streaming

For the second straight week, there were no breakout hits, and the ratings charts were dominated by reruns of Grey’s Anatomy, Criminal Minds … and Cocomelon.

Amazon spent a cool $11 billion on TV series, movies and music for its Prime services last year, an increase of 41% from $7.8 billion in 2019, the ecommerce giant disclosed in its annual report Thursday. The total content spending includes licensing and production costs associated with video and music offered to Amazon’s Prime members, as well as costs associated with digital subscriptions and content that the company sells or rents, the company said.

The Writers Guild of America West announced on Thursday that it has reached a settlement with CBS that will see the network pay $3.4 million in residuals for 62 TV shows added to the since-rebranded CBS All Access streaming service.

With media companies pivoting to streaming, analyst Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson is asking if streaming is really a better business than traditional pay TV. His conclusion: With Netflix the only mature streaming company to use as a model, domestic streaming isn’t all that much different in terms of profit margins from low-end basic cable and premium pay networks, said Nathanson in a report.

As legacy media companies like Disney, WarnerMedia, ViacomCBS and Comcast have launched their own direct-to- consumer divisions, the demand for preexisting storylines that offer recognizable titles, characters, stars and settings has turned into a frenzy. As such, entertainment giants have reorganized their businesses around their recognizable intellectual properties — known in industry parlance as IP — regardless of how the content is ultimately delivered to the consumer. In doing so, they are building out vast interconnected “universes” with the potential to yield greater numbers of projects across all of their production divisions.

The global streaming wars are driving unprecedented investment in TV production, with new outlets like Disney+ betting big on international content, but one executive says: “It’s make hay while the sun shines.”

The local news playlists are available through Peacock’s “News” tab. Audiences can access content produced by the stations for streaming audiences, as well as local news headlines.

The streaming giant has handed out a third and fourth season renewal for the period drama from executive producer Shonda Rhimes.

There are now nearly 340 million subscription contracts to OTT streaming services in the U.S., exceeding the country’s 330-million population, according to a new report from Ampere Analysis.

Ad dollars will flow to streaming, but are there enough eyeballs available for sale? Above, CBS’s The Equalizer will also have its episodes streamed over Paramount+.

Apple Inc. has been a laggard in the smart-home space, but a versatile new device in early development could change that. The company is working on a product that would combine an Apple TV set-top box with a HomePod speaker and include a camera for video conferencing through a connected TV and other smart-home functions, according to people familiar with the matter.

YouTube TV, which has taken heat from subscribers for not carrying the Bally Sports regional sports channels, is offering reduced monthly prices to select new customers. The normal base rate for the live streaming service is $64.99 a month. However, the YouTube TV website is occasionally posting a promotional offer that reduces the first month of service to $44.99. On other occasions, the site features a $54.99 a month price for the first three months of service.

DAZN, the online sports service that this year snatched the rights to screen Italy’s top-flight soccer league from Sky, is considering the possibility of going public as it chases further growth, its joint chief executive says.

OAN Plus, the over-the-top news channel from Herring Networks, is launching on a digital subchannel of OTA (over-the-air) distributor independent KPVM-TV Las Vegas. OAN Plus is a fee ad-supported spin-off of the national cable news network and will now add 2.7 million over-the-air homes via the TV station.

The Netflix historical drama landed on Nielsen’s Top 10 streaming programs list for the first time in weeks.

AMC Networks shifted two executives to give its streaming services more management attention as the company pivots its focus  towards its growing direct-to-consumer businesses. Courtney Thomasma was named general manager of AMC Plus, its commercial-free original content product, and Matt Graham was named general manager of AMC’s Sundance Now streaming service.

Netflix and Sony Pictures Entertainment have set a significant new licensing deal giving the streaming giant an exclusive window for the studio’s theatrical titles starting in 2022. The agreement, which replaces an output arrangement with Lionsgate-owned Starz dating back to 2005, provides Netflix with an 18-month exclusive window for Sony films. Multiple bidders had been angling for the rights for some time. Terms were not officially disclosed, but Netflix prevailed with an offer of $1 billion over four years, according to sources familiar with the deal.

Features like AR and VR, social media integrations with synchronized streaming options and personalization are key to capturing fans’ imaginations and driving more active, engaged consumption.

Smart TVs now represent a majority of TVs owned by U.S. households and, according to Hub Entertainment Research, it may pose a threat to connected TV devices. The research firm released findings from its third annual “Connected Home” report that suggest ownership of a smart TV set is at 70% of TV households this year. The survey results also suggest that 52% of all TV sets are now reported to be smart TVs, up from 45% in 2020, which Hub said indicates accelerated replacement of older, non-smart TVs.

MobiTV has refuted an earlier report that suggested the company was poised to cease operations on May 2 and terminate its 86 employees, saying company-issued warnings to that effect were merely requirements of its ongoing bankruptcy process.

Its app and marketing have new design elements that will debut in an ad campaign starting this week. It’s a call for people to step into the video service as the starting point in what’s become a chaotic and confusing digital media landscape.

In a letter sent Tuesday to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, the U.S. House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on economic and consumer policy said YouTube does not do enough to protect kids from material that could harm them. Instead it relies on artificial intelligence and creators’ self-regulation to decide what videos make it on to the platform, according to the letter.

Already in bankruptcy, video tech firm warns the California Employment Development Department that it could soon lay off all 86 of its employees.

ViacomCBS’s international networks division said it agreed to acquire Chilevisión from AT&T’s WarnerMedia. Financial terms were not disclosed. Local reports valued the transaction at between $14 million and $20 million. ViacomCBS Networks International said the acquisition will expand its footprint in Latin America and give it premium Spanish-language content for its Paramount Plus and Pluto TV streaming platforms.

After a year in which streaming became even more important to millions of Americans, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, Netflix still dominates the streaming universe in the U.S. But new competitors like HBO Max and NBCU’s Peacock are already eating into Netflix’s lead in the streaming wars.

In The Moms of Magnolia Street, the Bay Area’s KNTV followed three women and their families who illegally moved in and occupied a single-family home that had been vacant for years, beginning a movement addressing government-sanctioned home discrimination, predatory lending and the corporatization of housing.