streaming

With Iowa already secured, the streaming company has three of the 20 states with legal sports betting locked in for its new service Fubo Sportsbook through Caesars Entertainment Inc.

Its backers hope the ViacomCBS streaming platform will be a smorgasbord of offerings — with live sports and news, reboots of properties like Frasier and Rugrats, original shows like Star Trek: Discovery and the ViacomCBS library — that will entice viewers. But its relatively late entrance to a competitive landscape and a $4 price increase compared to its predecessor, CBS All Access, could make it a challenging sell.

The National Football League is on the verge of signing new rights deals with media partners that could see Amazon carry many games exclusively and TV networks pay as much as double their current rate, people familiar with the matter said. New agreements could be in place as early as next week, the people said.

Kevin Mayer, whose long tenure at Disney culminated in the successful launch of Disney+, is joining sports streaming outfit DAZN as chairman. He replaces former colleague John Skipper, the longtime former ESPN executive who steered DAZN through launches in the U.S. and other global territories. Backed by billionaire Len Blavatnik, DAZN specializes in boxing and soccer, but also controls rights to several other sports in various territories.

Perhaps the most polarizing OTT company on Wall Street, FuboTV, reported a 98% jump in fourth quarter revenue, passing the six-figure mark for the first time in a quarter to reach $105.1 million. The virtual pay TV operator added 92,800 customers during the final three months of 2020, reaching 547,880 paid subscribers, up 73% year over year.

In a move that will bolster Roku’s advertising capabilities, the streaming company has acquired Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising unit. Terms for the deal were not disclosed. A person familiar with the transaction described it as “not material” to the overall business of Roku, whose market value is $53 billion. Nevertheless, the acquisition is a meaningful step forward for the streaming potentate. The company will now be able to serve viewers “dynamically inserted” ads on live, linear programming, opening up new horizons for its burgeoning ad business.

MobiTV, a key video technology vendor to T-Mobile, Cable One and myriad small cable companies, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. According to FTI Consulting, a firm brought on by the Emeryville, Calif. company to oversee the restructuring process, MobiTV has obtained $15.5 million in debtor-in-possession financing to keep the lights on, the employees paid and its cloud-based video systems up and running.

Once the last pay TV bastions, along with sports, is fast becoming a free, add-supported services programming staple.

The streamer commissioned the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative to analyze its 2018 and 2019 original, live-action films and series, and presented the results to members of the press Thursday in a video presentation. The results were, as Annenberg Inclusion Initiative founder and director Stacy L. Smith noted, far more positive than most Annenberg reports, which have typically found only slow, sporadic improvement in the most popular films.

Netflix’s offering of Criminal Minds was the most-viewed show on streaming platforms in the last week of January, according to Nielsen’s latest Top 10 list released Thursday. The popularity of Criminal Minds has been the fuel for news just this week. Paramount+ confirmed yesterday it is rebooting the hit CBS procedural, which ran from 2005-2020 and spawned two spinoffs, with a 10-episode season revolving around a single case.

Acting FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel told a troubled senator that the FCC does not have the authority to get involved in the carriage dispute between a broadcaster and streaming service, in this case Disney’s Hulu Plus Live TV streaming service and Sinclair, over access to the latter’s regional sports networks. That came in a letter responding to Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who asked the FCC to help facilitate a resolution of the dispute “promptly and impartially.”

An idea that seemed like a real plus when streaming was newer has fallen into cliché.

ViacomCBS spent the afternoon unveiling details about Paramount+, its rebranded streamer that will launch May 4, and now here is a roundup of the television series and feature films that will be available on the service. Paramount+ will feature a content catalog of more than 30,000 episodes, 2,500 movie titles and 1,000-plus live sporting events and news coverage. More than 50 new series across multiple genres will bow during the next two years on the streamer, which promises 7,000 episodes of kids content, 5,000 of reality and 6,000 of comedy.

60 Minutes+ will debut March 4 with three separate episodes, the network announced Wednesday. The announcement was part of a rollout for Paramount+, which is replacing the CBS All Access service, offering Paramount movies as well as old and new programming from CBS and the Viacom stable of networks. Above, Jonathan Blakely, is executive producer of the new show that CBS hopes CBS hopes will expose the durable brand to a younger and more diverse audience.

The streaming business is about to get a lot more expensive, if early signs of subscriber interest in premium content on HBO Max and Disney Plus force competitors to ante up to attract and keep subscribers. The question is, can the legacy media companies spend enough on streaming content to keep pace with Netflix’s global audience and the near-bottomless wallets of Apple and Amazon.

While Wednesday’s big presentation for investors was focused on Paramount+, Chairman Shari Redstone made it clear that ViacomCBS isn’t discounting its broadcast and cable businesses. “We’re about both linear and streaming,” she declared.

Epix and Paramount Pictures today announced an expansion of their relationship that includes an extension of their existing U.S. pay TV output deal on mutually beneficial terms. Under the new agreement, many of Paramount’s theatrically-released films will premiere earlier than before in pay TV on Epix.

AT&T says it’s listening to its homebound customers and is increasing the number of simultaneous streams available on its AT&T TV platform from three to 20. The telecom said the change will occur automatically for customers starting Thursday, and it won’t affect the price of the service.

Jeff Blackburn, whose 22-year run at Amazon culminated in a role overseeing the company’s streaming efforts, has wrapped up his one-year sabbatical and announced his exit from the company. The news, which came via a memo posted on the company’s intranet, was not unexpected.

The FCC is scheduled to vote at its next public meeting on opening an inquiry into whether it can or should require new distribution outlets, including websites and streaming services, to deliver emergency alerts.

MobiTV, a key cog in pay-TV streaming services from T-Mobile and from an array of U.S. telcos and cable operators, is in need of a financial lifeline — in the form of more capital or cash from a white knight buyer — to keep the operation afloat beyond the short term, multiple industry sources familiar with the situation said.

Last week’s winter storms were a reminder that audiences, enamored of streaming though they might be, still tune in to live TV coverage as essential viewing. Networks would do well to take that into account and move forward with integrated distribution strategies that include their legacy station partners.

“Smaller-scale services like Starz and AMC Networks’ might be better off folded into larger platforms,” writes Wells Fargo’s Steven Cahall.

Roku continues to ride the streaming wave, reporting fourth-quarter results ahead of Wall Street expectations, with revenue shooting up 58% from a year ago to just shy of $650 million. Operating income swung from a loss in the year-earlier period to a profit of $65.2 million.

With the pandemic hurting NHL revenues, the league is expected to seek an increase in revenues, starting with its national TV deals. For a substantial bump, the deal will likely need to carve out some exclusive game content for one of the new subscription direct-to-consumer platforms, such as ESPN+ or Peacock.