Netflix's 2021 amortized content spending could reach $13.6 billion, growing to $18.92 billion in 2025, with $5.1 billion allocated to originals, emailed Kagan's Deana Myers Thursday, citing a “rough year for productions and swelling competition in the streaming space.” Subscribers from the U.S. and Canada were about 56.2% of the streaming service’s total subscribers in 2017 vs. 35.4% in June, she said, referencing Netflix’s “localization focus.” The two markets generated 60.8% of revenue in 2017 vs. 44.3% in Q2, reflecting strong pricing in the U.S. and Canada, along with Europe, the Middle East and Africa vs. lower pricing in Latin America and Asia-Pacific, Myers said. Addition of subscription VOD players such as Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock and Paramount+ resulted in “swaths of content being held back as each looks to populate their own services,” said the analyst. Kagan expects distributors to continue to reserve rights for their own SVOD services, and more so from territories where they will launch soon.

Consumer expectations of streaming services are rising as more options become available, reported J.D. Power Thursday. The company canvassed nearly 22,000 residential pay-TV customers October-July, finding satisfaction with costs among customers who also have a streaming service was 81 points higher (on a 1,000-point scale) than among those without a streaming service. More than nine in 10 who subscribe to cable and streaming expressed no plans to drop cable in the next 12 months. J.D. Power takes that as “an indication those customers have not found all of what they are looking for outside of the traditional TV landscape -- yet.” Dish Network ranks highest nationally in pay-TV customer satisfaction, followed by AT&T and TPG's DirecTV and Comcast's Xfinity.

ViacomCBS is “spending a lot of time on release strategy” for its feature films, and “really testing different models to maximize the value of that film slate in this evolving landscape, particularly in this COVID-ruled space,” CEO Bob Bakish told a virtual Goldman Sachs conference Wednesday. Paramount’s animated feature, PAW Patrol: The Movie, was its first released simultaneously in theaters and on Paramount+ when it debuted Aug. 20, he said. “That's actually a very good model for kids’ and family films” in this “COVID-impacted time,” he said. “It gives consumers optionality to view the product where they feel the most comfortable, and we did a bunch of research on that.” The film “did very well” theatrically and was a “significant driver” for Paramount+, “where it's actually now one of the most watched originals,” he said. ViacomCBS prefers a 45-day theatrical window for the “bigger films,” because that's the “sweet spot of driving theatrical revenue and streaming growth in general,” said Bakish. The “range of tactics” is designed to “maximize the value of film across this now-broader ecosystem," he said. "But theatrical definitely still matters.”

Streaming TV content is now more popular than watching linear TV, Attest reported Monday, based on surveys of 2,000 adults. It said 83% watch streaming content, vs. 81% linear TV. Viewing of TV news has collapsed, with 32% regularly tuning in compared with 46% in 2020, it said.

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.”