Hispanics are underrepresented in film, TV, publishing and news compared with their representation in the rest of the workforce, GAO reported Tuesday. “Some have questioned the industry's commitment to workforce diversity, including for Hispanic workers.” 2019 American Community Survey data from the Census Bureau shows Hispanics are an estimated 12% of media workers, compared with 18% in all industries, GAO said. “Hispanic representation remained at an estimated 11 to 12 percent of the media industry workforce from 2014-2019.” Within the media industry, service worker positions had the highest portion of Hispanic workers and management positions had the lowest, the auditor said. “We are currently conducting a broader review of Hispanic employment in the media and expect to issue a report on the results of that work in spring 2022.”
Word of mouth is the leading source of content discovery (59%) for video streamers, followed by advertising (52%), social media (49%) and streaming service recommendations (43%), reported Conviva Monday. Amid an abundance of available video, connecting viewers with content that piques their interest and keeps them coming back is a “significant challenge,” said CEO Keith Zubchevich. The report cited a correlation between high social media usage and high streaming video consumption, showing “social platforms are key to new content discovery.” A typical consumer uses an average 3.4 social media platforms -- 3.9 for heavy streamers and 2.3 for nonstreamers. More than 90% of heavy social users stream on Netflix, and over half also stream on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max. On where respondents saw ads for streaming content, most said TV, followed by 20% saying social media. One in 10 was influenced to watch something based on a newspaper, magazine or newspaper ad. About 65% of long-form video is consumed on the big screen, said the report, suggesting “30-second ads remain viable.” Ads that are five to 10 seconds are better for smaller devices; 42% of shorter content is consumed on cellphones. With 75% of respondents browsing the internet for more than an hour daily, and 38% over three hours, “the web should remain a dominant part of the paid ad mix,” it said. The survey of 2,502 adults was fielded June 10-14.
Complementing traditional linear TV ad strategies with “premium long-form streaming” will grow “incremental” audience reach and “increase exposure with households less likely to be tuning in the traditional way,” reported Effectv, Comcast’s advertising sales division. It studied more than 20,000 “cross-platform” ad campaigns in 2021's first half, finding “57% of reach from streaming in those campaigns was incremental to linear TV campaigns,” it said Friday. It found streaming “impressions” were 209% “more likely to be served within households that viewed little or no traditional TV,” it said. Findings “demonstrate the tremendous ability of linear TV to reach audiences” and reinforce “how smart advertisers use streaming as a way to expand reach,” said John Brauer, Effectv vice president-insights and analytics. “Streaming advertising consistently extends traditional TV campaign reach.”
Over-the-top video services aiming to challenge market leaders Netflix, Amazon and Hulu need to feature a variety of programming, said Parks Associates Thursday. Ad-based OTT services have broadened their market appeal over the past few years by incorporating genre categories, with Crackle adding to its nonfiction content, Pluto TV bringing on sports channels and Tubi TV adding kids’ content. “We will see more bundling services emerge like AMC, which bundled together its niche services Shudder, Sundance Now, and IFC Films under the AMC+ service umbrella in order to give viewers more options,” said analyst Paul Erickson. Many niche services have been successful with genres including horror, religious, children’s, and anime content -- and services such as ESPN+, BritBox, and Crunchyroll are an important part of the ecosystem -- but they're unlikely to be the primary content source in a household, Erickson said. Some 44% of viewers who favor a particular genre spend three-quarters of their OTT viewing time on broad-based services, and about half of those spend less than a quarter of viewing time on niche services, said Parks data. Content looms large for consumers, but price is still the leading factor for choosing an OTT service, Erickson said. “A hybrid pricing approach meets consumers where they are,” he said, and maximizing revenue potential with hybrid pricing “will help services finance the growing cost of content library growth.”
A federal judge issued a permanent injunction barring David Goodfriend and his Sports Fans Coalition organization from operating streaming service Locast, said the order (on Pacer) issued Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. There was no objection to the injunction from Locast’s operators, and it was part of a prior agreement between broadcasters and Locast (see 2109030001) on what should happen if the court found Locast didn’t qualify for an exemption from copyright law. Broadcasters also asked the court in a Thursday letter (on Pacer) to schedule a status conference to set a date for a bench trial to determine damages in the case. Goodfriend and the Sports Fan Coalition are “considering the status of the litigation” and haven’t engaged with the broadcaster plaintiffs about damages, the letter said. The Sports Fan Coalition didn’t comment.
Ohio urged a state court not to dismiss its lawsuit claiming Google is a carrier and public utility (see 2108160025). Attorney General Dave Yost (R) responded Monday in case 21-CV-H-06-0274 at Common Pleas Court in Delaware County that Google’s dismissal motion “reads like search results compiled by Ask Jeeves. There is lots of talking around the issue, some in-depth analysis of tangential issues, and a few non-sequiturs, but the reader is left unconvinced.”
The UHD Alliance application to trademark the Filmmaker Mode logo as a certification mark for compliant TVs got a notice of allowance from the Patent and Trademark Office after the application cleared its 30-day publication window last month without opposition (see 2108130018), agency records show. UHDA has six months to file a statement of use on the logo’s commercial deployment before PTO will issue a registration certificate. UHDA filed for the trademark in May 2019 and introduced it publicly three months later as the uniformly named, ease-of-access TV picture setting free of the image processing that creators disdain for rendering content in the living room as if it were shot on high-speed video rather than film (see 1908270001). Filmmaker Mode has the announced support of Hisense, Kaleidescape, LG, Panasonic, Samsung, TP Vision and Vizio.
The next semiannual disclosures by U.S.-based foreign media outlets are due Oct. 12, said an FCC Media Bureau public notice Friday. The agency will transmit a report to Congress that summarizes the submissions by Nov. 6, the PN said.
Embratel is done with both phases of the C-band transition because it no longer provides any C-band services in the U.S. via its Star One C1 satellite, company representatives told FCC International Bureau, Wireless Bureau and Office of General Counsel staffers. A docket 18-122 filing Thursday said Star One C1 will cease operations by Oct. 3, with deorbiting to follow. Replacing it will be the Star One C2 satellite, which is authorized to provide Ku-band, but not C-band, service in the U.S., it said.
Sony Interactive Entertainment agreed to buy Firesprite, a U.K.-based videogame studio, it said Wednesday. Sony's 14th studio purchase lets the gaming subsidiary expand its catalog beyond PlayStation Studios’ core offerings, it said. Firesprite “pushed the boundaries” of interaction with the PS VR headset with a social element in The Persistence; an enhanced version, launched in June, optimized the game for PlayStation 5 to include wireless controller haptic feedback, adaptive triggers and raytraced rendering, Sony said. Day-to-day operations will continue to be run by Firesprite management.