OTT

TNT, TBS and CNN are the latest major additions to AT&T’s soon-to-launch virtual-MVPD service, DirecTV Now, following a comprehensive carriage renewal agreement signed between AT&T and Turner Networks.

MoffettNathanson has released a compelling survey, proving the analyst firm’s belief that OTT services are wise to keep their price points below $30 a month.

After a bake off that included two other providers, Bob Prather’s budding small-market station group chooses Frankly for web CMS, mobile apps, online video and OTT. Frankly will also supply strategic consulting and support services as part of the four-year deal.

If average users won’t come to Twitter, then Twitter will come to them. That seems to be the reasoning behind the social giant’s decision to launch a new Twitter app for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Microsoft’s Xbox One.

Time Inc., still the biggest magazine publisher in the U.S., launched the People/Entertainment Weekly Network (PEN) today, delivering free-to-view, ad-supported streaming of original series and documentaries. The well-backed channel launches with ample distribution in place via Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Google Chromecast and Comcast’s Xfinity TV, among other partnerships. The platform is also available via Roku, Apple iOS and Android.

TV viewers are now quicker to leave TV shows they love because they can be too difficult to find — and/or too costly. A global TiVo study of 5,550 pay TV and over-the-top (OTT) subscribers says 37% have stopped watching a TV program — called “show dumping” — because it became too difficult to access the content.

Turner’s CEO John Martin says the company has begun to build out the necessary tech to stream its content over the internet. That means Turner will eventually compete with its own paying customers like Comcast and Charter, but it has become imperative to put Turner on a course to offer an end-to-end solution, direct to consumer.

NBC has secured “stacking rights” to 90% of its fall TV show lineup, including The Voice, Saturday Night Live and Superstore, and will offer the five most recent episodes for free on its website and mobile apps — as well as full seasons to subscribers of participating pay TV providers. In addition, the Peacock will offer the entire season of freshman comedy The Good Place for free, without requiring pay TV authentication; it’s the only freshman show NBC owns full rights to.

The fourth annual conference from TVNewsCheck and Sports Video Group will feature an on-stage Q&A with Blake Sabatinelli, the general manager of the Scripps-owned OTT service Newsy.

CBS is hoping to push the 1 million subscriber number for its All Access OTT service much higher as it rolls out its first original series beginning later this month. Big Brother: Over the Top, a digital-only version of the CBS summer staple, will debut Sept. 28. That will be followed in January by Star Trek: Discovery, with a Good Wife spinoff coming next spring. Those shows will supplement the service’s 7,500-plus episodes of current and classic shows, as well as access to livestream the local CBS station.

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CBS is one of the nation’s biggest sellers of ad inventory. But a lot of digital video viewers hate ads — which the company just acknowledged by introducing a commercial-free version of its CBS All Access subscription streaming service. Customers can pay $9.99 a month to watch the on-demand content without commercials. Or they can go with the current offering, with ads, for $5.99.

Forget about the cord-nevers Sling TV once avowed was its target. The OTT service has recruited Hollywood tough guy Danny Trejo for a series of ads aimed at cord cutters. The multimedia national ad campaign highlights the “evil” and scary” cable TV companies against its lack of hidden fees and long-term contracts and its cheaper prices. The ads are especially pitched to millennials, who are continually drifting from linear TV (parent company Dish Network lost 304,000 subscribers in the first half of this year).

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To borrow a phrase from the retail sector, content owners should look to establish omnichannel distribution. Omnichannel does not mean that content owners should have all their content available everywhere. Omnichannel simply means that content owners should maximize the different channels to fit their strategy.

With Dish Network’s Sling TV, Sony’s PlayStation Vue and the forthcoming offerings from AT&T’s DirecTV and Hulu, over-the-top streaming live-TV replacement services are popping up from seemingly every major media company. However, customers are unlikely to subscribe to all of them — and growth has been slow even in a less crowded field. That could result in consolidation of the type we’ve seen with cable companies and content producers.

CBS is making around $100 million in revenue off both its Showtime and CBS All Access SVOD platforms, according to CBS COO Joseph Ianniello who spoke at Nomura’s 2016 Media, Telecom & Internet Conference. The “back of the envelope math,” as Ianiello called it, is compelling to pay-TV operators, given that CBS has taken the most aggressive position among broadcasters in regards to negotiating retransmission licensing fees, as well as distribution on operator-backed OTT platforms like Sling TV.

As MVPDs and programmers try to take stock after record volumes of pay-TV subscriber attrition in the second quarter, the emergence of OTT-delivery platforms including Sling TV and Sony PlayStation Vue is obscuring precise measurements of the damage.

Juniper Research reports 4K OTT TV and video content will exceed 189 million global users by 2021, up from 2.3 million users this year. Juniper’s research means one in 10 U.S. residents will watch 4K content online by 2021, compared to one in five hundred in 2016.

