Digital

The Ohio Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case that could change how streaming platforms operate. The city of Maple Heights, outside Cleveland, sued Netflix and Hulu in federal court in 2020. It argues that the streaming platforms should pay local governments franchise fees similar to what cable television providers have to pay. The federal court sent two questions to the Ohio Supreme Court to decide: Are Netflix and Hulu considered “video service providers?” Does Maple Heights have the right to challenge the companies over the issue? No state’s supreme court has ruled on those issues.

Amazon said the new name will take effect on April 27. The retailer said the streaming service will also expand its original programming by 70% in 2022, with spinoffs of shows such as Bosh: Legacy and other series. It will also add more original movies.

Musk, Twitter’s biggest shareholder, is free to buy more stock in the company and could use the platform against itself. Some employees are dismayed.

Digital ad revenue in the U.S. rose 35% to $189 billion last year as marketers spent more to reach consumers, according to a report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers released Tuesday. David Cohen, CEO at IAB, believes that an increase in consumer use of online services and growth of small and mid-size businesses during the pandemic fueled the increase in digital spending — specifically in digital audio and video.

For Rob Weisbord, COO and president of broadcast of Sinclair Broadcast Group, the company’s hydra-like assets across linear TV, cable, streaming and digital work in concert by design for ad sales and, shortly down the road, programming. “We have to be prepared to be able to get the entire universe of people consuming audio and video,” he says.

U.S. media businesses, already a prime target for cyber criminals, face heightened danger from Russian hackers and those sympathetic to their cause, especially as pressures from sanctions and the cost of the Ukraine invasion mount.

Investment and projections for CNN+ are expected to be cut dramatically in response to a low adoption rate, two sources tell Axios. The news giant was initially planning to invest around $1 billion in the service over the next four years. Hundreds of millions of dollars are expected to be cut from that original investment total. To date, around $300 million has been spent on the subscription service, which includes a sizable marketing investment. The new company’s leadership team still has yet to decide the ultimate fate of CNN+

Computer companies are standing up for Twitter in federal court, telling the federal appeals court for the Ninth Circuit that it should reject and rethink a panel decision ruling against Twitter’s challenge to an investigation by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

CNN+, the subscription streaming service from CNN, launched Monday in the United States on the Roku platform. Roku users will be able to download the the CNN app through the Roku channel store which will contain both the CCN+ subscription service and access to the current “TV everywhere experience” for pay TV subscriber, the companies said in a statement on Monday. That includes live TV feeds of CNN, CNN International and HLN.

NBCU’s KNTV leveraged king-sized reporting resources into a six-part, digital-native docuseries that elevates a small human-interest story into a large-scale examination of San Francisco’s culture and systems.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted the news, which followed a weekend of Musk tweets suggesting possible changes to Twitter, including making the site ad-free. Nearly 90% of Twitter’s 2021 revenue came from ads. “Elon’s appointment to the board was to become officially effective on 4/9, but Elon shared that same morning that he would not be joining the board,” Agrawal wrote in a reposted note originally sent to Tesla employees. “I believe this is for the best.”

New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include openings in news, sales, digital, creative services, engineering and technical operations/production.

The series, which debuted on ABC in 2005, will jump to Disney+ in the fall. The move comes in conjunction with a two-season renewal that will take DWTS through a 32nd cycle. The switch was prompted in part by ABC’s plans to simulcast several games on ESPN’s Monday Night Football slate in the fall. The broadcaster will also have an exclusive Monday Night Football contest at some point in the NFL season. Dancing With the Stars will also become the first live series on Disney+.

Though the reign of Encanto has begun to subside, Disney Plus remains on top with Pixar’s latest feature Turning Red debuting in the No. 1 position in Nielsen’s newly released Top 10 streaming rankings. The title accrued more than 1.7 billion minutes watched from March 7 to 13, beating out The Last Kingdom and Pieces of Her, the Netflix series that nabbed positions 2 and 3 respectively, both with 1.4 billion minutes watched.

Amazon Prime Video will begin exclusively streaming New York Yankees games later this month, with 19 of the 21 games in the package airing on Friday nights. Amazon Prime Video began streaming simulcast Yankees games with broadcasters and the YES Network in 2020,  but this is the first time it has exclusive rights for the games.

Disney has over the past two years spent billions to snare new rights deals with top sports properties like Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Hockey League, the PGA Tour and others. But in months to come, the company may place new emphasis on programming around those big properties. New research from the company indicates more sports fans are interested in “the game around the game,” says Lisa Valentino, EVP at Disney Advertising Sales, and that could manifest itself increasingly in sports content that is found on smartphones; activity related to fantasy sports; or content related to sports-betting.

Comcast NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service confirmed that it will stream a package of 18 Sunday morning Major League Baseball games starting in May. The games will be surrounded by a pre- and post-game shows, all produced by NBC Sports, which started broadcasting baseball in 1939.

Old-school media companies are challenging the streaming star, which needs new ways to stay on top.

Apple and Google are pushing privacy changes, but a shift in digital tracking is giving some platforms a bigger advertising advantage.

The strategic alliance is designed to accelerate growth across Allen Media Group’s portfolio of media and digital properties.