brought out, I mean, it is totally fair. I think that it's just got a very interesting sort of risk reward skew, you know, if they are able to go out and succeed. And yeah, I think they're a quarter in as a public company. So we'll see how it goes. No, look, I agree with you. I, I, As I said, I'm not there yet, but over time, as I get more, as I evolve as investor, like, I want to look more for opportunities that have right-hand skew and spend more time on the companies that have, like, that right-hand return.

If this is right, it's a 5x or 3-X or something. And Curie definitely fits in there. You know, as you said, they're backed by Discovery's founder. They've got a lot of industry contact. So it's really interesting. I'm excited to follow them. I'm excited to continue to talk to them while we talk to you while we follow them. So I think we'll wrap it up there.

Zach, thanks for joining us. Have a great Thanksgiving. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all our listeners. And if anybody wants to reach out to Zach, you know, you can talk to B Riley or I can put you in touch if you reach out to me. But Zach, this is great.

Yeah. Thanks for it, Andrew. Thanks for having me on. Talk to seeing, man. Bye. Okay. Thanks. Bye.