No, the cable bundle isn’t dead. It’s more like an aging dictator who’s starting to show signs of weakness. Those around it, meanwhile, are already agitating for change. In the last few months in particular, there has been growing evidence of this revolution. After tiptoeing around the demise of the bundle for years, Disney CEO Bob Iger is finally taking bigger steps to ensure his company’s viability, with or without the traditional cable bundle.

2015 was a blockbuster year for OTT TV platform launches, and in looking at those large enough to make a splash, there are 35 new services vying for consumer attention. Finding a niche is the key to surviving the OTT baby boom.

CBS is considering creating a commercial-free option for its subscription streaming service CBS All Access. “We’re toying with the idea of a commercial free option and how we might roll that out to consumers,” Marc DeBevoise, president of CBS Interactive, said Wednesday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour.

As programming costs continue to bulge, big players have been forced to rethink the core building block of pay TV: the bundle. The “fat” package of channels, oft criticized for its bloated price, is giving way to streamlined options, including two alternatives last week, from Time Warner and Dish, that showed how the trend is gaining momentum.

The satellite TV company is offering a “skinny” version of its traditional TV package for about half the price of its current plans. The service is the new “Flex Pack skinny bundle,” a plan advertised at $39.99 that comes with 50 channels and the option for one of eight themed channel packs. But subscribers can bring the new service down to $29 by forgoing any add-ons.

Chairman of NBC Entertainment Bob Greenblatt told a room of TV writers that the company is making progress with its OTT strategy and will have a product soon. “It’s kind of the way the audience is going and where they demand us to go. So we spend a lot of time talking about what we’re going to do in this space,” he said at the Television Critics press tour in Los Angeles.

CBS has not one but two big twists in store for the next season (the 19th) of Big Brother. The upcoming cycle of the long-running reality series will move to the fall and air exclusively on CBS All Access

Stranger Things, a 1983-set Spielberg homage, has won enormous word-of-mouth momentum for Netflix, and among its upcoming original programming is a return to Mystery Science Theater 3000 (not to mention a Gilmore Girls revisit and Fuller House). Oriana Schwindt looks at how much wind is in the sails of a nostalgia programming approach if subscriber growth is the ultimate endgame. “Banking on the pull of nostalgia just might not work for some of those potential subscribers over 35,” she writes.

The title and footage of the starship Discovery were teased at the end of a Comic-Con panel Saturday celebrating the series’ 50th anniversary with actors from every previous Star Trek series.  Discovery executive producer Bryan Fuller said the show coming to the CBS All Access streaming video service will draw upon the optimistic tone established by Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

Some 55% of current over-the-top services don’t have advertising as part of their business model, selling to consumers just on a fee-only basis, according to Parks Associates. Netflix, Amazon, HBO Now, and Hulu’s non-advertising option, are major factors contributing to this result.

Hoping to understand why some people return to cable after cutting the cord, technology reporter Brian X. Chen tried out Sony’s Vue and Dish Network’s Sling TV, both of which were designed to replace traditional cable packages. His takeaway: “Neither streaming service felt like an adequate substitute for a cable package, largely because of content restrictions, broadcast delays and the difficulty of using a game controller with one of the services.”

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The network unveils a slate of original short-form digital series; offers access to full seasons of 38 “throwback” shows; debuts new user interface exclusively on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Apple TV. In addition, the network’s live stream is now made available in an additional 14 markets.

The CW and Netflix have confirmed a new multi-year content licensing relationship that allows Netflix to remain the exclusive U.S. subscription television service for previous seasons of scripted series.  The new deal significantly shortens the window between a show’s broadcast finale and its debut on Netflix. Starting with the 2016-17 season, CW shows will be available for streaming eight days after each program’s season finale.

Online video consumption is continuing to grow, with users spending more time watching over-the-top video than before, but price is gradually becoming less of a reason to cut the cord — if audiences are cutting it at all. However, viewers are increasingly demanding better quality from their OTT video stream, and that may be behind a drop in YouTube viewing.

Over-the-top video is the future of television, CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves said Thursday at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in France. Moonves, who successfully pushed cable TV providers to pay broadcast networks for carriage in the same way they do for cable channels, touted the company’s efforts to grow its own Web-delivered streaming service.

Disney CEO Bob Iger offered some surprisingly frank responses during a sit-down interview with Mathew Belloni, touching on his progress in China, his future replacement, and ESPN’s recent struggles. Of particular note, Iger announced that ESPN is “creating more product that can be sold directly to the consumer.”

Netflix and the CW are close to finalizing a megabucks new deal covering scripted series that significantly speeds up the availability of the shows to less than two weeks after each season ends on the network.