Roku will be the exclusive ad-supported VOD service for the Adult Swim Festival, starting Friday on The Roku Channel, the streaming platform provider said Tuesday. The three-part special features performances from the event that took place in Philadelphia last month with headliners including Run The Jewels, Tierra Whack and Dethklok. The Roku Channel will also have over 120 episodes from the Adult Swim series and shorts, it said.
QVC and HSN launched a combined interactive streaming shopping service on Samsung smart TVs, they announced Tuesday. Samsung smart TV users can sign into their QVC or HSN account to learn about products and make purchases within the app, they said. The QVC+ and HSN+ streaming experience combines QVC's and HSN's five linear broadcast channels -- QVC, QVC2, QVC3, HSN and HSN2, offering 50-plus hours a day of live virtual commerce content -- with three digital-only linear channels and some 20 original, streaming-only shows, they said. Samsung Smart TV users can use their remote to access the QVC+ and HSN+ streaming service in the app store; the app will have featured placement in the app store preview on the Samsung Smart TV home page for three months.
Disney stands by its decision to raise pricing 38% to $10.99 monthly on the ad-free Disney+ offering, effective when it debuts the ad-supported Disney+ Basic tier in December (see 2208110015), CEO Bob Chapek told a Goldman Sachs investment conference Wednesday. “I think it’s what the market will bear, which is a direct reflection of price value, and I think we are way underpriced relative to the value that we provide,” said Chapek. “We owe it to our shareholders to try to get that recognized.” Disney has “lots of data” in terms of “what consumers’ intentions are,” he said. “Suffice it to say that we think we made the right move and we are still in some cases significantly under where our competitors are, which again speaks to that introductory price that we came out at.” Disney’s “whole approach” in evolving ESPN as an a la carte streaming service available outside the traditional pay-TV bundle is to “proactively prepare for that moment” without “prematurely” or “unnecessarily” disrupting the business "that it is today,” said Chapek. “Everybody knows” that the traditional cable bundle “is deteriorating over time, and we’re preparing for the moment when the consumer tells us that they are ready for such a step,” he said. “We’ve got tremendous abilities to read the marketplace and understand when it might be time to do that.” There are “significant benefits” to Disney maintaining its cable business, “but at some point, we see the writing on the wall where this is going, and we’re preparing for that,” he said. “But we’re not going to do anything rash or harsh, and we’re going to follow the consumer.”
Streaming usage was 35% of overall TV consumption in August, its second straight month as the top TV viewing category, reported Nielsen Thursday. Broadcast and cable each gained in August as well, with shares at 22.1% and 34.5%, respectively, it said. Though total time spent watching TV in August was down slightly from July, broadcast, cable and streaming each had increases in share compared with the previous month, it said. HBO Max had a 13.7% increase in August viewing volume compared with July and a record-high 1.2% share of TV consumption, aided by the release of HBO's House of the Dragon, said Nielsen. Viewing of Netflix's Stranger Things steadily declined in August, leading to a 6.5% drop in usage and loss of 0.5 share points, bringing the streaming platform to 7.6% share of TV, it said. Time spent watching YouTube increased 2.8% in August and gained 0.3 share points, tying Netflix's share for the first time at 7.6% of total TV.
More than two-thirds (68%) of U.S. internet homes watch NFL games online and plan to do so throughout the football season, reported Parks Associates Wednesday. The new NFL+ subscription VOD service aims to capitalize on that popularity by offering access to live local and prime-time games, but the NFL+ fan experience has been less than ideal, it said. NFL+ included out-of-market preseason games that were “viewable only on mobile devices," said Parks analyst Eric Sorensen. “Now, with the start of the NFL season, many fans are frustrated with local blackouts on the service. An NFL+ subscription does not guarantee access to every game, but Twitter reactions show the NFL must do a better job of informing fans of the extent and limitations of the product.” The NFL didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Roku began taking preorders Monday for a new Roku Express player ($29, October) with dual-band Wi-Fi, a simple remote, more storage and HDMI cable, and it added a subwoofer, Roku Wireless Bass ($129, November) to complement its speakers and sound bars, the company said Monday. The streaming platform provider is taking orders for a Streambar and Wireless Bass bundle ($249) due for general availability at Roku.com and Bestbuy.com Nov. 7. Customers who buy a new Roku streaming device through Jan. 6 are qualified to get 30 days of Discovery+ free; offers must be redeemed by Jan. 31.
Comcast was one of three companies, along with Google and Microsoft, vying to partner with Netflix on its forthcoming launch of an ad-supported VOD tier, acknowledged Comcast Deputy Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong during a Bank of America investment conference Thursday. The contract ultimately went to Microsoft (see 2207130048). When Netflix “globally went out and said, we need to have advertising capabilities” and would look “externally” to find them, “it was down to three companies,” said Armstrong. “If you think about what Comcast brought to the table, I would say we were at or near the top of the pecking order in terms of the capability set,” he said. “We may not have been willing to write the biggest guarantee around it,” but Comcast’s “prowess” in ad sales, distribution and technology “put us right there,” he said. “That was a great sort of cross-company moment to be that far into the mix on something that was that relevant.”
The string of content cancellations at Warner Bros. Discovery, including the decision this summer to scrap releasing Batgirl on HBO Max (see 2208050006), is nothing “unusual” for when “a new team takes over,” Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels told a Bank of America investment conference Thursday. “We're a creative industry and one of the elements of creativity is that there's judgment and differences in the views on what the potential of a certain piece of IP might be,” said Wiedenfels. Corporate management, including CEO David Zaslav, has “really this belief in the theatrical window,” as opposed to “just producing feature films for just one streaming window,” he said. The Batgirl decision was “blown out of proportion a little bit in terms of the attention” it got outside the company, he said. Zaslav ultimately defended the decision, saying his team couldn't find an "economic case" for steering expensive feature films direct to streaming.
Camelot Strategic Marketing & Media is the first agency to join Roku’s certified partner program for its One View streaming ad platform, the companies said Thursday. Camelot will use Roku data, technology and tools to help small- and medium-size businesses achieve marketing goals, they said. Roku pitches OneView as a way for advertisers to offer experiences that “go beyond the traditional TV spot,” noting its 63 million active users and scale. OneView offers software with data, machine learning, and measurement to reach more streamers on Roku, other TV streaming platforms, desktop and mobile, Roku said.
LG is giving its smart TV customers free access this month to "modern movie classics" via the free streaming service LG Channels, it said Friday. LG also added new channels to the ad-supported service, including Love Nature, Dust, Estrella TV and ACL Cornhole TV, bringing the number of channels to over 350. Limited-time free movies are The Mask, Million Dollar Baby, P.S. I Love You, Doc Hollywood, The Rookie, Going the Distance and Yes Man. LG also partnered with Google Stadia to offer three free months of access to the cloud gaming platform for LG TV owners running webOS 5.0 or higher. In addition, LG owners can save over 40% when they prepay for a year of HBO Max in a promotion running through Oct. 30, the company said.