The FCC “missed” by not defining streaming services as MVPDs and should correct that, said Hearst TV President Jordan Wertlieb at TV2025 on a virtual panel Thursday with Fox TV Stations CEO Jack Abernethy and Gray Television President Pat LaPlatney. “If we want to be intellectually honest, anyone distributing our signal is an MVPD,” Wertlieb said. The executives discussed their own streaming offerings but said broadcasting still delivers a larger audience than the alternatives. The “biggest indication” of broadcasting’s primacy is the NFL’s commitment to be on Fox into the 2030s, said Abernethy. Skyrocketing political advertising dollars demonstrate the same thing, he said. ATSC 3.0 will eventually allow stations to take full advantage of digital ads, Wertlieb said. Targetable ads will allow broadcasters to charge more, LaPlatney said. Abernethy and Wertlieb believe the most successful streaming operations will be those that focus on a niche, such as Fox’s upcoming weather channel. Hearst’s offering focuses on hyperlocal content for each station’s specific city, Wertlieb said. E.W. Scripps announced a foray into exports Thursday (see 2109230077). Asked about the future of retrans and declining cable subscribership, Wertlieb said the definition of retrans needs to be broadened, and LaPlatney said current rates don’t accurately reflect the audience broadcasters deliver. There might be ways stations could work with MVPDs to address or slow their subscribership declines, said Abernethy. “I do see those two ecosystems working together down the road,” said Wertlieb, saying broadcasters are working closely with MVPDs on ATSC 3.0. The execs expect auto ads to rebound sometime in 2022. Gambling ads are on rising but depend on jurisdiction, said Wertlieb. Betting is “a great category” for stations because it can’t be nationally advertised, Abernethy said.

Consumer expectations of streaming services are rising as more options become available, reported J.D. Power Thursday. The company canvassed nearly 22,000 residential pay-TV customers October-July, finding satisfaction with costs among customers who also have a streaming service was 81 points higher (on a 1,000-point scale) than among those without a streaming service. More than nine in 10 who subscribe to cable and streaming expressed no plans to drop cable in the next 12 months. J.D. Power takes that as “an indication those customers have not found all of what they are looking for outside of the traditional TV landscape -- yet.” Dish Network ranks highest nationally in pay-TV customer satisfaction, followed by AT&T and TPG's DirecTV and Comcast's Xfinity.

Redbox will be preloaded on Vewd-powered TVs and set-top boxes in the U.S., it said Thursday. Vewd will make the Redbox app available to existing customers on brands including Hisense, Funai and TiVo, plus pay-TV operator Evoca. Redbox transactional VOD has more than 100 free advertising-supported streaming TV channels and “thousands” of movies and TV titles, it said. Vewd streaming software is said to be on 450 million devices.

ViacomCBS is “spending a lot of time on release strategy” for its feature films, and “really testing different models to maximize the value of that film slate in this evolving landscape, particularly in this COVID-ruled space,” CEO Bob Bakish told a virtual Goldman Sachs conference Wednesday. Paramount’s animated feature, PAW Patrol: The Movie, was its first released simultaneously in theaters and on Paramount+ when it debuted Aug. 20, he said. “That's actually a very good model for kids’ and family films” in this “COVID-impacted time,” he said. “It gives consumers optionality to view the product where they feel the most comfortable, and we did a bunch of research on that.” The film “did very well” theatrically and was a “significant driver” for Paramount+, “where it's actually now one of the most watched originals,” he said. ViacomCBS prefers a 45-day theatrical window for the “bigger films,” because that's the “sweet spot of driving theatrical revenue and streaming growth in general,” said Bakish. The “range of tactics” is designed to “maximize the value of film across this now-broader ecosystem," he said. "But theatrical definitely still matters.”

Comcast is beginning rollout of the XiOne wireless streaming device to U.S. Xfinity Flex customers, said the MVPD Wednesday. The “plug-and-play” device supports Wi-Fi 6, 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. The voice remote supplied with the device is geared to streamers, the company said. The device launched first with Comcast’s Sky Q customers in Italy and Germany and was designed as a global entertainment device, it said. Comcast plans to make the device available via more channels and to its Xfinity X1 customers and syndication partners in the future.

Streaming TV content is now more popular than watching linear TV, Attest reported Monday, based on surveys of 2,000 adults. It said 83% watch streaming content, vs. 81% linear TV. Viewing of TV news has collapsed, with 32% regularly tuning in compared with 46% in 2020, it said.

An upcoming Roku app will enable small- and midsize Shopify merchants to create TV ad campaigns, Roku said Tuesday. The app, due to launch before the holiday shopping season, is said to include precise audience targeting and measurement. Users add the Roku app from the Shopify App Store, select their audience, choose their campaign budget, timing and duration, and upload creative, Roku said. It cited a recent holiday shopping poll conducted with The Harris Poll saying 49% of surveyed consumers had seen an ad on their streaming device that caused them to pause TV and shop for a product online.

Word of mouth is the leading source of content discovery (59%) for video streamers, followed by advertising (52%), social media (49%) and streaming service recommendations (43%), reported Conviva Monday. Amid an abundance of available video, connecting viewers with content that piques their interest and keeps them coming back is a “significant challenge,” said CEO Keith Zubchevich. The report cited a correlation between high social media usage and high streaming video consumption, showing “social platforms are key to new content discovery.” A typical consumer uses an average 3.4 social media platforms -- 3.9 for heavy streamers and 2.3 for nonstreamers. More than 90% of heavy social users stream on Netflix, and over half also stream on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max. On where respondents saw ads for streaming content, most said TV, followed by 20% saying social media. One in 10 was influenced to watch something based on a newspaper, magazine or newspaper ad. About 65% of long-form video is consumed on the big screen, said the report, suggesting “30-second ads remain viable.” Ads that are five to 10 seconds are better for smaller devices; 42% of shorter content is consumed on cellphones. With 75% of respondents browsing the internet for more than an hour daily, and 38% over three hours, “the web should remain a dominant part of the paid ad mix,” it said. The survey of 2,502 adults was fielded June 10-14.

Comcast customers averaged more than six hours watching TV daily in first-half 2021, said the MVPD Friday. Some 70% of live viewing occurred outside prime time. Comcast households watched an average 30 networks, with the top five getting 31% of all viewing. Viewers were 214% more likely to watch news and 73% more likely to watch sports on traditional TV versus streaming; they were 153% more likely to watch young adult content via streaming instead of TV. Three-fourths of streaming occurred on a TV screen. Citing “major upheaval” in the past year, John Brauer, vice president-insights and analytics for its Effectv advertising sales division, said viewership will continue to evolve, “and advertisers can no longer rely on TV or streaming alone to reach their audience -- they need both.”

Complementing traditional linear TV ad strategies with “premium long-form streaming” will grow “incremental” audience reach and “increase exposure with households less likely to be tuning in the traditional way,” reported Effectv, Comcast’s advertising sales division. It studied more than 20,000 “cross-platform” ad campaigns in 2021's first half, finding “57% of reach from streaming in those campaigns was incremental to linear TV campaigns,” it said Friday. It found streaming “impressions” were 209% “more likely to be served within households that viewed little or no traditional TV,” it said. Findings “demonstrate the tremendous ability of linear TV to reach audiences” and reinforce “how smart advertisers use streaming as a way to expand reach,” said John Brauer, Effectv vice president-insights and analytics. “Streaming advertising consistently extends traditional TV campaign reach.”