streaming

As WarnerMedia’s streamer HBO Max preps for a May launch, a new film division will become a direct pipeline — and could spark awkward internal politics.

Before Hulu was serving up network television bundles, before PS Vue had come (and recently gone), and before AT&T was pushing streaming TV, there was Sling TV. Streaming TV was in its infancy back in February of 2015 when Sling launched with a handful of offerings and a ton of promise. But even back then, you could see the potential that Sling had.

Even at AT&T’s WarnerMedia, home to HBO and Game of Thrones, cable is no longer king. As WarnerMedia prepares to launch its streaming service HBO Max in May, the company has shifted resources from its cable networks to invest in online originals. A new study published today by Ampere Analytics found that while new streaming shows accounted for just 7% of WarnerMedia’s original commissions in the fourth quarter of 2018, by 4Q 2019, streaming commissions represented 73% of WarnerMedia’s new TV projects.

Tubi, the ad supported streaming service said it had record growth in 2019 and racked up big increases in December. The company said that monthly active users hit 25 million in December and that total view time in December grew 160% to 163 million hours.

A record 532 original scripted series aired on television in 2019, according to research from cable network FX. The network’s annual figure is the most commonly cited number to show how programming has mushroomed in the Peak TV era. In terms of the sheer volume of content, though, the FX figure understates what’s available — by a factor of more than 1,000, according to data from Nielsen.

Sony Pictures Television Chairman Mike Hopkins will exit the studio and lead Amazon’s video entertainment business, including Amazon Studios. Amazon Studios head Jen Salke will now report to Hopkins, who will report directly to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Hopkins had been with Sony since 2017, following four years with Hulu.

Vice is to relaunch its nightly news show, Vice News Tonight, in a new hour-long live format on March 4 on Vice TV. Vice has named TV news veteran Nikki Egan as executive producer of the newscast, which will air live, Monday through Thursday. Prior to Vice, Egan was at MSNBC for 17 years.

The TVS Television Network, founded in 1960, said it is launching a free streaming service with 12 channels on www.watchyour.tv. The service will start with classic TV shows and movies, but the company said it plans to produce 500 new shows per year from its studios in the Philadelphia area.

As an added hook for fifth-anniversary promotional offers, Sling TV has had the National Day Calendar declare Feb. 9 “National Cut the Cord Day.” Between Feb. 7 and 11, the virtual MVPD streaming service is offering several special offers for new or returning customers.

Newly combined ViacomCBS is working on combining media assets for a new streaming service that will build on CBS All Access, according to people familiar with the matter. While ViacomCBS executives haven’t made any firm decisions, they are considering creating a service with advertisements that will combine CBS All Access with Viacom assets including Pluto TV, Nickelodeon, BET, MTV, Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures.

Movie studio Warner Bros. and HBO Max are launching a new division that will specialize in making movies specifically for streaming, the companies said Wednesday. The unit is designed to produce films for HBO Max, the upcoming streaming service owned by the Burbank-based studio’s parent company, AT&T Inc. The new division is expected to make eight to 10 films a year for the direct-to-consumer platform, which launches in May.

Alphabet today announced that its Google Fiber ISP division will no longer offer TV service to new customers and will instead market virtual pay TV platform fuboTV.

ABC News’ streaming video news network is undergoing an overhaul of its programming strategy in an effort to differentiate it from all the other news content vying for viewers in an election year. By the end of 2020, producers of the service known as ABC News Live expect to stream each day 18 hours of live and original programming, a complete inversion of its current programming mix.

The spats between TV distributors and networks that grew out of the cable and satellite era are beginning to spill over into the streaming world. Consumers that cut the cord to avoid paying for expensive TV packages are going to be susceptible to some of the same problems, like programming blackouts, that they had with traditional television.

For the first time, Google on Monday revealed just how big of an advertising machine YouTube is. The company said that YouTube generated $15.1 billion in ad revenue in fiscal 2019, including $4.7 billion in the fourth quarter.

While overall the audience for Sunday’s Super Bowl appears to be up, Early Nielsen viewer data supplied by Fox reveals a bummer performance on the streaming side: fewer than 1.4 million viewers, the lowest total since 2016 and off significantly from the 2.6 million concurrent streams measured by Nielsen for 2019’s game.

Apple Inc.’s streaming video service has gained limited traction with consumers, and this could represent a cautious signal as the company moves away from hardware sales and toward services, according to Bernstein. Analyst Toni Sacconaghi estimated that fewer than 10 million consumers had opted for their free 12-month trial of Apple TV+, citing an analysis of the company’s first-quarter results.

Further incorporating Hulu, the premium on-demand and live TV streaming service, into Walt Disney’s Direct-to-Consumer & International division has resulted in the departure of Randy Freer, Hulu’s CEO.

After learning of the plan to offer The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers to streaming customers prior to their broadcast airtimes, NBC affiliates have been in talks with the network and they say the two sides “are working toward a plan that is good for NBCU and provides affiliates the opportunity to meaningfully participate in this business.”

Shares of Roku tumbled 7% on Friday after the streaming video company told customers it was removing Fox channels from its platform ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast.

Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos acknowledged the friction that kept Netflix’s 2019 awards contenders The Irishman and Marriage Story from securing a wide release despite strong creative pedigrees and critical buzz for both titles, but he indicated that it’s a matter of time before the industry adjusts to a new paradigm. After all, he noted, Netflix led the industry in Oscar nominations this year with 24 bids.

Imelda Staunton has been tapped to be the last actress to play Queen Elizabeth II. She will take the crown in the fifth season from Olivia Colman, who, in turn, succeeded Claire Foy.

Glancing at the data from the first heat of the great streaming wars, it appears that each of the major platforms is winning in their own way. This would seem to defy logic and conventional wisdom, but it tracks well with what some analysts had been projecting. While streaming has been getting tremendous hype in recent years, it’s still small compared to conventional television viewing. That means there is plenty of room for everyone to grow.

A brewing dispute between Roku and Fox days before the Super Bowl might prove that streamers won’t be able to avoid some of the headaches that are driving them from cable. Roku said its distribution agreement with Fox Corp. is set to expire on tonight (Jan. 31), which would make programming on Fox channels unavailable on the Roku platform.

The free live TV streaming service that launched in January 2018 in New York City offering access to 15 over-the-air TV stations including ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC affiliates, says it now has 1 million registered users after expanding to Denver, Atlanta, Phoenix, Washington, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, New York and South Dakota.. Locast did not say how many of them are donating to Locast but a million users is a good base to start with.

Quibi CEO Meg Whitman, who is 67 days away from the launch of the company’s ambitious new streaming service, claimed that the company doesn’t really see the likes of Netflix, Hulu or Disney Plus as rivals.

After losing nearly 1.2 million pay TV subscribers in the fourth quarter, AT&T looks for new premium streaming service to reverse its video fortunes. The company said in its 4Q earnings report that it hopes the introduction of “software-based” video services, AT&T TV and HBO Max, will be natural compliments to a sales push of fiber-to-the-home services and reverse the company’s failing video fortunes.