Digital

Alan Wolk: How is the industry going to handle this new interim period, where traditional pay TV is far from dead, but streaming is rapidly growing an audience?

AT&T has officially launched its in-car video streaming service WarnerMedia Ride, offering it free to owners of 27 vehicle brands who have AT&T unlimited data connected car service. Ride will include news, sports and entertainment programming from brands including Bleacher Report, Boomerang, Cartoon Network, CNN, TBS, TNT and more. AT&T also plans to offer HBO Max on qualifying data plans next year.

The drop-off disclosed Tuesday in Netflix’s latest earnings report was more dramatic than management had warned it might be. After picking up 2.2 million customers in the July-September period, Netflix finished the quarter with 195.2 million worldwide subscribers. Earlier, company had forecast an addition of 2.5 million subscribers during the quarter.

Veteran sports news executive David Morgan will lead Sinclair’s digital sports news strategy across 21 RSN brands and Stadium.

The lawsuit marks the government’s most significant attempt to protect competition since its groundbreaking case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago. It could be an opening salvo ahead of other major government antitrust actions, given ongoing investigations of major tech companies including Apple, Amazon and Facebook at both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.

ViacomCBS today named Tom Ryan, currently CEO of Pluto TV, as president and CEO, ViacomCBS Streaming, unveiling a new leadership structure for its evolving global free and pay streaming services. Marc DeBevoise will step down from his role as chief digital officer, ViacomCBS, and president and CEO, ViacomCBS Digital, serving in an advisory capacity for the remainder of 2020 to support the transition and ongoing transformation of the digital organization.

AT&T is nearly five months out from the launch of HBO Max and the service still doesn’t have distribution agreements in place with Amazon or Roku. CEO John Stankey, speaking Monday at the WSJ Tech Live event, said the impasses demonstrate how platform companies, not network providers, have begun to hamstring access to apps and services.

The debut of the limited software tool comes after the London startup bags another $2 million from its angel investors.

Facebook tagged warnings to 150 million misleading election-related posts, and 2.2 million ads were rejected because they failed to complete the political ad authorization process.

NBCLX is NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations’ multiplatform lab for storytelling innovation, iterating across digital, diginets and OTT. It’s turning news conventions on their head in a bid to build loyal younger audiences. Above, LXNews hosts Ashley Holt and Nik Zecevic at its studio at KXAS Dallas.

Veteran ad sales executive Raoul Marinescu will oversee all digital ad sales for Allen’s free streaming platforms Local Now and The Grio.

The Stitcher company includes the Midroll advertising rep firm; owned-and-operated podcast networks including the comedy-focused Earwolf; and the Stitcher podcast listening platform.

Univision Network Chief Meteorologist Albert Martinez will join HellerWeather’s Tim Heller and The Weather Company’s Mike Convey for a TVNewsCheck webinar focused on elevating local TV weather segments to more effectively compete with digital platforms. Key to their strategy: storytelling with augmented reality. Register here.

The Starfleet crew clearly has more work to do. A day after its Season 3 premiere, CBS All Access announced it has renewed Star Trek: Discovery for a fourth season, with production set to begin on Nov. 2.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on Friday his company had been wrong to block links to an article making claims about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son. “Our goal is to attempt to add context, and now we have capabilities to do that,” he tweeted here.

Another high-ranking executive is out at Netflix. Head of comedy Jane Wiseman has left the streamer. Wiseman, who had served as VP originals at Netflix, had been with the company for six years. Wiseman’s departure arrives days after another VP originals, Channing Dungey, left the company.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has signaled he plans to follow President Trump’s lead and “clarify” Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. He also says he has been assured by FCC lawyers that the FCC has the authority to do so. ““As elected officials consider whether to change the law, the question remains: What does Section 230 currently mean?,” Pai said in a statement. “[M]any advance an overly broad interpretation that in some cases shields social media companies from consumer protection laws in a way that has no basis in the text of Section 230. The commission’s General Counsel has informed me that the FCC has the legal authority to interpret Section 230.  Consistent with this advice, I intend to move forward with a rulemaking to clarify its meaning.”

COVID-19 accelerated long-term viewership changes and channeled ever-higher numbers toward streaming and toward leaner cable packages, but broadcast remains a reliable and flexible buy for advertisers.

The growth of video streaming of all types is now an impetus for Nielsen to add new measurement for YouTube and YouTube TV when it comes to the video-site advertising inventory on connected TV platforms. YouTube’s streaming TV inventory will be measured in Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings and Total Ad Ratings.

Facebook and Twitter cast doubt on a New York Post story that made claims about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, taking proactive steps to restrict dissemination of the story in the hours after it was published on Wednesday.

Amazon has struck a deal with the National Football League to stream a playoff game this season, people familiar with the matter said. The agreement, which the league disclosed to team owners Wednesday during a video meeting, deepens the relationship between the nation’s premier sport and the online retail and entertainment giant. The wildcard playoff game will also be available on ViacomCBS platforms.