Digital

A new deal ends the impasse that kept the cable operator’s OTT app from being downloaded on Roku.

NBCU’s Kelly Abcarian, Tubi’s Mark Rotblat and Philo’s Reed Barker are among 23 high-profile executives now consulting the new advanced advertising consortium.

Cold, a true crime podcast produced by Salt Lake City’s KSL, has kickstarted a major content and revenue front for the broadcaster, drawing Amazon Studios as an exclusive broadcasting partner. Editor’s Note: This is the latest of TVNewsCheck’s “Newsroom Innovators” profiles, a series showcasing people and news organizations evolving the shape and substance of video reporting. These profiles examine the inception of their innovations, the tools they employ and how they’re reconciling experimental approaches to news storytelling within daily workflows. You can find the others here.

Red Ventures, which started as a digital marketing company, has attracted serious investments from private equity firms. Its location has helped obscure what is perhaps the biggest digital publisher in America, a 4,500-employee juggernaut that says it has roughly $2 billion in annual revenues, a conservative valuation earlier this year of more than $11 billion, and more readers, as measured by Comscore, than any media brand you’ve ever heard of — an average of 751 million visits a month.

The increasing shift of sports viewing to compelling streaming experiences will hasten the utter collapse of the cable bundle. Who will be the winners, and who will be the losers?

New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include openings for an account executive, a director of streaming TV, a Microsoft Full Stack engineer, a social media/digital content manager, a digital sales manager, a news producer and a broadcast maintenance technician.

Many marketers don’t realize how extensively and easily they can use digital video to target their customers and prospects. Some need a better understanding of how easily and cost-effectively video spots can be produced. Broadcasters can sell more digital video advertising by reassuring prospects with the right data and solutions. Need help? Join Marketron’s upcoming webinar, Video Explosion! How to sell more in 2021.

During the Tokyo Games, which ran July 23-Aug. 8, YouTube viewers watched more than 200 million hours of Olympics-related content (including historical footage of past Olympic Games). According to the video platform, that’s seven times the amount of hours of Olympic Games content YouTube visitors watched during Rio 2016.

Hulu had a total of 42.8 million subscribers, up from 41.6 million in the second quarter. Its Hulu Plus Live TV vMVPD lost 100,000 subscribers and finished the quarter with 3.7 million customers.

The Media Rating Council ripped Nielsen’s “deep-rooted, ongoing performance issues” in a statement. That followed Nielsen’s declaration that it would seek to take a hiatus from the Council’s accreditation process.

“The response towards Disney+ across Asia Pacific has exceeded our expectations, as consumers seek diverse entertainment content and are drawn to our portfolio of brands and franchises,” said Luke Kang, president, The Walt Disney Company Asia Pacific. “We are pleased with the subscriber growth and partnerships forged in markets, and look forward to engaging with more consumers across the region.”

An in-depth podcast series from Meredith’s KTVK-KPHO offers some clues worth following.

NBCUniversal, Disney and ViacomCBS, along with tech giants like Amazon, are shifting resources to snap up live programming from major leagues in a new arms race to fuel direct-to-consumer services.

The Times will make 18 of its newsletters available only to subscribers but will keep flagship email offerings such as The Morning free.

The websites and illegal streaming apps that offer pirated TV shows, movies and other online content take in an estimated $1.34 billion annually in advertising revenue, according to a year-long investigation by the Digital Citizens Alliance and White Bullet Solutions Ltd., using the latter’s digital ad monitoring system. Amazon, Facebook and Google are the major brands with the most ads on pirated sites, the investigation found.

Streaming pay TV provider FuboTV reported second-quarter results far better than Wall Street analysts expected, showing a gain of 91,000 subscribers compared with the year-ago quarter. Total revenue nearly tripled to a record $130.9 million and adjusted losses of 38 cents a share came in more than a dime lower than forecasts. Advertising revenue jumped 281% to $16.5 million.

AT&T is in talks to sell WarnerMedia’s celebrity gossip site TMZ to Fox in yet another deal paring down the telco’s entertainment assets, one that comes as it prepares to spin off Warner and merge it with Discovery.

CNN chief Jeff Zucker announced Hunt’s hiring Tuesday. She is the first new hire for CNN to lead a show for its upcoming streaming offering CNN+.

NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises said it has launched a new Hispanic streaming division that will create content that will mostly live on Peacock, NBCU’s streaming service. The new streaming division is developing more than 50 streaming projects that will start airing in 2022. Romina Rosado, above, was named EVP and general manager of the new unit.

Major League Baseball and Barstool Sports have had significant negotiations about having national midweek games on the site’s platforms. The discussions are what Barstool founder Dave Portnoy was referring to last week when he mentioned his company has had talks with “major leagues.”

A federal judge on Monday said Netflix Inc. must face a defamation lawsuit by former Manhattan prosecutor Linda Fairstein over her portrayal as a racist and unethical villain in When They See Us, a 2019 series about the Central Park Five case.

Coronavirus misinformation has spiked online in recent weeks after a decline in the spring, misinformation experts say, as people who peddle in falsehoods have seized on the surge of cases from the Delta variant to spread new and recycled unsubstantiated narratives.