FIFA launched a free streaming service Tuesday, FIFA+, for matches, original content and “global storytelling.” By the end of 2022, FIFA+ will be streaming the equivalent of 40,000 live games per year from 100 member associations across all six confederations, including 11,000 women’s matches, it said. FIFA+ will be available on web and mobile devices at launch, plus connected devices “soon,” in five language editions: English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. Six more languages will be added in June, it said.

Of the 215 million American adults who use streaming video subscription services, 25% are using account logins from people who don’t live under their roof, said a Monday Cordcutting.com report. The average “moocher,” defined as someone who uses the account of someone in another household without paying for it, borrows logins for 1.6 accounts, resulting in almost 86 million accounts that aren’t paid for, it said. Streaming platforms are missing out on an estimated $2.3 billion in subscription feeds from those who don’t use their own accounts but would pay for one if they had to, it said. The most borrowed accounts this year are HBO Max and Disney+ at 16% of streamers. Peacock and Paramount+, the newest platforms in the Cordcutting.com analysis, are being borrowed as much as Amazon Prime, it said. Nine in 10 U.S. adults use streaming services, about steady from the 2021 analysis. Some 92% of streamers use Netflix, followed by Amazon Prime at 76%, Hulu (66%), Disney+ (54%), HBO Max (45%), Peacock (36%) and Paramount+ (29%). About 11% of Netflix streamers borrowed other accounts, down from 14% last year, after Netflix began sending security messages about account sharing outside the home, said Cordcutter. Cost is a top reason for sharing logins, it said, saying the cheapest tiers of the seven services included in the study have a combined monthly fee of $54. The 2022 survey was fielded among 790 U.S. adults.

Friday night’s game between the New York Mets and Washington Nationals was to have kicked off Apple TV+'s exclusive, free weekly Major League Baseball coverage. The Apple TV+ games won’t be available on local cable TV stations or MLB.TV, said MLB.com; MLB.TV subscribers will be redirected to the Apple TV+ app. Users must have an Apple ID to view the games, but no subscription to Apple TV+ is required. Apple is exploiting various of its technologies on the broadcasts, including enabling spatial audio with 5.1-channel sound and having on-screen callouts showing players’ walk-up songs from Apple Music and baseball trivia via Siri. Other extras include rules analysis and interpretation from former MLB umpire Brian Gorman, on-screen graphics with “probabilities-based forecasts” of different situational outcomes, plus highlights and look-ins from other games. Apple said its MLB broadcasts will be shot using high-speed Phantom cameras and a high-resolution Sony A7R IV camera nicknamed Megalodon. Apple TV+’s broadcast team includes Melanie Newman and Stephen Nelson for play-by-play; analysts Chris Young, Hannah Keyser, Hunter Pence and Katie Nolan; and reporters Brooke Fletcher and Heidi Watney, with game assignments to be announced by the week. Scheduled games are available to anyone with internet access; instructions are available here. The Mets-Nationals game was to be followed by a game between the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Angels, said MLB.

A Nov. 19 complaint alleging Amazon dupes the public by purporting to sell consumers digital movies it owns when it only licenses them temporarily from content owners was transferred Wednesday to U.S. District Court in Seattle and assigned a new docket (2:22-cv-446, in Pacer). The complaint, which seeks class-action status, was originally filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan because lead plaintiff Mary Baron is a Bronx resident. Amazon and the plaintiffs mutually agreed to transfer the case to Seattle, where Amazon is headquartered, and where it was assigned to U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, the docket shows. When Amazon’s licensing agreement with the content owner terminates for whatever reason, Amazon is required to pull the movie from a consumer’s “purchased folder,” which it does “without prior warning, and without providing any type of refund or remuneration,” alleged the complaint. Amazon hasn't filed an answer in the case, and didn’t respond to questions Wednesday seeking comment.

TiVo integrated YouTube TV into its program guide, making its Stream 4K the only digital media player that brings together multiple streaming services and live TV channel listings into the “familiar functionality of a TV guide,” it said Tuesday. TiVo Stream 4K and TiVo Stream OS users have access to more than 85 streamed channels, including national broadcast affiliates ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and ESPN, NFL Network and PBS. Users can also browse screens to search for content on live TV or upcoming on YouTube TV, and they can search for content via voice and text, it said.

