Adding an estimated 600,000 customers in the third quarter, YouTube TV ended September with around 6.5 million customers, according to Leichtman Research Group’s quarterly tally of the top pay TV operators serving 96% of the U.S. market. With Hulu Plus Live TV, Sling TV and Fubo all adding customers in Q3, the vMVPD category now controls, for the first time, more than 20% of U.S. pay TV customers.
Nexstar CEO Perry Sook: “We, as the owner of The CW, are constructing a new affiliation agreement template that is going to allow affiliates to opt out of The CW deal with the virtual MVPD and cut their own deal — or they can opt in to the deal that we have already established for them.”
The bulk of advertising spend on Roku and Amazon Fire TV — two major streaming video distributors’ devices/platforms — comes via virtual pay TV providers such as Hulu + LiveTV, Pluto TV, Tubi, FuboTV and Sling TV. In November, 71% of Roku ad advertising spend and 62% of Fire TV ad spend was through vMVPD (virtual multichannel program distributors) apps, according to Pixalate, the CTV analytics company.
FuboTV is integrating its sports betting service into the virtual MVPD’s live TV streaming platform, with free-to-play games and FuboTV Sportsbook for real money wagers going live this weekend for select users. The new free-to-play games are called “pick’ems” and show up ahead of select Sunday games.
Broadcasters Seek More Control Over Virtual MVPD Carriage Compensation
Affiliate boards are pursuing relief from the FCC as vMVPDs continue to bedevil station groups pushed into “take it or leave it” deals negotiated exclusively by the networks. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.
Hulu Plus Live TV and YouTube TV now account for 10% of U.S. pay TV subscriptions, but LightShed Partners analyst Richard Greenfield there’s no gold left in the traditional bundle.
Exclusives
On day two of the Pay TV Show a panel of representatives from virtual MVPDs gathered to discuss the future of the TV service and channel bundles.
Creating and maintaining channel lineups for so-called skinny bundles, or virtual MVPDs, is proving to be a balancing act between quality content offerings and razor-thin profit margins. That dynamic played out on stage Thursday at the TV of Tomorrow Conference in New York, where Sling TV’s Andy LeCuyer participated in a panel alongside execs from OTT programmers seeking wider distribution and, in some cases, carriage fees.
