U.S. consumer spending on home entertainment content jumped 7.8% in 2021 to $32.35 billion, including 11.3% growth in Q4 to $8.6 billion, reported the Digital Entertainment Group Friday. Subscription VOD generated the largest swath of consumer spending, rising 19.8% for the year to $25.27 billion, and up 19.3% for the quarter to $6.64 billion, said DEG, citing Omdia data as the source. Sell-through of 4K Blu-rays increased more than 6%, said DEG. With COVID-19 “pandemic conditions improving as 2021 progressed,” box-office spending on titles released to the home in Q4 jumped more than 1,100% from a year earlier, said DEG, though the impact of new theatrical releases on DEG’s “transactional” home entertainment tracking was muted “by the fact that many high-profile titles were released to the home in a premium window.” It estimates premium release revenue generated through retailers that “support multiple studios” would have added about $525 million to DEG’s full-year report, it said. The estimate doesn’t include revenue generated through the “premium access” option of Disney+, it said.

Vizio added History Vault, A&E Crime Central and Lifetime Movie Club apps to its SmartCast A+E Networks content, it said Monday. History Vault and A&E Crime Central are available for $4.99 per month each; Lifetime Movie Club is $3.99. Included on Vizio’s WatchFree+ streaming service are Ax Men, Ice Road Truckers and Modern Marvels.

Starz, even “in a very competitive environment,” added 1.7 million streaming subscribers in fiscal Q3 ended Dec. 31, including 600,000 domestically, said Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer on a Thursday call. Lionsgate entered the fiscal year having “significantly ramped” its investment in Starz original programming, but COVID-19-driven production delays on multiple series, including an 11-month delay on “fan favorite” Outlander, “pushed back the full benefit of that investment,” he said. “This resulted in diminished subscriber growth in the first half of the year relative to our expectations.” The company sees “subscriber acquisition months” as “really key” for driving the Starz business, said Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch. “When you look at the original plan versus where we are today, it's about a total of 50 months of subscriber acquisition opportunity that we lost by moving content around,” he said. Outlander is “one of our big tent poles,” a “huge fan favorite,” he said. The series draws about 7 million “multi-platform views a week, which is one of the bigger shows on television, a very passionate fan base,” he said. “Missing a year of that content, it really hurts the subscriber growth, and you saw that in the first half of the year.” The eight-episode sixth season is scheduled to debut March 6. As a major feature-film studio trying to strike the right balance between theatrical exhibition and direct-to-consumer streaming, Lionsgate has shown it can make profitable films that “live comfortably” in both the theatrical and subscription VOD worlds, “from day-and-date multi-platform releases with a 92% profitability rate to larger movies that will benefit from hybrid releases,” said Feltheimer. “As a studio whose signature has always been diversified slates, allowing us to play in every space, our ability to tackle the challenges of a shifting and uncertain box office is more of a natural evolution than a pivot.” The way the industry is “shaping up” among the “broad-based” streaming services, “everybody is really competing to be that first SVOD in the home,” said Hirsch. “Couple that with the fact that we believe that there's going to be four to six SVODs per home, it sets Starz up to be this really great premium add-on tier as a way for those broad-based services to compete.” Lionsgate Class A shares closed down 8% Friday at $13.54.

More than 3.5 million “fully paid” Peacock subscribers have watched WWE content since the WWE Network moved to the streaming service last March, said WWE President-Chief Revenue Officer Nick Khan on a Q4 call Thursday. The WWE Network had 1.1 million U.S. subscribers when the Peacock deal was closed in January 2021, “and expanded audience and viewership, led by a strong in-ring product and the right partner and platform, has created wins for all parties,” he said. The Peacock arrangement shows “it's evident that the marketplace puts considerable value on our IP, which has allowed us to drive more value for existing partnerships and enter into a number of new categories,” said Khan. “We currently have over a dozen scripted and unscripted projects sold based on our IP. ... Those are with existing content partners in the U.S., in addition to new buyers, networks and streamers.” The WWE stock closed 8.2% higher Friday at $51.71.

Roku partnered with Entravision to expand its advertising business in Mexico, it said Wednesday. In Q3, Roku nearly doubled monetized video ad impressions, the company said.

SkyShowtime, the Comcast/ViacomCBS joint streaming venture, landed its European regulatory OK, said the venture partners Wednesday. SkyShowtime will launch later this year in more than 20 markets, including Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden, they said.

FuboTV subscribers will have access to more than 2,800 hours of Olympics programming, including 4K HDR coverage and Dolby Atmos sound provided by NBCUniversal to its customers in select markets, said the virtual MVPD Tuesday. NBC prime-time 4K coverage will also be made available via a next day re-air. Coverage is for all competition sessions live and on-demand, plus opening and closing ceremonies, it said. FuboTV subscribers can tune in to the Olympic Winter Games via NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app via authentication, it said. NBCUniversal will distribute the 4K HDR coverage to its distribution partners, which will choose how to make the content available to their customers, it said last week. Opening ceremonies are Friday.

MaxBet TV tapped Setplex’s platform to launch what the companies called the first casino and gambling-centric TV network. MaxBet TV plans to deliver a linear, streamed TV channel with original programming to a global audience, it said Tuesday. The channel will include original content, such as videos from gambling influencers, how-to-play tutorials and interviews, it said.

AMC Networks and Comcast signed a multiyear renewal of their distribution agreement that covers continued carriage of AMC's linear networks and wider availability of its streaming services to Xfinity TV, broadband and XClass subscribers, they said Monday.

YouTube, which has tried to tamp down on content violating its policies, is now taking aim at content "that comes right up against our policy lines but doesn't cross it," CEO Susan Wojcicki blogged Tuesday. She said YouTube aims to have views of borderline content under 0.5% on the service. She said the violative view rate, which tracks what percentage of views on YouTube comes from content violating its policies, was 0.09% to 0.11% in Q3. She said the rate fell more than 70% between 2017 and Q3 2021. She said in response to creators asking for more details about policy violations, YouTube is hiring to expand its ability to provide such specifics. She said the EU's Digital Services Act "could have implications for online speech" and YouTube is trying to line up support for "a unified digital consumer protection framework ... that still allows YouTube to best serve our users." She said YouTube creator engagement helped as EU member states incorporate the Article 17 copyright directive into local laws. Wojcicki said the number of YouTube channels globally making more than $10,000 is up 40% year over year. She said to boost its short-video feature Shorts, it will expand the capability to remix YouTube content. She said it's in early stages of testing how shopping features that allow viewers to browse and buy products featured in their videos can be integrated into Shorts. She said Shorts views have topped 5 trillion, while YouTube has more than 50 million music and Premium subscribers, including trials.