streaming

Forecast: The No. 3 over-the top streaming service will outpace Netflix in growth next year and Amazon by 2016, Credit a new, let’s-do-it strategy and better content.

CBS and Amazon announced a multi-year agreement today that will give Amazon Prime exclusive streaming rights to three CBS summer shows, like they did with Under the Dome and Extant this past year. A new show called Brain Dead, from creators Michelle and Robert King, will be the first to be available on the video service next summer.

Netflix has acquired global streaming rights to three TV shows, including CW’s Jane the Virgin, sources confirm. The streaming giant, which is expected to make the announcement today, also nabbed exclusive worldwide rights to sci-fi thrillers, USA’s Colony and CBS’s Zoo. The deals for the three come less than two weeks after Netflix announced the acquisition of exclusive global rights to ABC hit series How to Get Away with Murder.

With Apple and Amazon already announcing new, upgraded streaming devices, a new report says Google may be ready to debut its revamped Chromecast later this month. The $35 contraption connects televisions to computers and mobile devices.

Waging war on Apple, which announced upgrades to Apple TV last week, Amazon is launching an upgraded version of its own streaming and gaming device. Unlike the Apple TV, the upgraded Fire TV supports 4K ultra-high-definition streaming across many of its apps, including Netflix, Hulu, and, of course, Amazon Instant Video.

The BBC will launch a Netflix-style video subscription service for American audiences next year, the head of the U.K.’s public broadcaster said Thursday. Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the BBC’s director-general, said the new Internet-based service will allow U.S. audiences to access BBC programs that aren’t already screened on TV channels or available on existing streaming services.

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Creating an elegant interface that combines streaming services and pay TV services, so that Netflix and NBC both live on the same grid, would go a long way towards improving TV’s user experience. It would also benefit all parties, from networks and MVPDs to streaming services. But most of all, it would benefit the consumer.

One discovery: many subscribers are opting to stream the network’s live feed, instead of seeking out on-demand programming. “The livestreaming has done better than we expected,” said President David Nevins of the feature, something which HBO Now doesn’t offer. “As people are discovering Showtime, a lot of them just want to see what’s on the livestreaming, so they’re watching it there.”

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that big broadcast TV networks and their affiliates are wrangling over which of them will be the ones to negotiate with the new generation of direct-to-consumer streaming services and what each side’s split should be. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.

CBS will stream seven of its games live without requiring the viewer to authenticate that they have an account with a cable or satellite television provider. The CBS games available online can be watched not only on a computer but also on connected TV devices, such as Xbox One, Apple TV, Chromecast and Roku players.

The streaming service will introduce exclusive films and television series as part of a strategy to position itself as a digital entertainment hub for the postmillennial generation.

The Aug. 13 announcement that HBO will premiere new episodes of Sesame Street, which will then be made available to PBS after nine months has prompted soul-searching among public broadcasters and others who recalled Sesame Street’s groundbreaking role in using free over-the-air broadcasts to teach preschoolers from low-income families the basic skills they need to succeed in school.

Local streaming is coming to many Major League Baseball markets next season, thanks to a breakthrough in the league’s long-running negotiations with Fox Sports. Several industry sources say the league is drafting deal documents with Fox, which holds the local media rights to 15 MLB teams. An agreement to offer authenticated local streaming of live games is expected to be in place by the start of the 2016 season.

Contrary to an early torrent of naysayers, users aren’t troubled by vertical video, and many actually prefer it to horizontal options. The shift “shows off the way that opinions of tech elites can be rendered moot by mainstream preferences,” and we may be seeing a lot more videos shot vertically soon.

In a surprise move, the kids’ series heads to HBO. New episodes will air on longtime carrier PBS nine months later. The most significant part of the deal: Streaming rights.

For Fusion, it’s all about building an audience. That’s why the digital media company and cable TV network today announced a new app on the over-the-top streaming service Roku.

Hulu doesn’t want its subscribers to find themselves in a TV coma, so it’s opting to release its upcoming original series in weekly episodes. “With all of our new originals, we will release episodes weekly,” Craig Erwich, head of content at Hulu says. “We want to give viewers the opportunity to discover their favorite shows every week. Like you, we value the shared experience and the joy of the watercooler that is television.”

A new study finds that just 18% of their television time is spent viewing live broadcast or cable. The majority of their viewing is done on digital devices. SmithGeiger’s Seth Geiger talks about the results.

Instead of ignoring its DVD-by-mail operation that was dwindling but still bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in profits every year, the company concentrated on efficiency.

Apple has been chatting up broadcast network groups to get them on board its Internet-enabled streaming TV service. Another thing it wants, according to our tipsters, is a new free-of-charge channel concept created from, say, library stock.

Japan’s five Tokyo-based commercial TV networks will jointly launch a service to stream their new shows on the Internet, starting in October. Called TVer, the service will offer the shows, including popular variety and drama programs, free of charge with commercials generating revenue. Each network will supply about 10 shows weekly and each show will be streamed for about one week.

Netflix’s second-quarter performance followed a familiar script of rapid subscriber growth that has enthralled investors. Netflix added 3.3 million subscribers in the April-to-June period, giving it more than 65 million, a reach of around half the nation’s 123 million households.

Sahil Patel looks at Comcast’s announcement on Monday that it will debut a new Web-based option, Stream, and finds it’s a clever test of OTT distribution while actually keeping the bundle intact (the service is available only to Comcast’s Internet subscribers). “As much as the TV business is forced to adapt and change, it’s trying equally hard to keep what it can intact,” he writes.

At first, Comcast’s Stream service will be offered in three cities and include programs from about a dozen networks. The $15-a-month service, which will provide access to live and on-demand programming, reflects a mainstream cable company’s effort to stay relevant as streaming grows in popularity.

Netflix may have very little effect on traditional pay TV business — at least according to a new study. In contrast to many industry estimates, The Diffusion Group found that cable, satellite and IPTV use among Netflix homes declined only marginally between 2012 and 2015.

The results of a new survey on the use of original digital video challenge the assumptions commonly made by many, typically older, media executives about how young people choose, watch and share this video. Here are the seven things they need to know about this importance audience.

Nearly 30% of all TV viewing — subscription, free video sites, connected TV devices — comes via digital streaming, according to a new survey. Subscription or free online platforms for a computer or mobile device account for 16% of time spent with TV content, according to a new GfK MRI report. Connected TV streaming — traditional TV set — amount to 9%; and 3% comes from game consoles and other platforms.

TiVo has launched a promo for ex-Aereo customers that gives them a Roamio OTA box, a TiVo Stream and two years of service for no money down and $20 per month.

It’s the biggest threat to traditional TV among digital options. Though it has thrived as a subscription service, many buyers see the addition of advertising as inevitable.

The OTT era has begun at Showtime. The premium cable network launched its new stand-alone streaming service Tuesday. The service, which is also called Showtime, is available for $10.99 per month via Apple, Roku, PlayStation Vue and Showtime.com. Hulu subscribers can add Showtime at a discounted rate, for $8.99 per month, on top of Hulu’s $7.99 monthly fee.

Vintage shows and films, from ’60s sitcoms to British TV favorites to Charlie Chaplin movies, are finding a new audience on sites such as Netflix and Hulu.

Lifetime will soon launch the Lifetime Movie Club, a Web streaming service of its signature melodramatic movies. The service will feature a rotating pool of 30 movies for $3.99 a month, refreshing the selections every week.

Rhinobird.tv, a video streaming service that says it “brings together the power of live video, the reach of broadcast and the connection of social media,” is now available as a […]