Digital

CBS’s streaming service, CBS All Access, credits a trio of high-profile events — including the premiere of its new Star Trek series, Star Trek: Picard, as well as the 62nd annual Grammy Awards, not to mention a busy month of football — with helping it to achieve a new record for subscriber sign-ups in a given month. The company says January 2020 surpassed the service’s previous record in February 2019 for subscriber sign-ups. In addition, last week was the second-best sign-up week ever.

WFAA’s David Schechter and parent company Tegna are putting ordinary people in Dallas in the role of reporters to tackle divisive issues like climate change, racism and Trump’s border wall. The results, longer-form Verify Road Trip stories on digital and broadcast, are gaining both viewers and trust.

As streaming becomes more and more the viewing norm, the content of the Netflixes, Amazons and Hulus of the world, bold and binge-friendly, is increasingly affecting the programming viewers see on cable and broadcast. Producers and networks alike know they have to create edgier, more serialized content to keep viewers attached to traditional TV and keep those legacy platforms relevant.

Sky is on the verge of a deal with Disney to bring the Hollywood superpower’s new streaming service to millions of British homes. The pair were putting the final touches to a multiyear partnership over the weekend. Sky’s rivals Virgin Media and BT will be able to carry the Disney+ app, however, they will be unable to offer Disney+ fully integrated with other programming.

It’s no secret that cord cutting and an ever-widening variety of entertainment options eroded the ratings of linear networks by as much as 10% to 20% in the most recently completed broadcast year. But new details about how that’s impacted the networks’ advertising fortunes have surfaced in new data from Standard Media Index’s AccuTV ad intelligence platform, powered by Nielsen Ad Intel.

Google’s YouTube Gaming unit escalated the talent war being waged among live-streaming powerhouses, announcing a deal with publishing giant Activision-Blizzard to exclusively stream events from three of the world’s most popular esports titles.

The Justice Department is planning to hold a conference to discuss the future of a current federal law which largely exempts online platforms from legal liability for the material their users post, sources familiar with the plans said on Friday.

The Writers Guild of America’s demand for more streaming residuals from the studios could set the stage for the first industrywide strike in more than a decade. And it’s not just that writers are in a fighting mood after feuding with the agencies for more than nine months: there’s big money at stake – and not just from the ever-growing streaming market, but also from what the guild says are “hundreds of millions of dollars” that will be going into the pockets of the studios if it prevails in its lawsuit and packaging fees are eliminated.

Viewers in Sioux City, Iowa (DMA 148), can now get free broadband access to 20 local TV channels — though Locast solicits contributions to cover expenses. The new is the 17th for station streaming service that claims over 1 million sign-ups.

Cord-cutting isn’t stopping. As it turns out, that’s not such bad news for cable giants like Comcast Corp. It is, however, for AT&T Inc.

Sixteen months after private equity purchased the assets under Cisco’s Video Services umbrella for $1 billion and re-branded the collective unit as Synamedia, the U.K.-based video technology vendor has emerged with a multi-pronged plan to serve the fast-changing video industry. CEO Yves Padrines shares his perspective on the global video marketplace, and how his company — which counts Comcast’s Sky as an investor — fits into it.

NBC News is launching a new in-house production studio, called NBC News Studios, which will produce documentary and scripted programming geared toward “emerging platforms.” The new unit has deals to produce docs with Focus Features and scripted TV shows with Blumhouse Productions, to be based on Dateline segments.

The network said Thursday that it will hire some 50 new journalists, assign correspondents Linsey Davis and Tom Llamas to online leadership roles and increase the number of hours of live programming with the goal of becoming a round-the-clock service within a year. The rollout begins next month.

Nexstar CEO and President Perry Sook says leagues like the NBA may turn to broadcasters for their over-the-air advantage amid underperforming cable ratings, and that NextGen TV is the greatest tool a TV group can use “to control its destiny.” And he’s bullish about Nexstar’s biggest competitive advantage — its local news and sales forces.

Executives from Fox Corp, Nielsen, Akamai and KQED to share strategies to combat insider threats and the emerging world of zero trust networking at TVNewsCheck’s third annual Cybersecurity for Broadcasters Retreat.

As the world turns its eyes to Davos, Switzerland this week, a group of advertisers and agency execs are pushing to leverage their own economics to create a “more sustainable and responsible” digital media marketplace that “protects consumers, the media industry and society.”

Comcast brass are wary of jeopardizing NBCU’s $11.8 billion cable revenue even as the conglomerate lays groundwork for its streaming future: “We think we’ve identified a unique approach.”

Hank Price: “Starting in July, Peacock premium subscribers will be able to watch The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers live, hours before they air in their regular slots on NBC affiliates. Instead of the fresh product NBC stations now carry after their late newscasts, they will instead be airing reruns of shows that have already aired on Peacock. This is an outrageous breach of trust between Comcast/NBC Universal and the NBC affiliate body.”

The Supreme Court on Tuesday left in place a ruling that allows Illinois residents to proceed with a lawsuit accusing Facebook of violating a state biometric privacy law by compiling “faceprints.”