streaming

Everyone is a winner in the streaming wars. Legacy media companies like ViacomCBS and Discovery have been rewarded by investors for their push into streaming, while Disney’s stock is being saved by Disney+’s breakout success. Since the beginning of 2020, both ViacomCBS and Discovery’s stock have skyrocketed by more than 130% each, and Disney and Comcast have also risen by 36% and 27%, respectively, in that same timeframe.

It’s no secret that cable operators and telcos of all sizes have adopted a “broadband-first” stance that emphasizes high-margin, high-speed Internet service and effectively relegates pay-TV to the back seat. But streaming video services, a market that’s now teeming with dozens of virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) and subscription VoD services, remain a key reason why many consumers are connecting to speedy broadband offerings in the first place. At the same time, though, the sheer volume of OTT video service options on the market makes it a challenge for consumers to figure out which ones best suit their entertainment needs as well as the size of their pocketbooks.

Consumers looking to cut the cord for under 20 bucks will have yet another cheap hardware option, according to recently unearthed FCC documents. Walmart is readying an HD-only streaming stick that will be sold under its Onn brand and powered by Android TV, the documents reveal. The “2K” resolution indicated by the filing suggests the device will be inexpensive, given that 4K connected TV devices typically sell for $25 or more.

Fox plans to invest in Tubi, its entry in the fast-growing over-the-top connected TV market, and those investments include original programming. Fox CFO Steve Tomsic says that adding Fox hits like The Masked Singer has given Tubi a boost, and the company is looking to put original programming on Tubi.

The series of 21 telecasts start on Wednesday, April 7, at 1:10 p.m. ET when the Boston Red Sox host the AL champion Tampa Bay Rays in the finale of a two-game series, MLB and YouTube said Monday. The games are exclusive and will not be televised by club broadcast partners.

After a pandemic year that shuttered most movie theaters, none of the expected best-picture nominees will have hardly any box office to speak of. It will be an Oscars not just without blockbusters but with many movies that have hardly played on the big screen. Streaming services are set to dominate Hollywood’s biggest and most sought-after awards. Nominations will be announced beginning at 8:19 a.m. ET and the film academy and ABC will telecast the Oscars on April 25 (delayed two months due to the pandemic).

Netflix is forecast to lose its crown as the world’s biggest video streaming provider within three years, amid explosive growth at Disney after the launch of its rival on-demand service only 16 months ago. The Walt Disney Co. announced earlier this month that its flagship Disney+ platform, launched in late 2019, had passed 100 million global subscribers — a feat that took its arch-rival, Netflix, a decade to achieve. Taken together with subscriber numbers for the group’s ESPN+ sports platform and Hulu subscription service in the U.S., the surge puts Disney on track to dethrone Netflix by 2024.

In what could be a major departure in strategy, the streaming giant in recent months has explored licensing some of its movies and series to other TV outlets owned by companies like NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS, say people familiar with the situation. The discussions indicate how Netflix, long the 800-pound gorilla in the streaming market, may be more open than previously thought to a decades-old way of making money from its programming—basically selling shows to a variety of media outlets to be aired at different time periods. This approach emphasized limited availability, unlike the streaming strategy of making every program available all the time for the price of the subscription. The streaming strategy in recent years has undermined the long-term value of programming, eroding the profitability of Hollywood.

AT&T’s HBO Max says it already has $80 million in upfront advertising commitments for a planned launch of its advertising option in June. Speaking at its AT&T investor day on Friday, Jason Kilar, CEO of WarnerMedia, added that HBO Max profit margins and revenue continue to climb. “We believe we are already the No. 1 revenue-generating stand-alone subscription video-on-demand service in the U.S.” he says. “We earn 90% in margin from each retail subscriber that we add.”

AT&T has set June for the launch of its ad-supported HBO Max option. The WarnerMedia parent company also updated its subscriber forecasts. They’re now much higher. The company now expects 120-150 million worldwide HBO Max and HBO subscribers by the end of 2025.

