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Rumble Inc
Earnings Call Analysis
Q3-2024 Analysis
Rumble Inc
Rumble reported a robust 67 million monthly active users (MAUs), marking a remarkable 26% growth over the last year. This surge in user engagement is complemented by a record-high revenue of just over $25 million, which translates to a 39% year-over-year increase. This strong performance indicates Rumble's growing foothold in the streaming market, especially in the wake of shifting viewer preferences away from traditional media.
CEO Christopher Pavlovski expressed confidence in Rumble's positioning against competitors like Twitch and YouTube. On election night, Rumble captured approximately 17% of the live viewership, highlighting its potential to challenge larger platforms with more resources. This captures a significant trend where audiences are shifting towards platforms that promote free speech and cater to conservative viewpoints.
With the recent elections, the company anticipates a change in the advertising landscape, suggesting that traditional corporate brands may soon recognize Rumble's value as a platform. Pavlovski mentioned a pending brand partnership set to launch in December, stating, "We're seeing anecdotes of that happening now post-election," which points to new revenue opportunities. He believes that advertisers can no longer afford to ignore a platform that caters to a substantial segment of the populace.
A pivotal factor in Rumble's success during high-traffic events, like the election, was its robust technological infrastructure. The engineering team successfully handled record loads without outages, showcasing their preparedness. Pavlovski credited this success as a defining moment for Rumble, reinforcing confidence in its future operations.
Looking ahead, Rumble aims to expand its monetization strategies for creators, particularly with an innovative 'small creator program.' Pavlovski emphasized the focus is on making Rumble the most financially rewarding platform for creators, stating, 'If we can make the most money for a creator on a per-view basis they'll bring their content to Rumble.' This reflects a clear commitment to not only grow its creator base but also to enhance economic viability on the platform.
Pavlovski acknowledged the challenges posed by established players like Google and Amazon. He elaborated on Rumble’s plan to differentiate itself and capture market share by offering superior monetization options, alongside a better user experience. The intent is to enhance content discoverability and community engagement, especially as they introduce new features geared towards fostering creator growth.
With hopes pinned on favorable shifts in corporate advertising and changing viewer habits, Rumble is entering what Pavlovski termed 'a new era.' This period will focus on broader content coverage, especially in gaming and political commentary, which could significantly dominate future elections. He expressed a vision for Rumble becoming a go-to platform for independent creators, positioning itself as a leader in alternative media.
The cultural shift within the media landscape is evident, with traditional networks like CNN and MSNBC reportedly losing viewership. The conversation around media integrity is evolving, and as more content creators join Rumble, it stands at the forefront of a potential media revolution. Analysts believe that Rumble’s model appeals to a growing audience seeking alternative viewpoints, making it attractive for long-term investment.
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Welcome to specialty episode of the Matt Kohrs show, where I have the privilege to sit here with the founder, Chairman and CEO of Rumble following their official earnings call. I'm here with Christopher Pavlovski. For those of you who might have missed it, the TLDR on the earnings. 67 million monthly active users, which is roughly an increase of 26%.
The revenue record-breaking just over $25 million year-over-year. That's a 39% increase. And when we're talking about money, good old cash, about $132 million in the bank, and I should note that quarter-over-quarter specifically 4 in a row, they are spending less money, 25% less every single quarter.
Now that's the TLDR. If you want all the other granular details, please go to investors.rumble.com, but we're going to have a very exciting conversation. So don't leave quite yet. Chris, thank you so much for sitting down with me once again to talk about all the exciting things about Rumble. How are you doing, how you're feeling after the call?
I'm doing pretty good. Good to have you in the swamp as they call it in D.C.
I'm loving the studio. I haven't been here yet. And this is -- it's actually an awesome place. I really, really enjoy it.
I kind of love this office. It's got a different feel than a little bit like our Toronto office with the bricks and stuff, but it's a cool place to be. Obviously, we took a hit on the Hurricane Milton hitting our offices, and it's put it out of commission for a little while. So hopefully, we get back in there by the end of the month, but doing some construction and repairs from the hurricanes that we had, but it's good to be here in Washington, D.C.
It feels different already now that we're post elections and during our first earnings call from here. It seems like the perfect time. But no, I'm -- I've never been more excited for this business. It's been a crazy 2 years of being public now. It's been wild ride, and I finally feel like the train is on the tracks, and it's ready to move now. So or finally where we want to be. I think our whole team is in a space -- in a head space where they're more confident than ever and kind of know what we need to do, and we're going to go out there and get it done.
I think that's a perfect place to start, 2 years into it, I know you personally and a lot of the team have been dealing with this concept for far longer. But in terms of your public birthday, you're now 2 years old. So obviously, congrats on that. I want to take a quick moment to reflect on just that 2 years alone because so many people were naysayers.
You will fail. It's a waste of money, you're going to be burning a lot of money. And here you are today announcing once again record-breaking numbers. What do you think is going on culturally that there are so many people saying you will fail, and you're saying, I don't think so and then get the proof, the quantifiable proof is on your side of the argument.
Yes. So we saw this years ago, we saw the movement. We saw the users, we saw the audience. It was coming but we faced all these headwinds, right? Like especially on the advertiser front. I never knew how bad it was. I thought being in this space for many years, decades in the Internet and being able to get brand ads on previous sites, and getting brand ads even on Rumble prior to 2020 essentially. It was pretty easy. And then we hit all these headwinds with advertisers as more conservatives came onto the platform. We were branded and discriminated against and advertisers just didn't want to advertise with us.
