Digital

A new Convergence Research overview report on U.S. streaming (OTT) and pay TV trends highlights continued but slowing growth in streaming revenue, in an analysis of 50-plus providers (80 services) led by Netflix, Disney (including Hulu), Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon.

At $1.66 a month, the discount is $30 off the annual $50 price for the base Peacock Premium package.

Hulu’s parents, Walt Disney Co. and Comcast, are negotiating to end their troubled marriage. Comcast can require Disney, which owns two-thirds of Hulu, to buy its one-third stake, or Disney can require Comcast to sell under a deal starting in 2024. Hulu has a minimum valuation of $27.5 billion under the agreement.

Emma Miller, SVP, scripted development & programming for AMC Networks (left), has joined Netflix as director, overall deals, series (U.S. and Canada) reporting into Nne Ebong, VP, overall deals, series. Carrie Gillogly, SVP scripted programming for AMC Networks (right), also is leaving the company to join Netflix as director, drama series, (U.S. and Canada) reporting into Jinny Howe, VP, drama series.

Meta has begun its third round of layoffs as part of the company’s multibillion-dollar plan to save costs. The latest round of cuts targets members of Meta’s business groups and follows a previous round of layoffs in April that affected employees in technical roles. About 10,000 workers will lose their jobs between the April and May cuts, following the company’s first round in November that affected 11,000 employees.

Elon Musk’s much-publicized Twitter Spaces kickoff event, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announcing his run for president, struggled with technical glitches and a near half-hour delay Wednesday. The billionaire Twitter owner said the problems were due to “straining” servers because so many people were trying to listen to the audio-only event. But even at their highest, the number of listeners listed topped out at around 420,000, far from the millions of viewers that televised presidential announcements attract.

The media start-up’s new backers include Henry Kravis, a founder of the private-equity giant KKR, and Jerry Yang, a Yahoo founder.

Early Wednesday, some started noticing a change to the credits on films appearing on the just-renamed Max streamer from Warner Bros. Discovery. Instead of individually listing writers, directors and producers, the new Max format had lumped them all together. By Wednesday afternoon, the presidents of the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America West had issued a strongly worded joint statement condemning the “creator” credit.

The Mother continues to lead all of Netflix titles for the second consecutive week with 92 million hours viewed during the May 15-21 viewing window. Thus, pushing the show to hit more than 90 million views. Netflix calculates total views by dividing the total hours watched, (178.1 million hours) by total runtime (1.96 hours).

Dr. Vivek H. Murthy urges immediate action from policymakers, tech companies and parents to safeguard against potential harms.

Comcast is rolling out Now TV, a streaming offering aimed at what it calls “the value-conscious consumer who wants an entertainment product.” For $20 a month, the service includes more than 40 live channels, among them A&E, AMC, Hallmark and selections from Warner Bros. Discovery’s portfolio, along with 20-plus free, ad-supported TV (FAST) channels from NBC, Sky and Xumo Play. A subscription to Peacock Premium is also included at no extra charge. Now TV is available to customers paying for internet service from Comcast’s Xfinity brand.

Josh McIvor has been promoted to global general manager of MGM+, the Amazon-owned streamer that relaunched in January after previously being known as Epix. As global general manager, he will report to Chris Brearton, vice president of Prime Video Studios corporate strategy.

The streamer intros an “extra member” option priced at $7.99/month for adding access to people outside the account holder’s household.

The lawsuit by TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, follows one filed last week by five content creators that looks to overturn Montana’s ban on the video sharing app. They made similar arguments including that the state of Montana has no authority to take action on matters of national security. Both lawsuits were filed in federal court in Missoula.

The Spanish-language media company says the acquisition will strengthen Entravision’s service offerings in Europe and the Middle East, while adding a team of e-commerce, entertainment and gaming industry specialists.

Earnings from traditional TV have fallen sharply after helping to offset Disney+ losses in recent years.

The federal children’s privacy law doesn’t prevent parents from suing YouTube for allegedly violating California laws by tracking young children, the Federal Trade Commission is telling an appeals court. The federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act overrides claims rooted in inconsistent state laws, but doesn’t override state-law claims that parallel the federal law, the agency wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief filed over the weekend with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The company’s high-volume approach to digital publishing has led to duplicated stories and alienated some of its journalists. At least one editor has already resigned.

The penalty fine of 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) from Ireland’s Data Protection Commission is the biggest since the EU’s strict data privacy regime took effect five years ago, surpassing Amazon’s 746 million euro penalty in 2021 for data protection violations. The Irish watchdog is Meta’s lead privacy regulator in the 27-nation bloc because the Silicon Valley tech giant’s European headquarters is based in Dublin.

TV stations now connect with audiences on many different platforms, and changing technology offers an opportunity to expand on a key strategy, weather alerting, making it the catalyst for a broader approach that includes lifestyle forecasts, school closings and more. Join TVNewsCheck and The Weather Company for an in-depth conversation about the changing world of alerting during a June 8 webinar. Register here.

The findings in two new reports raise fresh concerns over how artificial intelligence may transform the misinformation landscape online.

At least two organizations in America’s most prominent league for professional video game players are selling their teams, underscoring the industry’s uncertain future.

Just weeks after benchmarking the number of AI-generated news and information sites at 49, NewsGuard has updated the figure to 125 — a 155% increase, according to a new report published by the news and information ratings service. “The number of AI-generated content farms continues to proliferate,” NewsGuard states, adding a new classification of “unreliable AI-generated news site,” or UAIN to the lexicon of questionable news and information content being tracked by the service.