OTT

Viacom is in advanced discussions with at least one MVPD to be part of a low-cost, entertainment-only channel package designed to help bring younger consumers into the pay TV ecosystem and to keep others from leaving.

Calkins Digital says it’s working with comScore to streamline the integration of verified third-party audience measurement data on emerging OTT platforms, a critical step in the process of local media […]

Broadcasters want a slice of the TV distribution business. It’s a trend that’s been building for several years now, but recent moves by the industry make it even more transparent that the old TV networks want to muscle in on cable company territory.

Its new OTT Intelligence offering is based on the company’s total home panel, which now spans more than 12,500 U.S. households and measures consumer behavior across home network-connected devices.

Univision NOW offers exclusive original content; a video on demand library including 2,000 hours of content; live broadcasts of the Univision and UniMás networks; and 72-hour DVR functionality.

With this new collaborative agreement, affiliates are joining with CBS to distribute premium content to new “skinny bundles” reaching viewers coast-to-coast across multiple platforms and screens anytime and anywhere, including on Hulu and YouTube TV in addition to CBS All Access.

Entertainment One and Hulu have sealed an exclusive streaming deal for multiple eOne series totaling 240 hours.

The slow-motion crumbling of pay TV has suddenly started to look like a looming avalanche. The unprecedented surge in cord-cutting during the first three months of 2017 has heightened Wall Street fears that the industry’s enormously profitable big bundle of channels is coming apart at the seams — for real this time.

Everyone in the tech industry wants your eyeballs. More specifically, a growing number of tech companies want to attract the millions who have ditched cable for services that stream live TV channels over the internet. To help you see which, if any, make sense for you, Business Insider has broken down the big five live-TV streaming services you can choose from today: PlayStation Vue, Sling TV, DirecTV Now, YouTube TV and Hulu with Live TV.

Modern marketers face the struggle of ever-fragmenting ways of getting in front of consumers. Television needs to accept that reality. Its advertisers need to use it in concert with other platforms, particularly social, and that will inevitably siphon off some of its advertising revenue. But TV still has the power to play that orchestrating role if it’s not too belligerent or myopic to pick up the baton.

With perhaps its boldest bet yet, YouTube is going directly after traditional television advertising dollars with 40 new programs exclusively for the platform. And advertisers appear to be coming back to the fold after brand-safety concerns rocked YouTube several weeks ago.

The five leading services, including the new Hulu Live, offer many live TV staples, but each has blind spots that could make cord-cutters reconsider.

Hulu has officially unleashed its horse in the crowded virtual pay-TV race. The streaming-video provider announced the beta launch of Hulu With Live TV, priced starting at $39.99 monthly for around 50 channels. The service includes ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC programming — with the availability of local stations varying by market — and cable nets including ESPN, CNN, Fox News, TBS, TNT and Disney Channel. Showtime is available for $9 extra.

Even though Charter Communications is losing video subscribers, CEO Tom Rutledge says he doesn’t worry about the growing number of lower-priced streaming services such as AT&T’s DirecTV Now and Dish Network’s Sling TV. “If you take a look at the evidence so far, the current [over the top] offerings just seem to be cannibalizing the same satellite providers’ own base. It’s just a shift.”

Hulu has finalized a deal with NBCUniversal for carriage of 15 channels as part of its live TV service that will be unveiled soon. The deal covers NBCU-owned cable channels as well as NBC- and Telemundo-owned stations.

Later this month, the streaming service will offer livestreaming access to dozens of networks from companies like CBS Corp., 21st Century Fox, Disney, Turner and A+E Networks — as well as a standard Hulu subscription — for $40 a month. That will debut as Hulu rolls out a new, personalized user interface for all subscribers, which will integrate its live and on-demand programming.

Attempting to dispel the notion that CBS All Access’ user base is composed of a bunch of young, urban-dwelling cord cutters, CBS Interactive CEO Jim Lanzone told a packed room full of middle-aged broadcast-industry folks at the NAB Show that the average viewer of the SVOD platform is just like them. “It’s an early-40s audience — only 30% of the audience is millennial,” said Lanzone, who wears the dual hat of CBS Corp. chief digital officer. “And the vast majority are pay-TV subscribers.”

