There’s “much work to be done” in Warner Bros. Discovery’s plans to roll out HBO Max and Discovery+ as a “new combined offering under a single brand,” said Jean-Briac Perrette, president-CEO, global streaming and games, on a Q2 earnings call Thursday. “We are determined to get it right, which will take a bit of time,” he said. His team has developed a clear road map to migrate HBO Max and Discovery+ “onto one tech stack” that overcomes the “shortcomings” of both services, he said. HBO Max “has a competitive feature set, but has had performance and customer issues,” while Discovery+ “has best-in-class performance and consumer ratings, but more limited features,” he said. The combined service will launch in the U.S. next summer, and Latin America will follow later in 2023. European markets with HBO Max will launch in early 2024, with “key Asia Pacific territories” coming later in 2024, he said. “This idea of expensive films going direct to streaming, we cannot find an economic case for it,” said CEO David Zaslav on the decision to cancel this year’s HBO Max release of the $90 million feature film Batgirl. “We’ve been out in the town talking about our commitment to the theatrical exhibition and the theatrical window,” said Zaslav. “Our focus will be on theatrical, and when we bring the theatrical films to HBO Max, we find they have substantially more value.”

One in three Netflix password-sharing members who live in a different household from the account holder would pay a $3 monthly member fee for access to content, said a July Cowen survey. Some 16.9% said the current paying member would pay an additional $3 fee, and 6.3% said they would get their own paid membership, said the poll of 2,500 U.S. consumers. Netflix password-sharing measures could add more than 14 million U.S. and Canada paid account sharers and 1.9 million new members next year, Cowen analyst John Blackledge wrote investors Friday. Netflix has said 30 million U.S. and Canadian households share passwords. Cowen estimates password-sharing measures could add $872 million in fiscal ’23 revenue and drive “significant” long-term revenue upside, in addition to the streaming service’s plans for an ad tier. Management said on its July Q2 earnings call (see 2207200001) it expects to debut its ad-supported tier in early 2023. Cowen maintained an “outperform” rating on the streaming video company's stock.

Revenue growth of 162% to $1.17 billion gave AMC Entertainment its best second quarter in three years, said CEO Adam Aron on a Thursday earnings call. “People came back to movie theaters in droves” in Q2, including 59 million globally who paid to see feature films at AMC theaters, increasing 168% from the same 2021 quarter, he said. Aron thinks Hollywood “has realized again how much money can be made by releasing movies in theaters exclusively first,” he said. It’s also well known that “the share price of some major streaming companies started to take a hit, and they started to lose subscribers,” he said. “There's a lot of speculation that while the market might be big enough to support one streamer or two streamers or maybe even three stainless, it’s not going to support 10 streamers or more.” Taken all together, the CEO thinks Hollywood “is turning away from streaming,” as is Wall Street, he said.

Increased VOD service competition is leading to an ongoing decline in average daily playtime per user per service, NPAW said in a streaming video industry report Thursday. Playtime was down 11% in the first half of 2022 vs. the same six-month span in 2021, and that came after a 9% drop between 2021 and 2020, it said. In North America, average daily playtime per user per service went from 90 minutes in first half of 2021 to 75 minutes in that time frame this year. Linear TV consumption per user per service was down 18% in 1H of 2022 vs. 1H 2021, with the drop particularly pronounced in Latin America and the Pacific, it said. In North America, the average daily linear TV playtime per user per service went from 76 minutes to 72 minutes, it said. The streaming linear TV decline also seems to be the result of increased competition, it said. It said such events as the Winter Olympics and the closing of the season for some major sports leagues juiced streaming sports viewing. H1 2022 saw a 12% jump in average daily playtime per user per service for VOD over the same period last year, while linear consumption was up 13%, it said.

Paramount Global is a big believer in ad-supported streaming, and “that others are following our lead is really a validation of the thesis we've had for years,” said CEO Bob Bakish on a Q2 earnings call Thursday. “There will be incremental options in the market” once Disney+ and Netflix launch their ad tiers, “but really, competition is nothing new,” said Bakish. Paramount+ added 4.9 million global subscribers in Q2 and revenue grew 120%, said Bakish. Paramount+ was the top premium service in the U.S. in terms of new sign-ups and net subscriber additions for Q2 and 2022 to date, said Bakish, citing unnamed third-party data. It’s also the most popular premium streaming service in the U.S. among service “switchers,” he said. That means people who dropped a paid streaming subscription in the past 12 months were more likely to add Paramount+ than any other service, he said. Paramount+ ended the quarter with 43.3 million subscribers, factoring in the 1.2 million accounts that were removed in Russia after the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, said Chief Financial Officer Naveen Chopra.

Simulmedia renewed its viewer data partnership with TiVo for its TV+ platform, the companies said Wednesday. The platform gives marketers audience planning, targeting and activation capabilities across U.S. ad-supported channels for linear and connected TV (CTV), they said. Simulmedia has direct integrations with over 250 linear and CTV networks and publishers.

Roku will launch Paramount+ as a premium subscription within The Roku Channel this month, and Roku created a dedicated guide for Paramount+ live content, it said Wednesday. It’s the first time Roku has created a dedicated programming guide for a premium subscription partner, it said. Paramount+ subscribers have access to their local live CBS station. The Roku Channel markets premium services via The Roku Channel as a way to manage subscriptions with one bill.

Pivotal Research Group snipped $5 off its target price for Spotify, to $105, while reiterating a “hold” rating on the stock, analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak wrote investors Thursday. Wlodarczak sees “material user growth” left for the streaming audio company but said many investors question whether Spotify “will ever be able to generate significant lasting profitability,” given the power of music labels and that its "two main competitors are not necessarily focused on profitable growth.” Additional risks are possible content cost inflation; 90% of Spotify’s largest cost item -- music programming -- controlled by three or four players; “controversial podcast content could translate into lost subscribers or music"; recession; and “streaming growth could slow sooner than we anticipate.”

To help YouTube creators moderate comments on their content, the video hosting platform blogged Tuesday that it has given creators a new optional comments setting, "increase strictness," to help catch more spam or potentially inappropriate comments. It said those comments are held for review in YouTube Studio, giving creators the chance to approve, remove or report them. It said it has updated YouTube Studio so comments potentially considered more hurtful are put in a separate, hidden section of the held for review tab, letting creators ignore them completely if they choose. It said it also has started putting out channel guidelines letting creators communicate what is and isn't allowed in their comments section.

Wedbush expects Roku to announce 800,000 net active account additions for Q2, an increase of 1.3% sequentially, when the streaming media platform company announces quarterly results Thursday, said analyst Michael Pachter in a Tuesday investor note. That would be the lowest sequential or annual account growth for Q2 since 2016, owing to supply chain disruptions and lower TV demand, Pachter said. Despite lower overall viewership as people spend more time outside the home, plus cuts to streaming subscriptions, Q2 advertising budgets continued to migrate toward streaming platforms, he said. In Q1 the top 10 broadcast TV advertisers spent about 80% more on Roku than in the year-ago quarter and 7% less on legacy TV, a trend he expects to carry through the year. “There is significant room left for domestic growth since streaming platforms currently capture around 46% of U.S. audience TV viewing time, but only receive 18% of advertisers’ TV ad budgets, said the analyst. Roku continues to invest heavily in global expansion, while securing partnerships to bolster its ad-supported Roku Channel offering, Pachter noted: “While Roku’s share price has been penalized for its reduced profitability, we think Roku’s investments are prudent and will pay off over the long-term.” Shares fell 7.9% Tuesday to close at $79.87.