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Topic: Video

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Apple Readying 4K Apple TV Box, TV App Update to Better Support Live TV (Aug 24, 2017)

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Facebook and Twitter Sign Deals with New Network Stadium for Sports Video (Aug 24, 2017)

Yesterday, Facebook announced a deal with Stadium to provide sports video content, and today Twitter made a very similar announcement. Stadium is a recently launched sports network which leverages Sinclair’s broadcasting infrastructure and streaming capabilities from Silver Chalice (a subsidiary of the Chicago White Sox organization) and in-studio talent from 120 Sports. Its sports rights are mostly for second-tier conferences, so there won’t be many high-profile games available, and essentially all the content is also available for free on Stadium’s own website and where broadcast. So there’s no exclusivity and little real value here and this is mostly about adding tonnage of live video on two platforms which are still in the early stages of that effort. The challenge in sports, of course, continues to be that the major rights are sewn up for years by big names from the TV industry, with rare exceptions like Thursday Night Football’s digital rights offering the only real opportunities to snag them in the near term. And yet sports is about the only must-have category of live TV left among these platform’s core audiences, leaving them in this awkward position of adding lots of marginal content just to check a sports box.

via Mashable

Live video is the next big thing

Snapchat Content Head Says Scripted Shows Coming, Mobile Not a TV Killer (Aug 23, 2017)

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Snap

NBC’s Daily Snapchat News Show has had 29 Million Unique Viewers (Aug 18, 2017)

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Facebook Launches In-Stream-Only Video Ad Options as Inventory Grows (Aug 17, 2017)

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Facebook

★ Alibaba and Tencent Deliver Strong Growth and Profits in Q2 (Aug 17, 2017)

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Chinese Expansion

Turner to Use UEFA Soccer Rights as Foundation for Streaming Service in 2018 (Aug 17, 2017)

Time Warner’s Turner unit, which acquired English-language US rights to the European club soccer tournaments from UEFA earlier this year, has announced that it will be launching a new steaming service next year to carry the games. A subset of the games will also be broadcast through its linear channels, but it sounds like this service will be the only way to get the full set. This is a great example of the kind of approach big TV companies should be taking with online streaming services, where we’ve seen two broad strategies be successful: recreating a linear / pay TV offering in the digital world, or creating something entirely new (Turner here is doing the latter). This should provide a very direct way to recoup the $180 million Turner is allegedly spending on three year’s rights for the soccer tournaments, while also allowing it to experiment with streaming models for sports. It sounds like it’s interested in adding other sports over time, though not the basketball content that’s already a big deal on its linear networks, and I worry that could be a distraction or dilution for what will otherwise be a very clear value proposition.

via WSJ

Time Warner

Disrupting TV

★ Apple Reportedly Spending $1 Billion on Original Video Content in Next Year (Aug 16, 2017)

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Apple Doesn't Get Services

Snapchat Adds Feature Creating Seamless Multi-Perspective Videos From User Snaps (Aug 14, 2017)

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Snap

Snapchat is Maturing

★ Netflix Hires Shonda Rhimes Away from ABC to Create New Shows (Aug 14, 2017)

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Netflix is Spending Too Much on Content

Facebook Announces List of Shows Created for its New Watch Video Tab (Aug 10, 2017)

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Disrupting TV

★ Facebook Launches Watch, a New Tab for Video Including Original Content (Aug 9, 2017)

Right after both Business Insider and Mashable posted sourced stories about it launching tomorrow, Facebook appears to have decided to take the wraps off its new video tab today instead. That this was coming was widely reported, and now we just know a few more details – the new tab in Facebook is called Watch, and will showcase lots of different kinds of videos, although the focus appears to be on personality-driven stuff of the sort that dominates the more popular YouTube channels. In general, the model here feels very YouTube-like, with a subscription model, though Facebook’s apps for TV platforms in recent months have signaled the broad structure and interface, with a combination of videos recommended or liked by friends, things you’ve saved, things that are popular on the platform, and so on. What I don’t see much of in Facebook’s announcement today is the longer form, more produced stuff that’s supposed to be coming too, probably because it’s not ready yet. There will be some other content in there too including the live MLB coverage Facebook acquired rights to a while back starting next season, but in general this is a hub for all kinds of video on Facebook, from professionally produced stuff to the stuff your friends share. Simply calling out video into its own tab, though, is going to raise its profile and thereby push people to spend more time in videos, where they’ll see ads only every few minutes, as opposed to scrolling through the News Feed, where they’ll see ads every few seconds. I’m more and more convinced that’s a risky move for Facebook, because all the anecdotal evidence I’ve seen so far suggests people are really put off by interruptive ads in Facebook videos (I certainly am too), and this whole effort could end up backfiring. That’s something I’m hoping to write about soon. Update: Variety has a listing of additional shows from professional producers which wasn’t in Facebook’s blog post.

via Facebook

NBCU to Shut Down Seeso Comedy Subscription Service (Aug 9, 2017)

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Disrupting TV

★ Disney Reports Earnings, Will Acquire BAMTech, Launch Streaming Services (Aug 8, 2017)

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Disrupting TV

CBS Reports Strong Q2 Earnings, Partners with DirecTV Now, Expands All Access (Aug 7, 2017)

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Disrupting TV

★ Netflix Acquires Millarworld Comic Book Company to Hedge Against Loss of Marvel (Aug 7, 2017)

Netflix is (somewhat remarkably) making its first ever acquisition, buying comic book company Millarworld, which was started by Mark Millar and some former colleagues who had all written comic books for DC and Marvel and wanted a bigger stake in their creations, nearly 15 years ago. The terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, so it’s far from clear what the immediate financial impact on Netflix will be, either in terms of the acquisition price or the revenue or profits from adding this first bit of diversification to the business. The whole announcement from Netflix reads like a subtle dig at Marvel, which is interesting given the close relationship the two companies currently enjoy. Millar is described as a “modern-day Stan Lee”, when of course Stan Lee himself is still alive and actively involved in the community if not actively creating new content, while the release also says that Millar was behind a number of the characters whose stories have been turned into movies by Marvel Studios over the last few years. Clearly, the claim here – somewhat farfetched – is that Millarworld is the new Marvel. Several of its characters and stories have already been turned into movies in recent years, and with some success, so it’s not a totally absurd claim. But overall few of them have the mass-market name recognition of Marvel or DC’s characters, and some quick feedback from people on Twitter who are more into this world than I am suggest that as a competitor it’s a pretty distant third behind the big two. This is clearly an attempt to secure more original content for Netflix, but also something of a hedge against the time that Netflix’s deal with Disney and therefore Marvel goes away, though on the latter point the acquisition also likely raises the risk that deal does go away, so perhaps Netflix has already had signals (or has simply decided independently) that it won’t renew. But it doesn’t sound like it’s going to provide anything like the same quality or quantity of content for Netflix that the Marvel deal does.

via Netflix (PDF)