Entertainment audiences' consumption patterns are becoming fixed, with a big focus on streaming, but new consumption patterns for news are just starting to form, which is why NBCUniversal is investing heavily in news streaming platforms and product, NBCU News Group Chairman Cesar Conde said Tuesday at an Axios event. Comcast's NBCU and other content producers are moving increasingly to a digital model of distributing content from talent, brands and franchises via all their various platforms, he said. He said MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow is an example of the company's omnichannel digital strategy, with her becoming part of its streaming platforms, podcast and long-form documentaries, he said. "We are doing that with a lot of talent," he said, citing CNBC host Jim Cramer. He predicted increasing use of subscription services by NBCU and other media outlets, and said MSNBC content will be a paywalled part of its Peacock streaming service, though free news options will remain. He said there's a large hunger for news in the Spanish-language space and Telemundo will invest in alternative platforms. General Motors CEO Mary Barra predicted personal autonomous vehicles will be available as early as 2025. Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden said the U.S. and allies are aware of the need for space norms, and space policies to promote them are under discussion by the White House, but there likely won't be big developments this year. Warden also discussed work with AT&T on a 5G-based DOD data network (see 2204050051).

A lifestyle TV series, @Home with Tori, starring Tori Spelling, will premiere on Vizio’s WatchFree+ ad-supported streaming TV service, said Vizio Tuesday. The 10-episode series, currently in production, is due to run in May. It’s the first original production from MyTime Movie Network, a female-focused network of channels that’s available in 19 countries and six languages.

Apple+ reveled Sunday in its history-making role as the first streaming service to win Best Picture for original content at the Academy Awards. Apple+'s Coda, also the first film with a predominantly deaf cast to win Best Picture, won additional Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (Troy Kotsur) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Sian Heder).

The pandemic-fueled surge in subscriptions for over-the-top video services (sub OTT users) is slowing, said eMarketer Wednesday. Over 677.4 million people worldwide, including projections for 2022, will have joined the ranks of sub OTT users in the three years since the pandemic began, but the positive effect of stay-at-home trends fueled by COVID-19 is “fading,” and subscriber adds will shrink to 269.4 million over the next three years, said the company. For 2022, global sub OTT usership will grow by 9.1% -- compared with 26% in 2020 -- with video viewing one of the most common digital activities globally, it said. Over 1.8 billion people will use a sub OTT service at least once a month this year, double that from four years ago; the figure is expected to reach 2.2 billion by 2025, it said. More than 55% of all digital video viewers will pay for at least one service this year; that compares with YouTube viewership at 63.5%, it said.

Spotify paid out more than $7 billion to the recording industry last year, more than other services “and more than any single retailer in history in a single year,” blogged CEO Daniel Ek Thursday. Major label streaming services “are healthier than ever,” said Ek, noting publishers earned over $1 billion from Spotify for the second straight year. Some 100 Spotify professional artists protested in Los Angeles this month about the music streaming service's payouts and priorities, the Los Angeles Times reported. Grammy Award-winning songwriter Kennedi Lykken, who has written for Dua Lipa, Ariana Grande and Britney Spears, said her last royalty check from Spotify totaled $432. “I’m not ungrateful, but I can’t live on that," she said. In 2021, over 1,000 artists generated more than $1 million from Spotify alone; 50,000 generated $10,000-plus, Ek said. Spotify generates more than a fifth of global recorded revenue, he said, saying multiplying those amounts by four gives an estimate of “how much the artist is generating beyond just Spotify.” Ek compared the music publishing business to the “hyper-competitive worlds of film or sports,” noting, “it’s difficult to make it in music. I get that." The streaming service's published royalty fixtures "show that Spotify is improving on the music industry of the past, and more and more artists are able to stand out in the streaming era,” Ek said. Among Spotify artists generating $10,000 or more from the service, 28% “self-distribute,” and 34% lived in countries outside the top 10 music markets, he said, noting the industry is “less concentrated” today than in the CD era when a quarter of sales went to the top 50 artists. At Spotify, 12% of sales come from the top 50 artists, he said. The service has paid out over $30 billion since its launch, he said.