Digital

Bob Iger’s plan to launch two streamers — one for family fare, another for ESPN — carries huge stakes for the media giant and the future of the cable bundle itself.

A new study charts trends affecting media buyers and sellers. It’s available from ComScore as a complimentary download.

As part of the collaboration with The Weather Channel for its “Chasing Eclipse 2017” live stream, special coverage from Tegna’s six solar eclipse communities will be featured on weather.com, on The Weather Channel app and across social media. The station group will also partner with Facebook for the #EclipseLive Facebook Live stream.

With the news this week that Shonda Rhimes is leaving ABC for Netflix, the streaming giant added yet another big name to its increasingly deep bench. Since it began investing eye-popping amounts of cash in original programming, Netflix has quickly won over showrunners and filmmakers interested in getting financed with few strings attached. So Rhimes is in very good company. Here’s a look at some of the other bigwigs who have made the leap.

Former WGN America President Matt Cherniss has joined the tech giant and will serve as a chief lieutenant to new co-heads of video programming Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg. His role is being described as chief creative/head of U.S. programming as Erlicht and Van Amburg eye a split of duties between domestic and international.

The Tegna NBC affiliate in Portland, Ore., promoted Greg Retsinas to a newly created position overseeing digital content and revenue strategy.

Despite having been one of the first to offer live, streaming TV over the internet, Dish’s Sling TV service has just now introduced a way to watch its service via a web browser. The company is today launching an in-browser player for Google Chrome. The player, which is still in beta, will work on both Windows and Mac devices, the company notes. Via the web player, you’re able to watch live TV and on-demand content, much like you can on Sling’s other platforms.

Domestic ad revenue in 2017 is on track to increase 4% to 5% in 2017, thanks to growth from internet-based companies, according to Pivotal Research Analyst Brian Wieser. A group of 10 large web firms, including Google, Amazon and Expedia, increased their spending on sales and marketing by a median growth rate of 24% in the most recent quarter, he said in a note to investors.

Nielsen says three of the largest digital video platforms — Facebook, Hulu and YouTube — will now be included in its digital content ratings. That offers a broader view of media owners’ content.

The company still will air about 250 matches on its television networks, mostly NBCSN, NBC and CNBC. But 130 games are being moved to its stream. Priced at $49.99 as “Premier League Pass,” on NBC Sports Gold, those matches previously had been available to cable subscribers as Premier League Extra Time on overflow channels and as part of the regular NBC Sports app.

The ABC network three years ago handed its most lucrative night of the week — Thursday — to its most prolific producer, Shonda Rhimes. ABC grouped three Rhimes-produced shows together and promoted the bloc as “Thank God It’s Thursday.” So Netflix’s announcement late Sunday that Rhimes would be moving her Shondaland production company to the streaming service was a gut punch to ABC. The network has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars over the years in advertising revenue and foreign distribution fees from the sale of Rhimes’ shows.

With more and more studios and programmers producing copycat streaming services, consumers are eventually going to figure out that they are getting less than when they subscribe to the overflowing packages of cable and satellite. And how they are all going to make money is puzzling.

The failure of NBC’s comedy SVOD service, Seeso, is largely the result of a failed strategy of simply taking linear content online, Barclays contends. “In our opinion, most media companies are looking at OTT as a defense mechanism to solve for the loss of legacy distribution due to cord-cutting and shaving,” said a Barclays investor note, spearheaded by analyst Kannan Venkateshwar.

Just because a station is in a larger market doesn’t necessarily mean its social performance was “better” than those in medium or small markets. In fact, larger-market stations often can’t come close to the mid- and small-market stations numbers in terms of commanding the majority of their market’s attention.

With cable TV subscribers fleeing, the sports giant has to look for customers online. That’s not where the money is.

The Wall Street Journal reports that media mogul John Malone and his lieutenants are quietly building a cable colossus in Europe and Latin America that potentially could be the backbone for the next generation of wireless-internet service. Journal subscribers can read the full story here.

The prolific showrunner behind Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and more has left her longtime home at ABC Studios for the streaming giant. Under the multiple-year deal, Rhimes and her Shondaland banner will create and produce new projects for the streaming giant. Rhimes’ longtime producing partner Betsy Beers will continue to head Shondaland in the move to Netflix. Under what is said to be a rich four-year pact, Rhimes is expected to score a percentage of the back-end on programming she creates for Netflix.

For the many digital publishers who have been shifting their focus to video content, Facebook’s new “Watch” video platform is a sight for sore eyes.  Facebook, with its 2 billion users, is open for business, joining rival YouTube. And it is taking the risk out of the content-creation endeavor for many publishers, either by paying to offset their production costs or offering to license or buy their content outright, people familiar with the arrangements say.

Disney’s plan for two new streaming services (and possibly more) is just the latest sign that everyone is jumping into the streaming business. All of that will simply add to a cacophony of existing Netflix-style video services that let you watch what you want, when you want. More are probably on their way, as entertainment companies see profits in controlling not only the creation of their films and shows, but also their distribution.

The $302 million purchase of Bounce, Grit, Escape and Laff is “an authentication of the entire multicasting business,” which has needed a feel-good story. The deal also confirms Scripps’ willingness to take some chances in a TV station industry that has been more about consolidation than innovation.

Disney’s announcement this week that it will launch two Internet-based streaming-TV services — one for sports and one for family fare — is a declaration of independence from cable and satellite companies that would have subscribers pay for hundreds of channels they may never watch.

The social media company reported worse-than-expected quarterly results on Thursday, with a loss that was steeper than expected and revenue that missed estimates, as it added fewer users than Wall Street anticipated. Snap added 7 million daily users during the second quarter — a slower rate than the 8 million added in the first quarter. Its shares fell more than 17% to around $11.40 in after-hours trading, below the all-time intraday low of $11.91 set during regular trading on Aug. 3.

Second-place WRC (NBC O&O) increased its total engagement by 44.7% in the last 30 days, which helped it  increase its overall share by 28.8% and make the race for first in the nation’s capital much closer. WTTG (Fox O&O) held on to first place in the market with a 33.9 overall share, while WRC had a 30.1 overall share, WUSA (Tegna-owned CBS affiliate) had a 20.0 overall share, and WJLA had a 15.0 overall share.

With Facebook’s much-anticipated announcement of its Watch product, the social media giant is moving into TV-like content with the creation of a video tab that it hopes will become a habit for its users. With Watch, Facebook essentially creates a video hub to make it easier for consumers to discover and organize videos on its platform.