Colin Dixon Interviews Revry CEO, Damian Pelliccione, and Telly CSO, Dallas Lawrence

April 15, 2024

ITVT is pleased to present two nScreenNoise interviews that Colin Dixon, Founder and Chief Analyst of nScreenMedia, conducted at TVOT SF 2024 last month.

The interviews are with Damian Pelliccione, CEO of Revry, and with Dallas Lawrence, Chief Strategy Officer at Telly.

Here are Colin’s notes on the interviews:

Interview: Revry CEO on Optimizing Marketing Spend

FAST content leader Revry has been in the market for 8 years. In this interview, Its CEO shares how to optimize marketing spend to minimize subscriber acquisition costs and maximize ad revenue.

Revry launched in 2015 as the LGBTQ+ community’s go-to streaming platform. It provides a diverse array of queer movies, TV shows, music, and more. Unlike many other companies launching streaming services over the last ten years, Revry has focused on free streaming. It has grown into one of the must-have networks on streaming platforms. It is available on many of the most popular FAST services, including WatchFree+, Xumo, and FreeVee, on pay platforms like Peacock, DirecTV, and Philo, and has apps in the Google Play and Apple App Stores.

With eight years of experience managing Revry, Co-Founder and CEO Damian Pelliccione is a prime mover in the company’s success. In this interview at the TV of Tomorrow Show in San Francisco in March 2024, he shared with me some of the critical things he has learned along the way that are helping the service thrive. In the interview, he talks about:

• Why the company switched marketing to focus more on TV shows and less on channel brand
• Why engaging the audience on the platforms they use is so important
• How focusing marketing spend on TV platforms has paid off in reduced subscriber acquisition
  costs and increased ad revenue.

If you run a streaming service or work with companies that do, this interview is essential listening.

Interview timeline:

About Revry (3:30)

Mr. Pelliccione gives an overview of the service, including a discussion of the original shows the
company is now producing.

Why Revry switched from a brand to show focus (4:20)

The enormous success enjoyed by the original shows has driven the reorientation of marketing toward
promoting show titles rather than the Revry brand.

Can’t move people from one property to another (7:00)

Normally, providers prefer viewers to engage with content on platforms where they own the most
advertising avails. However, Mr. Pelliccione says trying to get people to switch to a better monetization
platform has not worked for Revry.

Optimizing marketing spending (8:50)

Damian explains how the company has reoriented its marketing spending toward smart TV platforms
and how it is paying off.

Working with minority groups to mutual advantage (12:00)

There are many non-media-oriented groups focused on minority communities. Mr. Pelliccione explains
how working directly with them helps the communities, organizations, and Revry.

Interview: Free TV Company Telly Gives an Update

Telly, the company that gives free TVs to its customers, has been shipping the devices for nine months.
How is it doing? In this interview from last month, Telly’s CSO reveals all.

It has been nine months since Telly began shipping free TVs to customers in the US. It aimed to ship half
a million TVs by the end of 2023, but things have been quiet for the company so far in 2024. At the TV of
Tomorrow Show in San Francisco on March 27th, 2024, I caught up with Dallas Lawrence, Chief Strategy
and Communications Officer for Telly, to find out how the company is doing on meeting its goal and how
it has been filling out the functionality and services provided by the product.

In the interview, Mr. Lawrence explains how the built-in second screen works and how advertisers,
service providers, and users are exploiting it. He also details the device’s unique features, including how
it senses the number of people watching without using the camera. He also reveals a major new feature
that will be added to Telly this year.

Interview timeline:

About Telly (3:30)

We discuss what Telly is, why it is necessary, and what’s included. He also explains why Telly fixes the
problem of consumers being double-dipped.

Why Telly’s second screen is genius (5:00)

The persistent, always on second screen frees Telly to market to consumers in new ways.

Ad experiences enabled by Telly (6:00)

Telly can deliver regular TV ads, but its unique architecture allows it to deliver marketing messages in
ways particularly appealing to advertisers.

How many Telly TVs have shipped to customers (7:40)

Mr. Lawrence explains:

• If consumers are ready to accept the Telly deal
• If they use the TV
• Do advertisers buy ads on Telly?

How people are using the Telly and the second screen (9:20)

Mr. Lawrence explains how Telly can sense how many people are watching without using the camera. He also explains how users are using the TV in unusual ways.

How the camera used by Telly is secure (11:00)

According to Mr. Lawrence, a user’s privacy is always respected. He also explains how willing users are to accept the detailed data they must provide to get the free TV.

How Telly recognizes how many people are watching (12:50)

Telly has unique technology that allows it to recognize how many people are in front of it.

Telly in 2024 (14:30)

Mr. Lawrence reveals an important new feature that will be released in 2024 and categorically states that Telly is free forever.