streaming

Univision has bought Spanish-language streaming service Vix as it gears up to launch its ad-supported domestic streaming outlet PrendeTV. Vix is available in the U.S. and throughout Latin America.

The long-rumored Frasier revival could soon be a reality at Paramount Plus. Variety has confirmed with sources that a new iteration of Frasier is in discussions at the ViacomCBS streaming service, though those discussions are said to be in the very early stages.

Live TV-streaming services have raised their prices but cutting the cord is still cheaper, for the most part, than cable.

The NBC O&O in Philadelphia just launched a news program developed especially for an audience that is doubling every year — streamers.

WarnerMedia has touted the performance of Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max, albeit without any hard viewing numbers. Now Nielsen has put some data behind the claims: The ratings service says the movie racked up huge audiences on its opening weekend, becoming the biggest feature film in Nielsen’s rankings — and one of the biggest streaming titles of any kind since Nielsen launched its streaming measurement.

The world of kids TV has long been thought to be a peaceful one, a place where Blue’s Clues, The Baby-Sitters’ Club, Phineas and Ferb and Rugrats are left alone to ramble and play. As more consumers move to streaming-video services, however, kids properties are taking on new importance — and many major entertainment outlets, both traditional and upstart, are gearing for battle.

The company earned nearly $29 billion, or $1.68 per share, in its latest quarter, a 29% increase from the same time in the previous year. Revenue surged 21% to $111.4 billion. All those numbers exceeded analyst estimates, but investors evidently had even higher hopes for Apple. The company’s stock dipped 1% in extended trading after the quarterly results came out.

U.S. consumers spent more than $26.5 billion on SVOD subscriptions, and buying and renting movies and TV shows in 2020, up 32% over 2019, according to the Digital Entertainment Group.

According to Netflix’s shadowy numbers-crunchers, a record 82 million global households glimpsed the Shonda Rhimes-produced period drama in its first 28 days of release, making it the streamer’s No. 1 series launch in history — ongoing, limited or otherwise.

Netflix is planning to expand worldwide a test feature that allows subscribers to simply click a button and let the streamer pick programming to watch. Tested in France and other markets, the “Shuffle Play” feature acts as an old-school TV channel broadcasting shows on a loop.

Modern Family has found not one but two streaming homes for its vast 11-season library. Disney-backed Hulu and NBCUniversal’s Peacock will share streaming rights for all 250 episodes, with the family comedy from creators Steve Levitan and Christopher Lloyd making its debut Feb. 3 on both platforms. Financial terms of the deal were not immediately available.

In a classic case of coopetition, Roku inked a deal with Amazon to bring the IMDb TV free, ad-supported streaming service to the Roku platform in the U.S. The IMDb TV service competes for viewers — and ad dollars — with the Roku Channel, a similar ad-supported VOD service. Under Roku’s standard distribution agreements, it takes 30% of ad inventory on partner channels but the terms of the deal with Amazon for IMDb TV were not disclosed.

The average U.S. household increased its streaming subscriptions to four from three in the past eight months, chipping away at SVOD pioneer Netflix’s market share, according to a J.D. Power survey. Netflix still holds the No. 1 spot among streaming services — it had about 74 million U.S. and Canadian subscribers in 4Q 2020 — but five of the next six largest streaming providers gained market share since April  2020.

Univision’s PrendeTV streaming service will premiere this quarter with a group of blue-chip advertisers as launch partners, according to Donna Speciale, recently named president of advertising sales and marketing at the Spanish-language media company.

Peacock has entered the ring as the newest home for World Wrestling Entertainment content. Beginning Thursday, March 18, WWE Network will exclusively be available via NBCUniversal’s streaming service. TVLine has confirmed that the standalone WWE Network streamer, which launched in February 2014, will in turn shut down in March as the content moves to Peacock.

2021’s totally online NATPE Virtual Miami is just but half over. Some inkling of how it might shape out, however, is fast falling into place. Basically, streaming stole the show. Yes, Fox did announce during NATPE that the Jay Leno-hosted You Bet Your Life reboot, bowing this fall, has sold in 85% of the U.S. Yet a once annual launchpad for shows seeking U.S. syndication was dominated this time round by the seismic pivot of Hollywood’s majors and other players into global VOD platforms, and the impact of this tectonic shunt on the industry at large.

Disney and Pixar’s Soul was the most viewed streaming title during the week of Christmas, topping other Netflix original shows and films and even the juggernaut The Office in its final full week on Netflix before moving to Peacock.

Varun Narang has been named chief product officer at Fox, where he will oversee the company’s Fox-branded streaming products, platforms and engineering. Narang had been chief product officer with Disney Plus Hotstar, which he joined in 2015, before it was sold by 21st Century Fox to Disney.

Streaming hit Hollywood fast. In its wake, the industry is racing to find a new way of doing business, rethinking who’s in charge, how contracts are set up and how stars get paid. Studios are overturning their management ranks, empowering executives with backgrounds in business development, technology and strategy. Producers, filmmakers and actors are trying to protect their interests in new contracts that aren’t built around ticket sales in movie theaters. Above, while Tenet got a theatrical release last year, Warner Bros. films this year will simultaneously appear on HBO Max.

The new app combines the latest programming from The CW and fan-favorite library series from CW Seed Free on Vizio SmartCast televisions.

The period drama based on Julia Quinn’s best-selling novels marks Shonda Rhimes’ first series for the streaming giant.

CBS Sports said it plans to stream the Super Bowl across multiple platform, including its subscription streaming service CBS All Access. Broadcast coverage of Super Bowl LV will also stream unauthenticated and for free on the CBSSports.com, the CBS Sports app. The big game will also be free on Verizon properties including Yahoo Sports,  on NFL digital properties and NFL team mobile properties.

The streaming giant borrowed over $16 billion in less than a decade as it built out its content library. The strategy prompted criticism that the company was unsustainable.

The subscriber milestone highlighted Netflix’s fourth-quarter results released Tuesday. The service added another 8.5 million subscribers during the October-December period to cap Netflix’s biggest year since its inception as a DVD-by-mail service in 1997. Netflix’s stock surged by nearly 9% in extended trading after the latest subscriber numbers came out.

That day is when the rebranded streaming service will go live in the U.S. and Latin America, with planned launches for the Nordics on March 25 and in Australia in mid-2021. Canada’s version of CBS All Access will also be rebranded to Paramount+ on March 4 and “an expanded offering will be available later in the year.”

A new Deloitte report suggests more than 60% of people who dropped a streaming service did so after they watched the show or movie that got them to sign up.

AT&T’s HBO Max, which got off to a sputtering start, drew the largest share of new streaming subscribers in the fourth quarter, according to Kantar’s Entertainment on Demand Service. Kantar estimates that the number of SVOD subscriptions reached 233 million by the end of December, with the average home having 3.5 streaming video subscriptions, up from 3.1 at the start of 2020.