Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Hernan Lopez, the former 21st Century Fox executive who launched podcasting giant Wondery in 2016, has set up consulting firm Owl & Co.
aimed at delivering data and analysis designed to help media and entertainment businesses manage the transition to the streaming era.
Lopez has put early emphasis on a deep-dive study of the streaming content marketplace, using available viewership and spending data to crunch the ROI numbers based on the cost of TV series and movies.
After a decade of Peak TV production activity, scrutiny of such expenditures is increasing in Hollywood’s C-suites. Among Lopez’s first wave of clients is North Road Co., the film and TV production and distribution company formed last year by Peter Chernin, who was previously Lopez’s boss at Fox. “I think we are at an inflection point in our industry, where lots of companies are looking at their slates and their business models and looking at ways to better drive economic value,” Lopez tells Variety. “There was a significant change in the industry [in December] when Netflix made viewership data available for 18,000 titles.
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