Digital

In its fine print, the ad, produced by agency Essence and debuting May 16, says it bases the claim on a 2022 study by SmithGeiger “comparing comparable services over 24 months, including hidden fees, promotion pricing, DVR box rental and service fee, and second cable box for the home, if applicable.”

The Nielsen Gauge report for April 2022, published Thursday, revealed that audiences spent on average more than 30% of their total TV viewing time this past month consuming watching streaming video content. That is a record share for streaming, and up from the previous record of 29.7% that was set in March. Overall TV viewing dropped by 2.1% from March, while consumption of streaming content in April was almost identical to March, helping to increase streaming’s share of overall TV viewing by over 0.6%.

Viamedia, an independent ad company serving local cable operators, said it launched its Parity Ads Platform, which simultaneously inserts regionally targeted ads on linear streams to match local commercials appearing on cable. The platform is designed to help local operators take advantage of the growth of CTV in their markets.

Phil Falcone is angling to profit from TV coverage of crypto assets — an oddball bid to reverse a decade-long slide from being a billionaire to pleading that he’s broke. The fallen hedge fund star — who amassed a $2 billion fortune from shorting the housing market before squandering the riches over the past 10 years — is actively pitching investors on something called Blockchain.TV.

The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday paused a new and controversial board’s work on disinformation and accepted the resignation of its leader, capping weeks of concerns about impinging on free speech rights and frenzied conspiracy theories about the board itself.

As Comcast prepares to leverage its Flex system in a streaming platform joint venture with Charter, the cable giant is “extremely focused” on growing the base of U.S. operators who it licenses to, Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson said Wednesday.

Since May 2021, the streamer has been reaching out to small groups of subscribers with a proposition: The company is inviting them to participate in a panel to provide feedback on Netflix’s upcoming movies and TV shows before they’re released publicly.

HBO Max and Discovery Plus, brought together when Discovery acquired WarnerMedia, are still likely to be combined, the newly combined Warner Bros. Discovery told media buyers at its inaugural upfront presentation. “In the not-too-distant future, we see a unique possibility to bring all these incredible stories and brands that shape culture, that delight, amaze and inform global consumers, and bring home these remarkable moments across all these genres, in one, awesome global streaming product,” JB Perrette, Warner Bros. Discovery’s head of global streaming, said at the upfront Wednesday.

Musk’s increasingly skeptical — and erratic — comments about the takeover have kept investors, bankers and Twitter itself guessing about his motives. Some analysts figure that the 50-year-old is trying to drive down the acquisition price or walk away from the deal altogether.

What’s going to happen when Disney, Netflix and Apple start drinking from the well, too?

The next chapter of what Paramount+ is calling Yellowstone‘s “origin story” — which began with the wildly popular 1883 prequel spinoff — will introduce viewers to a new generation of the series’ central family, the Duttons. Through them, per an official description, the series will “explore the early 20th century when pandemics, historic drought, the end of Prohibition and the Great Depression all plague the mountain west, and the Duttons who call it home.”

Walt Disney Co. is taking a less-is-more approach to selling commercials on its Disney+ streaming service. Disney+ will carry about four minutes of commercials an hour on the ad-supported version of the platform set to launch later this year, company officials said.

Layoffs are underway at Netflix today. About 150 positions out of the streamer’s 11,000 workforce are being eliminated amid a slowdown in the company’s revenue growth. They are largely based in the U.S., a significant portion in creative. A number of them are in the executive ranks, including in original content, with a couple of director-level original series execs rumored to be leaving.

While every network presenting at this year’s upfronts is highlighting their streaming wares and linear offerings, executives from TelevisaUnivision are approaching sales meetings with an ace up their sleeves: Its linear TV ratings are on the rise.

Social media and content moderation experts said Twitch’s quick response was the best that could reasonably be expected. But the fact that the response did not prevent the video of the attack from being spread widely on other sites also raises the issue of whether the ability to livestream should be so easily accessible.

The entertainment industry is full of discussions over the ramifications that cord-cutting has on broadcast networks, what fewer cable subscriptions means for ESPN’s rights packages, and how streaming has impacted cable news, but during these conversations about the evolving television industry, one major channel is often left out: C-SPAN.

Did you know that Ben Stiller auditioned to be an MTV VJ? Or that Cindy Crawford worked for free during the first season of House of Style? These are some of the stories shared by former cable TV executive Doug Herzog in his new podcast Basic, which makes its debut this week. It is about basic cable, a medium whose history Herzog was intimately involved in.

Having stumbled with his social network, Donald Trump now has aspirations to create a right-wing rival to Netflix. Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) has posted ads on job sites seeking to hire a content development manager and content acquisition professional for TMTG+, a streaming service that will “provide big-tent entertainment, exciting documentaries, sports programming, and more,” according to the company — which claims that “the American public is seeking ‘non-woke’ entertainment, and TMTG+ will provide content for all to enjoy.”

Nielsen data show TV users watched 4 trillion minutes of programming on the big four broadcasters and the five streamers it publicly tracks.