Any of the big brands didn't want to advertise with us, and we didn't really quite understand it. We signed a bunch of deals to bring in all this content, hoping that we're going to be able to couple them up with these brand ads. And it wasn't until the summer of 2024, thanks to the judiciary committee and Jim Jordan that exposed that it wasn't us that was faltering on getting the brand ads. There was -- there's an illegal boycott in conspiracy to block platforms like Rumble and X and the daily wire from receiving any of the corporate Americas advertising budgets.
And that was a huge eye awaking moment for us in terms of why everything was happening, like why we couldn't convince them, why it was -- we were hitting these walls. We were like literally on blacklists. And we're on blacklist because Steven Crowder is on our platform, like one of the biggest hosts in the world, which we proved on election night is like probably him and Bongino, the 2 biggest hosts in the world online and were blacklisted because of these hosts that are on the right side of history.
So we had some major, major headwinds and everyone kind of piled on to us saying you're never going to be able to merge, never going to be able to drive revenue. You're never going to be able to get the ads. Well, here we are for the first time breaking, well not for the first time, but we're now breaking a record on the revenue side. And we also said today that we were expecting to have sequential revenue growth here in quarter 4. So another record upon us, hopefully, and we're super, super stoked about it and super pumped where things are going.
And I think it's -- if it's not ag on everyone's face yet, I sure hope it will be in the coming year. Now that we're kind of past the election. We've shown the world that we're here to stay. We've shown the world that we were the go-to place for independent creators. If you take a look at the U.S. viewership online, where people viewed media, we were the go-to place. Steven Crowder and Dan Bongino, owned the top chart 1 and 2, online. -- it wasn't -- YouTube didn't have that spot. They obviously had all the networks, where they had all the corporate media that obviously did well.
But as you saw with Corporate Media, they're down tremendously over 2020. So where do they go? They're online now and they're watching people like Bongino and Crowder. We ate their lunch and their dinner on election night. And we're here to say that our user base didn't walk away from us. They stayed loyal. We reported 67 million MAUs in the third quarter. And then we obviously we reported that we've had records on election night as well. So we couldn't be happier. We believe we're executing. We're fulfilling our goals and I think those brand advertisers are going to come back. I really, really do. I think now that we're post-election, we're going to have some tailwinds that we never had before.
And what is Corporate maraging to do? Are they going to still boycott the majority of the population now? Are they not going to want to access to the largest streamers in the world and the largest shows in the world, if they -- I just don't see that happening. I don't think that's a possibility. The question is how long does that take now to change? And I think it will be quick. I think we'll start to see some real traction. I mentioned on our earnings call that we landed a brand partnership and that will be executed in December.
So that's our first of our brand partnerships. And it's a brand that everybody knows like it's a big brand. I can't give more details on it, but I can say that, that's happening in December. So we are seeing anecdotes of that happening now post ARM, and I expect to see a lot more of that postelection as well. So we're excited. We have the tailwind now. And we couldn't be happier with the results on election night. I have to say though, one of the things that makes me extremely proud though is that we didn't go down on election night.
It's not easy to do what we did on election night. You've seen X, they've gone down with Ron DeSantis in moments and platforms go down at very huge moments because it's not easy to do that. And they have all the sympathy in the world when a platform goes down due to high usage, it's happened to us. And our engineers did something magical on election night and prepared for something we could not foresee, and we broke records and we didn't have a hiccup. And that was something extremely special. It really shows that what we built is something amazing. So a huge thank you to the engineers on our team and the product people for making that happen.
Yes. That's phenomenal. And obviously, once again, just to reiterate a special round of applause to the engineering team, keeping the live. You said quite a bit there, and a lot of it is so great and there's so much to unpack, but just add a couple of numbers to it. As I was reading through your earnings, you did call out both Mr. Bongino and Mr. Crowder, who together had just under million live concurrent viewers. And then among the other creators, such as myself, it got up to about 1.8 million, which is crazy.
And I believe you threw out the number, 17%, 18% of the live viewership was on Rumble, and I think what maybe people are missing is, if you put the dollar value behind of how you got there, you guys are still from a financial stock perspective, effectively a start-up. You are fighting way above your weight class the dollar value to get there compared to who you're against Twitch owned by Amazon, and I don't know, but YouTube, Google, I'm sure you know that.
But like we're talking about not just big companies like top 5 companies, top 10 companies. And then you are there saying, Hey, I'm here clearly making yourself known and you're supposed to be a start-up. As you alluded to, they're supposed to be eating your lunch. They're supposed to just kind of snuffed you out, bought you out and then no one would have ever heard of you. And then here you are, and it's just -- it's the no reverse.
And I think what we saw, especially now heading into the election, I think there were tremors of it, but I think truly right now, there is a seismic shift between legacy tech and also just mainstream media. And I think, we heard the tremors and now we are one full week into everyone saying, Oh, wow, like something is big, it's happening here, we can feel it.
Well, yes, you're seeing MSNBC. You're seeing CNN, you're seeing legacy corporate media right now going through something that no company wants to go through. They are effectively becoming irrelevant. And I think by 2028 and future elections in the future, I don't know where they will be. The trust is gone. People are moving to independent creators. They're moving to people like Bongino and Crowder.
And Rumble is -- when you think about it, like in the United States, according to stream charts, Rumble had like 17% of the U.S. live viewership, more than 17%. Twitch had 10%. Twitch is owned by Amazon with incredible resources and been around and spent billions of dollars building their platform.
