streaming

Pluto TV and Verizon have activated their game-changing distribution partnership and revealed new programming details. Starting today, 100,000-plus hours of free, ad-supported programming on ViacomCBS-owned Pluto are available to Verizon customers. The service will come in the form of an app on Android mobile devices and pre-installed on Fios cable boxes and Stream TV and 5G Amazon Home Fire devices.

As subscribers and viewers flee, media companies that once relied on cable TV are chasing streaming dollars instead.

With the addition of these three Florida markets, Locast now delivers local TV channels via the internet into 21 U.S. TV markets containing more than 134 million viewers or 41% of the U.S. population. Locast has more than 1.4 million users.

The return of live sports to U.S. TV screens will set “record” ratings in the second half of 2020 and attract new pay TV subs according to Needham & Co. analyst Laura Martin. “Streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, Apple+, etc. that benefited from live sports being dark have the most risk to their U.S. reported sub adds during the second half,” she writes.

Everyone who is anyone is now in the streaming business, including the traditional over-the-air networks. Late entrant NBC was so eager for a piece of the pie it was willing to anger its affiliate body by moving some first plays to Peacock. This has damaged an already fragile relationship. Brand is what strong local television stations do best. Whatever the future may bring, their unique relationship with local audiences is an advantage no other form or media can claim.

Ted Sarandos has been promoted at Netflix to Co-CEO, sharing the title with Reed Hastings, who also serves as co-founder. Sarandos joins the company’s board of directors as a result. “Ted has been my partner for decades. This change makes formal what was already informal — that Ted and I share the leadership of Netflix,” Hastings said.

Hulu is making its advertising platform more accessible to businesses with smaller marketing budgets. The streamer, which is courting more advertisers as it’s further integrated into parent company Disney, is opening up a closed beta test of a self-service ad manager to small and medium-size businesses, it said today. It’s the first self-service tool from Hulu and will give marketers the ability to start campaigns on the streamer with a minimum spend of $500.

One of the country’s oldest and most established media companies is starting to look more like a Hollywood studio than a traditional newspaper. Driving the news: The New York Times has 10 scripted TV show projects in development, as well as three feature documentaries coming out this year and several other documentary projects in development and production, executives tell Axios.

As you know from endless (and endlessly grating) commercials, Peacock is the new subscription streaming service from Xfinity, which is part of Comcast, which is part of NBC, and which debuts Wednesday, July 15. The pluses here include Peacock’s archives (Parks and Recreation, Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock, Cheers, Frasier, The Carol Burnett Show and, in 2021, the complete run of The Office); to that, add hundreds of titles from Universal’s movie library (Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Reservoir Dogs). As for original shows, Peacock doesn’t come out on a particularly strong note.

Netflix shares cooled down Tuesday, slipping 2% to about $517, after UBS downgraded the stock to “neutral” from “buy” on concerns about difficult subscriber comparisons in upcoming quarters.

Struggling startup mobile streaming service Quibi won an important court ruling Monday afternoon, when a federal judged denied a plaintiff’s request for a preliminary injunction of the platform’s core technology feature, Turnstyle.

Nine new programs will be released on Peacock’s launch day, Wednesday, bolstered by some 20,000 hours of library fare from its parent company, NBCUniversal, along with outside acquisitions. Besides TV shows and movies that viewers already know and love, including The Office, Cheers and The Matrix, sports and news are an uncommon part of the mix.

From Hamilton (duh) to obscure Polish erotica (wha?), Netflix, Disney+ and others are finding that creating an on-platform hit is more about viral momentum.

A report from mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower paints a rough picture for the mobile streaming service Quibi. The firm found that at the conclusion of Quibi’s 90-day free-trial period that was available shortly after launch, 72,000 users continued to use the app out of a reported 910,000; that’s about an 8% conversion rate.

FuboTV, the streaming service acquired by Facebank on April 1, disclosed that the combined companies registered a pro-forma net loss of $48.4 million in the first quarter. In a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission Wednesday, FuboTV alone had a loss of $36 million in the quarter and Facebank lost $4.5 million. Adjustments to earnings totaled $8 million.

Walmart+, set to launch later this month, will cost $98 a year and include same-day delivery of groceries, fuel discounts and other perks. Walmart also has plans to add video entertainment components to the program, though the details of this remain unclear. Walmart has also considered partnering with big media companies on video content perks.

It’s been a rough week for the Archieverse. Just days after The CW pulled the plug on Riverdale spinoff Katy Keene, Netflix has gone and canceled fellow sister series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina after two super-sized seasons (or four parts),

Unlike Nielsen, which measure audience size, Parrot Analytics says it can track viewer enthusiasm. That’s more important to subscription services.