Linked List: July 1, 2020

Wednesday, 1 July 2020

Netflix Hires Bozoma Saint John as Chief Marketing Officer ★

Todd Spangler, reporting for Variety:

Netflix has tapped marketing veteran Bozoma Saint John, a former senior exec at Apple, Uber and most recently Endeavor, as its new CMO, the company announced.

Saint John is Netflix’s third chief marketing officer in less than a year. She replaces Jackie Lee-Joe, the one-time CMO of BBC Studios, who had only been at Netflix for 10 months. According to Netflix, Lee-Joe is exiting the streamer for personal reasons; she has been living in Australia with her family since March since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Lee-Joe had been named to succeed former Netflix CMO Kelly Bennett, who announced his retirement from the company last year.

Saint John will start at Netflix this August, reporting to chief content officer Ted Sarandos.

Unofficial Pin Set for WWDC 2020 ★

I’m not a pin person — I just give away my WWDC pins each year to the first person I run into who wants them — but this is a neat Kickstarter campaign for those of you who dig them.

YouTube TV Raises Price to $65 Per Month ★

Sarah Perez, reporting for TechCrunch:

YouTube TV is getting another price hike, making its live TV streaming service less competitive with the cable TV services it aims to replace. The company announced today its service would now cost $64.99 per month, starting today, June 30, for new members. The change will also be reflected on the next billing cycle for current members after June 30.

The bump in pricing is now one of several price increases YouTube TV has seen since its debut, starting with a modest $5 per month bump in 2018, followed by a much more substantial price hike last year to $50 per month.

$65/month is $780/year — still less than most cable TV packages (or at least less than my cable TV package here in Kabletown), but a lot of money. And the whole “Well of course we had to raise your monthly rate, we added a bunch of new channels you may or may not even want” angle has been the unofficial motto of the cable industry for 40 years. Cord-cutting is quickly devolving into something that’s merely different from traditional cable TV, not cheaper than cable TV.