Google, which is YouTube had, I think it was like around 70-ish percent. But there are a $400 billion valued company according to Bloomberg, $450, I think, according to Bloomberg, and we're punching with the amount of money that we've raised, which is like less than $500 million, and we haven't really been around for nearly as long as they have, and we're punching against. We're beating Twitch and we're creeping up on YouTube in a way that on the most important day for live streaming in the United States on election day, we're really punching above our weight.
And I think that goes really underappreciated because of many different reasons. Obviously, we're punching above our weight, but we're also building a lot of the tech behind it, like cloud, we're not just building the software that -- we're not sitting there and licensing Amazon's streaming technology.
I think that's a common erroneous thought. I think a lot of people don't respect the fact that your engineering team, you have your own foundation. Rumble is Rumble, and I feel like that's commonly missed. I think it's on the laundry list of things that you guys aren't getting the respect that you actually deserve, but this is you, this is your show. People can do and say what they want, but you're going to still be here tomorrow because of how you insulated yourself against the rest of the big tech sphere?
Yes. No, it's there is a misperception in terms of like how we built this business. It's not just the streaming platform, but it's real technology and real infrastructure behind it from putting in the servers ourselves and data centers to across the country and then building our software on top of that and building the platform on top of that. So there's a lot to it. And we're -- yes, we're a start-up compared to Google and to an Amazon, so it's definitely punching above our weight.
And I think what we did on election night is magical, and it's historic, like to have 17% of the live viewership on Rumble alone says volumes. Google is a $450 billion company according to Bloomberg, what are we? We're a fraction, a minute fraction of that and we did what we did on election, and we do what we do in the United States every day. Bongino is the lead every single day, and Crowder is right up there.
So like it's not just on election night, it's a pretty daily occurrence in terms of the lineup that we have. I think we have like one of the best lineups on political commentary out there. I mean personally, I think it's the best lineup on the Internet. But I don't know that we get all the recognition for that, but I definitely feel like where -- people are starting to wake up to that in the last week after they saw what we pulled off. It was an engineering feat, and it was just an absolutely an amazing night to see the numbers that we did on the platform.
I mean it's very hard to disagree with you. I'm sure you missed it because you were busy with your earnings all day, but it was just announced today that not only, as you know, CNN and MSNBC their viewership is unfortunately continuing to decline and decline and decline. But it is now being rumored that CNN is going to be cutting and a lot of the jobs and apparently that will include some of their -- what they refer to as top-tier talent. And then it's also being alleged that Comcast will be selling off MSNBC. And what are your initial reactions thoughts to that?
Smart by both of those companies, they're going to go out of business with the trend line that they're on, I think companies like Rumble are going to emerge and dominating this phase. Like how long do we think that people are going to be subscribing to cable TV, it's going to be -- it's not going out of business. I shouldn't say that, but like they're not on the right trend. They're on a downward trend.
Rumble's viewership, I think on the next elections or next big events are only going to get bigger as more people convert into OTT, more people convert to apps as the population grows older, I think that live streaming becomes like the #1 medium for any type of coverage that you're looking for. So I think we're at the cutting edge of the future, and it's -- there's only growth over a decade for us, and there's only a decline over the next decade for the cable networks.
Let's look at it like this. I think I was speaking to Dan Bongino about it, and he really kind of defined it in terms of where the world is going to go. But like the way we understand TV networks, ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, et cetera, there -- you have all these cable networks out there right now that kind of have all their own lineups and they have all their own content, et cetera.
What I'm kind of starting to see emerge on the Internet now is you're having all these platforms have their base of creators and their base of content, which are emerging in a way like networks in a sense, every platform is going to have specific creators that are putting most of their effort into that platform. So you're watching the old traditional TV networks now kind of move into a place where platforms now are becoming go-to places for specific creators as well.
I'm not sure how exactly that's going to shake out, but it kind of has a very similar comparison when you look at it, like you're either on YouTube's app watching a specific creator or you're on Rumble's app watching a specific creator for live streaming or you're on Twitch's app looking for a specific creator on live streaming, whereas it's the same thing on cable television, you're looking at for a specific television channel, a specific network that you want to watch a specific talent on.
So it's almost very similar, and I do believe that the platforms and the competition of platforms will emerge in the future as long as there's a fair playing ground right now, YouTube dominates the video sharing platform, their monopoly in that, and they dominate that. So as long as the ecosystems, the play stores and the search engines play fairly, I think you can see platforms like Rumble be the comparison to networks like you see today, but on a much larger, wider scale than you see in network today.
Networks are very limited. In terms of their scale, they're very vertical, whereas Rumble can be very horizontal. You can have not 10 hosts during the day, you can have hundreds of thousands of hosts during a day. So it's just a much wider scale. And it can be a much larger scale.
I would actually even take that to the next level of why it's so popular is it's a little bit more of a meritocracy where with so many options, people are going to naturally gravitate to who they like and the content that they want to consume instead of just someone being hired by a company and saying, Hey, you have time slot X.
Here, you kind of see where the general audience, the general, I guess, Internet population like, no, I want to watch this person and you kind of can't stop me. So we're kind of seeing the birth of a new creator where they really have to care about their audience as opposed to making whoever signs their pay checks happy. A different incentive balance really.
Yes, like you have your show and you kind of do it when you want to do it, it's obviously incentive for you to set a time and go do it, but ultimately, you have all the control. Rumble isn't telling you what to say, what agenda to push. It's a more authentic experience. It's a more freeing experience for you. And it's just -- it's the future. It really is like who would want to be a cable TV host when they can be Matt Kohrs or Dan Bongino and have all the freedom in the world.
