“HBO Max With Ads” is WarnerMedia's new branding for the ad-supported VOD service debuting the first week of June at $9.99 monthly, $5 lower than the ad-free HBO Max. The no-ads version launches across Latin America and the Caribbean in late June, said WarnerMedia Wednesday.

Vizio didn’t take itself public for customary reasons of raising money, but to get the “story” out about plans to “get to the next level” in streaming, Chief Financial Officer Adam Townsend told a Needham virtual conference Monday. There's “a nice balance sheet, ample cash, no debt, cash-flow-positive,” he said. It spent the past several years “really investing in a software platform to bring a proprietary operating system to the market” to exploit “the future of consumer video consumption,” he said of SmartCast OS. The streaming opportunity is “getting well defined, and really, really large,” he said. Vizio is “now at scale” with 13.5 million monthly active SmartCast users, he said. “We’re really expanding the offering to consumers in total.” Vizio will add “a lot more” content later this year, he said: “Some pretty big household brand names are coming to the platform pretty soon.”

Roku Originals is launching May 20 with 30 titles available exclusively on The Roku Channel, announced the company Thursday. The lineup includes scripted series, documentaries and alternative and reality programming, it said. The free programming will bring “breadth, depth and diversity” to “millions” of The Roku Channel viewers, said Sweta Patel, vice president-engagement growth marketing. More original content is due later this year, said Roku. The Roku Channel has more than 25,000 free movies and TV programs, it said.

Logistics delays Vizio is experiencing “in some of the biggest ports of the country” involve “a slowdown in being able to unload vessels and get products processed and out into the distribution hubs,” said Chief Financial Officer Adam Townsend on a Q1 call Tuesday, its first as a public company (see report, May 12 issue). The bottlenecks are “particularly” acute at ports in California, where “a lot of our product comes through” from China, he said. “We don’t think it’s that material over the course of a number of months.” Vizio’s 28% year-over-year growth in Q1 smart TV shipments to 1.5 million sets “doesn’t really reflect even what could have been possible if not for those delays,” said Townsend. “There’s demand in the marketplace, and it’s just a matter of getting our products into those stores and onto the shelves.”Logistics delays may create “maybe a little of a shift” in shipment volumes “out of Q1 and into either Q2 or into Q3 if it pushes out that far,” he said. “There’s only so much we can do to control the dynamics of the ports.” Debuting later this year will be an ad-supported VOD offering called “Vizio Features,” said Michael O’Donnell, chief revenue officer for Vizio's Platform+ ad monetization operations. Vizio Features will be a “sponsor-driven content programming opportunity” that gives advertisers more ways “to engage with our consumers inside the SmartCast experience, whether on the home screen or within the actual content,” he said. It will give consumers “access to original or exclusive programming," he said: It's “kind of a low-risk, low-capital-intensive way of providing more value for our advertisers, content partners and ultimately, more stickiness and loyalty.” Vizio will roll "that out over the next few quarters,” said O'Donnell. “Not ready yet to announce the specific partnerships, but we will soon.”

There’s “strong pent-up consumer demand” to return to movie theaters and “the unique social experience,” said National CineMedia CEO Tom Lesinski on a Q1 call Monday. “Some recent disappointing day-and-date streaming results have many content producers now considering the reestablishment of a new kind of exclusive theatrical window to help launch their films.” The “significant cabin fever” building for more than a year through COVID-19 stay-at-home mandates “will drive consumers back to the theaters,” said ex-Warner Home Entertainment executive Lesinski. “This will once again allow movie studios and even some of the new streaming companies to rely on theaters to launch their films and other content.” Recent studio announcements “reflect a recommitment to new types of theatrical windows for future films,” he said. “Film release delays caused by the epidemic created an unbelievable lineup of big movies from now to 2023.” NCM expects revenue from its in-theater ad platform will begin to “meaningfully increase” in June, since movie attendance won’t “begin to pick up until Memorial Day weekend,” said Chief Financial Officer Ted Watson. “Monthly revenue will still be below 2019 pre-pandemic levels until Q4.”

