As Amazon becomes the latest platform to push an ad-supported tier, TV writers greet this retro model with frustration and, in some cases, disdain: “I thought Nine Perfect Strangers with commercials was horrible,” says David E. Kelley of his Hulu show with breaks. Pictured: On Jan. 29, Prime Video — home of Reacher — became the latest streamer to offer an ad-supported tier.
Activist investor Nelson Peltz believes Walt Disney can achieve profitability in streaming by bundling its ESPN+ online service with a larger player interested in sports, such as Netflix.
Google execs are actively considering an international expansion of pay TV service YouTube TV, Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “It is something we are closely looking at,” Schindler said. “There’s nothing specific I have to add at this moment in time on this one.” Schindler and CEO Sundar Pichai both took note of highlights for YouTube TV in the quarter, notably the debut of NFL Sunday Ticket as an exclusive offering after 29 years on DirecTV. The premium package is available either as an add-on for YouTube TV subscribers or as a stand-alone offering through YouTube’s channel store.
Exclusives
While younger people spend the most time with non-premium content, others are as well, according to a new survey from Hub.
Amazon Prime video subscribers will start seeing commercials starting today — unless they pay more.
While the streamer is pulling far ahead of rivals, it is extending an olive branch as a buyer of shows and as a possible bundle partner.
OUTtv, an LGBTQ+ television and streaming service, in partnership with Fuse Media, has secured a deal with Channelbox to distribute OUTtv Proud, its international FAST channel, in the U.K. via Freeview. […]
The company has projects in development with Tom Brady’s Shadow Lion, Chrissy Teigen‘s Huntley Productions, Guy Ritchie, Mark Wahlberg’s Unrealistic Ideas, among others.
MoffettNathanson sees the e-commerce giant’s move as more bad news for linear TV.
In her third promotion in a little over three years, Netflix‘s Head of Drama Jinny Howe is further expanding her oversight to all of the streamer’s drama areas, adding Spectacle + Event, current series and shows coming out of Netflix’s roster of overall deals to her purview.
In 2019, broadcasting giant Sinclair took a stab at streaming with STIRR, a free service with live channels and on-demand shows and movies. It was once seen as one of the best free ad-supported streaming services on the market. Sinclair, however, is in the process of selling the service, which now offers just a fraction of what it used to offer. The soon-to-be new owner of STIRR is a company called Thinking Media, according to a newly updated term of service page.
NBCUniversal‘s Peacock deal to exclusively stream the NFL‘s AFC Wild Card matchup between the Kansas City Chief and the Miami Dolphins delivered an end-zone spiking TD for the streamer, according to new data. NBCU already claimed the Jan. 13 playoff game was the biggest live-streamed event in U.S. history — delivering an average audience of 23 million viewers. While NBCU didn’t quantify the lift in Peacock subscriptions the game yielded, a new report from research firm Antenna puts a number on it: Peacock saw a total of 2.8 million sign-ups over NFL Wild Card Game weekend. According to Antenna, that makes the Chiefs-Dolphins game the single biggest subscriber acquisition event it has ever measured.
The co-CEO makes a distinction between the “sports entertainment” of pro wrestling and other competitions.
ESPN faces an existential crisis as it seeks to secure a streaming future while the cable TV bundle is in terminal decline. Its solution: Ask sports leagues if they want to buy a stake in the network. Among a bevy of conflict of interest questions, the “worldwide leader in sports” being partially owned by a major professional sports league would shatter any wall between business and editorial.
Netflix’s Gains 13M New Global 4Q Subs As It Unwraps Best-Ever Holiday Season Results
The fourth quarter results announced Tuesday provided further evidence that Netflix was able to come up with a formula that produced a spike in subscribers even as it became more expensive to watch its lineup of TV shows and movies.
In a major shakeup, WWE has struck a deal with Netflix that will see its flagship weekly live pro wrestling show begin airing exclusively on the streaming giant beginning in January 2025. That will mark the first time in its three-decade history that Raw has not aired new episodes on a linear television network. The deal is valued at $500 million per year for 10 years. Netflix has the option to opt out after the initial five years and to extend for an additional 10 years.
ViewLift, a sports and entertainment streaming and OTT technology provider, has appointed John Rose and Steve Byrd to its board, which is led by chairman Ted Leonsis, founder of Monumental […]
Netflix has greenlit another two adaptations of Harlan Coben novels after Fool Me Once became a global hit for the streaming service. Netflix will bring Missing You and Run Away to the screen as limited series over the coming years, with the former going into production this spring.
The Kaley Cuoco-led thriller ran for two seasons, the last of which finished in 2022.
In what appears to be the first significant crash in the supply of original scripted U.S. TV series since the industry first began benchmarking so-called “Peak TV,” the number of seasons released in 2023 fell 24% from 2022, according to an analysis released this morning by Ampere.
The FAST provider aims to draw more viewers with rental and purchase offerings.
Ten years after The Square, an acquisition that put Netflix documentaries on the map, the streamer is back at the 40th Sundance Film Festival with an eye towards acquisitions and two very different originals. Yance Ford’s latest, Power, an inquiry into the evolution of policing in America that had its world premiere Thursday night in Park City, Utah. Bao Nguyen’s The Greatest Night in Pop, about the making of the charity anthem We Are The World, debuts Friday before streaming on Jan. 29.
More than 20 production entities from around Europe and other regions have banded together and are trying to leverage local governments to make the major U.S. streamers further their support for local film and TV makers. Pictured: Netflix Oscar hopeful Society of the Snow was produced in Spain.
The media conglomerate said Thursday that it plans to hold a presentation for advertisers at 10 a.m. ET on May 15 at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, where it will call attention to media brands such as Max, Food Network, CNN, HGTV, TBS, Discovery, TLC, Bleacher Report and Discovery+. The ranks look to be heavier with streaming properties than traditional linear ones.
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming infrastructure, announces that the Recording Academy will once again use the Bitmovin Player to deploy and launch content to its global community of music […]
Spotify has a plum position in the audio-streaming business. It’s the leading platform, with some 600 million users. Its 30% market share is twice that of its next-largest competitor. Spotify is adding millions of new subscribers a month, and few of its users cancel. Most companies can only dream of that kind of industry dominance. Yet not even the leading audio-streaming company has consistently made money off audio streaming.
YouTube Chief Business Officer Mary Ellen Coe announced the changes in a memo to staff Wednesday.
Twenty influential screen production organizations, representing tens of thousands of companies in total, have issued a statement demanding lawmakers protect producers and local content.
