#109 Future of Streaming w/ Dan Robbins, VP of Ad Marketing & Partner Solutions at Roku

In #109, listeners hear from media executive Dan Robbins, VP of Ad Marketing & Partner Solutions at Roku, whose job sits squarely in the future of media and advertising as Roku becomes the operating system for modern-day TV. Roku began as the "dongle" you plugged into your TV to make it "smart," getting access to a wide variety of streaming services, and it also integrates with various TV manafacturers and is now producing audio products to enhance your pandemic-friendly home viewing experience. What fascinates me about Roku and Dan's job specifically, is how the $50B streaming company is transitioning from a hardware/software business and becoming a services business, selling ads to the closest thing to a cable audience in 2021 (and with way more data). The company is now developing its own content since the Roku channel, which is a mainstay on all connected-TVs, is being watched by tens of millions of people a month. This is explains why the company acquired the content of now defunct media startup, Quibi, to provide free, ad-supported content, the rationale of which Dan touches on in this episode. The interesting part to me is how brands that live and breathe TV ads that go out to massive, undefined audiences are now turning to Roku to acheieve the same messaging. The genius at Roku is how consumers pay for the product twice, and the company has been extremely intelligent as it thrives in a hyper-competitive and ever-evolving media landscape, seizing upon multiple lines of revenue to become the future of TV.

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