Digital

With a 10 p.m. primetime hand back hanging over broadcast, Fox Television Stations CEO Jack Abernethy says producing more of the same local news will have diminishing returns for the whole industry. In a wide-ranging Executive Session interview, Abernethy weighs in on programming challenges and their pressures on newsrooms, streaming opportunities and his outlook for syndication, measurement, auto’s resurgence in spot and broadcast’s ability to compete against the big streamers.

The company agreed to some exclusive theatrical distribution for Glass Onion and Matilda the Musical, but it’s not clear exhibitors will get much more.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association, which represents Big Tech, says that free speech will be increasingly under attack from state legislatures that, after the midterms, will be controlled by one party. Both Democrats and Republicans are concerned about edge provider content moderation, though they disagree on the problem and the solution.

The Crown Season 5 continues to dominate the Netflix Top 10 chart. During the Nov. 14-20 viewing window, the latest installment of the British royal family drama starring Imelda Staunton and Jonathan Pryce earned 84.3 million hours viewed. The show’s fifth season opened on Nov. 9 to 107.39 million hours viewed within its first five days of availability and ranked in the Top 10 in 88 countries.

Comcast announced that subscribers to its Xfinity X1, Flex and Stream services get a week of free viewing — from Nov. 22 through Nov. 28 — of “thousands of shows and movies” from such services as HBO Max, Amazon’s Prime Video, Showtime, AMC+ and more. Note that “thousands of” doesn’t mean “all of,” as the no-charge menu Xfinity is offering often only includes select series or particular seasons.

A lawsuit filed on behalf of YouTube TV subscribers across four states accuses Disney of using its market power to unfairly jack up prices on their virtual pay TV service. The proposed antitrust suit, filed in a San Francisco federal court on behalf of YouTube TV subscribers in California, Arizona, Indiana and Kentucky, alleges that Disney uses its control of virtual MVPD service Hulu+Live TV, along with its ownership of the most coveted asset in the pay TV ecosystem, ESPN, to dictate pricing in the virtual pay TV market.

The ad industry and advocacy groups on Monday weighed in with the Federal Trade Commission on potential new privacy rules, with the ad industry voicing opposition to possible regulations, but consumer advocates contending that new rules are needed.

The total number of streaming-video-capable devices in the U.S. topped 10 figures in 2021 and will exceed 1.1 billion by 2025, S&P Global Market Intelligence reported. In a research note S&P said much of the credit for those one-billion-and-counting totals goes to a surge in connected-TV ownership — from 107.7 million sets in 2016, to 191.8 million in 2021 to a forecast 274.2 million in 2026.

Elon Musk reinstated former President Donald Trump’s account on Twitter Saturday, reversing a ban that had kept Trump off the social media site for more than 22 months — since a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was poised to certify President Biden’s election victory. Musk made the announcement after holding a poll that asked Twitter users to click “yes” or “no” on whether Trump’s account should be reinstated. The “yes” vote won, with 51.8%.

Andrew Craft, senior digital journalist with Fox’s LiveNOW streaming channel, shows TVNewsCheck’s Michael Depp how to multitask as producer, director and anchor while on the air for hours at a time.

Prime Video wants to be a sports content juggernaut. The streamer already has exclusive rights to NFL Thursday Night Football, and on Thursday announced the launch of Sports Talk, a new 12-hour original sports-talk programming block.

Among the many findings: Led by CTV(+14.4%), every digital channel is projected to see ad spend growth in 2023 while traditional channels will decline year over year.

Protocol, the upstart technology news website launched by former Politico owner and publisher Robert Allbritton in early 2020, will shutter later this week and lay off dozens of staffers, people familiar with the matter told CNN.

The streamer has revealed the pricing and launch details of its new MLS Season Pass after it landed the rights to the league earlier this summer. It marks one of the biggest sports streaming deals at a reported cost of $2.5 billion and comes as Apple ramps up its sporting interest with rights to certain MLB baseball games.

Early on Tuesday, Musk’s team ordered nearly two dozen Twitter employees who had pushed back publicly and privately against him to be fired, three people with knowledge of the matter said. The billionaire, who completed a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last month, later confirmed the exits on the platform and mocked the former employees.

The tool lets you see who has been accessing your account, from what device, when, and from what location. It also lets you give them the boot.

Telemundo Stations’ Regional News Channels are now available on The Roku Channel with additional FAST channels — Dateline 24/7, Today All Day and Sky News International — arriving by early 2023. Also, the deal for NBC News NOW on The Roku Channel has been renewed.

Google has agreed to pay $392 million to settle claims brought by 40 state attorneys general who alleged the company misled smartphone users about the collection of their location data. The settlement agreements, unveiled Monday, also require Google to make additional disclosures to consumers about the collection and use of their location history.

The e-commerce giant, which will shed roughly 10,000 positions as soon as this week, would become the latest big tech company to slash its workforce.