NTG Release Group, a "massive 'ripping and uploading'" video piracy operation, is voluntarily shutting, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment said Monday. It said NTG, also known as "Not the Grinch," had operated since 2018 and was responsible for 4,600 pirated releases of movies and TV shows to torrent sites in 2020. ACE members include Amazon, Charter, Comcast, Disney, Netflix, Sony and ViacomCBS.

Global Citizen’s Vax Live concert, streaming on YouTube at 8 p.m. EDT Saturday, was to be shown on LG's Times Square billboard in New York, said the vendor Friday. The event, for vaccinated healthcare workers and their families at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, was to include Eddie Vedder, Foo Fighters and Jennifer Lopez, it said.

Cinemark agreed with Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner to theatrically showcase films across its nearly 5,900 U.S. screens, said the theater operator Friday: “These agreements secure a consistent supply of content and demonstrate a shared commitment to offering consumers the ultimate movie-viewing experience, with compelling content exhibited within the theatrical environment,” it said. Each deal “has unique attributes specific to the individual studio that mutually benefits both parties.” Cinemark also extended its "test" with Netflix to include Army of the Dead as its first "wide-release film," said CEO Mark Zoradi on a Q1 call Friday. "We’re the only nationwide exhibitor showcasing the film." It debuts May 14 in Cinemark theaters, a week later on Netflix. Cinemark closed up 5.3% at $21.57.

Video-based social media platform Triller, which is suing an array of sites and YouTube channel operators for allegedly pirating a stream or MVPD broadcast of the Jake Paul/Ben Askren boxing match to which it owned the rights, is offering amnesty at $50 per viewer. It said June 1 is the deadline for people who watched via a pirated signal but weren't involved in the sale or distribution to be "eligible to receive a one-time settlement and release for their unlawful acts." It set up a website for registering and making payments. Triller in a copyright infringement complaint last month (in Pacer, docket 21-cv-03502) in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles said the pirating of the April 17 bout cost it upward of 2 million views, and sought damages in excess of $100 million. The defendants include Filmdaily.com, Accesstvpro.co, Online2livestream.us, Crackstreamslive.com, Sports-today.club, My-sports.club, Bilasport.com, Trendy Clips, Eclipt Gaming, ItsLilBrandon, the H3 Podcast and H3H3 Productions. In a motion Wednesday, it asked for expedited discovery so it could serve subpoenas on online platforms including Google's YouTube to discover defendants' identities.

FuboTV is “well-positioned” in the cord-cutter era with its “lead with sports” strategy, Wedbush's Michael Pachter wrote investors Thursday. “We expect cord-cutting and cord-shaving to continue for the foreseeable future, and think that a sizeable portion of the population will grow up as ‘cordnevers,’ preferring customizable bundles of content to pre-determined MVPD programming,” said the analyst, pegging the addressable market at about 30 million, growing at 3 million per year over the next 10. Pachter cited as positives for fuboTV its revenue guidance for 60% growth, “robust” average revenue per user advertising growth during fiscal 2020 and its advances in the sports betting market. The streaming service will launch a free-to-play wagering app in Q3, with a sportsbook to follow in Q4, Pachter noted. It plans to launch a free interactive predictive game initially to subscribers and later to all consumers in Q3 to learn from customer behavior and then tailor a sports wagering product to be offered through its sportsbook in Q4, he said. The sportsbook will likely generate only minimal revenue at launch, but “the creation of a free-to-play product rolled out to all consumers has the potential to drive word of mouth about fuboTV,” which could drive new subscriptions, he said: “We are optimistic that the sports book can drive material revenues and profitability in the next several years.” Wedbush forecasts fuboTV Q1 revenue of $103 million vs. company guidance of $100 million-$103 million when the company reports earnings Tuesday.