OTT

Adding more sports channels and some general-interest networks makes the small soccer streaming site more of a competitor to both traditional cable and live-streaming services like Sony’s PlayStation Vue, Dish Network’s Sling TV and AT&T’s DirecTV Now.

The British are streaming, the British are streaming. BBC Worldwide and ITV announced today that they will join forces to launch a Netflix-like streaming service in the U.S. The ad-free service will be available online and via Roku, AppleTV and Chromecast starting in the first quarter of 2017. Its name — BritBox — reflects the service’s focus on British TV.

The company’s TV stations will use the OTT service to offer a mix of the top news stories and other content targeted to millennials’ interests based on their viewing habits, preferred publishers and favorite topics.

The company’s Newsy digital video service now produces around 30 pieces of short-form video content per day. While Newsy is on 21 OTT platforms, its GM, Blake Sabatinelli, says the company is very much pursuing a “plant the flag” approach in anticipation of the coming consolidation, which he views as inevitable.

Glenn Hower of Parks Associates, says that live digital streaming of sports content; the early authenticated and transactional VOD window; early and mid-subscription VOD window; and digital syndication are all affecting digital TV content distribution.

CBS will launch the biggest consumer marketing push for its CBS All Access service to date early next year around the Feb. 19 premiere of its The Good Wife spinoff, The Good Fight, the first original scripted series to bow on the Eye’s streaming service.

Eager to deliver its  customers over-the-top video, CenturyLink is looking at becoming a reseller of DirecTV Now, the virtual MVPD service launched last week by telco rival AT&T.

Last week’s launch of DirecTV Now was plagued with errors, but AT&T says it’s thrilled with the early interest in its new streaming bundle offering. “The early demand has been rather dramatic … we’ve been pleased with it,” Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chairman, CEO and president, said this morning at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York

21st Century Fox seems content to watch, for now, as competitors like CBS jump headfirst into direct-to-consumer streaming products. Speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference today, Fox CEO James Murdoch said that his company is in no rush to launch standalone OTT services for its individual brands. Murdoch said that Fox has to be careful to not “fragment the business” by launching OTT products.

AT&T’s new live TV streaming service debuted Wednesday with a free seven-day trial and attractive $35 introductory price, but plenty of first-time users are experiencing trouble.

The long-awaited offline option announced Wednesday gives Netflix’s 87 million subscribers offline access to videos for the first time in the streaming service’s decade-long history. Netflix is matching a downloading feature that one of its biggest rivals, Amazon.com, has been offering to its video subscribers for the past year.

The download option was announced Wednesday and a number of shows and movies were made instantly available, including Breaking Bad, ‘Narcos and Spotlight.

The new streaming service from AT&T that debuts on Wednesday will carry live the owned stations of ABC, NBC and Fox in their entirely within their markets as well as offer the networks’ primetime shows on demand the day after their initial airing. But deals aren’t in place yet to carry the networks’ affiliates. For the time being, subscribers in those markets will have to settle for watching network programs the day after on demand. AT&T exec John Stankey says he’s also working to bring the CBS stations on board, but could live without them.

A new analysis of television networks from research firm MoffettNathanson looks at which networks are the most valuable from the perspective of multichannel video programming distributors, and how to determine which of those should be included in “skinny” channel bundles. The top sports and news channels appeared most favorably positioned in the analysis, with pure-play cable nets like Discovery and Scripps most at risk.

It’s unclear if the new service, DirecTV Now, will break out with consumers. But it has the size to get better deals from entertainment companies, who have slowly come around to the idea of streaming. And if that doesn’t work, watch for a live-TV operation from Hulu early next year. And maybe one from Google. Or, who knows, maybe even Apple, too.

Next week, AT&T Inc. is leaping into online streaming with DirecTV Now, but it’s taking the plunge without CBS Corp., the most popular TV network and the lone holdout for the service among the top media companies, according to people familiar with the matter.

Comcast seems to be growing comfortable with other companies’ streaming video services: Its X1 platform is preparing to offer Sling TV — a skinny bundle service from one of Comcast’s most vigorous competitors: Dish Network.

