streaming

It’s not much of a mystery why we are seeing brands that dove into streaming using the premium model now pivoting to ads. The story of the past few months in the industry has been slowing growth for the most established and successful platforms, particularly in mature markets such as the United States. The arrows are still headed up — streaming is not a fad — but acquiring and holding on to customers is infinitely harder to do when you’ve already signed up huge swaths of the populations in North America and Europe (as Netflix and, to a lesser degree, Disney+ have done). And while raising prices can bring in more revenue, it also risks increasing churn.

NBCUniversal’s Peacock is nearing a deal with Major League Baseball for exclusive rights to stream games in a new Sunday time slot, according to people familiar with the discussions, as the league looks to increase digital partnerships. The deal with NBCU would involve a package of 18 games, some beginning at 11:30 a.m. ET and others just after noon, the people said. That would limit the conflict with Sunday games that typically start at 1 p.m., making the telecasts more valuable for Peacock. The games would primarily be played on the East Coast, given the early timing, the people said.

Customers will be charged $5.99 a month or $59.99 to get the service, with a special deal for charter subscribers. CNN’s announcement on Friday comes a day after MSNBC said that it will offer much of its television lineup on a time-delayed basis on the Peacock Premium streaming service, which is available for $4.99 a month.

MSNBC is shifting its streaming strategy, adding shows from its cable TV channel to its streaming hub on Peacock. The network also plans to rebrand from “The Choice” to the “MSNBC hub on Peacock,” better reflecting its TV lineage. The programming will be available on-demand to all Peacock subscribers who subscribe to a paid tier of the service, with MSNBC shifting from a live-stream format to a browsing and on-demand format.

A senior Netflix Inc executive said on Tuesday the company had no current plans to offer a streaming option that included advertising but declined to rule it out in the future. “Never say never,” CFO Spencer Neumann said when asked if the company would change its long-standing position that its service should remain ad-free, adding “it’s not something in our plan right now.”

The streamer has struck a rights deal with Major League Baseball to carry a weekly doubleheader of games on Fridays, starting with the 2022 season — whenever that may begin.

Judge Judy Sheindlin will serve another helping of Judy Justice. Her streaming series, which launched in November, has been renewed for a second season. IMDb TV, Amazon’s complimentary (i.e., not Prime) streaming service, made the announcement on Tuesday — simultaneously revealing that the show has been among the platform’s most popular originals, with a combined 25 million-plus hours streamed in four months.

As Inventing Anna continues to rank in Netflix’s top 10, Shondaland has set another scripted original series at the streaming giant. Shonda Rhimes and her longtime Shondaland partner Betsy Beers will executive produce The Residence, a mystery drama that has been ordered straight to series. The drama will use Kate Anderson Brower’s book, The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House, as a jumping off point to tell a new murder-mystery story.

Netflix suspended its service in Russia on Sunday, becoming the latest tech company to halt or restrict its offerings in Russia amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “Given the circumstances on the ground, we have decided to suspend our service in Russia,” a Netflix spokesperson said. TikTok announced earlier in the day that it was blocking users in Russia from posting videos on the platform.

David Eilenberg, most recently chief creative officer at ITV America, will become head of Roku Originals for the company, overseeing the creative vision and go-to-market strategy for all of Roku’s original content. Colin Davis, Roku’s head of scripted originals, and Brian Tannenbaum, the head of alternative originals, will now report to Eilenberg. Eilenberg will report to Roku VP Programming Rob Holmes.

A programming agreement that gives the Walt Disney Co.’s streaming service Hulu access to popular programming from Comcast’s NBCUniversal has been terminated, according to a source familiar with the situation. Insead of appearing on Hulu the day after they air on NBC, shows like This is Us, The Voice and Saturday Night Live will be available on Peacock, the  Comcast streaming platform that competes with Hulu.

The streamer announced the news on Friday, noting it would launch in late 2022. Price and exact launch date will be announced later in the year.

The hope is that CNN+ will serve as a gateway to a post-pay TV world, connecting the brand’s familiar red and white letters to a generation of viewers who are growing up without cable. CNN also has plans to eventually offer a lower priced version of CNN+ that will be advertiser-supported. CNN+ will also be available in a package deal with HBO Max, just as Disney offers its flagship streaming service Disney+ with ESPN+ and Hulu.

HBO Max, TNT and TBS will air U.S. Women’s and Men’s National Team matches beginning in 2023 in an eight-year deal. About half of the matches will stream on HBO Max and air on TV, with the rest exclusive to the streaming platform.

MLB and NBC Sports have had serious talks about the network broadcasting games this season. If a deal comes to fruition, most of the games are expected to be on NBC’s streaming platform, Peacock.

The broadcast networks on Feb. 11 signed off on Locast‘s $700,000 settlement of a court ruling that the now-shuttered streaming platform had violated copyright law by streaming TV stations over the internet without permission or payment. That is according to a copy of FCC nominee Gigi Sohn’s written answers to questions from Senate Commerce Committee Democrats following her second confirmation hearing in the committee. Sohn had been a board member of Locast.

WVLT’s live streaming news coverage of two men trapped in a collapsed trench and a 6-year-old boy lost in the woods earned an award from its owner, Gray Television.

MLB.TV’s 2021 season plan included an auto-renewal feature, which means you will automatically be renewed for the 2022 season this Tuesday, March 1, at the 2021 regular season price of $129.99. That’s just two days from now. If you don’t cancel by then, you’re on the hook for the 2022 season even though we don’t know if there will be one. So whether you decide to renew or not, your decision will be made for you on Tuesday. There are no cancellations after that point.

Sinclair Broadcast Group said it plans to launch its direct-to-consumer product in the five markets where it has rights to stream baseball teams in the first half of 2022. Sinclair said that following rights renewals with the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League, its Bally Sports regional sports networks have rights to launch DTC products with a total of 33 teams.

The media measurement giant is expected as soon as Wednesday to announce it will issue streaming data from connected TV sets, according to two people familiar with the matter. The information, Nielsen is expected to tell clients, will give advertisers, media buyers and media companies more information in their efforts to understand how audiences are behaving across a range of different screens.