It's just like it's such a better experience overall to the way that it's set up in terms of the live streaming industry. So I only see -- that will only grow in my mind. And you might not capture all the TV audience in the next year, but I think this is something that grows over the next decade after decade and becomes the main way to consume content in a couple of decades from now.
I fully agree. And obviously, your insights are always appreciated. As we normally do, we're going to be turning it over to you guys in the audience to answer some of your questions. But before we do, one final one, the ethos of this company, a lot of the things that you're saying right now, this idea of free speech, protecting the Internet from a personal level, a financial level and now a corporate level, a lot of that was on the line, the night of the election.
For you personally, for this company, for all the people who make Rumble what Rumble is, can you just give us some of the insights of maybe the emotions you were having? Because I don't want to, I guess, dare say it was a make it or break it moment, but there was a lot on the line where you were kind of saying, hey, our roughly 80 million people out there going to agree with what you think is the proper way to run media.
This is one of the questions that we are preparing for on the earnings call if they asked us what happens if Kamala won? How would it Rumble of -- would that have been better or worse for Rumble? And the answer to that -- and it's something that we've been debating for -- it's not really been a debate, but like it's something we've been talking about for a very, very long time.
Like how do you answer that? Like what would happen to Rumble if Kamala won. And the answer is like, that would have been horrible. It just would have been a very, very bad situation for, I think, the country for -- in my opinion, for speech and for what Rumble advocates for, I think it just would not be good just based on the trends that we're seeing. It would not be good at all.
What happened and what the reality is so exciting for us and so good for us. And I'll break it down why I believe that. I think it's really important. Why is what happened? Why is that really good? Rumble for the last 3 years, 4 years has been up against these headwinds that I told you about on the advertising community. There's basically like 3 major headwinds that I think Rumble has really faced. And there's lots of details to each one of them. And the 3 major pillars of headwinds that we have faced. One is the advertising community. One is the investor community and one is the big tech community.
So those are the 3 pillars, the 3 headwinds that we've had, and when President Trump won last week, I believe those 3 pillars have become -- have freed us from these headwinds. And now we could have tailwinds. And I'll explain on each one. One is the advertising community. Not only did we sue GARM and they disbanded. But shortly after we sued GARM shortly after they disbanded we landed our first brand sponsorship, was that related to that, we can all take our guess to it.
And then we're talking a big brand, and there's a story behind that brand. And like it's -- it might be really I'm not going to say if it is or not because I don't know, but like we can all take our guesses. The fact of the matter is that someone came to us finally for the first time and we are able to put something together. Well, I think now that President Trump won, I think that drives even further tailwind for us.
And I think Corporate America cannot ignore the majority, we're not the minority. Rumble is not the minority. The people believe in free speech. Free speech is an American value. And as corporate America, are they going to walk away from American values? Or are they going to embrace American values? I truly believe they're going to embrace it. They can't walk away from the majority of the country.
So I think now the advertising community will be a tailwind. And it's just a matter of time until we'll start seeing brands, and we can help creators monetize better on the platform and Rumble can make more money on the advertising side.
On the investor community, a lot of people are -- let's just say it, a lot of the investor communities look. We can talk about the Vanguards of the world. They're definitely not on our side. And I think that will change now, too. I think that these invest BlackRock, Vanguard, all these institutions now that are pushing ESG and pushing all these things for the last couple of years are going to start walking back that pretty immediately.
Why? Because the majority of the country doesn't believe in that anymore, and they're on the wrong side of history. So the investor community has been like, obviously, we've been held back and we haven't been able to attract the investor community like other companies have because of the values that we have. So I think that now that Trump won is also going to become a tailwind, it could become a tailwind and they could look at Rumble differently as a whole because we're no longer the minority or the perceived minority were now the majority, so I think both on the advertising front and the investor front, there's real opportunity for Rumble, and we just need to take advantage of it now.
And on the other side is Google in big tech and Amazon and how is the world going to perceive these companies? We just learned that recently, and this is like not really tied to Trump per say, but like just prior to Trump that they were deemed a monopoly. We all know they're a monopoly, but now a court deemed them as a monopoly. And I think Amazon is a very similar situation on the cloud side. They are very dominant. I think BigTech done a lot of bad things over the last 4 years. They de-platformed, the President. President Trump was de-platform from BigTech.
I don't think he sees that as a good thing. And I think the whole country agrees that was a bad thing. So -- and on top of that, Amazon platform companies like Parler and destroyed them, which I think was a horrible thing in society. So I think that changes as well, too. So I think, obviously, companies like Google, there's going to have to be remedies for their monopolistic behavior in the past 4 years.
And I think, obviously, with incoming Trump administration and how they were -- what they were doing prior to the elections in manipulating search results and preferencing certain things. I think there's going to -- I think that those are things that are going to be -- they're going to have to change. And that eventually could turn into a tailwind for us as well.
So without Trump, winning the election, I'm not so sure that those 3 things that were a very big impediments to Rumble on its business in growing our revenues. I'm those impediments would have been removed. But I feel that now that he is won that those impediments have a real chance of being removed and really freeing Rumble to be what it can be in the future.
And it's something that really, really excites all of us, obviously, when he won. So to answer your question, I think it's -- it was very emotional that night to say the least. It was something that we -- many of us were hoping for because we felt that we were treated very unfairly for a very long time, and then we had all these impediments, and we think that, that will be helpful in future to us and just helpful for the country in general on the free speech and freedom of expression. It's something that they believe in dearly.
