OTT

As CBS All Access is mounting a push in original programming, the SVOD and live-streaming service is bringing in a top development executive to spearhead the efforts. Julie McNamara, who has led drama development at CBS Television Studios for the past 10 years, has been named to the newly created position of EVP original content for CBS All Access.

Sunday night’s “Battle of the Bastards” might have been the biggest event of Game of Thrones‘ sixth season, but for many fans it was something they had to read about on Twitter, as HBO’s streaming app HBO Now went down for a sizable number of viewers just as the episode became available to watch. The outage appears to have been caused by overwhelming demand on the app.

It’s in the network affiliates’ interest to nurture some of these new skinny bundles by supplying them with their signals, even if it is on terms dictated by their networks. It’s a hedge against cord cutting and it’s another avenue into the OTT and mobile world where younger audiences await. Here’s the caveat: the affiliates’ revenue from the OTT providers — their end of whatever the networks negotiate — must be comparable to the net retrans they are getting from cable and satellite.

The TV Neutrality Alliance, a coalition of OTT service providers and broadcasters, urges the FCC to level the regulatory playing field to allow competition with big cable, satellite and telcos. It proposes a modification to the MVPD definition to promote equal access to online broadcast content and recommends language to protect online streaming video services from unintentional FCC regulations while ensuring broadcaster rights to retransmission consent.

This week, the station group and Verizon Digital Media Services announced completion of a technology deployment that’s making it simple to put local news and commercial content from the group’s 26 news-producing stations in the hands of viewers on their digital devices.

Using data from more than 190 countries between October 2015 and May 2016, the survey offers a rare peak into Netflix’s closely guarded audience metrics. It divided titles into two categories — “savored” and “devoured” — and found that median viewing time for a Netflix user watching one title was two hours and 10 minutes per sitting.

Product integration, in which products are blended into scenes, is hardly a new phenomenon. But the practice is becoming more prevalent in an era of commercial-free streaming and ad-skipping DVRs. For Hulu, the trend represents a quandary: how to keep its relationship with advertisers who help finance much of its programming, without alienating viewers fed up with regular commercials.

The new division, of Warner Bros. Television Group is called Warner Bros. Digital Networks, and will be headed by Craig Hunegs. It will build out OTT and and owned digital video services. Several new OTT channels and content-creation projects will be debuting over the coming months, Hunegs said. 

MoffettNathanson Research believes Hulu has an advantage in building a successful national OTT service — with access to a possible 40%-plus reach that the four broadcast networks have as a core base.

It’s called Playmaker Media, and the International Olympic Committee is its first client. The service will launch in competition with MLB Advanced Media in the sports live streaming space, and the move could arm it with technology that could help with future sports rights negotiations and to be sold as a service to other partners.

As cord shaving spikes, digital video providers eye a new stream of revenue as distributors of OTT services. It’s a way to distinguish themselves and diversify. But there are hurdles.

Samsung Electronics is in preliminary talks with entertainment companies to sell an online TV service, according to people familiar with the matter, potentially joining a growing list of tech companies trying to compete with the likes of Comcast and AT&T.

CBS All Access said Wednesday that Christine Baranski will star in the new series. Its title wasn’t announced. The drama will pick up one year after the events in the finale of The Good Wife, which aired recently on CBS.

Nadine Krefetz reports from last week’s Streaming Media East conference, where a number of players in the over-the-top space shared some emerging best practices for the rapidly-evolving new media front. Among them: you can’t be on every device, niches are a good thing and some degree of marketing is essential to being found.

Time Inc. is creating an advertiser-supported “over-the-top” video service anchored by People magazine and Entertainment Weekly. Another service, a mobile-first platform emphasizing content for millennials and teens about young celebrities — many of them making their names on social media — will debut later this year.

YouTube is working on a paid subscription service called Unplugged that would offer customers a bundle of cable TV channels streamed over the internet, people familiar with the plan say. The project, for which YouTube has already overhauled its technical architecture, is one of the online video giant’s biggest priorities and is slated to debut as soon as 2017, one of the people said.

Beginning next year, the new pay service will offer a mix of cable and broadcast programming as well as news, sports and events. Hulu did not give details on the exact partners it will be working with on the streaming TV service, the exact programing that will be included or what pricing options their might be.