A Netflix spokesperson confirms that the streaming giant is testing a stopgap measure to crack down on the unauthorized use of account login information.

Comcast’s Flex service, initially derided by some critics as a puzzling product without a clear market, is making a big difference in reducing churn on the company’s “center-of-the-plate” offering, Xfinity Broadband, said CFO Mike Cavanaugh Thursday. Xfinity Flex is a streaming device that puts multiple streaming apps in one place on the screen.

Locast, a nonprofit service that coordinates signals from local television stations and streams them through a smart TV, most streaming devices and smartphones, debuted Wednesday in  17 Northeast Ohio counties: Ashland, Ashtabula, Carroll, Cuyahoga, Erie, Geauga, Holmes, Huron, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, Richland, Stark, Summit, Tuscarawas and Wayne.

The three participants’ ties to Netflix and Apple, along with Winfrey’s desire to reach a big live-viewing audience, paved the way to an old-school deal with CBS.

Disney Plus continues to grow apace, topping 100 million subscribers worldwide, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said Tuesday during its annual shareholders meeting. That’s up from the 94.9 million Disney reported last month. “The enormous success of Disney Plus has inspired us to be even more ambitious, and to significantly increase our investment in the development of high-quality content,” Chapek said. “In fact, we set a target of 100-plus new titles per year.”

“They’re only going to get more serious over time,” Greg Maffei told an investors conference about the e-commerce giant eyeing live sports agreements, including with the NFL in the U.S. market.

Comcast’s new streaming service Peacock lost $914 million in 2020, including intra-company charges, the company disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday. Peacock, which launched on April 15, generated $118 million for the year, according to the filing. Comcast made the filing because it is changing the way it is accounting for some of its businesses.

Two major moves will happen over the next six weeks — the WWE Network’s move to Peacock on March 18, along with the search for a new home for the ThunderDome, which is where Raw and Smackdown are being held due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Streaming service NBC News Now has added two live hours to its weekday lineup, installing Washington TV veteran Aaron Gilchrist as its anchor. The noon-to-2 p.m. ET block will cover cover national and international news. Gilchrist is a former anchor of News4 Today on NBC’s Washington O&O WRC.

To glimpse the future of entertainment on the internet, pay attention to where we can watch football.

Jeep’s soon-to-be-revealed Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer will be the first vehicles in the automotive industry to integrate Amazon Fire TV for Auto, according to the automaker. In-car connectivity will allow passengers to stream their favorite shows or movies together or separately while staying linked to their digital lives, with access to apps and Alexa.

The first episode of Superman & Lois is the most-streamed series premiere in The CW’s history, the network said Thursday. The DC Entertainment series’ first episode has been watched by a total of 3.25 million total viewers, according to Nielsen’s live-plus-seven measurement. That marks an 86% growth over the seven days following the Feb. 23 premiere.

Adara Technologies has introduced a streaming TV platform that, it claims, can provide tier 2/3 operators with an alternative to MobiTV, the pay-TV tech company whose future is uncertain after filing for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this week. Adara, a supplier that has also developed a video switching platform that helps its base of independent operators reclaim bandwidth for broadband and other services, is also out in the market with an app- and IP-based video platform called “myCatapulTVe.”

ViacomCBS’s finance chief is tasked with reallocating funds toward the company’s new streaming service Paramount+ — launching Thursday — without starving its much bigger television business.

As streamers build out their lucrative libraries, they are experimenting with label warnings, context panels and even purges: “These are valuable properties that you cannot just disregard. You want to keep them, but you have to make sure they don’t damage the brand.”

The E.W. Scripps Co., which acquired Ion Media in part for the broadcast spectrum controlled by Ion, said it plans to take its digital multicast networks over-the-top to cash in on the streaming gold rush. “We don’t really see it as being an either-or sort of proposition for consumers,” said Scripps CEO Adam Symson during an investor day presentation to analysts Wednesday.