A year after it launched, AT&T’s Internet-delivered skinny TV bundle DirecTV Now has officially reached 1 million subscribers.
The U.S. linear pay TV market will shrink 26% by 2030, reaching only 60% of households compared to 81% today. That’s the conclusion of research firm The Diffusion Group in its latest report, which analyzes the impact of virtual MVPD services including Sling TV, DirecTV Now and Hulu Live on the incumbent pay TV marketplace.
Poking its head out to fire a round in the superheated battle for virtual MVPD bundle supremacy, Sony has announced that its PlayStation Vue service has added nearly a dozen Fox and NBC affiliates as well as Hallmark channels.
Exclusives
The freshman syndicated show from the New York Post and Endemol Shine North America will be available the day after broadcast beginning Thursday.
Streaming video services are better at helping TV consumers — 79% of all consumers, including pay-TV subscribers, and 90% of those under 30 agree that streaming services play a huge role in finding new TV programming/video according to a PwC study.
AT&T has filed a trademark application for the logo, Watch TV, which would be used for an app that streams content to a variety of devices, including computers, tablets and televisions.
The power of human suggestions — or what used to be known as the water cooler — might be coming back, thanks to a new streaming service started by an ex-Facebook founder that’s launching today. Philo costs $16 a month and includes more than 35 channels from A+E, AMC Networks, Discovery, Scripps and Viacom — which are also strategic investors in the company. The service is available nationwide and on most major streaming platforms, including iOS, Android (through the Chrome browser, for now), Apple TV and Roku.
Coming off of a stellar first earnings report as a public company, Roku CEO Anthony Wood says the future of Roku is smart TV software, not its connected TV hardware product that it’s most commonly known for. Per eMarketer, more Americans use Roku’s connected TV device than any other similar device, like Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV or Apple TV.
Walt Disney Co.’s shares rose 3% on Friday, as Wall Street shrugged off poor financial results and focused instead on the media giant’s commitment to build a service that will compete aggressively with video streaming pioneer Netflix.
FuboTV today announced a multi-year agreement with NESN (New England Sports Network), the exclusive regional home of the Boston Red Sox and the Boston Bruins. FuboTV will launch NESN in the coming days to […]
Roku, the independent streaming-TV company that recently staged a successful IPO, is seeing a huge rise in its stock price in midday trading, a day after the company’s first quarterly financial report crushed Wall Street revenue estimates. Shares of the maker of streaming boxes and dongles connecting viewers to Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and hundreds of other services were trading at $27.50, up a remarkable 46% on triple normal volume.
Juniper Resiearch finds that SVOD services will be a key driver of growth, with major OTT players such as Netflix and Amazon committing budgets of more than $5 billion to original content over the coming year.
With its ability to provide programming on demand, streaming-video services are akin to a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. Little wonder, then, that CBS has chosen its “All Access” streaming video service to launch a new version of The Twilight Zone, the seminal sci-fi series that opened each week with a distinctive introduction from creator Rod Serling that used those aforementioned words.
Cord-Cutting, OTT Embraced By CBS
On its earnings call, CEO Les Moonves is bullish on viewer choice and new subscription models, explaining that CBS makes more money per sub when the cord is cut. “Not only are we not affected as others are by cord-cutting, it has real measurable upside for us. This is what sets CBS apart from the pack.”
YouTube TV, the “skinny bundle” pay-TV service that launched in the spring via web browsers, Google Chromecast and a mobile app, officially is entering the living room. A new app optimized for smart TVs and connected devices launches this week with availability only on Android TV sets, but by the end of the year YouTube plans to roll it out to major distribution partners including Samsung, Apple TV, Roku and Xbox.
Didja allows its downloaders to stream live (or store for later viewing) some three dozen minor broadcast signals, mostly ethnic channels and diginets. It’s a first step. Plans calls for offering most broadcast signals, including Big Four affiliates, to more than 60% of U.S TV homes. CEO Jim Long says he knows he will have to pay for the affiliates to come aboard and has already begun those discussions.
Hulu said today that it has added nine Fox affiliates to its virtual pay-TV service. Hulu said it now has deals with more than 290 TV stations and has more than two stations locked in for 80% of U.S. TV households.
Verizon feels that OTT streaming customers shouldn’t bear the brunt of a retransmission impasse between their internet provider — often a cable operator — and programmers, and wants the FCC to consider this in any reform of the retransmission consent process.
Broadcasters Mull OTT Possibilities, Payouts
Unique content and targeted ads may yield future revenues, but stations are urged to not delay any longer.
Netflix says it may spend as much as $8 billion on content in 2018 — a figure that could make it the biggest content buyer of any media or technology company. The company slipped the figure into its quarterly letter to shareholders, adding that it had $17 billion in content commitments over the next few years, and is expected to spend between $7 billion and $8 billion on content in 2018.
As a new SEC filing from AT&T shows, traditional video bundles are on the decline, while streaming bundles are on the rise. Can the new opportunities that streaming bundles represent offset the decline in the traditional business?
Deep-pocketed telcos — from France’s SFR to Spain’s Telefonica — are backing new series in an effort to drive subs to their streaming services.
Star Trek: Discovery goes where no Trek has gone before: streaming. CBS’s Les Moonves is betting the show’s rabid fans will come along.
Google’s super-fast fiber internet service, Fiber, is moving away from offering the traditional pay TV bundle. With cord cutting at an all-time high, Google said it would not bundle cable TV service with fast Internet in new cities, instead emphasizing just the Internet and the new ways to watch TV online.