If we wouldn't -- in a large way, President Trump is the reason why we realized that free speech was under attack. They de-platformed him and removed his voice from social media platforms. And Rumble was the first platform and the only platform in 2021 that brought him back and gave them that voice, and it's something that is one of the proudest -- the proudest business moment of my life to have been able to do that for the President. And it's something that discusses me that all these other platforms did.
So it was an emotional night and I couldn't have been happier. The team couldn't have been happier with the results and we're pretty pumped up about the future. We think there's a lot of opportunity for us to take advantage of it now.
The 3 pillars that you just detailed and obviously, very much appreciate that. I'm just having, I guess, this enlightening moment where I realize you must have been a menus on the school yard because if you saw something going down, you not only did you pick a fight with the biggest guy, you picked the 3 biggest guys, and here you are still swinging. So obviously, a round of applause to you and the team. It is exciting times ahead. And with, I guess, this concept of free speech and true connection. I think this is the perfect time to turn it over to the audience and let them pick your brain for a couple of questions here and there.
The first one I'm seeing is, how is Rumble doing in terms of adding premium subscribers? Are there any additional planned features for premium members such as downloading?
We're going to get downloading for sure. I think Rick is in the chat. So Rick, let's get some downloading options for premium. That's an easy one. But actually, premium has been a surprise for the company. And it's one of those things that, when we first launched it, it was surprising to see how many people wanted it.
And then it became even more surprising in September when we introduced mid-rolls, so once we introduce mid-rolls, we realized we have a real -- we had something really special. Mid-rolls really helped drive more premium members and in a pretty material way. And we didn't expect that. We're surprised by that. And that happened in September. We only introduced mid-rolls in September. So you're not really seeing that in our third quarter results.
But then once we saw that happen, we really kind of stepped on the gas with this hybrid rack/premium model, and we went to Steven Crowder and said, Hey, let's bring MugClub into premium. And let's broaden premium. Let's make premium more than just free ad experience, let's give people more content as well. And we think the deal is Steven Crowder to do that. it was something he was actually advocating for a very long time.
And on the engineering standpoint, we weren't ready for it when he wanted that, and we were finally ready for the election night and we made that happen. So now Steven Crowder is part of Rumble premium. And the thing that's like -- it's really hard to convey and the excitement around this is because you can't really see it because it's in the third quarter. We didn't really -- it didn't really materialize in third quarter.
A lot of it happened in late September and then even more of it happened around election night, and for us, what we noticed is that we have a real economic engine now for creators with the combination of this hybrid model of Rumble advertising center, so the advertising business, combined with the hybrid of premium. And I think we have something a leg up on YouTube on this one. And the reason why I believe that is we're not just offering premium for the ad-free experience, but you're going to get like content like you would on Netflix as well.
So we're offering just a much better package in my opinion, going forward. And I believe it's the perfect package. It's something that allows us to go to market to creators and offer creators a real compelling package to monetize them and grow this business. And we're going to have a lot more on this coming out in the new year. We're going to be launching a whole new small creator program, which the premium is going to be essentially a big component of that, and it's something like we're internally just so excited for.
Even if the brands didn't come, and we just still had direct response, the direct response works so well in driving premium already. That I'm confident that regardless of what happens, we have something that's very magical right now with the combination of rack and premium. Now if the brands come, that's going to have a material impact pretty immediately to this business because we're still ready to go, and they just plug into a rack, revenue in CPMs just drive. They'll just drive immediately if the brand comes. So -- but either way, we're so excited about premium in itself that we think that it can be a fantastic year in 2025 for creators on that front.
On that note, you brought up 2 things that I kind of want to merge together, not only monetization, but with respect to small creators, obviously, one of the best ways to grow a social media platform is to attract new creators. What is your mindset when it comes to not only bringing over those new creators, but helping them get monetized to the level where it's economically impactful on their life. So they want to be there and Rumble is it their main home?
Yes. So -- it's interesting because like we're all kind of like scratching our heads. We did a lot of deals in the last year, and we're like, wow, we would have done these deals today instead of a year ago, like we're really ready to monetize a creator in a way that we've never been ready before. And we believe this doesn't apply to just large creators. This applies to all creators. And that's why we're really excited about launching this what we initially called the small creator program, but it's going to be something more.
It's going to -- I think it's going to -- it's really going to extend to everybody. It's not made just for small, it's made for all sizes. And I think it's going to be pretty revolutionary in terms of our product offering for the creator economy. And it remains to be seen how it pans out, but we're cautiously optimistic we're on to something very, very special right now.
It comes to no surprise that to pull off a lot of this. And as we've already been applauding the engineering team, it does take quite a bit of a technical overhaul to not only pull off what you do, but what your vision is going forward. Is there any plans moving forward or someone may be interested in that side of it?
Can just kind of stay up to date maybe almost like a blog or an update of what's going on with technology side of Rumble because in my opinion, the cloud itself is one of the most exciting things, but I think sometimes because you can't really see it, it's not the content you're consuming. Maybe it's almost lost a little bit into the ether?
Yes. So what I'm planning to do, and I did recently, I did a stream with some creators. I plan to do a lot more streaming with a lot of different creators and just talk about the platform more, get out there more and really kind of answer the questions from the community. I find that, when we listen to the community, and its constructive criticism, Rumble really benefits and creators really benefit. So I want to do more of that. I want to get out there more and really kind of involve myself with the community on Rumble because like ultimately, that's what's driving everything, right?
