A Quibi attorney argued on Thursday that the company would suffer “immense harm” if forced to disable its Turnstyle feature pending the outcome of a patent lawsuit. Eko, a New York-based video company, filed suit in March, alleging that Quibi had stolen its method of rotating video between horizontal and vertical orientations. Eko is seeking an injunction that would force Quibi to disable the feature while the suit is being litigated.
The set-top box maker saw streaming hours rise 80% year-over-year. Active accounts grew by 38 percent to 39.8 million since the same period last year.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has vetoed a bill that would have imposed a new tax on digital ad revenue. “With our state in the midst of a global pandemic and economic crash, and just beginning on our road to recovery, it would be unconscionable to raise taxes and fees now,” he said Thursday
Scandal, Shonda Rhimes’ primetime political drama series, is jumping from Netflix to Hulu later this month. All seven seasons of Scandal — 124 episodes in all — will begin streaming exclusively on Hulu as of May 20, when the show will no longer be on Netflix in the U.S. The series was created by Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice) and stars Kerry Washington as political fixer Olivia Pope.
Exclusives
CBS All Access will get a significant reboot this summer, ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish told Wall Street analysts Thursday, with Paramount films and shows from Nickelodeon, BET and other networks joining the service. The subscription service will be rebranded and will also expand internationally in the next 12 months, Bakish said.
In January, the Times announced it had passed 5 million total subscriptions. Yesterday, it announced it had passed 6 million. Ad revenue is cratering, but the path forward remains sustainable.
YouTube and ViacomCBS have revealed an expanded, multi-year distribution deal that will add 14 new networks to the tech giant’s YouTube TV service this summer. The agreement will keep CBS TV stations, CBS Sports Network, Pop TV, Smithsonian Channel and The CW on the bundle and also add BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network, TV Land and VH1. Additional networks on a premium tier will include ET Her, MTV2, Nick Jr., NickToons, TeenNick and MTV Classic.
The TiVo Stream 4K is the well-known DVR company’s first piece of hardware that doesn’t have anything to do with recording TV broadcasts. Instead this little box, designed to plug into HDMI and hang from the back of your television, is all about streaming video — and could be a serious competitor to some favorite such devices like the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and the Roku Streaming Stick Plus.
Facebook’s new content oversight board will include a former head of state, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and several constitutional law experts and rights advocates in its first 20 members, the company announced on Wednesday.
Roku has revamped its ad platform on its quest to dominate the over-the-top advertising ecosystem. The company has rolled Dataxu into a new ad platform, OneView, that it says will let advertisers plan, buy and measure campaigns across digital devices in four out of five U.S. homes—including non-Roku households.
Ampersand and Verizon Media have established a new strategic advanced TV relationship to “bring further national scale and unification of addressable TV to advertisers.” Ampersand will serve as the exclusive […]
The investigative journalist Mark Schoofs, a Pulitzer Prize winner, returns to the site after having set up its investigative unit in 2014.
Investors eyeing media stocks battered during the coronavirus pandemic from a TV ad recession and cord-cutting should tune into the streaming opportunities of TV networks for potential earnings growth, Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne argued Tuesday. Swinburne said the impact of cord-cutting and ad revenue drops is already priced into TV-centered media stocks, so the next leg up for share prices should come from proof entertainment players can defy Netflix and drive sustainable earnings from the streaming space.
Interra Systems and Skyline Communications today announced a new partnership to improve quality of service and quality of experience for linear and nonlinear OTT channels. The companies say the integration […]
The Hispanic broadcaster consolidates digital media, consumer insights and technology businesses under the Entravision brand.
Verizon and ViacomCBS have struck a deal for the latter’s fast-growing AVOD property, Pluto TV, to bundled across Verizon’s 116 million wireless, 4 million video, and 6 million broadband customers in the U.S.
Peacock’s reboot of Battlestar Galactica has found its world builder. Michael Lesslie, who was the lead writer and showrunner of AMC’s spy drama The Little Drummer Girl and wrote scripts for Macbeth and Assassin’s Creed, is to create, write and exec produce the series. The new Battlestar Galactica comes from Mr Robot and Homecoming exec producer Sam Esmail.
TikTok has discussed producing a reality TV show built around its namesake video app, according to two people familiar with the company’s plans, part of a drive to broaden its appeal and showcase different ways of using its videos. TikTok has been approached by independent production companies with pitches, and has debated a few ideas for a show internally, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are preliminary.
Facebook is at risk of losing a key seal of approval that gives companies confidence they are getting what they pay for when it comes to advertising with the social-media giant.
Localish, the millennial-targeted project from ABC’s stations that jumped from digital beginnings to linear broadcast, has expanded its horizons in the wake of COVID-19. It’s using its signature approach to positive, community-oriented stories to circle back on past subjects in a virus-changed world and explore wider corners beyond the group’s markets. Above, Michael Koenigs, the executive producer of Localish.
