YouTube plans to improve YouTube TV's user interface this year to make it easier for viewers to find new episodes and catch up on missed content, YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan blogged Tuesday. The video hosting service also launched a Shorts Fund to help creators make money on short-form content while it works on a long-term monetization model for Shorts, he said. He said it's also looking into ways Shorts creators can build branded content and "bring the ability to shop directly from a Short."

The 50-50 Charter-Comcast joint venture to develop a national streaming platform on branded 4K streaming devices and smart TVs (see 2206170008) brings together two “legacy cable providers” that have “an aptitude for the aggregation side,” plus lots of “interactions with consumers who are at the point where they're considering video products,” Charter Chief Financial Officer Jessica Fischer told a Credit Suisse investors conference Wednesday. “When you click that together with what really Comcast has created, it's a world-class platform that we can deploy fully across a national footprint,” she said. “Our opportunity to sort of reach scale there and to do so pretty quickly is very good.” Charter’s cable subscriptions have “shrunk more slowly” than those of “some of our peers” because “we're always looking to provide the packages that consumers want,” said Fischer. The offering with Comcast “enables us to sort of do that even more broadly, whether consumers want linear, whether they want streaming, whether they want skinny, whether they want fully loaded,” she said. “We're going to be in a place to pull together what it is that consumers are looking for.”

FuboTV is launching “pick’em games” for subscribers Sunday, giving players in select markets access to Fubo Sportsbook by scanning a QR code to place real-money bets aligned with their picks, the company said Thursday. Pick’ems will launch to select FuboTV subscribers and will continue to roll out to the company’s user base in the coming months. Subscribers can engage with pick’ems across FuboTV connected TV, smart TV, gaming consoles and mobile apps, plus on the company’s website. The integration builds on the “Watch/Wager/Win” connection between FuboTV and Fubo Sportsbook “within a single ecosystem,” said the company. With the Sunday launch, FuboTV will become the first live TV streaming platform to offer pick’em games integrated into the video experience “with a direct gateway to an owned-and-operated sportsbook,” said Mike Berkley, FuboTV chief product officer, saying interactivity is a “key product differentiator” for the company.

A Netflix ad-supported tier could add about 4 million U.S. and Canadian subscribers next year, Cowen analyst John Blackledge wrote investors Wednesday. An ad tier could generate revenue per member of $17 monthly, with ad revenue of about $10 and subscription revenue of $7, Blackledge said. Cowen estimates 41% of existing Netflix subscribers would switch to an ad tier, which would imply a blended average revenue per user that’s 8% higher than Q1 levels for the U.S. and Canada. Long term, the ad tier could drive “significant” long-term revenue upside, he said, maintaining an “outperform” rating on the stock. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings floated the idea of lower-priced ad-supported tiers on an April earnings call (see 2204200002) after Netflix posted a 200,000 paid subscriber loss for Q1. The stock closed 7.5% higher Wednesday at $180.11. Netflix will release its second-quarter financial results July 19, said the company Wednesday. Its April forecast was for Q2 net subscriber losses of 2 million accounts on top of the 200,000 subscribers it lost in Q1.

Universal is making more films in 2023 than 2022, while other major studios are doing less, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said Tuesday at a Credit Suisse investor conference. He said its linear video businesses remain strong, though declining, but the ad-supported Peacock streaming service is growing rapidly. He said he went into 2022 concerned about NBCU's movie business until the back-to-back successes of the Top Gun and Jurassic World films. Shell said Peacock growth and the overall economy remain areas where the company is paying close attention. Peacock has more than 13 million paying subscribers, with the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl driving a big jump in growth in Q1. He said despite the lack of big sports events and originals in Q2, Peacock is retaining most of those Q1 subscriber gains: "We thought we would have more churn." Shell said in the back half of the year, Peacock should have more ramping up of paid subscriber growth, driven by other big content draws including content being pulled from Hulu for Peacock.

Apple TV will be the exclusive video streaming service for all live Major League Soccer matches beginning next year for viewers around the world, Apple and MLS announced Tuesday. The deal, which runs through 2032, includes MLS, Leagues Cup and select MLS Next Pro and MLS Next matches in one place -- without local broadcast blackouts or the need for a traditional pay-TV bundle, they said. Pricing, schedules and broadcast teams for the MLS streaming service -- with live and on-demand content -- will be announced in coming months, they said.

FuboTV launched free, ad-supported streaming (FAST) channels via Trusted Media Brands, it said Monday. The FAST TMB programming includes FailArmy, People Are Awesome and The Pet Collective; WeatherSpy is due to launch soon, it said. FuboTV has 30 other FAST channels, including ABC News Live, Bloomberg Quicktake, Law&Crime Network, Swerve Sports, Tastemade Travel and several Fox channels.

QVC is live on fuboTV, making it the first livestream shopping channel on the premium streaming service, the companies said Thursday. With the fuboTV add, QVC reaches some 14 million virtual MVPD subscribers, it said.

FuboTV is expanding distribution of four Union of European Football Associations Nations League matches to pay-per-view this month, the virtual MVPD said Thursday. English-language streams of the $24.95-PPV offering will be available via iN Demand to customers of DirecTV, Dish Network and all major cable companies, it said. The matches will continue to stream live on fuboTV.

TV ad spending is likely better insulated against an overall slowing ad environment than social media apps, Pivotal Research Group analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak wrote investors Friday, upgrading Roku from a “sell” to “hold” rating. Wlodarczak noted Snap’s recent “disappointing outlook (see 2205240006)," comparing the current macroeconomic environment to the late 1990s “when ad-based Internet companies massively benefited from large digital ad spend by profitless Internet companies, that disappeared quickly when investors suddenly pushed those companies to generate a profit.” Also, he said, a recession could accelerate the exodus from traditional pay TV to streaming. PRG’s previous sell rating was based on mixed Roku's Q4 subscriber results and guidance, its saturation in the U.S. streaming market, “too aggressive” revenue growth expectations and Charter and Comcast’s joint move into streaming aggregation (see 2204270057). “Nothing has really changed around our concerns here, offset partially by some signs of chip shortages alleviating,” he said -- adding Roku could benefit from Netflix’ upcoming ad-based plan -- but its $9 billion valuation at $80 a share is “reasonable,” said the analyst. Roku’s strategy to invest aggressively “is unloved by the market but is frankly prudent to try to raise the barriers to entry for existing/new players and attack a sizeable revenue opportunity,” he said: “It also exacerbates the risk that basically no one generates outsized returns if it forces everyone to follow suit.” The lower stock price creates “the potential for an outside player to make a bid for the company,” he said, citing Comcast-Charter or large internet players looking to reach critical mass in streaming quickly.