NEW YORK (AP) — YouTube is launching a new music competition series for emerging artists featuring Backstreet Boys, Demi Lovato and Jason Derulo. Ryan Seacrest Productions and Endemol Shine North […]

ABC OTT affiliate deals now represent more than 90% of U.S. TV households. The company’s Clearinghouse initiative distribution partners include DirecTV Now, Sony PlayStation Vue, Google (YouTube TV) and CenturyLink.

As the demand and diversity of non-traditional broadcast services continues to grow, it’s to be expected that the emphasis on quality of production and viewer experience will also intensify. These developments were much in evidence during Harmonic’s pre-NAB press conference Sunday, where a host of new or expanded solutions for OTT and mobile were unveiled.

At its NAB 2017 press conference on Sunday, Ericsson unveiled how it plans to “transform TV” with new OTT dynamic-ad insertion technology, MediaFirst video processing solutions, cloud-based-captioning services, content-discovery tools, and its Unified Delivery Network.

A report by Streaming Media says that as more people pay to watch TV shows and movies on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu, most media companies believe 2022 will be the year that people watch more hours online than on a TV set.

Accedo | Booth SU9205CM | Website: http://www.accedo.tv/ Accedo will demonstrate a new approach that enables an exciting and immersive virtual reality (VR) sports experience. Accedo is also joining with key […]

AT&T’s streaming service has added14 Fox affiliates owned by Tribune Media. Counting the Fox O&Os, local Fox stations can now be seen via DirecTV Now in 31 markets.

The pricing for Hulu’s live TV service, a competitor with cable television — as well as a host of other streaming TV services like Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, DirecTV Now and YouTube TV — will likely be $39.99 per month, with ads and access to Hulu’s on-demand library, according to sources with knowledge of Hulu’s plans.

Qligent | Booth N6520 | Website: http://www.qligent.com/ Qligent, a specialist in cloud-based, enterprise-level content monitoring and analysis, will debut Vision-Field-CM, a cost-effective, entry-level version of its successful Vision cloud-based broadcast compliance and monitoring solution. […]

Under the new deal, affiliate stations’ linear streams to run on over the top and TV Everywhere.

Time Warner’s Turner and Warner Bros. will test the subscription VOD waters for ‘toon fans with the launch of Boomerang, a service starting at $5 per month that will include more than 1,000 episodes of classic and current series.

Interra Systems | Booth SU7105 | Website: www.interrasystems.com  Interra Systems, a global provider of software products and solutions to the digital media industry, will demonstrate its end-to-end QC, monitoring and […]

Comcast is developing an online video service offering hit shows from its NBCUniversal TV networks in the next 12 to 18 months, an effort to compete with rivals Netflix and CBS, according to people familiar with the matter. The new service will include programs from the NBC broadcast network, and could include shows from Comcast cable channels Bravo, SyFy and USA.

YouTube TV’s cloud DVR has an unusual catch. If the on-demand version of the show you recorded is available, then you have to watch that version with ad-skipping disabled.

Don’t confuse YouTube TV, Google’s new streaming package of about 40 television channels, which debuts Wednesday, with Netflix, Amazon Prime and other streaming offerings. YouTube TV primarily aims to let you channel surf over the internet, not to stream from an online library of shows and movies. YouTube TV, for instance, features staples such as ESPN and major broadcast networks, but lacks key networks such as PBS, CNN and Comedy Central. And it will initially be only available in a handful of major U.S. cities because media rights are still stuck in the 20th century,

Apple isn’t done trying to sell you pay TV. Here’s the company’s latest proposal: It wants to sell consumers a premium TV bundle that combines HBO, Showtime and Starz. Apple already sells each of those channels individually. But it has approached the three networks about rolling them up into a single package, as conventional pay TV operators sometimes do.

Verizon Communications has been securing streaming rights from television network owners in preparation for the nationwide launch of a live online TV service, according to people familiar with the matter.

Digital Nirvana | Booth SU14312 | Website: www.digital-nirvana.com  Digital Nirvana, developers of media management products, will show its full line of products and services. With new service offerings to be announced […]