apps

Many of the same app developers focused on the web today will help bring interactivity to ATSC 3.0 viewers in the future thanks to the standard’s W3C compliance and clever use of broadcast, broadband and non-real-time content in the home. Above, NAB’s So Vang demos the interactive in-home experience offered by 3.0 in the NAB Futures Zone during the NAB Show last month.

Starz is the latest premium TV network to introduce an app that bypasses cable packages and lets viewers stream television shows and movies directly.

After a successful test at WTXF Philadelphia, Fox is rolling out the Fresco app in 10 other markets. With the app, stations will be able to quickly recruit citizen journalists to shoot  pictures at news scenes for them. The shooters not only get the pleasure of seeing their work on air, but also a payday — $50 for a video and $20 for a still. Above, Fresco founder-CEO John Meyer (l) with WTXF’s Mike Jerrick.

KlowdTV, a cord-cutting service that delivers live TV programming to any device for just a few dollars a month, today announced its app launch on iOS. KlowdTV’s iOS app features: […]

The TV news app aggregates and curates videos from a wide variety of sources and also provides a continuous and personalized headline news channel for consumers. The videos can be viewed on mobile devices, as well as on connected TVs.

Featuring a wide range of content and channels that span local, national and international news, Watchup for Apple TV aims to offer a personalized, on-demand TV news experience.

With the inclusion of the Sinclair stations, the national service providing local news via app has grown to approximately 150 stations in 100 markets covering 80% of the U.S.

E.W. Scripps’ millennial-focused over-the-top news service Newsy has earned a spot on Apple’s list of the top apps of 2015 for its Apple TV platform.

YouTube Kids has drawn complaints from two consumer advocacy groups for junk food ads that appear regularly on the app’s videos. These groups contend that online video aimed at children has become too commercialized and is not held to the same standards as cable and broadcast TV, which broadcasters should read with interest.

According to Comcast-owned ad tech arm Freewheel, usage of operator-supplied TVE apps increased 176% year over year in the third quarter. This increase comes after Freewheel reported a 200% uptick in the second quarter.

The WRAL News app from the Capitol Broadcasting Co. CBS affiliate in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., has been upgraded to push content to the Apple Watch. WRAL News app users can access […]

Count ABC among the growing number of TV networks developing original programming for its own new streaming effort, but not quite like all the others are doing. Instead of launching standalone subscription services like CBS All Access or NBCUniversal’s Seeso, the Disney-owned broadcaster is assembling a slate of series intended to live only on its WatchABC app, according to sources.

The QYOU, a Dublin, Ireland-based international 24/7 media network of curated, high-quality Internet video, has introduced a new mobile app that will allow subscription service providers of all types — pay TV, […]

Reuters TV has traded in its paywall for an expansion of its video, offering a personalized video app that will be available widely across devices. Viewership has tripled since subscriptions were dropped (though it still offers a commercial-free service for some subs), and that kind of audience growth is now the endgame.

The Noticias Telemundo app offers news content customization and will provide real-time results on the night of the elections, due to the network’s exclusive partnership with their parent company’s NBC News division.

The local news service available nationwide via app expands just days after its launch. It now offers video from 119 stations in 91 U.S. markets.

Facebook will unveil a news notifications app dubbed “Notify” next week in partnership with some high-profile media brands. CNN, Mashable, CBS News, The Washington Post and Vogue are the inaugural partners for the app.

The broadcaster-operated mobile news service with content from 118 stations is now available on iOS and Android smartphones and tablets as well as Roku devices.

The new Apple TV features an iPhone-like app store that lets you choose your own streaming services. And it’s no longer pushy about steering you to iTunes and other Apple services. You can easily customize the home screen with your favorites.

