Digital

Brands looking to buy Roku’s original content channel programmatically will no longer be able to do so through third-party platforms. Moving forward, Roku Channel will be available to be purchased programmatically only through the streamer’s own demand-side platform.

Fox Corp. is looking to turbocharge its digital business. To help it push into new business areas, the company has named Steve Chung its first chief growth officer. Fox says Chung will “focus on identifying and developing new digital business opportunities across existing and emerging growth categories.” Chung will report to Paul Cheesbrough, Fox CTO and president of digital.

As NBCUniversal turns off the lights on its sports network, expect other Hollywood giants to cull their sprawling linear offerings as they prioritize billions of dollars toward direct-to-consumer platforms.

A panel at TVNewsCheck’s June 9 virtual conference, Streaming News 2021, will explore strategies for OTT audience development with executives from Gray Television, CBS News Digital, Fox Television Stations and KSL Salt Lake City. Register here.

Verizon is exploring a sale of its media assets, including potentially parts of Yahoo and AOL businesses, people familiar with the matter say. Private-equity firms including Apollo are among the possible bidders.

Facebook hit 2.85 billion monthly active users, or MAUs, last quarter (up 10%) and 1.88 billion daily users (up 8%) as ad-driven revenue surged 48% to $26.2 billion, crushing forecasts. Earnings per share of $3.30 — up 93% – were also a beat as the social media giant’s advertising muscle powers through the cloud of antitrust lawsuits, Congressional critics and heat from Apple CEO Tim Cook — as the tech giants report dueling quarterly earnings Wednesday afternoon.

Scott leaves ABC News just a few weeks before the network news division gets a new president. He will lead all U.S. communications for the company, which includes the Vice digital brands, the Viceland cable channel and a TV show on Showtime.

National U.S. TV publishers adopt OpenID, laying the foundation for new cross-platform measurement capabilities set to launch in broadcast year 2022. Dentsu Media, GroupM, Haworth Marketing + Media, Horizon Media and Omnicom Media Group will integrate with and activate all advanced TV campaigns as OpenID audiences, offering brands cross-screen and person-level insights across TV advertising.

U.S. viewers will spend more on streaming video than pay TV for the first time in 2024, according to new research from Strategy Analytics. The company is releasing its latest U.S. Subscription TV Forecast, which projects that consumer spending on traditional pay TV services fell by 8% to $90.7 billion in 2020. It expects that number to decline further to $74.5 billion in 2023. At the same time, spending on subscription streaming services (including VOD and virtual MVPDs) rose by 34% to $39.5 billion in 2020 and will reach $76.3 billion in 2024, surpassing traditional pay TV.

The robust first quarter advertising growth announced Tuesday provides the latest sign that advertisers are expecting the economy to roar back to life as more people get vaccinated against COVID-19 and burst out of their pandemic cocoons.

Denney will start at NBCU next month. He will be based in New York and report to Gidon Katz, NBCU’s president of direct-to-consumer. In addition to Peacock, Denney will be responsible for product strategy for other customer-facing NBCUniversal digital platforms, including broadcast and cable entertainment apps, NBC Sports and reality-TV streaming service Hayu.

Usually, when social media executives are brought to testify in front of Congress, the hearings are centered on specific policies and types of content, misinfo and foreign interference, antitrust issues, and privacy concerns. What doesn’t quite get as much attention are the engines that drive these platforms: their algorithms. That’s what makes Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary hearing with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube different. The hearing is entirely focused on social media algorithms.

The deal, for one of the industry’s earliest success stories, Roman Mars’s hit podcast about the hidden influence of design and architecture that helped solidify resurgent interest in narrative audio when it premiered in 2010, is the latest salvo in an era of rapid consolidation.

Univision said it has made a multi-year deal to use products and services from Google to make its media businesses more digital. The deal includes Univision using Google’s cloud to consolidate its multiple digital distribution platforms and run production and data applications. Univision will also take advantage of Google’s Android, Android TV OS, YouTube, Google Play, Google Ad Manager and Google search.

Since taking over as chief of NBCUniversal News Group last year, Cesar Conde has made it clear he wants the division to place a bigger bet on streaming. He has begun to put his stamp on the organization — which includes MSNBC, CNBC and NBC News — as he manages the news division during one of the busiest and most unpredictable periods for news in years. In addition to the streaming push, Conde has emphasized fiscal discipline, centralizing oversight of the news networks and cutting executive positions that each channel has had up to now, people familiar with the personnel changes say.

New episodes of Dale Play will be posted weekdays at 4 p.m. and will be available only on Roku, Apple TV, TelemundoLasVegas.com and the station’s app.

Simmering tensions between Roku and Google have erupted into a full-blown fight. On Monday, Roku began warning YouTube TV customers that Google’s internet pay-TV service may go dark on the Roku platform soon — alleging that Google in seeking anticompetitive terms.

Netflix had a big night at the Oscars, bringing home a total of seven total trophies — leading all studios — although the streamer failed to grab the prize in the best picture category and came up empty in the acting categories. Netflix had come into Sunday night with 36 nominations, far more than any other studio.

This is the first time a major sports league has teamed with the social media app on official content.

A TVNewsCheck virtual conference on June 9 will explore strategies for building audiences and monetizing on streaming services featuring executives from CBS News Digital, Fox Owned Stations, Gray Television, E.W. Scripps, CBC, Cox Media Group, Disney/ABC and KSL Salt Lake City. Register here.

Licensing issues have gutted the soundtracks of many beloved series on streaming services, resulting in bewildering music cues and missing theme songs.