BroadwayHD CEO Bonnie Comley joins Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Brian Sozzi to discuss how Broadway is being impacted by the coronavirus outbreak.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: But I want to bring in Bonnie Comley, BroadwayHD CEO. Bonnie, good to see you this morning, very, very interesting business model for you all there. You're streaming Broadway shows, which-- which is very important right now with Broadway shut down, very interested in what you're seeing in terms of subscriber growth. I imagine it could be pretty sizable.

BONNIE COMLEY: It is. I mean, but we're also-- we're seeing a lot of activity all around in any of the Broadway websites, so whether they're selling tickets, or their shows, because people want-- they have-- they want to know like what's going on. There's so much uncertainty right now in New York City. Nobody knows when these 41 Broadway theaters are going to open back up. So there's a lot of activity around all of the Broadway industry.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And, Bonnie, you have found some innovative ways to help the fans and the actors sort of interact through this, folks who may have tickets to shows that now aren't happening. Tell us how you're using technology to do that.

BONNIE COMLEY: OK, well, BroadwayHD is a streaming platform. So it's a subscription, video on demand, sort of like a Netflix. Our entire catalog is of full-length stage plays and musicals. So, unlike some other sites that are selling tickets or giving information or snippets about how to-- you know, how to dance or how to-- you know, what the backstage antics of-- of like, you know, the crew is going on during a show or how a show is built, we are just the full-length content.

And we launched BroadwayHD almost five years ago as a support business. So we are-- BroadwayHD is a member of the Broadway League, which is the trade association for the ticket-- you know, the presenters, the theater owners, and the general managers. And what we are is, in addition to being a great entertainment streaming platform, we are also a service business to the Broadway industry.

So, when all of the Broadway theaters went dark on March 12, we had a lot of not just Broadway theaters, but a lot of the large regional theaters from around the country reach out to us and say, you know, can you put our content up there. A lot of the issue is around the underlying rights for shows.

So, just because your kid is in the-- you know, the high school musical of "High School Musical" doesn't mean you have the right to go in and videotape it and put it on the internet. So that is sort of a learning thing right now for people. So we're all trying to-- and the unions are trying to make concessions.

Broadway is entirely unionized. And the Broadway theaters that are around the country are also unionized, which gives it a level of quality for-- for all of these theaters. But what happened was they're selling tickets in advance, and they didn't want to have to-- I mean, they're cutting staff, as we-- you know, we said, around the country, people are being furloughed. They're being laid off.

You know, how could they save these regional theater companies? Because Broadway has their 41 Broadway theaters in New York City, but, the Broadway tours and the regional theaters, these regional theaters are actually the cultural hubs for probably a 100-mile radius around the country. So they-- they need to survive. The arts need to survive.

So what we did was we were able to put up some of their content, make concessions with the unions to put this up on a temporary basis. Part of the challenge with doing any sort of digital capture is the quality. So any Broadway show, as I said, it's entirely unionized. So what's on the stage is going to be amazing content.

But how you capture it also needs to do justice to a $20 million musical. So going in with, you know, two cell phone cameras doesn't work. And so that's part of the bigger problem is the-- the quality of what the show actually looks like. And we were able to, at least temporarily, put something up.

The other thing that we've done is that we've given complimentary subscriber, you know, like a one-month for people that are already subscribers to these regional theaters to, again, give them an engagement platform. So, you know, BroadwayHD was built to help the Broadway industry, to be an additive to it. And so that's what we're doing across-- across the world now is that, you know, the theaters everywhere are just dark. And here's a way for people to engage with the full-length content that they-- that they love.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Hey, Bonnie, have you seen an uptick in subscriber growth--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

BONNIE COMLEY: Yes, we have. We absolutely have. But we-- we have subscribers in 123 different countries already. I mean, that number is now going up.

So it's just, you know, there's more of them everywhere. And the word is spreading because we-- you know, part of our motto was, five years ago, was, if you can't get to Broadway, get to BroadwayHD. And now everyone knows what it feels like to not be able to go to the theater.

BRIAN SOZZI: All right, let's leave it there. Bonnie Comley, BroadwayHD CEO, good luck, very important business you're running right now.

BONNIE COMLEY: Thank you. Thank you.