Digital

Peacock, NBCUniversal’s ad-supported streaming service, now has more than 26 million sign-ups. That number is up from the nearly 22 million sign-ups NBCU announced in October and the 15 million the company reported in September.

AT&T CEO John Stankey asserted Tuesday that the release of Warner Bros.’s full 2021 movie slate on HBO Max and in theaters at the same time will be a “win-win-win” — for WarnerMedia, consumers and partners. Stankey acknowledged the backlash AT&T and WarnerMedia have faced from theater owners and others, including vitriol from filmmaker Christopher Nolan.

ViacomCBS selects AWS as its preferred broadcast cloud provider to power one of the largest digital transformations in the media and entertainment industry.

There’s no turning back; 360 storytelling is here. To address the needs of contemporary multiplatform journalists, Dalet has introduced Pyramid, a platform that enables all teams to simultaneously work on multiple story angles, anytime, anywhere. Offered on a subscription basis, the solution can be natively deployed in the cloud, on-premises or in a hybrid configuration. It enables a virtualized newsroom with an ecosystem of digital-first tools that will change the way journalists work to produce compelling stories.

Warner executives are discussing launching two new streaming services. One would be a subscription offering based on content from CNN and could launch next year. Another would be a free service carrying programming from its entertainment cable channels TBS and TNT as well as the Warner Bros. film library, said people familiar with the situation.

CBS All Access has been integrated into Comcast’s Xfinity X1 pay-TV offering in a first for the five-year-old ViacomCBS streaming service. Xfinity had added the subscription outlet to its Flex broadband video bundle earlier this year. It is the first pay-TV operator to carry the streaming service.

Any football fan looking forward to seeing the San Francisco 49ers play the Arizona Cardinals the day after Christmas will have limited options to do so. In fact, there’s only going to be one way to watch that particular game. It’s going to be aired only via Amazon’s Prime TV, or Amazon’s property Twitch. No network broadcast or even subscription-based service will be offering it. The nation’s cable television providers need to respond to the advent of streaming sports programming — and do it soon.

The White House did not extend a Dec. 4 deadline for the Chinese internet company ByteDance to sell TikTok.

Netflix has been sued again for poaching executives, this time by Activision Blizzard, over its hire of CFO Spencer Neumann. In the lawsuit filed on Friday, Activision accuses Netflix of hiring Neumann as its CFO when he was less than two years into his contract. Neumann was hired as CFO by Netflix in January 2019.

At the end of a record-setting year of news consumption, Amazon Fire TV said TV stations in 12 U.S. cities will be added to Amazon’s news app, with another 90 on deck for 2021. The initial dozen stations are in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Miami, Tampa, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle.

Dan Silver, Disney Plus vice president of nonfiction originals, has exited the streamer for a new role at Netflix. Silver will take on the role of director of documentary feature films at Netflix. He will report to Lisa Nishimura, VP of independent film and documentary features.

The Recording Industry Association of America runs into some pushback after objecting to a tool that creates permanent copies of YouTube content.

Analyst Alan Wolk ponders what happens now to WarnerMedia’s big streaming service. To its long-awaited Roku deal? And those poor cinema chains?

Among the myriad release plan changes wrought by the pandemic, no studio has so fully embraced streaming as a lifeline. But after disappointing domestic ticket sales for “Tenet,” and with the majority of U.S. theaters currently closed, Warner Bros. will turn to a hybrid distribution model. Films will debut simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max in the U.S. After one month, they will stop streaming and continue to play only in theaters.

When President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January, it’s likely to reignite an old debate over who should police the internet.

“LinkedIn has systematically inflated ad metrics in its favor, which has enabled it to overstate the quality of its audiences, the quality of its ad inventory, and the engagement from its audiences,” tech company TopDevz and recruiting platform Noirefy allege in a class-action complaint.

Bud Light will be the sponsor of the first-ever branded bet made on a U.S. sports book. Announced today, FanDuel has partnered with the light beer brand to sponsor a bet during the Dec. 19 game between the Denver Broncos and the Buffalo Bills. Fans who bet more than $25 will get an extra $3 for every extra point and field goal scored by the Broncos.

Amazon.com Inc. is in exclusive talks to purchase podcast startup Wondery, according to people familiar with the matter, as the tech giant pushes further into the growing audio sector. The talks value Wondery at more than $300 million, the people said.