Charlie Collier: Sure. Yeah, thanks for the question, Michael. Thanks, Anthony. Look, we’ve done a lot of curation on The Roku Channel and we feel really good about our opportunities there, Michael, to continue to grow. Really our focus is on bringing the right mix of content to The Roku Channel, content that our customers love and watch across what is really that curated mix of licensed content, the fast channels and original content. And to sort of summarize or prioritize for you, Originals are a key part of our strategy and I’m proud of the team and our efficient and impact driving efforts. But the foundation of Roku’s content spend is third-party licensed content that we service for viewers through Roku’s unique UI advantages.
Our position as the platform is extremely powerful, probably, I would say, more powerful than I anticipated even coming in when we first spoke. And we have great programming overall, and the numbers and the engagement growth prove that our content mix is working well. The Roku Channel has grown streaming hours 50% year-on-year. And so, just like, I did at AMC and other places I’ve led, we’re very serious about managing the library and we frequently tweak it. In fact, we review The Roku Channel’s content and the content performance often, simply to ensure that viewers have the best possible experiences. That’s the job, to adjust the mix of offerings and do so to the benefit of audiences. And that process has helped us grow and the engagement is growing consistently.
And we see continued growth ahead across all key content categories, starting with that direct license, as I mentioned, including the fast channels, and even sports and focused in budget originals. We have 400-plus fast channels, linear fast channels, and they’re gaining in traction. Fans noticed that our NFL partnership continued to grow and the NFL Zone launched within our Sports Zone in September and Roku Originals mirrored that and premiered the NFL Draft: The Pick Is In. I think you just saw a clip if you were waiting on the call. Applebee sponsored that. And that provided insider access to the NFL Draft in partnership with the NFL sitting side by side with our expanded NFL partnership. And then we did innovative stuff like we launched the MrBeast fast channel working with one of the most popular YouTube creators.
I think he has something like 176 million YouTube subscribers. And that was both strategic and accretive. And it was an exclusive launch that our audiences loved. And it performed real well. So, we’re on strategy, Michael, and see growth ahead. We will continue to release new content and new partnerships on The Roku Channel. And I’m pleased with the team and our process and our progress.
Anthony Wood: And this is Anthony again. Maybe I’ll just point out an important component of our Roku Channel business model, which I think a lot of people understand, but maybe not everyone, which is that Roku’s big strategic advantage is that we’re the platform that a large number of people use to watch television. So, approaching half the broadband households in the United States, when they turn on their TV, the UI that they see is the Roku user interface. And so, one way we use that is to help recommend content to our — we use it to recommend content that’s in The Roku Channel to viewers. Obviously, we use it to recommend all kinds of content, but we also insert and make sure that we promote content that’s in The Roku Channel in our user interface when they’re deciding what to watch.
And so, that position in the viewer journey is a big competitive advantage and allows us to grow the scale and engagement in The Roku Channel with much smaller content budgets than other companies that have similar scale have to spend in order to reach that sort of — in order to achieve that kind of reach. And so, it’s a big competitive advantage in our business model.
Michael Nathanson: Thank you both.
Operator: Our next question comes from a line of Jason Helfstein with Oppenheimer.
Jason Helfstein: Thanks. Two questions. Sorry, there was an echo. One, how much further does the company plan to go with DSP integrations? I think you called out over 30 in the letter. Are you fully deployed with the major DSPs and agency trading desks? Just maybe help us understand what inning. And then second question, Dan, can you give us your philosophy for guidance? Like what’s a reasonable kind of upside-downside range, even if no number, just philosophically? I think just that would help investors kind of better set expectations. Thank you.
Anthony Wood: Hey, Jason, this is Anthony. We’re making great progress with third-party DSPs, but it’s still early in sort of our journey there in tapping into that demand source, but I’ll let Charlie talk about it more.
Charlie Collier: Thanks. Thanks, Jason. We are seeing meaningful success with our early efforts to scale third-party DSPs. We’ve broadened our relationships with a full spectrum of not just third-party DSPs, but also third-party supply and demand partners. As you noted, we’re there with over 30 programmatic partners, both big and small, to answer your question. And we’re spending — we’re seeing them spend on the Roku platform through automated third-party demand sources and also, obviously, directly with us. And that grew meaningfully year-over-year in the third quarter. A lot of it has to do with a concerted effort to meet marketers where they wish to transact. And that’s been successful. It allows us to diversify demand and to demonstrate the full power and breadth of Roku’s capabilities, really no matter how an investment in Roku is transacted.
And it also has allowed us to be a really flexible partner in multiple ways across the markets we serve. So, the initial results prove the benefits of the strategy. And beyond just growing revenue, the feedback has been terrific. And we’re often called our partner’s most productive supplier of CTV impressions. And as Anthony said, the good news is these are still early days. I should say there’s no silver bullet. The programmatic market faces the same overall macro challenges as other marketplaces, including categories like insurance that are not back as robustly as several other categories. Overall, though, our embrace of third-party partners of all kinds continues, and the results should continue to be positive. We work sort of client by client to set up the best ways to build their businesses and to prove the unique value of Roku.
I do want to note, I sort of say this every quarter, but it’s important, much of our unique first-party and ACR data along with our specialized ad products, our original programming, and many of the unique elements of the Roku UI, which deliver at a scale that few others can offer. I mean, these features will continue to remain accessible only through Roku. And this diversity of market-facing options that allows us to manage both demand diversification in the one hand and then product and pricing distinction on the other.