So yes, I would -- on top of that, we have all our regular channels where you can get information from. But I think like a key component here is to really kind of get out there and talk more to the community kind of like what we do with earnings and really kind of talk more on the product side as well with other creators and answer their questions. And get the answers that they want to get answered.
I'm definitely a fan of that plan. And since we're talking about all the major pillars of the business, we might as well talk about locals, is there any, I guess, exciting things in the work for an additional integration, whether creators such as myself, maybe like a merged store, connecting it to a discord? Like where are you seeing the integration between Rumble and locals and where that's going to grow to?
So locals is something we're going to integrate fully into Rumble. It's just -- it's a massive engineering over all . And we're trying to shift priorities a lot right now. So like -- there's a bunch of things that we're trying to do. One is obviously, the merger of locals into Rumble. One is Rumble shorts, which has been pushed out to next year. And we've kind of like re-prioritize on things that we think that are going to be like super highly impactful to the creator and what people are asking for the most.
So our focus now is that for the end of the year as we won a new creator dashboard because without the creator dashboard and properly summarizing everything, we can't launch this creator program in a way that you'll be able to understand. So we really need this new creator dashboard to really summarize everything that you're doing in Rumble that allows you to grow and you'll be able to get the data you need to grow. We want to get reposting out so that people can help other channels grow for them. We think that will help discoverability.
So in the app, you'll be able to repost. That should be a lot sooner than later. We want to get the moats out in the apps, which should be in the next week or so. So right now, it's only on web, but that you'll be able to easily add moats to your chat on the app. And gifted subs, we want to get out here before the end of the year.
So we think those 4 things, and there's a lot of other stuff in the background that we're doing, optimization, sign-up process, et cetera. that are really important to this business you might not notice, but those are the 4 things that I think that everybody will notice pretty immediately. And we think that, that will help you guys grow. I think the gifted subs thing will be huge, and I think the reposting will be huge for creators.
I think that type of cross-pollination and content is really the best way to build community. Like we see that a lot in these live streaming ecosystems, but as they parlay off of each other. I think the growth will be kind of exciting there. And it's cool to hear that this stuff will most likely be slated to happen earlier rather than later. Exciting times for not only till the end of this year, but as you alluded to a little bit there, shorts coming up being a big thing for next calendar year. And on that note, is it also somewhat slated?
One of the most common questions I get is just the discoverability algorithm itself. So beyond the -- like the reposting went on literally just the search. Is that going to be a big thing within the next calendar year as well?
Yes. So we put a lot of work in this recommendation engine. And eventually, that's going to move to a for you feed in the app that's going to refresh in real time, and we're as fast as possible. And that is something that we're working really hard on. And then obviously, search. I think search has gotten a lot better recently. There's still a lot more work to do on the search front.
But yes, those are things that are super high priorities for us right now. So those are ongoing things that we're continuing to work on right now in addition to those other things that I said, those are always work in progress and try to make those better.
So in your mind, we've called quite a bit of this year to be the Super Bowl year. Next year, are you just kind of go in Kansas City Chiefs mode and you're going to try to double and then we're going to go for 3 feet a year after?
I think now we're in a new era.
New era, who are going tell a swift mode, really.
So we're in like a new era in the sense that we can now go after the traditional advertisers, we can -- which were very difficult and essentially impossible to go after. And I think that now that we're -- we kind of cemented ourselves as the go-to place for political commentary in every election cycle there going forward. I think Rumble will be the biggest player, one of the biggest players, we really want to grow in different communities now.
And we think there's a real opportunity in gaming. We're really going to step on to the gaming side. I think this creator program is going to drive the gaming side in a way that will hopefully beat all of the other platforms out there. And we're just really pumped up about that. But yes, the new era is basically kind of expanding, growing our audiences in different segments.
But ultimately, what that means is just being the absolute best place to monetize for content creators. Our biggest hurdle right now for attracting creators is monetizing them. YouTube does it a certain way and a lot of their -- they obviously have this huge competitive advantage because they're -- they've monopolized the search. And when you go search something, it goes to YouTube all the time it ever goes to Rumble. So we're kind of deficient on that. So we have to be -- we have to figure things out on that end to kind of beat them.
So we're a little deficient there. But at the end of the day, I think ultimately, if we can make the most money for a creator on a per-view basis they'll bring their content to Rumble. So that's our goal, and that's what our focus will be in 2025 as being the absolute best place in the world for them to monetize video content.
Clearly, the dollar signs are going to speak. So I'm assuming with that as you get more breadth of content on the platform, I assume it will come with quite a few UI and UX updates. Is there ideas to almost like as a user of Rumble, it'd be cool to be almost able to group these. So like, here's my political content, here's my finance content. Here is my gaming content, that type of thing. I'm sure in the background, there's going to be big, big UI updates with all of this.
Yes. So right now, like your recommendation bubble should start gearing what you like towards you. And that's only going to get better, and then your pages will only be customized towards what you like, and you'll kind of be in your own little bubble of content that you love. Kind of like what the other platforms do.
So that's kind of the direction we need to go into. And once we deliver on that, I think that we'll see a lot more engagement. And we're kind of -- we've rolled out quite a bit, and we're starting to see that already. So it's been promising as we advanced on the recommendation algorithms.