Matt Azzarto, Akamai’s director of media operations, put in place a master control operation to monitor the health of the content streams in about 100 days. He discusses how his 10 years at NBCU helped him tackle the demands of creating and running the new facility, the custom software tools Akamai has developed for the project, the tougher demands of monitoring live OTT content delivery and what lessons over-the-air broadcasters can learn from the BOCC as they may soon begin preparing to support Internet content delivery as part of ATSC 3.0 operations.

Turner Broadcasting is introducing a new over-the-top streaming TV service that will bring art house movies into the home. Turner plans to announce today that it’s launching FilmStruck, a subscription service offering cult, foreign and independent films that appeal to movie aficionados.

Kaltura, a video technology provider, and Encompass Digital Media, a global technology services company delivering end-to-end video solutions to broadcast and digital media companies, today announced they have partnered to […]

The two main topics of discussion at the network’s meeting Monday with its Affiliate Board of Governors were addressing problems with ABC’s primetime lineup (particularly at 10 p.m.) and the continuing development of TV Everywhere and OTT plans.

The new initiative will offer the network’s affiliates pre-negotiated agreements for digital distribution of their live, linear feeds as well as potential opportunities for local VOD distribution. First on board are Hearst’s 14 ABC affils.

Calkins Digital will develop apps for Capitol Broadcasting’s WRAL Raleigh, N.C., and Schurz Communications’ newspapers on Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV devices, the company said on Sunday. WRAL’s Amazon Fire TV app has already debuted, and the rest will debut for both companies this spring.

One of the early adopters of the service that delivers broadcast programming over the internet, Gray has now become an investor, joining CBS, the NAB and the Consumer Technology Association.

Kaltura, a video technology provider, and Harmonic, which provides video delivery infrastructure, said Thursday that the companies have partnered to deliver a software as a service (SaaS) platform that lets OTT players […]

Gavin Mann, Accenture’s global broadcasting industry lead, examines media industry trends ahead of the NAB Show April 16-21 in Las Vegas. With topics ranging from OTT video, 4K, to virtual reality, the show is no longer just for broadcasters, attracting speakers and attendees from cable, telco and OTT companies.

Anvato | Booth SU9506CM | Website: www.anvato.com At NAB 2016, April 18-21 in Las Vegas, Anvato, a TV Everywhere and OTT platform provider, will showcase advancements, including 360 degree video […]

Anvato, a  TV Everywhere and OTT platform provider, has introduced a new solution that allows broadcasters and TV stations to better leverage their unaired content by creating their own curated, […]

Yes, affiliates will face increasing demands for reverse comp, but that’s the price of belonging to America’s most-watched network and joining CBS in exploiting new broadband pay media like CBS All Access. The ever-bullish CEO also says CBS is open to ATSC 3.0 and is willing to take a run at more first-run syndication, and he sees no end to the lucrative broadcasting-NFL partnership.

Starz is the latest premium TV network to introduce an app that bypasses cable packages and lets viewers stream television shows and movies directly.

We shouldn’t necessarily believe all of the talk about Netflix and other streaming services mean the ultimate end of cable as we know it. It’s possible consumers will want as much quality programming as they can get. In that world, Netflix simply becomes another successful premium channel — a variation on HBO or Showtime.

Fullscreen, owned by Peter Chernin and AT&T, will offer 800 hours of ad-free programming and allow users to interact with one another in real time for $5 a month.

Magna Global’s Media Economy Report contends that over-the-top is the most dynamic segment of a rapidly expanding universe that now includes linear, non-linear and OTT viewing and, as such, is accelerating the redefinition of television.

Fandango announced Wednesday morning that it’s launching its first-ever VOD service FandangoNOW on March 30. Earlier this year, Fandango acquired the M-GO digital video distribution platform and will re-brand that as FandangoNOW. The new service will launch across the Web, iOS, Android and Roku devices as well as on Smart TVs from Samsung, LG and Vizio.

PlayStation Vue’s streaming service, which had been limited to major cities during its first year, will start at $30 a month in the new regions. That’s $10 cheaper than current packages, but it won’t include over-the-air channels, such as stations for ABC and Fox. Vue’s seven older markets — big cities including New York City and San Francisco — won’t have access to the new, cheaper deal.

Yahoo and the National Hockey League entered a partnership today to deliver live, out-of-market NHL games for free on Yahoo. Best yet for cord-cutting puck fans, there will be no cable subscription or authentication required.

Disney CEO Bob Iger says Disney needs to improve on the digital front, and that selling ESPN direct-to-consumer is on table. Speaking on Tuesday, Iger said that “rights” were not the issue with selling ESPN directly, but mentioned that price was a sticking point.