streaming

Roku created its business solely as a hub for other streaming services, but has recently begun piling up content for its free Roku Channel. With the acquisition, Roku will acquire 75 staccato-style programs with some very big names attached. Idris Elba, Kevin Hart, Liam Hemsworth, Anna Kendrick, Nicole Richie, Chrissy Teigen and Lena Waithe have all been in Quibi shows. That includes more than 12 shows that never aired on Quibi before it was shuttered.

Next week’s CES will feature virtualized presentations of new 8K TV sets, streaming technology and ever-improving home video production tools that will be of interest to broadcasters. Veteran consultant Shelly Palmer says smart TVs will take a leap forward, smartphone tech will pause until post-pandemic mobility returns and huge trade shows like CES itself will never be the same again.

With the CTV space growing ever more crowded, Discovery+ launched with a big bet that there’s room for “passing the day” programming on streaming. It’s banking on loyal subs to cut the cord, capturing international audiences and ad-supported tiers and commerce for the win.

Former Walt Disney Co. CEO Michael Eisner’s Tornante Co. is working with a group of other former media and technology execs to launch Struum, a service aimed at helping viewers find content in an increasingly crowded streaming environment.

The coronavirus isn’t the only reason that modern day life has moved online, but it the most important reason behind the speed of the overwhelming shift in lifestyle. COVID-19 pushed technology and media to accelerate what was already happening, and that’s why I’ve made these predictions now. I will leave them without supporting documentation, as I prefer them to be conversation starters. Agree or disagree as you will, but please, add to the list.

YouTube executive Kelly Merryman has been instrumental in improving content partnerships with large media companies like Disney and Viacom.

A year after the merger of Viacom and CBS in December 2019, the combined company is in the process of remaking itself from a media conglomerate with a business primarily based in traditional channels like linear TV and theatrical films into one whose operations are oriented around streaming. What the company will look like on the other side of that shift remains to be seen, but out of economic necessity, ViacomCBS in the future will need to look different than its current incarnation.

He will now oversee the company’s relationships with OTT distributors and its NextGen TV applications.

Film and TV production in Los Angeles has been exempt from COVID restrictions and continued after the current new stay-at-home order was instituted in early December. But, amid an unprecedented surge in coronavirus infections and COVID-19 deaths in L.A. County, the vast majority of TV studios and streamers have postponed January production for one or more weeks. Like its traditional media counterparts, Netflix also has hit the pause button on its Los Angeles-based productions, which had been slated to start filming this week, until at least mid-January.

Along with the coming of a new year, there’s another streaming service for your consideration: Discovery+. Launching today, the new subscription video service boasts more than 55,000 episodes from shows on the Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV, Animal Planet, TLC and other Discovery Inc.-owned channels. The service will also have series from which will be available for $4.99 monthly or $6.99 for an ad-free version. Discovery+ will also have series from A&E, BBC, The History Channel and Lifetime.

Quibi is in advanced talks to sell its content catalog to Roku, as the short-form streaming service winds down its operations following an unsuccessful run.

2020 was not, by any standard, a typical year. Even the linear television universe, a familiar and cyclical staple of media, saw its fair share of oddities. Halts in production of new and existing shows, delays in fall TV season premieres and an overall sense of time lost became realities as Americans were forced to recalibrate to spending more time at home for the good of public health and their communities. And in all likelihood, the atypical nature of the year will be profound enough to drive permanent shifts in consumer behavior, including media consumption. In fact, we’re already seeing them.

CEO Bob Bakish and his team have started getting credit for acquisitions, and sales of non-core assets, at attractive price tags that have transformed the company beyond the big merger that created it. In early 2021, it will detail how all its assets fit into its streaming strategy.

The new Netflix series Bridgerton joins a tiny but growing handful of prestige shows adapted from mass-market romance books. What took so long?

The matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals drew an average audience of 4.8 million viewers on Amazon’s Prime Video and Twitch platforms and mobile properties run by the NFL, the two teams and Verizon. Local over-the-air stations in San Francisco and Phoenix also carried the game, bringing the total audience to 5.9 million, according to the NFL.

From reboots and sequels to Oscar, Emmy and Tony winners fronting high-profile new streaming shows, The Hollywood Reporter surveys the programming that will be the talk of the town in the year ahead.

Netflix said that Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos, the streaming company’s co-CEOs, will each earn $34.65 million for 2021, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The amount is unchanged from the compensation they were scheduled to get in 2020.

Plus, how Covid-19 has changed their industry and what trends are likely to stay.

And how the streaming and TV ecosystem will continue to evolve.

These are the shows (new and old) that gave us escape from the nightmare of the past 12 months.

Wonder Woman is due for yet another spin, following the Gal Gadot-led film sequel’s solid performance both at the traditional (yet not) box office and with its simultaneous release on HBO Max. Warner Bros. Pictures announced on Sunday that it has fast-tracked development on a follow-up to Wonder Woman 1984, which will be written by franchise vet Patty Jenkins (left), who is again attached to direct.

Netflix has scored a First Amendment victory against a law firm that advises the rich and powerful throughout the world. On Wednesday, a California federal judge granted the streamer’s motion to dismiss libels claims made by the law firm of Mossack Fonseca over The Laundromat.

Bad news for battered media execs: The rollercoaster of reformation that has sent the industry careening into the future isn’t likely to pull into the station anytime soon.

Disney’s flagship streaming service, Disney+, and its established sibling Hulu lead the list of streamers in total TV advertising impressions in 2020, according to ad tracking firm iSpot.

The series, inspired by the real-life sacrifices, tragedies and triumphs of athletes will debut as specials on The CW before streaming on The CW App and as an eight-part docuseries on CW Seed. They will be co-hosted by Yogi Roth (r) and former NFL player Spencer Paysinger (l).

His new TV show A Perfect Planet celebrates the harmony of the natural world and warns of human disruption to this delicate ecosystem. A Perfect Planet launches the new service Discovery+ on Jan. 4 and is showing on the U.K.’s BBC One and Canada’s BBC Earth on Jan. 3.

Oracle Corp.’s data cloud and measurement business said it detected a new instance of fraud in streaming television that likely impacted millions of dollars in advertising spending, signaling a growing problem for advertisers as they move more dollars into the medium.