Wedbush Securities downgraded fuboTV to “neutral” from “outperform,” saying despite “bold targets,” the sports-leaning virtual MVPD “needs to raise capital and cut cash burn rapidly or it will be out of cash within a year.” Analyst Michael Pachter is "confident it can do both,” but it’s uncertain how dilutive the capital raise will be and how rapidly their cash burn will improve," he said in a Wednesday investor note. The analyst noted fuboTV’s “solid head start” in delivering live sports to its subscribers, its "thriving and growing" advertising business and “compelling opportunity for a sports wagering company to partner with an established sports television broadcaster,” but he expressed declining confidence over “slowing subscriber growth, fierce competition, inflation, and rising content costs.” At its Tuesday investor day, fuboTV said it intends to be free cash flow positive and achieve adjusted earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization of 15% in 2025, Pachter said. A primary concern is “slowing domestic subscriber growth,” he said, also noting escalating content costs.

The combination of connected devices, ubiquitous cloud-based payment systems and audiences accustomed to interactive TV content means technology to allow viewers to shop with their televisions could finally take hold, said panelists at a Stream TV virtual summit Wednesday. Recent changes to privacy rules and Google’s stance against website cookies could mean digital advertisers will be looking for innovative ways to spend their budgets, and “shoppable TV” could be that opportunity, said Evan Moore, NBCUniversal Advertising & Partnerships senior vice president-commerce partnerships. Existing TV shopping offerings primarily use onscreen QR codes for viewers to scan with their phones, but companies are looking to go further, said Carl Fremont, CEO of ad agency Quigley. Viewers of NBCU’s Love Island USA are offered on screen the chance to buy items worn on the show after each episode, said Moore. The ad industry is also looking at AI-based technology that can “ingest” a video and find items comparable to the furniture or the cast’s clothing in a retailer’s inventory and offer it to viewers, Kerv Interactive’s Gary Mittman said. For shoppable TV to work, the actual transaction has to be as frictionless as possible, Mittman said. That can mean using a phone to make the purchase, clicking a button on the remote, or eventually voice commands, he said. “It could be a one-click transaction; the opportunities are broad,” he said.

With the major streaming companies poised to rack up losses exceeding $10 billion collectively this year, “many are pivoting toward an ad-based strategy to offset those losses,” said Cinedigm Chief Strategy Officer Erick Opeka on an earnings call Tuesday for fiscal Q1 ended June 30. Ad-supported streaming “isn't just a revenue opportunity,” he said. “This is a survival tactic.” Cinedigm expects the total ad spend on connected TV advertising “to drive more than $22 billion in revenue next year, and nearly all of that is flowing right out of the cable industry,” said Opeka. For “big-scale streamers” like Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global, “you have a rapidly cannibalizing legacy business that can't support the multibillion- dollar losses of their emerging businesses,” he said.

Amazon and Nielsen signed a three-year measurement deal for Prime Video’s exclusive NFL Thursday Night Football (TNF) telecasts, saying it’s the first deal of its kind where a streaming service will be included in Nielsen’s national TV measurement service. Starting with the 2022 NFL season, measurement will include pregame, in-game and postgame programming on Prime Video and Twitch, over-the-air stations in teams’ local markets and out-of-home viewing, they said. According to Nielsen’s ratings, NFL games and shoulder programming, such as pregame and postgame, accounted for the top 27 live telecasts in 2021, and 47 of the top 50. The collaboration will allow Amazon to provide advertisers with “familiar campaign measurement to make apples-to-apples comparisons across their multi-channel media investments,” said Srishti Gupta, Amazon Ads director-media measurement. Nielsen is to begin measuring TNF on Amazon starting Aug. 25 with a preseason game between the San Francisco 49ers and Houston Texans.

The fantasy tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons and popular Netflix series Stranger Things rose in NPD’s Group ranking of the fastest-growing licensed book properties in the U.S. in 2022's second quarter, reported NPD Tuesday. Dungeons and Dragons ranked in sixth place in Q2, with sales of $14.9 million based on the manufacturer’s suggested retail pricing, said NPD. Its growth rate was 9% higher than in Q1, it said. Books based on Stranger Things ranked 21st, with MSRP sales of $593,000 in Q2, and a sequential quarterly growth rate of 390% from Q1, it said. “The 1980s nostalgia that infuses the popular streaming TV series Stranger Things has obviously struck a chord with viewers and we have seen it drive a resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons books license growth ever since the release of the Stranger Things second season,” said NPD analyst Kristen McLean. “Parents who once played Dungeons and Dragons back in the day are now watching their kids get involved in the game, thanks to being featured in the Netflix series.”

