streaming

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.

Subscription streaming’s first boom period, which lasted roughly from 2019 to 2021, was “based on the false premise of exclusivity,” said a panelist. It also was “about convenience.” Now that content owners are more readily licensing titles out to multiple players and no longer hell-bent on clawing back exclusive rights, a new model and orientation toward relevance can assert itself.

Television usage increased 1.7% in December to its highest levels since January 2023, but the biggest jump came from video-game consoles, with streaming, broadcast and cable all losing share, Nielsen said. Broadcast viewing fell 4.3% — the first drop since July — and its share of TV usage dropped to 23.5% from 24.9% in November. Sports represented 28.5% of broadcast viewing. Compared to a year ago, broadcast usage was down 5.9%. Cable usage was up 1.3% but cable’s share of viewing dipped to 28.2% from 28.3% in November.

The descriptive tags that the streaming service runs near each title — like “slick” for the show “Suits” — have proved crucial to getting people to click play.

The first exclusively streaming playoff game boosts the debut of the Ted series on NBCUniversal’s streamer.

The tech giant is betting that new sports, new products and new audiences can grow its live sports ad biz.

Saturday night’s game will be shown on Peacock after NBCUniversal won the rights last May. The game will be broadcast on the NBC affiliates in Kansas City and Miami, following the NFL’s protocol for Thursday night games streamed on Amazon Prime Video. Everyone else will have to pay for a Peacock subscription — plans start at $5.99 per month — to watch the game, and some fans are less than thrilled about the NFL putting a playoff game behind a paywall for the first time.

Amazon’s Reacher returned to Nielsen’s streaming top 10 at No. 2 during the Dec. 11-17 viewing window following the release of the first three episodes in Season 2 on Dec. 15. In its first three days of availability, the series snagged 1.7 billion viewing minutes. And after cracking the chart last week at No. 1 with nearly 2 billion minutes viewed, Leave the World Behind remains at the top of the weekly rankings. In its first full week of availability, the film earned another impressive 1.95 billion minutes watched.

The racing league and streaming tech company aim to grow the sport by, in part, pointing to other’s outlets broadcasting the events.

The game, between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins, is the biggest test yet for whether live sports will find a comfortable home on streaming services.

Netflix is seeing strong growth of its advertising-based plan, having recently eclipsed 23 million global monthly active users, president of advertising Amy Reinhard said Wednesday. “The thing we’re really excited about is the engagement,” she said. Of Netflix’s customers on ad-supported plans, 85% are streaming on the platform for more than two hours per day, she said.

Amazon‘s gamer-centric streaming outlet Twitch is laying off 500 staffers, CEO Dan Clancy told employees in a memo Wednesday morning. The move is being made in sync with cutbacks at corporate siblings Prime Video and Amazon Studios. Bloomberg had reported the layoffs at Twitch on Tuesday. Clancy said the news had “leaked,” suggesting that the Amazon division had to hold off on confirming any details or answering employee questions in order to co-ordinate today’s announcement with that of the other divisions.

“It’s important that we prioritize our investments for the long-term success of our business,” division leader Mike Hopkins writes in an internal memo.

Tyler Perry‘s catalog of BET series, including Tyler Perry’s Sistas, Tyler Perry’s The Oval and Tyler Perry’s House of Payne, is hitting the off-net market. BET is set to announce on Wednesday at the CES convention in Las Vegas that its library of Tyler Perry original series will soon be available for licensing and syndication by third-party platforms, including SVOD, AVOD, FAST and broadcast. According to BET, the offering includes eight different original series encompassing more than 750 episodes and nearly 600 hours of content.

30 Rock creator and star Tina Fey is returning to the small screen with The Four Seasons, based on the 1981 feature film, which she co-created with fellow 30 Rock alums Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield. The high-profile comedy project, which marks Fey’s first TV starring role since 30 Rock, was taken out to the marketplace just before the holidays. In a very competitive situation with multiple bidders, it landed at Netflix with an eight-episode series order.

The company says its new audience and ad measurement enhancements pave the way for modern cross-platform currencies and better outcomes.

The suit alleged that the streamer was overly optimistic about its business prospects despite it being aware of the impact account-sharing would have on growth.

DAZN, a top sports streaming provider, has tapped Walker Jacobs as its first global chief revenue officer and president of DAZN U.S. Jacobs most recently served as Twitch’s chief revenue officer and managing director of sports for the Amazon Ads division, before exiting in December 2023 after five years with the company.

The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments on what tech companies are billing as their version of a challenge to “must-carry” laws, statutes that they say are unconstitutional threats to their First Amendment freedom. The high court’s decision could determine the future of social media and other edge providers to moderate their content.

For the past few months, Charter Communications’ Spectrum, one of the nation’s biggest cable providers, has been shipping new customers a device, Xumo, that lets them stream live TV through an app, alongside streaming mainstays such as Netflix, Disney+ and Max. You can still get a traditional cable box instead, but only if you request it. Charter’s emphasis on Xumo is part of a strategy to bring streaming and live TV together in one package. The company wants Xumo to become a superstore for streaming apps and take a cut along the way.

Broadcasters launching 24/7 streaming channels devoted to weather, or to news with weather updates, are finding their content strategies differ vastly from what they air in their linear newscasts. Here’s what the research and early experience are showing.

Backed by Simon Cowell, Kylie Minogue and Sheryl Crow, the streaming service looks to supplant smart speakers.

Hub Entertainment Research’s annual 2023 report TV Advertising: Fact vs. Fiction found that of 3,000 surveyed U.S. consumers between 14-74, the majority are softening their stance on cheaper, ad-supported streaming options to keep their monthly streaming bills under control. The findings come as several streamers have raised prices on ad-free tiers and introduced lower-cost plan options that have commercials.

Broadcasters launching 24/7 streaming channels devoted to weather, or to news with weather updates, are finding their content strategies differ vastly from what they air in their linear newscasts. Here’s what the research and early experience are showing. Pictured: Ethan Dreilinger, client solutions engineer at The Weather Company, spoke with TVNewsCheck Publisher Kathy Haley about what broadcasters are learning from their weather OTT channels, during a fireside chat at TV2025: Monetizing the Future, a TVNewsCheck conference presented at NAB Show New York.

Audacy, the second-largest radio company in the country, announced Sunday that it is filing for bankruptcy protection. The news comes as radio continues to be challenged in the streaming era, with radio listenership dropping precipitously since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and advertising declining across platforms. The radio and streaming network plans an official reorganization. In an agreement approved by a supermajority of its creditors, the company’s debt will be reduced from $1.9 billion to approximately $350 million, according to a release from the company. In exchange, those holding Audacy’s debt will receive equity in the revamped Audacy. Pictured: Audacy CEO David J. Field.

The deal includes football, men’s and women’s basketball, as well as Olympic sports through 2032.