ABC/Disney content is now available on Android TV through ABC's various TV group apps, ABC said in a news release Tuesday: Viewers can stream various ABC, Freeform, Disney Channel, Disney Junior and Disney XD programs.

Pandora redesigned its Artist Marketing Platform (AMP) to simplify how artists grow an audience, track progress and connect with fans, it said in a Monday announcement. To promote singles, albums, shows or tours, artists can design and schedule integrated campaigns on AMP using tools to drive listener engagement. A new dynamic feed shows an artist’s campaign activity and performance metrics and provides suggestions for new campaigns, Pandora said. AMPcast, available in limited release to date, is now available to all artists, it said. With a messaging app, artists can record a short audio message, customize the message with images or calls to action, set it to play before or after a specific track and geotarget fans in specific markets, it said. "AMP eliminates guesswork, helps break new artists, surfaces new music from established artists and creates new revenue streams,” said Chief Operating Officer Sara Clemens. Artists can promote a new single via Pandora and receive real-time feedback including thumbs up or down and station creations to gauge listener interest, it said. With Ticketfly integration, artists are able to promote shows at Ticketfly venues via messages with a "click to buy" link and receive suggestions for airing and geo-targeting the message based on the event location, it said. Singer Ariana Grande recorded a series of artist audio messages encouraging listeners to support the impending release of Dangerous Woman, said Republic Records President Avery Lipman. The 8.1 percent click-through rate “was five to seven times what we saw for social and paid channels and drove significant preorders,” he said.

All episodes of new ABC series in the 2016-17 season, plus some returning series, will be available to authenticated users of the ABC app and ABC.com, the network said in a news release Monday. ABC also said the in-season stacking will be available via Hulu and some pay-TV on-demand platforms such as Xfinity and DirecTV. The company said with the relaunch of its app over the summer, it added full seasons of 38 past series, plus original and derivative short-form content.

Netflix is giving up for now trying to expand its service into China because “the regulatory environment for foreign digital content services in China has become challenging,” the company said Monday in its quarterly letter to shareholders. “We now plan to license content to existing online service providers in China rather than operate our own service in China in the near term. We expect revenue from this licensing will be modest. We still have a long term desire to serve the Chinese people directly, and hope to launch our service in China eventually." In Q3, quarterly global streaming revenue at Netflix exceeded $2 billion for the first time, the company said. Netflix estimated 40 percent of its Q3 streaming revenue was “generated abroad.” The company is now in the fourth year of its “original content strategy” and is “pleased with our progress,” it said. Netflix plans to release more than 1,000 hours of “premium original programming” in 2017, up from over 600 hours this year, it said. The internet “allows us to reach audiences all over the world and, with a growing base of over 86 million members, there’s a large appetite for entertainment and a diversity of tastes to satisfy,” it said. Netflix faces “immense competition for consumer screen time,” the letter said. “Our challenge is to continue to improve our service and content so that we better meet consumer desires. Total screen time is quite large and growing as technology and content improve globally.” In after-hours trading Monday, Netflix shares jumped 20 percent to $119.39, presumably because Q3 subscriber additions exceeded forecasts in the U.S. and internationally.

Amblin Partners will get access to Alibaba's online streaming platform Youku Tudou, its over-the-top provider Tmall and its e-commerce marketplaces, as part of a deal the two announced in a news release Sunday. It said Amblin and Alibaba agreed to co-produce and finance films for global and Chinese audiences and to work jointly on marketing, distribution and merchandising of Amblin Partners films in China. Alibaba also is acquiring a minority stake in Amblin, with an Alibaba representative joining the Amblin board, they said.

Needham Insights said the music industry’s future is at risk, though streaming services like Pandora and Spotify “have saved the music business from extinction.” Recorded music revenue stayed “essentially flat” at an annual $15 billion globally since 2010, with streaming services now growing substantially as a share of the market while retail sales continue to shrink, Needham said in a report Monday. Pandora and Spotify are continuing to operate at a loss, so “until their financial futures are secure, a meaningful proportion of music industry revenue is dependent on public and private investors’ willingness to continue to fund their losses,” Needham said. “Any 'Black Swan' event (like 9/11) that closes capital market access could disrupt the entire music industry virtually overnight.” Black Swan theory events are “unexpected events of large magnitude and consequence and their dominant role in history,” Needham said.

More than just an ancillary revenue stream, over-the-top video is maturing into a major revenue opportunity and key brand-building tool, said a survey of TV stations, pay-TV operators, programmers, TV service providers, new media and other firms released Friday. Akamai underwrote the survey, which said 45.6 percent have launched an OTT service, 10.3 percent plan to launch in the next quarter and 35.4 percent plan to launch in the next year. Sixty percent have begun or plan to begin a subscription-based service, it said, though subscriptions aren't as popular as advertising as a revenue-generation model. While 59 percent of the average OTT library is HD video, that's expected to grow to 71 percent within a year. End-user features like search recommendations are on the rise, it said. On-demand delivery is the main mechanism for delivering video from 79 percent of the surveyed OTT providers, with 65 percent offering live linear content such as sports and events, according to the survey; 44 percent plan to support downloading for offline viewing.

Over-the-top video offerings face a particularly steep demand curve, with demand dropping sharply as prices increase, which creates a problem considering the estimated programming costs faced by Hulu as it looks to launch a virtual multichannel video programming distribution service next year, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett wrote investors Thursday. Meanwhile, the most likely subscribers for more-expensive OTT services aren't the target audience of cord-cutters and cord-nevers but households looking to trim their monthly pay-TV spending, the result being cannibalization, Moffett said. "On an absolute basis, 10 million subscribers could be perceived as a very successful launch ... but that success could be cold comfort if it's achieved only by accelerating traditional Pay TV subscriber losses by 7.3M." Cord cutting is more prevalent -- and accelerating fastest -- among younger viewers, but older viewers are more likely to pay for an OTT service, he said, saying a "sweet spot" of $40-$45 monthly might be optimal but pricing at that level might not be feasible.

Turner's FilmStruck subscription VOD service FilmStruck will go live Oct. 19, the company said in a news release Thursday. FilmStruck will focus on art house, indie, foreign and cult films, including the streaming Criterion Collection library. Cost will be $6.99 a month or $10.99 for FilmStruck and the Criterion content.

Following an update to Roku’s publishing platform, content owners can launch streaming channels without having to enter a line of code, said a Wednesday Roku announcement. Roku Direct Publisher allows content owners to publish and automatically participate in search and discovery experiences on Roku devices in available regions, it said. Channels built with Roku Direct Publisher include Mashable, Rolling Stone and Us Weekly. Roku Direct Publisher is also supported by third parties, including Brightcove, JW Player, Kaltura and Ooyala. “Building streaming applications typically involves significant time, development resources and costs in order for publishers to reach and engage TV viewers effectively,” said Bill Shapiro, director-product management, Roku OS. Direct Publisher allows content owners to "get on the Roku platform quickly, develop an audience and drive monetization," he said. Roku’s search, covering more than 100 channels in the U.S., is open to all content publishers on the Roku Platform, it said, and content owners who use Roku Direct Publisher will have their content automatically included in Roku Search and My Feed. Roku’s publishing platform has added performance dashboards for each channel, giving content owners the streaming minutes for each channel, and the number of installs and uninstalls, it said. Roku Direct Publisher is available at developer.roku.com/publish along with the Roku software developer kit and XML programming framework for developing customized channels.