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Streaming service Quibi is exploring several strategic options including a possible sale, according to people familiar with the situation, as the company founded by Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg struggles to sign up subscribers in a competitive online-video marketplace.

On Friday, Roku and NBCUniversal reached a deal bringing Peacock, NBCU’s recently launched streaming service, to Roku, while also keeping a number of other NBC apps on the platform.

Saying that the Sundance award-winning film Cuties meets the definition of child pornography, almost three dozen Republican members of Congress led by Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana have called on Attorney General Bill Barr to prosecute Netflix for distributing it.

Roku, a major streaming gatekeeper, has reached an impasse with NBCUniversal over its nascent Peacock service and a swath of NBCU apps is about to go dark as a result. As soon as overnight Friday into Saturday, 11 national “TV Everywhere” apps, which are available to pay-TV subscribers, will disappear due to the dispute. Dozens of other local apps from NBC and Telemundo stations, which are available only to Roku viewers in those local markets, are also hanging in the balance.

Broadcasters such as Sinclair and Vice are increasingly shifting playout functions to cloud platforms, seeking more flexibility and agility there and testing the waters with disaster recovery strategies, OTT channels and diginets. “In the cloud, you can build up a whole separate system in parallel, test it, then cut over to it,” says one consultant.

Wilmore, his new weekly series for the Peacock streaming service, came together on the fly but, as he describes it, promises to be a better fit for the writer, performer and producer of shows like Black-ish and The Mayor. The half-hour show debuts Friday with soccer great Megan Rapinoe, Missouri Democratic Congressional candidate Cori Bush and comedian-writer Amber Ruffin, another new Peacock host.

Apple will bundle some of its subscription services together for discount. Customers who want to buy subscriptions to Apple TV+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade and iCloud storage will soon be able to do so for a combined price that starts at $15 per month.

NBCUniversal streaming service Peacock has reached more than 15 million sign-ups, Comcast Chairman-CEO Brian Roberts told a virtual conference on Tuesday. And Comcast Cable is trending to add more than 500,000 broadband subscribers in the current third quarter, which would be a new record, he also said during an appearance at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference.

CBS All Access is trading in CBS for Paramount. ViacomCBS revealed Tuesday that the rebranded streaming service will be called Paramount+ beginning early next year. The rebranding is the second, and much bigger, phase of the two-phase expansion of CBS All Access, which first launched in 2014 and was among the earliest entrants in the streaming space.

At the heart of the backlash is the idea that Cuties is dangerously and irresponsibly sexualizing pre-teen girls, which, ironically, is what the movie itself is criticizing too. The campaign against the film, which includes calls for the Department of Justice to investigate it and hundreds of thousands calling for subscribers to cancel their Netflix accounts, is riddled with inaccuracies due in part to the fact that some critics have not seen the film (one claims that there is child nudity when there is not).

YouTube is rolling out a short-form video feature called “YouTube Shorts” to compete with the popular social media platform TikTok. YouTube said Monday that YouTube Shorts — set to launch in the next few weeks — will allow creators and artists to shoot short, catchy videos up to 15 seconds long using their mobile phones.

WarnerMedia’s new HBO Max streaming service is considering adding commercials to classic movies and some of its original content. The company has circulated a marketing survey to consumers, explaining that an ad-supported version of HBO Max could potentially carry two to four minutes of advertising per hour, according to Variety. While ads won’t likely appear in any HBO original shows or new movies, the survey suggests ads may appear alongside content from WarnerMedia’s other TV networks.

Will Smith announced Tuesday on his YouTube Channel that the new series has been signed by Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service. “We have just officially closed the deal with Peacock with an unprecedented two-season order from a pitch,” Smith said in the video, which shows him on a virtual call with others including writer/director Morgan Cooper, whose viral video inspired the new series.

Thousands of Hulu subscribers last night posted online complaints that they could not log in, making it impossible to view their live and Video on Demand services. The technical issue on Tuesday night seem to begin around 10 p.m. ET. It’s unclear how many people were affected, but Downdetector.com, which tracks online outages, says nearly 16,000 people were simultaneously posting complaints about Hulu at the height of the problem.

It’s an end of an era at Netflix as Cindy Holland (left), who led the streamer’s foray into original programming and helped turn the DVD-by-mail company into an original series powerhouse, will be leaving. A month and a half after longtime Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos was named co-CEO, he is shaking up the streamer’s top TV executive ranks. Netflix’s vast original TV content portfolio had been split between Holland, VP, original content, who has overseen all English-language programming, and Bela Bajaria (right), VP, local language originals, who has been leading non-English TV programming. The two areas are now being combined under Bajaria, who has been named VP, global TV.

PBS has announced that viewers are now able to live-stream their local PBS stations for free over internet connected devices. As of now, 85 stations can be live streamed, with more expected to become available in the future. Streaming will be available on major web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge) as well as through the PBS Video Channel on Roku devices.

The co-CEO of the streaming giant discusses his company’s culture of candor and how working from home is harder.

WarnerMedia still has the challenge of transitioning the bulk of the 36 million-plus HBO customers it already has onto the new service.

The Umbrella Academy was the runaway top title on Netflix in its first full week of release, according to figures from Nielsen. The ratings data provider is launching a weekly streaming top 10 list, with the first set of data covering the week of Aug. 3-9. For now, Nielsen measures only programs on Netflix and Amazon, with other streaming providers to be added in the future.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have signed a deal with Netflix. It will include scripted series, docuseries, documentaries, features and children’s programming. The focus will be on creating a wide range of programmes about stories and issues that resonate with them personally — including highlighting issues that their nonprofit Archewell is focused on. There are already several projects in development including an innovative nature docu-series and an animated series that celebrates inspiring women. Markle has no plans to return to acting.

The free service is offering 66 TV channels in the nine counties comprising the 14^th DMA.