U.S. consumer spending on home entertainment content topped $17.9 billion in 2022's first half, an 11.3% increase from January-June in 2021, reported the Digital Entertainment Group Wednesday. Subscription VOD spending led all categories, rising 17.3% to $14.56 billion, said DEG. Sell-through of packaged media fell 16.3% to $793.2 million, it said. “The surge in theatrical new releases” did benefit 4K Blu-ray, where spending increased 33%, said DEG. “High-profile catalog classics,” including The Godfather trilogy, also contributed to 4K Blu-ray’s better performance in the half, it said.

Vizio announced a smart TV feature Tuesday that lets customers subscribe to their streaming services and consolidate subscriptions from partnering streaming services in one place. After a one-time log-in, users can subscribe to new services and consolidate them with others. Benefits, the company says, are a single place to subscribe, track payments and manage streaming services; easy account maintenance for all Vizio TVs connected to a Vizio account; automatic TV registration; “easier tech support check-in"; access to special sales and offers; and email notifications about new features and products. The first headliner services are Discovery+ and Starz; others include Baby Einstein, Midnight Pulp, AsianCrush, Cineouse, KORTV, RetroCrush, Cocoro, ToonGoggles, Love Destination, Wu Tang Collection and Party Tyme, The Archive and Novocomedy, a spokesperson emailed. “Many more” apps are coming in fall, including The Weather Channel, she said. The company wouldn’t disclose the revenue percentage it gets from signups. Responding to a question on whether subscription consolidation features are only available for new subscriptions, the spokesperson said additional services will be available for subscription and consolidation “as those streaming services add support for Vizio Account.” The feature is available on most Vizio smart TVs, the company said.

The Starz app is now available on Vizio’s SmartCast platform, the TV maker said Monday. Starz offers new users a one-week free trial. Subscriptions are $8.99 per month, said the website. Other services available on Vizio smart TVs include Apple TV+, BET+, Discovery+, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, Peacock, and Prime Video.

Pivotal Research Group downgraded its rating on Roku stock from “hold” to “sell,” citing “frankly awful” Q2 results and Q3 guidance of $700 million, analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak wrote investors Monday, saying Roku “appears to be getting hit materially harder than its peers.” The streaming platform company withdrew its full-year revenue guidance on a July earnings call on "recessionary fears, inflationary pressures, rising interest rates, and ongoing supply chain disruptions." Wlodarczak cited heightened expenses in the first half including a long-term 250,000-square-foot lease in Times Square, “what we view as an inevitable recession” and “the fully penetrated" U.S. and Canadian markets indicated by Q2 subscriber results. Roku added 1.8 million active accounts in the quarter, bringing the count to 63.1 million (see 2207290024). “Streaming is an important growing market medium/long term and if Roku is back on its heels for the next 9-12 months it gives well capitalized existing and new players an opportunity to take share (potentially through much more aggressive offers)," Wlodarczak said. Roku said it acted in Q2 to "significantly slow" operating expense and headcount growth.

FuboTV announced a multiyear partnership with Maximum Effort Productions, co-founded by actor Ryan Reynolds and movie executive George Dewey in 2018. The first-look deal is for unscripted content, which will run on an upcoming channel called Maximum Effort Network, part of the virtual MVPD's push to strengthen its slate of free, ad-supported TV (FAST) channels available to fuboTV subscribers. Fubo grew its FAST channels to 40 in Q2 to help drive long-term ad average revenue per user growth, said CEO David Gandler on the company's Thursday earnings call (see 2208050024); it expects to grow the FAST offerings to 100 by year-end. Maximum Effort has creative control over the channel's content. FuboTV will manage all advertising sales for the channel, the companies said. Under the agreement, Maximum Effort will receive $10 million in shares of Fubo common stock, said an SEC filing.