Tag Archives: streaming

Study Finds reports: Commissioned by UserTesting and conducted by Talker Research, the survey exposes the growing frustration with the current streaming landscape. The research paints a vivid picture of entertainment exhaustion, revealing that the average person now spends a staggering 110 hours per year — nearly five full days — simply scrolling through streaming platforms in search of something to …

Ars Technica reports: Amazon is shutting down Freevee, its free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) service, as it heightens focus on selling ads on its Prime Video subscription service. Amazon, which has owned IMDb since 1998, launched Freevee as IMDb Freedive in 2019. The service let people watch movies and shows, including Freevee originals, on demand without a subscription fee. Amazon’s …

Reuters reports: DirecTV on Monday agreed to buy EchoStar’s satellite television business that includes Dish TV, capping decades of on-and-off talks to create one of the nation’s largest pay TV distributors with a combined 20 million subscribers. The transaction comes at a time when satellite TV services DirecTV and Dish are hemorrhaging market share to competitors like Netflix and Amazon’s …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Chick-Fil-A is moving aggressively into the entertainment space with plans to launch a slate of originals for its own streaming platform. Deadline understands that the fast-food firm has been working with a number of major production companies, including some of the studios, to create family-friendly shows, particularly in the unscripted space. It is also in talks to …

NBC News reports: DVD rental service Redbox is set to shut down after 22 years in business, as streaming continues to dominate the at-home entertainment market. Redbox’s parent company, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, changed its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, filed last month, to a Chapter 7 liquidation case on Wednesday. The conversion signifies that the company couldn’t come …

Ars Technica reports: Amazon Prime Video subscribers will see new types of advertisements this broadcast year. Amazon announced today that it’s adding new ad formats to its video streaming service, hoping to encourage people to interact with the ads and shop on Amazon. Those who opted for Prime Video with commercials will soon see shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, …

Ars Technica reports: Hulu and Disney+ subscribers have until March 14 to stop sharing their login information with people outside of their household. Disney-owned streaming services are the next to adopt the password-crackdown strategy that has helped Netflix add millions of subscribers. An email sent from “The Hulu Team” to subscribers yesterday and viewed by Ars Technica tells customers that …

Ars Technica reports: Amazon confirmed today in an email to Prime members that it will begin showing ads alongside its streaming Prime Video content starting January 29, 2024. The price will remain the same, but subscribers who don’t wish to see any ads will have to pay an additional $2.99 per month on top of their monthly or yearly Amazon …

The Digital Bits reports: The Digital Bits has learned from industry sources—and we’ve confirmed it with multiple sources now—that Best Buy plans to exit the physical media business for good next year, possibly as soon as the end of Q1 2024. This includes not just their in-store Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD sales, which the retailer has been gradually …

The Verge reports: Netflix is kicking off the first public tests of its cloud-streamed games. Beginning Monday, some Netflix subscribers in Canada and the UK will be able to check out Netflix games streamed to select TVs, connected TV devices, and on the web from Netflix.com. The company first launched its mobile gaming offerings as a free perk for subscribers …

Variety reports: Tubi, the free, ad-supported streaming television platform, ran a clever trompe l’oeil ad that made it look as if viewers’ TVs were changing the channel right in the middle of the climactic end of the Eagles-Chiefs game. The 15-second spot, which ran in the fourth quarter of Fox’s Super Bowl LVII telecast, starts by throwing back to the …

Yahoo Entertainment reports: As Netflix begins its crackdown on password sharing, the streaming giant’s Canadian division has introduced a new way to stop people from sharing. Netflix Canada confirmed via a release on its website stating the new procedure. Users will have to set a primary location where anyone living in that household can access Netflix. Any additional users on …

CNBC reports: Netflix’s plan to stop users from sharing their passwords with each other is starting to take shape. The streaming giant, which last month announced that it will soon begin the preliminary rollout of its strategy, has updated its FAQs page with some details about what users can expect. The main hurdle that Netflix will place in front of …

The Verge reports: Only nine percent of new Netflix subscribers in the US opted for the streaming service’s new ad-supported streaming tier last month, according to data from analytics firm Antenna. That’s compared to the 15 percent of new signups that reportedly opted for competitor HBO Max’s ad-supported subscription during its launch month in 2021. Netflix’s “Basic with Ads” plan …

Ars Technica reports: A new report from market measurement firm Nielsen says that for the first time, TV viewers watched more on streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ than they did on cable TV, making streaming the most popular way to consume content. The shift has been predicted by analysts and commentators for years, but it has only now come …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Walt Disney’s total DTC subscribers all in totaled 221.1 million for the company’s fiscal third quarter ended in June. That was a big beat for Disney+ and its parent, and also marked the first time anyone has passed Netflix in total streaming subs. Netflix reported 220.67 million total global subs, after losing almost 1 million for the …

Reuters reports: Netflix Inc said on Wednesday it has selected Microsoft Corp as technology and sales partner for its planned ad-supported subscription offering, as the streaming giant looks to plug slowing subscriber growth by rolling out a cheaper plan. Netflix said in April that it would introduce a new, lower-priced version of its service in a bid to attract more …

Variety reports: Warner Bros. Discovery is shutting down CNN+ and is expected to provide details to staffers Thursday, according to two people familiar with the matter. Spokespersons for CNN and Warner Bros. Discovery could not be reached for immediate comment. Axios reports: CNN+ has roughly 150,000 subscribers so far. Warner Bros. Discovery wants to eventually build one giant service around …

The New York Times reports: Nielsen, the 98-year-old research firm that for decades has had an effective monopoly on measuring TV ratings in the United States, has a new metric that it says allows it to make an apples-to-apples comparison, on a percentage basis, of how many people are streaming shows and films on their TVs versus how many are …

Variety reports: Netflix wants people to pay their fair share to access its streaming service. But Reed Hastings promises that any crackdown on illicit password-sharing that the company decides to launch across its global footprint won’t be done in an aggressive manner. “We’ll test many things, but we would never roll out something that feels like ‘turning the screws’” on …