streaming

Imperial Capital analyst David Miller has cut his rating on the stock of streaming giant Netflix from “outperform” to “neutral,” while maintaining his price target of $489. In a Monday report, he cited the stock’s run-up this year. “Thus far, for 2020, Netflix’s shares have risen 50.2 percent, versus the S&P 500, which is down 3.3%,” the analyst highlighted. “In the last 18 months, shares of Netflix are up 81.6%, versus the S&P 500, which is up 26.1%.”

The company didn’t set out to build a big library of Black programming, but now it’s the envy of its rivals.

After spending the past nine months shopping global and streaming rights to its Emmy-winning drama, producers Lionsgate Television has sold the Jon Hamm starrer to Amazon and the show’s original home, AMC, in a sprawling deal.

NBCUniversal’s Peacock, nearing its nationwide launch on July 15, has reached a licensing deal with ViacomCBS covering movies from Paramount and TV shows from across the company. TV series headed to Peacock on July 15 include Ray Donovan, The Affair, Undercover Boss, The Game, Everybody Hates Chris and Real Husbands of Hollywood. Charmed will be added in October.

Jeffrey Katzenberg’s short-form content platform has struggled to make an impact with bad reviews, lack of interest and legal issues swirling.

Content consumption shot up during quarantines, but a new study shows that when restrictions began to be lifted, streaming numbers came down from what they were during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Strategy Analytics surveyed U.S. adults over March, April and May to find COVID-19’s impact on SVOD. For Netflix, 47% of respondents used the service in March, then 50% did so in April. However, in May, when many states began to ease lock-down restrictions, that number dropped to 42%.

Marketers are aware of a changing dynamic, with over half of buyers starting to move dollars out of linear and into CTV, according to the IAB. But consumers don’t necessarily see the difference in the two modes of TV delivery. According to a poll of over 1,100 Americans by Toluna and Tremor Video, 52% of people aged 18-34 and 54% of people 35-54 make no distinction between connected TV and cable or satellite TV. In other words, over half of young and middle-aged viewers simply call whatever they’re watching on their big screens “TV.”

YouTube delivered its ninth annual NewFronts presentation to digital ad buyers, in a shorter, online format it dubbed “Brandcast Delivered.” Video presentations were customized to viewers’ interests, with on-camera participants in the heavily edited pitch including Lilly Singh, Josh Gad, Alex Rodriguez, Lyor Cohen and Mark Ronson, along with senior executives.

The fuboTV streaming service has finally nabbed ESPN for its sports-focused package offerings, while also retrieving a slew of Disney entertainment channels, including FX and NatGeo, after they were dropped following The Walt Disney Co.’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox assets last year.

While streaming use is outpacing year-ago levels, a linear viewership rise in March and April has faded.

Amazon is looking to add 24/7 live programming to its Prime Video service, according to multiple job listings posted over the past several weeks. The new channels could include live news, music and sports as well as scheduled movies and TV show showings.

Peacock, the NBCUniversal streaming service initially launched in April, has set a distribution deal with Google for its national expansion in July. Google platforms and devices spanning Android, Android TV and Chromecast will begin carrying Peacock on July 15. Starting then, Peacock will offer a free tier featuring more than 7,500 hours of movies and TV programming. The higher level, Peacock Premium, will have 15,000 hours of content, and Android and Android TV users will get Premium for free until Oct. 15.

Hulu, in its first upfront as part of The Walt Disney Co., emphasized new ways its advertisers could reach streaming viewers. Advertisers including direct-to-consumer marketers SmileDirectClub, The RealReal and SweetGreen are among the launch partners for what Hulu is calling Gateway Go, which using interactive second-screen technology to send viewers QR codes and push notifications, so that those viewers can immediately react to brand offers on their mobile devices.

The telecom giant says the online video market is flourishing and there’s no reason to hold it back from negotiating interconnection agreements with some of the world’s largest companies.

Affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC are asking FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to revive a years-old proposal to regulate some over-the-top video providers, providers currently beyond the agency’s reach in terms of program access and must-carry/retransmission consent rules.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, are donating $120 million toward student scholarships at historically black colleges and universities. The couple is giving $40 million to each of three institutions: the United Negro College Fund, Spelman College and Morehouse College. The organizations said it is the largest individual gift in support of student scholarships at HBCUs.

ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish detailed changes to CBS All Access, including 15,000 hours of new Viacom and CBS programming and sports content, as he discussed a planned relaunch in 2021 of the streaming service on Tuesday. “The second part of our strategy is to transform All Access into a super service,” Bakish told the Credit Suisse Annual Virtual Communications Conference during a session that was webcast.

Publicity veteran Michelle Slavich is leaving Warner Bros. Pictures for Netflix. In her new role as VP publicity, Slavich will oversee the communications for the streamer’s series, film and documentary programming in the U.S. and Canada. She will report to Netflix communications chief Rachel Whetstone, with whom she previously worked at Google.

Two veteran executives with contrasting styles are launching Quibi, an on-the-go streaming service, during a pandemic. Its success hinges, in part, on whether the duo can overcome their sometimes clashing styles and leverage their more than 80 years of combined business experience. At its current pace, Quibi will sign up fewer than two million paying subscribers by the end of the app’s first year, a person familiar with its operations said, well under its original target of 7.4 million.