The Nielsen Company is developing a product that could allow analysis of video programming diversity, said the company in an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 22-209, on a petition for an FCC content vendor diversity report (see 2207250060). Nielsen’s subsidiary Gracenote has products that already allow users to analyze the diversity of on-screen talent in content, and is developing a product that could analyze the diversity of those behind the camera for a given piece of content, the company said. Gracenote could be an alternative to the FCC proposal to require FCC regulatees to get diversity information from programmers, the filing said. Gracenote’s new capabilities would “allow customers to access diversity information for major offscreen contributors to many shows and movies offered on television, cable, satellite, or streaming,” Nielsen said.
Nexstar closed on its 75% ownership stake buy of the CW Network from Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount, both of which will retain a 12.5% ownership interest, the company said Monday. The deal was announced in August (see 2208150052).
Live sports, once a “pillar of pay TV,” have become the “next big thing in streaming,” blogged eMarketer analyst Sara Lebow Monday, saying 84 million of the 160.2 million live sports viewers in the U.S. this year will be digital. EMarketer analyst Paul Verna said growth in sports viewership is coming from adoption of digital platforms vs. pay TV. Lebow noted Amazon’s “$1 billion-a-year Thursday Night Football bet appears to be paying off,” citing a CNBC report saying the tech company had a record number of signups for a three-hour period before kickoff of its debut broadcast Sept. 13. Verizon announced Friday NFL Plus will be offered on the Verizon Plus Play subscription management platform, and Apple inked a $50 million deal for the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show, Lebow noted. Exclusive NFL rights have the potential for extended game revenue via alternate broadcasts that give viewers a more personalized feel, she said, referencing Amazon’s alternate streams and NFL Slimetime on Nickelodeon. But exclusive streaming rights mean changes for advertisers, Lebow said. Amazon doesn’t have beer or alcohol ads on the Thursday games, she said, but NFL games "are some of the biggest expenditures for beer brands: Dry Thursdays could change that.” NFL games are now a major attraction for streaming services, which can score payoffs in advertising and new subscribers, "but costs are high and the landscape’s still shifting, so each deal is a gamble."
The National Association of Television Program Executives plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the group said Monday. It said COVID-19 prevented it from holding events that are significant revenue generators. "These cancellations forced NATPE to operate on its financial reserves, which now require it to reorganize the NATPE business structure," it said. It said the pandemic forced it to cancel its flagship Conference and Marketplace events in 2021 and 2022, but it doesn't intend to cancel its 2023 in-person events. NATPE said it's "looking at all possible options to restructure, including raising funds through strategic alliances," and will continue to operate "as a more streamlined and reorganized operation." It said it's "optimistic that it will emerge from the reorganization process in the same position."
Yout's argument that its YouTube-ripping software doesn't violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) fails to make a plausible case that YouTube lacks technological measures controlling access to videos there and that Yout software therefore doesn't circumvent such measures, U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill of Bridgeport, Connecticut, said in docket 3:20-cv-1602 ruling Friday. The idea Yout tech has commercially significant purposes other than YouTube ripping isn't plausible given how Yout profits from advertisements and subscriptions, the judge said, granting defendant Recording Industry Association of America's motion to dismiss plaintiff Yout's complaint. Yout had sought a declaratory judgment that its software, which allows users to make copies of streaming video and audio files, didn't violate the DMCA. Yout didn't comment.
Nielsen announced Thursday that Roku will enable “four-screen measurement” for the first time across traditional TV, connected TV, desktop and mobile in Nielsen Total Ad Ratings. The collaboration will enable marketers running ads with Roku to “deduplicate” campaign reach and frequency across all four screens in the home, said Nielsen. “As consumers spend more time streaming, marketers are diversifying their media investments and continue to shift more dollars to TV streaming than ever before,” it said. Nielsen data showed streaming surpassed cable for the first time in July, capturing its largest share of TV viewing ever. OneView, Roku's ad platform built for TV streaming, is directly integrated with Nielsen's measurement solution, “enabling robust, person-level measurement of ad campaigns on the Roku platform.”
Dish Network landed the highest national TV customer satisfaction ranking for the fifth straight year, reported J.D. Power Thursday. Overall satisfaction was 699 points on a 1,000-point scale for cable and satellite and 774 points for streaming, it said: “Among both groups, the biggest driver for choosing a television provider is a lower price.” FuboTV ranked highest in the live TV streaming segment with a score of 789, it said. Sling TV (786) ranked second and YouTube TV (779) was third.
Analysts already gloomy about the state of linear TV are increasingly bearish about its prospects. Linear's steady decline "is arguably triggering a sense of defeatism" in pay-TV circles, "so there is less and less energy being devoted to saving it," MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett wrote investors Wednesday. The traditional distribution ecosystem "has the earmarks of a lost cause," with the annual rate of decline in Q2 nearly 10%, while conversions of those lost traditional subscribers to virtual MVPD is slowing greatly, he said. He said it appears only about a quarter of disconnects from cable or satellite TV are going to a virtual provider. The rate of decline for DBS remains worse than cable, but that gap is narrowing as cable's decline is accelerating, he said. Citing Comcast's Flex box, provided free to broadband-only subscribers, he said Comcast and Charter "have made clear that they are fully willing to let video customers walk, even to the point of helping them with streaming options if they desire." He said programmers "continue to strip-mine their cable networks and move their best shows" to direct-to-consumer streaming, while raising prices to offset the decline of traditional pay-TV subscribers. He said the role of sports and news as an anchor to keep some pay-TV subscribers is eroding as regional sports networks disappear from lineups and as streamers like Amazon and Apple invest in carrying sports. Expect the rapid decline in the traditional pay-TV bundle to continue, since viewers decreasingly make traditional pay TV their default, opting to tune in an over-the-top service first, ScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Tuesday. Homes without a big channel bundle will jump from 18 million in 2016 to an estimated 45 million by year's end, he said. Sizable numbers of viewers still watch both traditional and streaming TV, but the cost of a traditional TV package exceeds $100 a month, and the most popular tiers of the three top subscription VOD services is $31 a month.
Dish Network and Game Show Network reached a carriage agreement that restores the channel on Dish TV and Sling TV and ends a blackout that started earlier this month (see 2209070001), Dish said Tuesday.
The FCC plans a forum on accessible emergency information in video programming Oct.6, said a public notice Monday. Hosted by the Media Bureau and the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, the event will “explore the current state of emergency information in video programming, as well as advancements that may occur in the future” and include panels featuring speakers from TV companies including ABC and Gray, and consumer groups such as the Hearing Loss Association of America and the National Federation of the Blind, the PN said.