Short form video platform Triller has appointed former VEVO exec Kevin McGurn as its new CEO as the company kickstarts what it calls a “transformation journey” - something that, frankly, it could probably do with. Particularly if, in the event of TikTok being banned in the US, it’s hoping to swoop in and pick up the pieces, something that many analysts see as a possibility.
After a few years in the wilderness, Triller shot back to attention earlier this year courtesy of some wildly complex stock market manouevres that saw it complete a reverse merger with AGBA, a NASDAQ-listed company that touted itself as “the leading one-stop financial supermarket in Hong Kong” or a “market-leading personal ‘wealth and health’ platform company in the Greater Bay Areas of south China”, depending on which press release you read.
AGBA had initially set itself up as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, listing on NASDAQ in 2019, before gobbling up fintech and healthcare management company TAG in late 2022.
Triller is a lot more than just an app for sharing funny cat videos and blurry clips of people injuring themselves in amusing ways. In fact, according to its own spin, it’s a “leading global AI-powered technology platform that facilitates the interaction between ‘Creators’ including influencers, artists, and athletes, top global brands and users” and has literally millions of users.
So many users, in fact, that in the summer of 2020 it claimed to be the number one ranking app “in all categories in the app store in 50 countries including the US, Australia, France, Great Britain, Italy, and almost every major country in which it is available”, adding that it ranked ahead of “Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat and every other app”. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Only trouble was various market intelligence services said the numbers didn’t stack up, and Triller threatened to sue anyone who dared call into question the claim that it’s a very hugely tremendously popular app that was downloaded lots by everyone everywhere.
Current data from leading mobile analytics and data intelligence platform Appfigures.com suggests that over the last twelve months Triller has seen somewhere in the region of 613,000 downloads, with the majority of those in the US, and those downloads skewing heavily towards iOS users over Android.
Compare that data to Appfigures numbers for TikTok - downloaded more than 290 million times over the same period. Bluesky, the fast growing federated social media platform favoured by disgruntled users of what was formerly Twitter, has been downloaded around 7.5 million times in the same timeframe.
According to filings made by AGBA around the time the Triller deal was announced, Triller brought in just $45 million in revenue in 2023 - compared to TikTok’s rumoured US ad sales of $16 billion.
So, there’s possibly a little bit of work to do if this “transformation journey” is going to assure the long-term future of Triller, and it’s perhaps no surprise that many analysts are mainly eyeing the potential upside opportunities for Triller if TikTok’s current sell-or-be-banned fight with the US government goes badly.
“The future is bright in the world of entertainment and I am extremely excited to join the team at Triller Group to maximize our value to creators, fans and brands”, hoots the company’s new big cheese McGurn.
Triller has a “renewed focus” he adds, which means the company “is well positioned to deliver best in class entertainment, when, where and how our fans watch it”. Hinting at the company’s future plans, he goes on, “We will continue to build from our strong roots in vertical video, music and sports, and optimise our expertise in mobile and connected television”.
Those “strong roots” in sports and mobile television are, in themselves, interesting - if you’re interested in watching wiry shaven headed men wearing gum protectors beat each other to a bloody pulp. You can do that on Triller TV in the Triller-controlled Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship which it claims is “quickly becoming the #1 combat sport in the world”. Remarkably like that time it claimed the Triller app was absolutely the biggest app of all time everywhere that mattered.
This may explain why Triller’s press release announcing the new CEO bigs up McGurns media and advertising industry credentials, including stints at Fullscreen and Otter Media. That saw him “building revenue businesses throughout the creator economy”. He also had a spell at TV streaming service Hulu where, we’re told, he “played a pivotal role in building Hulu's sales team from the ground up, generating over half a billion dollars in advertising revenue”.
Although most recently at T-Mobile, McGurn previously worked at the Sony Music and Universal Music owned music video platform VEVO and also had a stint at Shazam. So he probably has some sort of in with people in the music business, unless they worked at Universal or Atlantic where everyone he knew has probably been fired. Those connections - if they are still there - could be used to improve the company’s relationships with the music industry, which needs a little tender loving care.
Those relationships soured in 2022 when Triller let some of its music licences expire and found itself being sued by the majors over unpaid bills. At the time it tried to play down the importance of music to the platform, though having a decent music library would help it compete with the major players in the vertical video space like Instagram and TikTok and, increasingly, YouTube Shorts.
The press release does also reference its new CEO’s time at VEVO, pointing out that McGurn “led the company’s expansion as a global music television network”.
That presumably refers to the time in VEVO’s history when, after deciding there was more to life than simply shuffling around major label music videos on YouTube and selling a bunch of ads against that content, it decided it wanted to be the new MTV and tried to become a music video platform in its own right. Which didn’t really work, and VEVO quietly returned to its original remit of shuffling videos and selling ads.
For all its zingy stat brags over the years, Triller has generally struggled to stand out in a short form video market that is dominated by a small number of major players with deep pockets, especially YouTube, Instagram and, of course, TikTok.
The platform was probably most buzzy back in 2020 when a TikTok ban in the US was first suggested, at that time via an executive order issued by the former President Donald Trump.
Had that gone ahead, Triller seemed in a good place to fill at least some of the gap that would have been left behind, having courted some key TikTok creators and with music industry deals in place that allowed the inclusion of commercially released music in its users’ videos. However, that ban was delayed in the US courts and was then abandoned when Joe Biden became President.
With another TikTok ban now on the cards in the US - this time endorsed by Biden - it could be game over for TikTok in the American market, unless its China-based owner ByteDance can successfully block the sell-or-be-banned law that was passed by Congress earlier this year. In theory that ban is due to go into effect in early 2025, which explains why analysts see a potential opportunity for the Triller to grow significantly.
Triller is probably less well placed than Instagram or YouTube to capitalise on any TikTok ban this time round. That said, now it is a Nasdaq listed company, after years of failed attempts at getting a stock market listing, and with a new management team in place, then maybe it can have a good go at filling any TikTok shaped gap that may appear in the US next year. Maybe.
It remains to be seen if Triller can secure itself a long-term future in what is a lucrative and growing but very competitive market - estimated to be worth more than half a trillion dollars globally - especially if the TikTok ban doesn’t actually end up going into effect. And even if it does, it’s not yet completely clear what role music will play in its future evolution.
But there’s always the bare knuckle boxing.