OTT

The agency is being pushed on extending good-faith rules to OTT providers, making ISPs pay into Universal Service Fund. FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel has recently suggested that Congress may have to step in to give the FCC the regulatory authority that the Cable Acts of 1984 and 1992 gave it over traditional video. since those laws did not apply to, or anticipate, OTT. But she has apparently not ruled it out. “We are carefully reviewing the issue and exploring our options,” said an FCC spokesperson.

FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel sent a clear signal to Congress she is not looking to apply multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) regulations to streaming video services, and that she does not think the regulator has the authority to expand into that area in any event. Her remarks came in testimony to the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s FCC oversight hearing in its communications subcommittee.

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.

Attendance and exhibitors will still fall well below the pre-pandemic high-water mark, but station groups and vendors plan to hit the Sunday-Wednesday event with packed schedules and shopping lists.

The new capability includes feeds that have unique, streamed content that is not available on the station’s over-the-air channels or direct-to-cable station feeds.

TV stations are still putting most of their dollars into on-prem hardware for master control functions, with their cloud investments aimed at OTT and disaster recovery. Pictured: Imagine recently partnered with Vizrt to integrate its cloud playout software with Vizrt’s live production tools.

Streaming’s bubble has burst, and national advertising won’t be the panacea to rescue media companies for their all-in bets on OTT. In 2023, it’s the consumers who will determine who will survive.

The National Association of Broadcasters is looking to get the FCC to classify over-the-top video services as multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), making them subject to carriage and program-negotiation obligations.

The Advanced Advertising Summit panel “The Local View” looked at TV stations and cable operators reaping revenue on their digital and over-the-top platforms. Local advertising on linear TV is in a good spot, the panelists said, and OTT adds to the take. “What we like to focus on is the tremendous broad reach of broadcast,” said Christopher Martinez, Hearst Television OTT director of sales. “Linear and OTT working together has revitalized the need for local.”

From an antenna to streaming hacks, the Washington Post finds the least expensive ways to watch television.

Much to streamers’ chagrin, OTT has entered a new, consumer-driven phase that will determine the platform’s real winners and losers. Advertising will play a big role in that fate, and local partnerships may make all the difference.

AI-driven automated captioning for broadcasters continues its upward trajectory of accuracy and speed, while more recently the service is evolving toward hybrid on-prem and cloud models and multi-language translation capabilities. Above, Lexi is the cloud-hosted automatic captioning service from Ai-Media.

Over-the-top streaming offering YouTube TV has reached a milestone of 5 million subscribers and trial customers, making it one of the most popular nontraditional live TV services in the U.S. Owned by Alphabet, five-year-old YouTube TV has differentiated itself from the competition with unique features such as a cloud-based DVR, real-time statistics for live sports, and more. Now that an increasing number of people are cutting the cord and moving to internet-based television, here’s why this might this be the right moment for Alphabet to break out YouTube TV as a stand-alone operation.

Now commanding 28% of all video viewing time, over-the-top services have exploded in popularity. Borrell Associates found that they Increased from just 13.7% of all locally spent advertising in 2021, with more than a third of local media managers calling OTT their hottest-selling digital product. Find out why OTT is commanding such rapidly growing attention — and an equally growing piece of local advertising spend — and why OTT players like YouTube and TikTok are likely to take an increasing piece of the ad pie.

Regional sports networks are venturing into launching their first OTT channels to tap into the cord-cutting market. It’s an important move, but one that needs to be followed up with wider streaming distribution agreements to reach as broad an audience as possible.

For several years now cable operators have been arguing that the FCC needs to recognize the shift in children’s video consumption from “‘traditional linear television’ to unregulated online programming,” and deregulate accordingly. The 1990 Children’s Television Act set limits on ads in children’s programming and the FCC in 2004 limited the display of website addresses during children’s programming. NCTA told the FCC this week, as it did back in 2018, that it was time to eliminate those restrictions.

This is the third year for the RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University Survey question: What, if anything, are you doing with OTT? It’s the second year that we’ve asked what, if anything, stations are doing with NextGen TV.

Live and local content are front and center of many strategic OTT decisions being made by media companies today, and new technologies are enabling their delivery at scale.

Dr. Mark Fratrik, BIA Advisory Services’ longtime SVP and chief economist, is retiring at the end of June. He talks with TVNewsCheck’s Michael Depp about retrans’ slowdown, OTT’s rise and the need for broadcasters to keep their eyes on competitors coming from all directions. A full transcript of the conversation is included.

Bally Sports Plus will initially be available in five markets where the company’s Diamond Sports Group’s regional Bally Sports networks carry Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals, Detroit Tigers, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays. The app will cost $19.99 a month, or $189.99 a year, and enable fans to watch games without subscribing to a multichannel pay TV cable, satellite or streaming service.