It was significant this week when Apple announced that CBS and NBC were joining the Apple TV lineup just a week before the new hardware goes on sale. Apple TV now includes the top four broadcast networks plus PBS — a pretty attractive package for wannabe cord cutters.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Comcast is talking with a number of audience measurement companies and TV networks to license its data to them. The company is looking to harness data from streaming devices and set-top boxes and organize the details into dashboards, which networks and marketers can use to target certain data segments. The talks, which have extended to ESPN, Discovery and Turner and already nabbed NBCUniversal. Subscribers to The Wall Street Journal can read the full story here.

New apps are propelling the rise of social television. With them, viewers are joining in a state of disconnected togetherness to revive TV’s live emotional power.

A comScore report finds that mobile users spend half their time app time on the one they use most, and 80% of their time on their top three. Sixty two percent of all digital media time is now mobile and the majority of that is in apps, which recently surpassed TV.

Apple’s new News app will launch as part of a free software upgrade to iPhones and iPads later this month. Here’s a rundown of what’s known so far about the free app’s content, functionality and privacy, along with how participating publishers will be making money from it.

Reuters has changed tactics on its TV app, which launched at $1.99 a month but now is available for free in the App Store. Users will have to endure only limited advertising in the new iteration. Reuters has pinned many ambitions to the TV app, among them attracting a younger audience and building a “Netflix for news” experience.

Where Barry Diller’s Aereo failed, Apple is hoping to succeed. The Cupertino, Calif., tech firm is making broadcast networks the centerpiece of its cable-killer TV app — and talks with all four networks are rapidly gaining momentum. ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC are close to obtaining the right to negotiate with Apple on behalf of their affiliates, sources say, with the nets promising their stations a share in the added revenue the Apple streaming product will produce.

Rhinobird.tv, a video streaming service that says it “brings together the power of live video, the reach of broadcast and the connection of social media,” is now available as a […]

At Montreal’s La Presse, the newsroom has been revolutionized around its primary daily product: a tablet app called La Presse+. Reporters, designers and videographers work in teams to find the best way to tell a story that grabs the audience’s attention, although that comes with a price of longer production times. In part five, the final installment of this Digital Deep Dive, NetNewsCheck Editor Michael Depp looks at how La Presse+ is at the vanguard of multimedia journalism. (Photo by Edouard Plante Frechette). You can read all the stories here.

Web, TV, radio, billboards and advertising takeovers of highly trafficked locations combined with event sponsorships and experiential events to form the most expensive promotional campaign ever mounted by Montreal’s La Presse, as the company sought to move consumers and advertisers to its new La Presse+ tablet app. In part four of NetNewsCheck‘s Deep Dive into the company’s high-stakes move into digital, Editor Michael Depp details the marketing and promotional effort that among other things, has national advertisers spending more with the company than it did a year ago. You can read the series here.

Montreal’s La Presse spent $36 million building a tablet app that it sees as its path to future sustainability as a mass medium. Paying for it required the help of its powerful labor union, whose concessions were translated into a deep reinvestment in the paper. In part three of this five-part Digital Deep Dive, NetNewsCheck Editor Michael Depp explores how La Presse paid for this highly risky bet on its future. You can read the entire series here.

Montreal’s La Presse has broken away from the newspaper pack in charting a course for its future, investing $36 million on a tablet app that it has positioned as its primary product and, ultimately, its main source of revenue. In part one of a five-part Digital Deep Dive, NetNewsCheck Editor Michael Depp explores the iconoclastic vision of Guy Crevier, its publisher, and the remarkable engagement and revenue results the app has achieved in its first two years on the market.

The online video giant announced plans ahead of next week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo to launch a separate app and site specifically for fans of video games. YouTube product manager Alan Joyce said in a statement Friday that YouTube Gaming will be a destination for users to find gaming videos, live streams and Internet personalities. The app and site will feature individual pages dedicated to more than 25,000 games.

PBS has brought its mobile app to Android, giving Android users access to full episodes of shows like Frontline,  PBS Newshour, Masterpiece, Nova and Call the Midwife. The new app also comes with Google Cast support, allowing users to beam their shows to their TV, provided it’s equipped with Google’s Chromecast streaming stick or any Android TV streaming device.