I think an exciting times because like you said, politics quite a bit into sports like live sports and big ambitions next for gaming. And you never know what subcommunities really going to find their home because unfortunately, it seems at random that communities are almost silent elsewhere. So it's almost like a whack-a-mole type of thing, randomness of a new community might be at your doorstep as early as tomorrow. You never really know. With that, are there any particular questions that are jumping out to you that you'd like to address publicly. Do you have your live chat there?
I got the live chat up, always do. Let's see what else we got. Someone's asking about Rumble Studio audio feature. I'm not quite sure what that means. So if they...
Little clarification on that one, whoever sent it if you want to try to give Chris here a little bit more detail.
All right. I'm looking at chat right now, seeing a lot of Rumble logos.
So it is fun to see the moats in Rumble.
Hopefully, European markets open up back up to Rumble. Well, I don't know if you've seen, but I posted something with respect to what J.D. Vance was saying in terms of censoring platforms and how if Europe does that with respect -- they'll do something with respect to NATO, I don't remember exactly what it said.
But I do see European -- I do see markets opening back up to Rumble now that the new -- you can add that as a fourth thing. I think the international opportunity for Rumble now opens up now that Trump is coming to power. So I do see -- I guess you can find that as a fourth pillar of opportunity here with him winning the election, international is back on the table in a major way.
I find it interesting that you're saying that. I wanted to bring it up, but so many things have happened between the last time we talked on this that it's easy to forget that at one point, the Telegram CEO in France detained, we were all kind of questioned, you were silent for a couple of days, and then you said, hey, guys, had a high tailed out of there and like that actually happened in between the times of talking, like I said, so many other things have happened. But do you just want to give us a little insight to that, Chris?
Well, yes, it's scary, right? Like I said that in my earnings call, it's been scary at times, like you're in the middle of Europe, and you're seeing an owner of a platform that doesn't sense or get arrested in Europe and you're like, wow, like maybe I shouldn't be in Europe like what's going on here? I was -- that was actually a pretty scary moment, I try to get out of there as fast as possible.
You don't believe it to be possible, right? Like -- and then you hear like Pavel Durov getting arrested and it's like, okay, this is possible, and I'm like, okay, we got letters from France, many -- with respect to censoring content creators and they're arresting them for not censoring content creators, censoring content creators and I'm like, oh, okay.
Now obviously, we shut down in France. So but like it's a chilling thing to see, like it was -- that was scary. That was like -- I was pretty freaked out. I was with one of my friends there and like he was freaked out for me. He's like, we got to go. I'm like, yes, we got to go.
I'm sure that hit in your stomach. And it's insane that that's happened in between, but just so many other things happen that I guess we lose track of all the insanity. But hopefully, as really what started this, hopefully with the president elected Donald Trump, obviously returning that some of those what I would say, a third [indiscernible] calm down from here on out. Hopefully, you can't go to France and not be scared, right?
I think it has to, right? Like first off, like it's crazy that we even got to this point, like censorship should be so frowned upon in the world. That's such a horrible thing to be doing. And I think it just -- I think the temperature is going to have to come down. I think it is coming down. And I don't think Europe is going to be -- they're going to have to really watch what they do because like with an administration that's so Pro free speech and so Pro freedom, I think the world right now is going to be really careful on what they do.
I don't think they're going to be pulling out stunts like that. And -- yes. I think the world is going to change in a positive way, which is great for Rumble. We have -- now we -- hopefully, we can open up and Rumble and hopefully something -- I mean open up in France. Hopefully, something changes there, hopefully something changes in Brazil. I'm optimistic that things will change because I don't think this administration is for this type of censorship.
The President Trump was a victim to this censorship. He was literally de-platformed off of every platform. And I don't think that's something he's going to stand for. In fact, he's voiced the complete opposite. So -- and he won't stand for that. So I'm really excited that the world will change in a positive way post him winning the election now.
Going off of that, I'm going to make a big prediction. I think next calendar year, there's going to be some well-known person that at this moment in time, despises the symbol of Rumble and you specifically because they don't get what's going on. I think there's a person right now as we're talking about CNN, MSNBC getting put through the wood chipper that they think that you are very right leaning in Republican when really -- well, first of all, you're Canadian.
But more importantly, you just want people to be able to say what they want to say. Just whatever their thoughts and opinions are, put it out in the marketplace of ideas, I think there's a person right now who has it so contorted because of the paradigm of politics that they're going to end up coming on the platform and realize, hey, I'm just here because I can say what I want to say. And if they want to run their job and their own, I guess, content via Rumble, great, and you're going to welcome them. It's going to be there. Anyone's allowed on.
Absolutely. Like -- the first amendment is a value that works for everybody. It doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum you're on. You don't have civil rights movements, you don't have women's rights movements. You don't have any type of movements in the history in America without the ability to speak freely, voice your opinion about something that you feel is wrong.
The first amendment enables you to speak up and enables you to make society better. And that has to be absolutely protected at all costs. And history has shown us that it's needed. So it's not for one particular group. It's for everybody. It's for every group, every -- it's a human right. It's literally a human right according to the United Nations.
And I might not like the United Nation so much, but they got that one right. Like the article of 19 of the United Nations human declaration of -- universal decoration of human rights is they got that very right freedom of expression. So it's for everyone. And whether you're on the left, you're on the right, we welcome everybody to voice their opinion and argue with other people and other ideas. If you think something's wrong, argue with it, bring a better idea to the table.
And I think like sometimes, you'll hear things you don't like to hear. Sometimes you'll hear things that you're going to like to hear. But I think ultimately, the best argument wins. And without freedom expression, you can't hear the best argument.
