streaming

Investors eyeing media stocks battered during the coronavirus pandemic from a TV ad recession and cord-cutting should tune into the streaming opportunities of TV networks for potential earnings growth, Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne argued Tuesday. Swinburne said the impact of cord-cutting and ad revenue drops is already priced into TV-centered media stocks, so the next leg up for share prices should come from proof entertainment players can defy Netflix and drive sustainable earnings from the streaming space.

Verizon and ViacomCBS have struck a deal for the latter’s fast-growing AVOD property, Pluto TV, to bundled across Verizon’s 116 million wireless, 4 million video, and 6 million broadband customers in the U.S.

Peacock’s reboot of Battlestar Galactica has found its world builder. Michael Lesslie, who was the lead writer and showrunner of AMC’s spy drama The Little Drummer Girl and wrote scripts for Macbeth and Assassin’s Creed, is to create, write and exec produce the series. The new Battlestar Galactica comes from Mr Robot and Homecoming exec producer Sam Esmail.

But after a peak in March, the audience has started to shrink. “There’s only so much content people can consume,” a Nielsen executive says.

Localish, the millennial-targeted project from ABC’s stations that jumped from digital beginnings to linear broadcast, has expanded its horizons in the wake of COVID-19. It’s using its signature approach to positive, community-oriented stories to circle back on past subjects in a virus-changed world and explore wider corners beyond the group’s markets. Above, Michael Koenigs, the executive producer of Localish.

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said the company will likely spend at least $4 billion during the second quarter in order to speed up delivery times and buy masks and other protection equipment for workers in its warehouses and Whole Foods supermarkets. Shares of Amazon.com Inc. fell about 5% in after-hours trading Thursday following the release of the earnings report.

HBO Max, the upcoming streaming service from AT&T-owned WarnerMedia, will be available across Google platforms and devices when it launches on May 27, the company said on Wednesday.

The NFL and Amazon have inked a multi-year extension to their Thursday Night Football deal, which sees the digital giant stream 11 games throughout the season. First signed back in 2017 and extended in 2018, the agreement sees Amazon show the games on digital via Prime Video and Twitch, with Fox retaining broadcast (plus showing in Spanish on Fox Deportes) and NFL Network handling cable.

The National Association of Broadcasters has pulled the plug on its physical Celebration of Service to America awards gala in Washington June 9. Instead, there will be a virtual event sometime in the summer, but one that will add the “unparalleled efforts of broadcasters during the COVID-19 pandemic” to those being celebrated.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on Tuesday announced the change for the 93rd Academy Awards as a response to how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted the film industry. The film academy also said it will condense the two sound categories into one and prohibit DVD screeners for 2022’s 94th Oscars in an effort to become more carbon neutral.

YouTube brought in $4.04 billion during the first quarter, marking an increase of 33% from the 1Q 2019, according to parent company Alphabet, which reported its first quarter earnings on Tuesday afternoon. Overall, YouTube accounted for nearly 10% of Alphabet’s $41.16 billion in 1Q sales. (Alphabet is also the parent company of Google.) YouTube’s $4.04 billion in 1Q sales falls a bit short of where it was at during the last quarter of 2019, when it reported $4.72 billion in revenue.

As the wireless business heads into the perilously capex-intensive 5G future, though, it’s actually the so-called New T-Mobile, fresh off its $30 billion purchase of Sprint, that might have the inside track to the video business.

The rough-and-ready video quality of journalism during the coronavirus crisis is changing the way we engage with the media.

Another top executive at Quibi has left the fledgling streamer: Megan Imbres, head of brand and content marketing, is leaving the company after a year in the role. Imbres, whose exit comes two weeks after Quibi’s April 6 launch, oversaw creative development for all of the short-form streaming service’s brand and content marketing executions, including its Super Bowl LIV ad.

Episodes of unscripted juggernaut The Masked Singer will stream on Tubi, Fox Corp.’s free, ad-supported service, the companies have announced. Tubi, whose acquisition by Fox closed Monday, will add the first two seasons of the competition series to its platform starting Thursday night.

Reed Hastings, the streaming giant’s founder, CEO, president and chairman of the board, tallied $38.6 million in 2019, according to an SEC filing — a $2.5 million increase from the previous year. Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos saw a $5.1 million bump to $34.7 million.

With people home-bound to slow the spread of the coronavirus, streaming has shown some pretty big increases in local markets, according to Nielsen. Comparing the week of March 23 to the week of March 2, connected device usage by 25 to 54 years old rose 95% in Portland, Ore.; 86% in Chicago; 78% in Denver, 74% in New York and 72% in St. Louis. In terms of connected device streaming ratings, the top markets include Orlando, Buffalo, Milwaukee and Norfolk.

The first quarter spanned the beginning of stay-at-home orders in the U.S. and around the world, a result of the coronavirus pandemic. People appeared to latch on to its vast video library as a source of entertainment and comfort at a time when most had nowhere to be but home.

The streaming service is set to debut amid the shutdown brought about by the novel coronavirus outbreak, bringing with it 10,000 hours of library programming from across the WarnerMedia catalog.

The debut is the newest expansion of major market local news streaming services from CBS and features local news content produced WBBM.