streaming

Hulu says its live TV service will no longer carry the Fox regional sports networks now owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, effective Friday. In a post on its website, Hulu said it will “no longer have the rights” to distribute the channels. The move comes after the end of the baseball season and follows the networks being dropped Oct. 1 by YouTube TV, another virtual MVPD aimed at sports fans.

The demise of Quibi, the short-form video service led by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, will cause complications for a wide range of TV partners who supplied new and often innovative programming to the streaming upstart, which promised to deliver top-quality entertainment in episodes that would last ten minutes or less. CBS News, NBC News, the BBC, Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, Kevin Hart, Queen Latifah and Chrissy Teigen were among the popular actors and media entities that latched on to the venture.

The company said Wednesday that it would wind down its operations and plans to sell its assets. “Quibi is not succeeding,” its top executives, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, bluntly declared in a letter posted online. The video platform — designed for people who were out and about to watch on their phones — was one of a slew of new streaming services started to challenge Netflix over the past few years, most of which were part of much bigger tech and entertainment companies, like Apple and Disney.

The streaming service is considering shutting itself down, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that points to a possible crash landing for a once-highflying startup that raised $1.75 billion in capital.

As the Hollywood giant hands studio leaders greater control over the content they create and builds out a new distribution division, the shake-up raises new questions.

Alan Wolk: How is the industry going to handle this new interim period, where traditional pay TV is far from dead, but streaming is rapidly growing an audience?

AT&T has officially launched its in-car video streaming service WarnerMedia Ride, offering it free to owners of 27 vehicle brands who have AT&T unlimited data connected car service. Ride will include news, sports and entertainment programming from brands including Bleacher Report, Boomerang, Cartoon Network, CNN, TBS, TNT and more. AT&T also plans to offer HBO Max on qualifying data plans next year.

ViacomCBS today named Tom Ryan, currently CEO of Pluto TV, as president and CEO, ViacomCBS Streaming, unveiling a new leadership structure for its evolving global free and pay streaming services. Marc DeBevoise will step down from his role as chief digital officer, ViacomCBS, and president and CEO, ViacomCBS Digital, serving in an advisory capacity for the remainder of 2020 to support the transition and ongoing transformation of the digital organization.

AT&T is nearly five months out from the launch of HBO Max and the service still doesn’t have distribution agreements in place with Amazon or Roku. CEO John Stankey, speaking Monday at the WSJ Tech Live event, said the impasses demonstrate how platform companies, not network providers, have begun to hamstring access to apps and services.

The debut of the limited software tool comes after the London startup bags another $2 million from its angel investors.

NBCLX is NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations’ multiplatform lab for storytelling innovation, iterating across digital, diginets and OTT. It’s turning news conventions on their head in a bid to build loyal younger audiences. Above, LXNews hosts Ashley Holt and Nik Zecevic at its studio at KXAS Dallas.

Media barons have long acknowledged that the future will be streamed.

Over the coming weeks, as the world’s largest media and tech conglomerates report earnings for the July-September quarter, it will become increasingly clear how well entertainment companies are handling the pivot away from cable bundles and theatrical releases, and toward streaming services. Investors expect to hear entertainment executives finally explain not only how they plan to compete in an ecosystem that’s historically been dominated by Netflix, but also to learn about the ways their companies will do business long after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides.

Veteran ad sales executive Raoul Marinescu will oversee all digital ad sales for Allen’s free streaming platforms Local Now and The Grio.

The Starfleet crew clearly has more work to do. A day after its Season 3 premiere, CBS All Access announced it has renewed Star Trek: Discovery for a fourth season, with production set to begin on Nov. 2.

Another high-ranking executive is out at Netflix. Head of comedy Jane Wiseman has left the streamer. Wiseman, who had served as VP originals at Netflix, had been with the company for six years. Wiseman’s departure arrives days after another VP originals, Channing Dungey, left the company.

COVID-19 accelerated long-term viewership changes and channeled ever-higher numbers toward streaming and toward leaner cable packages, but broadcast remains a reliable and flexible buy for advertisers.

Amazon has struck a deal with the National Football League to stream a playoff game this season, people familiar with the matter said. The agreement, which the league disclosed to team owners Wednesday during a video meeting, deepens the relationship between the nation’s premier sport and the online retail and entertainment giant. The wildcard playoff game will also be available on ViacomCBS platforms.

17% of U.S. internet users viewed one or more AVOD services in the past month,  vs. just 13% in the third quarter of 2019, according to a survey conducted by UK research firm Ampere Analysis. The research company says Tubi, recently purchased by Fox for $440 million, is leading the usage surge, based in large part by its extra-large content library, which features more than 29,000 movies and TV show episodes.

Comcast’s Peacock added more new subscribers than any other streaming VOD services during the third quarter, according to Kantar. Kantar also found that more consumers who added one service were canceling another. Kantar called this subscription switching, and said 10% of new subscriptions were the result of switching, up from 9% in the second quarter.

The Walt Disney Co.’s Monday announcement that it was undertaking a major reorganization of its film and television teams with a goal of bolstering its streaming services was a hit with investors.  Shares of the entertainment giant rose on the news that the company would refocus its operations to produce movies and shows and decide at a later date if they would debut on the big screen, cable or streaming arms Hulu and Disney Plus. But internally, employees across the board were left puzzled by both the timing and contents of the announcement.

The Newsy channel will be available on Philo’s streaming TV service just in time for the highly-anticipated 2020 election.

Industry veteran René Santaella, previously at Sony and Disney, will lead the multi-platform Spanish-language media company’s digital transformation and growth.

The company is creating three content arms, one each for sports, general entertainment and its studios, which have famous brands including Star Wars and Marvel. Their primary focus will be on making shows and movies for streaming services, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said in a statement. Meanwhile, a new distribution group will centralize how the content is sold and oversee streaming operations.

Since August, Anderson Cooper has been producing his Full Circle program thrice weekly via smartphones in his Hudson Yards office. The remote production was “quick, simple and cheap,” says CNN’s Jason Holterhaus, and signals that CNN is starting to take its digital-only shows as seriously as its linear broadcast.

With 13 weeks left in the season, DirecTV has lowered the price of the streaming NFL Sunday Ticket to $220.47 for the basic plan and $281.97 for the Max package. That’s a 25% decrease for the basic plan and a 29.5% drop for Max.

Channing Dungey has stepped down as VP original content and head of drama at Netflix after 20 months at the company to pursue another opportunity. Her last day is today (Oct. 9). While that opportunity has not been revealed, Dungey, the former ABC Entertainment president, is among the handful of top female TV executives rumored to succeed Susan Rovner as president of Warner Bros. TV.