Sports Streamer DAZN Launches Production Arm DAZN Studios

Sinclair’s NewsOn App Launches On Samsung TV Plus Platform

NewsOn, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s local streaming news service, has launched on Samsung smart TVs as part of the Samsung TV Plus platform. The NewsOn app provides viewers with news content from almost 200 TV stations in more than 100 markets.

Fox Weather Hits The Beaches With Surfline

Fox Weather has partnered exclusively with Surfline, which gives Fox Weather exclusive broadcast rights to more than 500 HD cameras worldwide to showcase weather conditions at beaches around the globe. […]

BRAND CONNECTIONS

Microsoft Buys Game Maker Activision Blizzard For About $70B

The all-cash $68.7 billion purchase of the maker of Candy Crush and Call of Duty will turn Microsoft, maker of the Xbox gaming system, into one of the world’s largest video game companies. It will also help it compete with tech rivals such as Meta, formerly Facebook, in creating immersive virtual worlds for both work and play.

Golf Goes To Netflix And It Has Competition From Tennis

Netflix now is expanding to a documentary series on golf, with the PGA Tour and the organizers of the four major championships granting access for a behind-the-scenes look. Among those who have signed up (without pay) to participate are multiple major champions like Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Collin Morikawa. Also on the list are Max Homa and Joel Dahmen, who have revealed their personalities through various social media.

Wall Street Journal’s Anthony Galloway To Lead CBS News’ Streaming Operations

The Wall Street Journal’s Anthony Galloway (left) has been tapped to lead CBS News’ streaming operations. In addition, CBS News said it has promoted booker Kaci Sokoloff and hired ABC News veteran David Reiter to produce special events at the network and for streaming.

Allen Media Group To Add Google Tech Solutions

AMG says Google Cloud’s scalable cloud infrastructure will power AMG’s digital evolution, allowing it to build apps faster, make smarter business decisions and connect to its audiences anywhere through data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.

NEWS ANALYSIS

Netflix Quietly Grabs The Gold After 4Q’s Many Hits

David Bloom: A study suggests that Netflix has become a must-have utility, and it raised prices not because it needed to … but because it could.

Paris Hilton’s ‘Cooking With Paris’ Canceled By Netflix After One Season

TVN’S NEWSROOM INNOVATORS

L.A. Times’ ‘Hear Me Out’ Turns Letters Into Video Gold

Hear Me Out, a Los Angeles Times feature that spins letters to the editor into video segments, offers a novel example of user-generated content for broadcasters to emulate.

Ad Industry, Business Groups Urge Congress To Create National Privacy Standard

The Association of National Advertisers, Interactive Advertising Bureau, U.S. Chamber of Congress and other business groups are asking lawmakers to pass a privacy law that would override state measures. “A growing patchwork of state laws are emerging which threaten innovation and create consumer and business confusion,” dozens of organizations said in a letter sent to Congress last week.

New Peak For Peak TV As Number Of Scripted Series Hits 559

The number of scripted original series for adults rose 13% in 2021 to a new peak of 559, according to research done by The Walt Disney Co.’s FX Networks unit. The total includes shows on broadcast, cable and streaming services. The previous peak was 532 series in 2019. The total dropped to 493 in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic hampered production of TV and movies.

SPONSORED BY MEDIA MONITORS

Competitive intelligence: The power behind high-performing local TV advertising sales reps

Faced with intensifying competition from digital media, local TV sales organizations need up-to-the-minute data on how, and where, advertisers active in the market are spending. Competitive intelligence, available 24/7 in a dashboard and popular daily reports on the newest activity, offer an edge.

Netflix Upping US, Canada Prices With Competition Growing

The company said Friday that prices are going up by $1 to $2, depending on the plan. The “standard” plan that most people take is increasing by $1.50, to $15.50. The Canadian version is going up by the same amount in local currency, to $16.50 Canadian dollars. Price increases are becoming more of a regular feature at Netflix, which is facing saturation in the U.S. market. Of Netflix’s 213.5 million subscribers, some 74 million are in the U.S. and Canada. It got an influx of global subscribers early in the pandemic, but is investing in video games as it looks beyond movies and TV for growth.

Tim Allen To Headline ‘The Santa Clause’ Sequel Series For Disney+

Telemundo To Launch Streaming Brand On Peacock

Telemundo is launching a streaming brand within Peacock that will cater to younger generations of Hispanic audiences who are based in the U.S., the company said on Thursday. The content hub, called Tplus, will include a slew of new scripted and unscripted shows.

CNN+ Taps Poppy Harlow To Host Biz Interview Show ‘Boss Files’

Jan. 6 Committee Subpoenas Four Big Tech Firms

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued subpoenas on Thursday to four major social media companies — Alphabet, Meta, Reddit and Twitter — criticizing them for allowing extremism to spread on their platforms and saying they have failed to cooperate adequately with the inquiry.

‘Gentefied’ Canceled At Netflix

Fox Sports Podcast Network Launches With Initial Slate Featuring Skip Bayless, Nick Wright And Lyman Bostock Doc Series

‘The Witcher’ Returns To Dominance Atop Nielsen U.S. Streaming Chart

The Witcher, which returned to Netflix for a second season on Dec. 17, dominated Nielsen’s weekly U.S. streaming chart with almost 2.2 billion minutes of viewing that week. The latest chart covers Dec. 13-19. A distant second place was CoComelon on Netflix, with 840 million viewing minutes.

Sinclair’s Best-Case Scenario for DTC Biz: $2.9B In Revenue In 2027

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which on Thursday announced a new streaming rights deal with the National Basketball Association and an agreement with creditors that will pump $600 million into its Diamond Sports unit, says that its direct-to-consumer business should generate as much as $2.87 billion by 2027. Sinclair put its latest projections for its sports business in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

‘Degrassi’ Revival Series Ordered By HBO Max; ‘Next Generation’ To Stream In Spring

Sinclair Gets Deal With NBA Including Local Direct-To-Consumer Rights

Sinclair Broadcast Group‘s regional sports network unit Diamond Sports Group has signed a new deal with the National Basketball Association that gives its Bally Sports networks permission to offer streaming content including live games on an authenticated and direct-to-consumer basis.
The deal covers 16 NBA teams in their local territories.

Todd Whiting, NBCU Digital Content Veteran, Dies

His 17-year career at the studio was capped off with an executive stint in content strategy and acquisitions for the Peacock streaming service. Whiting died suddenly on Jan. 4 of cardiac arrest resulting from pneumonia and complications from COVID-19, his family said. He was 45.

’60 Minutes’ Streaming Spinoff Shuttered By Paramount+

While the venerable newsmagazine continues to be one of the most popular shows on television, it’s now 0-for-2 in recent attempts to expand into different platforms.

NBCU Taps iSpot As First Cross-Platform TV Measurement Alternative To Nielsen

NBCUniversal, conducting a high-profile process to find measurement approaches that better fit the modern media world, tapped iSpot.TV as the first company in the stable it will use for quantifying cross-media video consumption in advertising sales transactions.

Judge Denies Class-Action Status To Advertiser Battling Google Over ‘Invalid’ Clicks

Fact Checkers Say YouTube Lets Its Platform Be ‘Weaponized’

In a letter to CEO Susan Wojcicki published Wednesday, over 80 fact checking groups say the Google-owned video platform is “one of the major conduits of online disinformation and misinformation worldwide.”

Will The CW Be A Streaming Wars Casualty?

If Nexstar seals a deal for a majority stake in the WarnerMedia and ViacomCBS broadcaster, insiders speculate the programming strategy may shift toward politics and reruns.