Digital

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.

AT&T moves further away from the video biz with the divestment of the thriving anime-focused niche SVOD service.

The Telemundo O&O’s 10-minute daily El Break De Telemundo El Paso is designed to offer a more relaxed format to help OTT audiences stay in the know while on the go.”

By the time CNN’s new streaming service CNN+ debuts in early 2022, Fox News will have launched its third streaming service. MSNBC, meanwhile, has been creating content for NBCUniversal’s Peacock.

Roku posted another strong quarter of results, but its shares fell 9% in after-hours trading due to factors like a dip in streaming hours and flattening growth trajectory of its active accounts. The streaming provider said net revenue grew 81% year-over-year to $645 million, ahead of Wall Street forecasts. Operating income reached $69.1 million, compared with a loss of $42.2 million in the year-earlier quarter.

Facebook has disabled the personal accounts of researchers at New York University who have been studying political ads on the social media platform. In addition, Facebook has shut down the pages associated with the research, and researchers’ access to the Facebook APIs needed to share Facebook data to other apps.

A federal judge has officially dismissed a class-action complaint accusing YouTube and other companies of violating children’s privacy, paving the way for an appellate court to intervene in the matter. The legal battle began in 2019, when California resident Nicole Hubbard sued YouTube and various companies that had channels on the video platform — including Hasbro, the Cartoon Network, Mattel, and DreamWorks — for allegedly tracking her 5-year-old child in order to serve targeted ads.

AT&T has completed the spinoff of DirecTV into a new entity part-owned by private equity firm TPG, capping a costly six-year adventure in the satellite TV business. The new entity, whose financials will no longer be included on the AT&T balance sheet, unveiled new branding and a new home for its internet-delivered TV packages. Later this month, DirecTV Stream will become the umbrella for streaming offerings like the one formerly known as AT&T TV Now (originally DirecTV Now).