DirecTV Now has secured one of the final two major programming linchpins, ahead of its impending launch, with the virtual pay TV service signing a broad digital deal with 21st Century Fox. What isn’t clear: How will parent company AT&T handle broadcast networks during the initial phase of the IP-based platform’s launch?

Entertainment Studios’ cable networks Comedy.TV and JusticeCentral.TV will be available on the new streaming service, DirecTV Now, when it launches later this month. “We value our continued and expanding relationship with AT&T,” said Byron Allen, […]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Amazon.com has been in talks for live game rights with the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Football League and more. Journal subscribers can read the full story here.

Fox programming available to DirecTV Now customers will include: Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, FX, FXX, FXM, FS 1, FS 2, Big Ten Network, 18 Fox regional sports networks, National Geographic and Nat Geo Wild. The parties have also agreed on a framework for Fox Broadcasting Co. programming to be delivered to DirecTV Now customers nationwide.

The second annual NAB Show Shanghai will feature “enhanced” educational programming, including three core conferences, four conference tracks and a new exhibit floor. Produced by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the International High […]

Until now Amazon’s OTT service has been available in only a handful of countries, but its new show The Grand Tour, will stream in more than 200 countries around the world, Jeff Bezos said Thursday. Amazon began pursuing the worldwide rights to shows this year, a signal of its expansion plans.

The Jan. 23 event in Washington will examine logistics of incorporating over-the-top content into existing business models and how to successfully leverage the technology.

Featuring what it calls “the biggest collection of the baddest African-American movies of all time,” a new subscription,video-on-demand streaming service, Brown Sugar, launches today. Brown Sugar, owned by Bounce TV, […]

ABC, CBS and NBC would be the most desirable channels in a potential à la carte scenario, according to a new report from TiVo research arm Digitalsmiths. The survey showed that, of the 78% of respondents who would be interested in an à la carte TV package, 70.7% would want ABC, 70.1% would want CBS and 65.5% would want NBC.

A new report from SNL Kagan, which provides quarterly pay TV subscription updates, finds that third-quarter subscribers fell once again, off 430,000. That included big losses for telco subscriptions, which fell by 382,000, and smaller declines for cable. Year to date, subscriptions have fallen by 1.3 million, the biggest first-to-third quarter loss on record.

Video technology provider Kaltura today announced that it has integrated Kaltura OTT TV with global commerce platform Stripe. Kaltura OTT TV supports multiple business models including transactions, subscriptions, advertising and freemium, […]

AT&T’s pricing arrangement for its upcoming DirecTV Now streaming service might “obstruct competition and harm consumers,” the head of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunication Bureau says in a letter seeking information about the much ballyhooed plan.

Among the many new options the next-gen TV transmission technology could offer TV stations are the ability to sell regional and national ads in addition to local ones; datacasting as a B2B service; OTT video offerings that could compete with cable and satellite; as well as a much more powerful Advance Warning and Response Network.

Summarizing the pros and cons for OTT distribution, Dish Network CEO Charlie Ergen said there is a danger that the pay-TV ecosystem could be “chopped up” into a paradigm that is “truly an à la carte experience.”

Starz says today that eight of its premium networks will be available to DirecTV Now customers when AT&T launches the $35 a month streaming service — expected later this month. Additional Starz channels as well as its full VOD catalog with current and past episodes of original series will be added later..

Sony’s PlayStation Vue is adjusting its lineup of television channels and droping Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and other Viacom-owned television networks. Viacom’s networks no longer will be part of the subscription service as of Friday.

For almost two years, Dish Network has offered U.S. consumers a streaming-television service without a traditional cable or satellite subscription — and the company has had the market almost all to itself. Until now. AT&T, which has tied up with Time Warner in a $85 billion mega-deal, is planning to introduce an online offering, DirecTV Now, later this month. A new paid service from Hulu, Google’s YouTube Unplugged and possible offerings from Amazon and maybe even Apple will soon join the fray.

The launch is part of a cross-platform agreement that includes carriage of Univision networks across AT&T and DirecTV platforms.