Without a doubt, I don't think there's a better way to put that. And I unfortunately did cut you off there are there particular questions that are...
Yes, I think true social relationships. So obviously, Devon is the CEO of Truth Social is a great friend of mine. And I spent the night with him on election night at Mar-a-Lago and at the convention center. We have a great relationship with Truth Social. They're one of our bigger clients, both on the advertising and cloud side. And things couldn't be better. And it's not at -- had a really good night, obviously, on election night with him. So it was a good time.
What about just similarly related, any -- how is the relationship with X and Elon Musk?
So I talk to Elon once in a while. There's good relationship there. And I think what X has done, obviously, in the last year has been -- it's been great. It's been great for Rumble. It's been great for the world. And it's been a very important vector in the social network world in the microblogging world for everybody. And it's been -- I think we even said that it's actually contributed. I haven't looked recently, but I did at one point in the last couple of months point out that X was contributing a lot to Rumble in terms of users. So it's been very beneficial to us.
It's contrary to what people think they're like, oh, X is free speech and it's going to be bad for Rumble. No, no, it's a complete opposite. As this market grows and more people come in to it and more people believe in free speech in the first amendment, it grows the market in its entirety and that market becomes bigger for us and more people tune into our shows, and we end up getting a lot more visitors from X because of it. So it's actually working the complete opposite to a lot of people what they think. It's been extremely beneficial for us to have Elon and Linda drive free speech as far as they can on their platform.
I suppose the concept of free speech is a rising tide and helps all ships?
Exactly. And there's only really a few platforms on that side, right? It's -- we got the video side pretty much unlock. They have the microblogging side to a large extent. And Truth Social as a pretty big contingent as well not to be underestimated. So it's been good. It's a small ecosystem, but it's getting bigger things to Elon. He made it a lot bigger for us.
That's great. That's great. What are the other ones? I keep -- I don't want to...
I don't see them anymore.
A lots of X questions, probably ones I can't answer.
Send that to Elon and maybe he'll respond over there.
I'll let Elon answer questions. Tyson or Paul?
I believe that's this Friday.
It's right. It's Friday.
Tyson or Paul?
If were a betting man, who would you throw down on? Well, I'm also asking the guy who fights the biggest kid on the school, so you'd probably say I'll take them both on.
Yes, I don't know. It's kind of -- it seems like, I don't know, it's -- Tyson was one of the greatest fighters ever. And -- but Jake Paul and he's kind of -- Tyson's quite old. So I don't know what kind of match is going to be. Is it going to be friendly match, I hope it is, but Jake Paul is a tough guy.
So I truly think it could go either way. I don't think you can underestimate Mike Tyson's experience. And also if you just get into that head space, I think we're all going to know the second mic walks out of like what Mike would...
That would be incredible to see Mike Tyson win.
If he goes that mode. But I think Jake is continually undervalued because they just think he's a YouTube when in reality -- he has been training for a years...
No, Jake is a good fighter...
He's like a legitimately good fighter. Is the best boxer in the world currently? No, but he takes this job very seriously, and it's been, what, 5 to 6 years. So I think it's going to be an interesting one. And actually, I think I feel so unsure about it that it's a flip of the coin in my head.
Yes. I don't know. I think, Jake, but I'd be pleasantly surprised if it was Mike -- I bet on Mike Tyson. So -- it will be an interesting one remains to be seen. That's one I don't think I'd put money on either way just because I don't know how that's going to go, but I know Jake as tough as nails and obviously, so is Tyson.
So well here, I'll change the question a little bit and give you immediate question because that's your expertise. Do you think it will be the most watched boxing match of all time?
No.
Do you think it will like crack some key numbers, maybe a top 3 or top 5?
No.
Really? Do you think Netflix maybe miscalculated on this one?
No. I just think that when you're behind the paywall like Netflix, you definitely hurt your opportunity of a large audience. So I don't think you can compete to traditional cable TV broadcasting for free for everywhere. So I don't know. It remains to be seen because you saw some -- like the NFL games are a little bit on Peacock, like when they did that exclusive one. It remains to be seen how it's going to be. But I definitely don't think it's going to be in the top 5.
I would be surprised if it is. If it is, then -- well, they're doing essentially what Rumble is doing, they're going after streamers and young people and make live events like we do with Power Slap. So it's the same strategy we have, but I just don't think it cracks the top 5 or even the top 10. I don't know what the top 10 looks like, so I can't comment on that. I don't even know what top 5 looks like, but I'm just -- gut feeling is the answer is no.
I think we're going to find out how pervasive password sharing is on this particular Friday.
Yes. It will be interesting to watch. That's for sure. It should be interesting.
Well, not only am I excited for that, but obviously, very excited for the next quarter and the total future for Rumble. As always, I appreciate your time for me and all the audience. Thanks so much. Is there any concluding thoughts you just want to share with anyone before we talk next quarter?
No, next quarter is going to be a while away now, right? So it's going to be next year. But no, not at this moment, I just -- like I reiterated earlier, our team is very pumped for what's going to come. I'm going to try to get out there more in the meantime, give a lot more updates to the community in the meantime because I think that connecting with them is the right way to go. And obviously, these huge gaps between earnings is not sufficient. So maybe we'll jump on your stream in the middle somewhere and talk Rumble and talk shop.
I love it. As always, your time is greatly appreciated. Congrats on the success and here's to the bright future. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. We'll catch you on the next one.