Digital

Apple will bundle some of its subscription services together for discount. Customers who want to buy subscriptions to Apple TV+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade and iCloud storage will soon be able to do so for a combined price that starts at $15 per month.

NBCUniversal streaming service Peacock has reached more than 15 million sign-ups, Comcast Chairman-CEO Brian Roberts told a virtual conference on Tuesday. And Comcast Cable is trending to add more than 500,000 broadband subscribers in the current third quarter, which would be a new record, he also said during an appearance at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference.

CBS All Access is trading in CBS for Paramount. ViacomCBS revealed Tuesday that the rebranded streaming service will be called Paramount+ beginning early next year. The rebranding is the second, and much bigger, phase of the two-phase expansion of CBS All Access, which first launched in 2014 and was among the earliest entrants in the streaming space.

Dialing up its wagering efforts around sports, ESPN has made two separate sports betting partnerships — one each with DraftKings and Caesars Entertainment to promote sports gambling content. ESPN will offer content linked to both gambling companies’ sports booking operations.

At the heart of the backlash is the idea that Cuties is dangerously and irresponsibly sexualizing pre-teen girls, which, ironically, is what the movie itself is criticizing too. The campaign against the film, which includes calls for the Department of Justice to investigate it and hundreds of thousands calling for subscribers to cancel their Netflix accounts, is riddled with inaccuracies due in part to the fact that some critics have not seen the film (one claims that there is child nudity when there is not).

YouTube is rolling out a short-form video feature called “YouTube Shorts” to compete with the popular social media platform TikTok. YouTube said Monday that YouTube Shorts — set to launch in the next few weeks — will allow creators and artists to shoot short, catchy videos up to 15 seconds long using their mobile phones.

ViacomCBS Inc. is close to selling CNET Media Group to Red Ventures LLC, according to people familiar with the matter, as the entertainment giant sheds parts of its business to focus on video streaming. Red Ventures, a media and technology company, is expected to pay about $500 million to acquire the network of websites, which includes CNET, GameSpot and ZDNet, the people said.

TikTok’s owner ByteDance has chosen Oracle over Microsoft as its preferred suitor to buy the popular video-sharing app, according to a source familiar with the deal.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has battered the live sports industry, including broadcasting and cable networks, creative minds have been working on a variety of new cross-platform opportunities to attract fans and advertisers.

WarnerMedia’s new HBO Max streaming service is considering adding commercials to classic movies and some of its original content. The company has circulated a marketing survey to consumers, explaining that an ad-supported version of HBO Max could potentially carry two to four minutes of advertising per hour, according to Variety. While ads won’t likely appear in any HBO original shows or new movies, the survey suggests ads may appear alongside content from WarnerMedia’s other TV networks.

The share of U.S. wireline broadband homes no longer subscribing to a linear pay TV service reached 37% in the second quarter, according to Kagan, a group within S&P Global Market Intelligence. In the first quarter of 2014, Kagan found that only 12.5% of broadband homes didn’t take a pay TV service.

Will Smith announced Tuesday on his YouTube Channel that the new series has been signed by Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service. “We have just officially closed the deal with Peacock with an unprecedented two-season order from a pitch,” Smith said in the video, which shows him on a virtual call with others including writer/director Morgan Cooper, whose viral video inspired the new series.

Thousands of Hulu subscribers last night posted online complaints that they could not log in, making it impossible to view their live and Video on Demand services. The technical issue on Tuesday night seem to begin around 10 p.m. ET. It’s unclear how many people were affected, but Downdetector.com, which tracks online outages, says nearly 16,000 people were simultaneously posting complaints about Hulu at the height of the problem.

David Cohen has been named CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which represents digital media, effective Sept. 15. Cohen joined the IAB as president in March. He had been a top media buyer, most recently as president of Magna.

It’s an end of an era at Netflix as Cindy Holland (left), who led the streamer’s foray into original programming and helped turn the DVD-by-mail company into an original series powerhouse, will be leaving. A month and a half after longtime Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos was named co-CEO, he is shaking up the streamer’s top TV executive ranks. Netflix’s vast original TV content portfolio had been split between Holland, VP, original content, who has overseen all English-language programming, and Bela Bajaria (right), VP, local language originals, who has been leading non-English TV programming. The two areas are now being combined under Bajaria, who has been named VP, global TV.

Video/TV advertising measurement company VideoAmp has hired Omnicom Media Group’s Jonathan Steuer as EVP of TV strategy and currency. In this new position, Steuer’s responsibilities will include developing new cross-media platform measurement — a “currency-grade transaction-ready TV dataset” for media buyers and sellers, delivery providers and other vendors. This would include all areas that involve linear TV, OTT, digital and walled gardens.