Top U.S. pay-TV providers lost 5.1 million net video subscribers in 2020, up from the 4.8 million pro forma net loss in 2019, Leichtman Research Group said Thursday. The top providers collectively have about 81.3 million subs, with the seven largest cable companies having 43.9 million, direct broadcast satellite 21.8 million, telcos 7.9 million and the top publicly reporting virtual MVPDs 7.7 million. DBS lost about 3.4 million subs in 2020, compared with 3.7 million in losses the previous year. The seven largest cablers lost 1.92 million in 2020 vs. 1.56 million in losses a year earlier. Slowing their losses were telcos, with 405,000 lost video subs in 2020 vs. 630,000 lost in 2019. VMVPDs Hulu+, Live TV, Sling TV, AT&T TV Now and fuboTV added 640,000 subs in 2020, compared with 1.1 million net adds in 2019.

Nielsen’s Gracenote is using video descriptors for mood, theme and scenario, plus cast information, to improve content discovery and third-party recommendation results, said the service Wednesday. Gracenote's Personalized Imagery can help video services boost engagement by presenting “the most appealing program images to viewers” in their user interfaces, content carousels and program guides, it said. The feature allows linear and streaming TV providers and connected device makers to dynamically display program images showing different aspects of a TV show or movie based on viewer preferences and previous consumption, it said. A recent pilot by a top-five U.S. streaming service that used targeted Gracenote program images instead of standard images had an 11.2% increase in time spent watching titles and a 7.7% lift in the number of titles watched, said the company.

Sports platform Fite is now available on Samsung smart TVs for model years 2016-21, it said Monday. Fite offers pay-per-view events, subscription VOD packages and free programming.

Promoting “standardized” messaging for the various types of direct-to-consumer digital content delivery services was the goal of an “industry terminology” list compiled by the Digital Entertainment Group’s D2C Alliance steering committee, said DEG Thursday. Thirteen terms appear on the list, all acronyms except for “linear TV.” Compiling and releasing the list was “a first step in proactively addressing key issues related to helping these digital businesses realize their full potential,” said DEG. PEST (for Premium Electronic Sell-Through) is one of the funnier acronyms on the list.

Paramount+ arrives in the "streaming space" March 4 “with real advantages that our competitors do not have,” said ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish in a virtual investor day presentation Wednesday. “As the streaming segment continues to evolve and mature, we believe consumers will increasingly be looking for the combination of genres that have long made linear television popular.” Paramount+ will be the first streaming service “that can do it at scale” in each major genre, from live sports to news to episodic TV to movies, “all in one place,” said Bakish. Some of the “biggest, most anticipated” new Paramount feature films will go exclusively to Paramount+ 30 to 45 days after their theatrical release, he said. All other new Paramount movies will appear on Paramount+ after their theatrical run, “some as early as 90 days,” he said. “New movies from MGM will also appear on Paramount+ during the pay one window.” All ViacomCBS studios also “are ramping up production to provide a continuous flow of new original movies made exclusively for Paramount+,” he said. New content “will be underpinned” by a library of more than 2,500 films from Paramount, Miramax “and a number of other leading Hollywood studios,” he said.

After ending pandemic-ridden 2020 82% lower year on year, North American box office is trending down 94% year to date, and Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter doesn’t expect attendance levels to normalize until at least July, he wrote investors Monday. “Many tent-pole releases shifted to 2021 from 2020 as theatres closed, and titles are increasingly spilling into 2022 as the timing for full re-opening remains unclear.” Many smaller films shifted to streaming so studios could more quickly recoup production budgets, a trend Pachter expects to continue into next year. “Many streaming services will face a dearth of content with increased consumption over the past year coupled with halted productions,” he said. Wedbush predicts the box office will “return to full swing” in Q4, eyeing “massive pent-up demand for seeing movies with friends or dates out of the home.” Wedbush forecasts 2021 domestic box office to end 123% higher but down 59% from 2019. The China box office, meanwhile, “bodes well for IMAX, global theatres post-COVID,” said Pachter, citing pent-up demand that led audiences to return “en masse” in Q3. He noted Q4 Imax box office was down only 4% year on year in the region.

Discovery+ is “off and running” to a “fantastic start” seven weeks into its Jan. 4 launch (see 2012020049), said Discovery CEO David Zaslav on a Q4 call Monday, typifying superlatives from top executives about the early fate of the fledgling streaming service. It's on track to reach 12 million direct-to-consumer paid subscribers globally by the end of the week “across our entire portfolio,” a net increase of 7 million since December, he said. “The vast majority of this increase is attributable to discovery+.” Its rollout “has been nearly flawless,” he said. The service launched on all major smart TV platforms and devices, he said. “Stay tuned for further delivery partnerships, such as partnerships with cable operators and other connected TV platforms.” The company is partnering with Verizon on the U.S. discovery+ launch, Sky in the U.K. and Ireland, and Vodafone in some European markets. All “key operating metrics” about discovery+ are “pointing in the right direction,” he said. Strong subscriber “retention” is evident, he said. The company is encouraged by “good numbers about people once they know about” discovery+, he said. Management rebuffed analysts’ requests for discovery+ forecasts. “We’re still not in a position to give long-term or short-term subscriber guidance,” said Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels. “We’re super-happy with what we’re seeing, top to bottom, ahead of expectations. We have a lot of distribution still coming down the pike. We’re really just getting started internationally, so that’s on the positive side. I don’t think there’s a lot of value of us discussing scenarios here.” The stock closed 8.9% higher Monday at $55.29.

Residents of Washington, D.C., spend the most in the U.S. on streaming, an average $52.59 monthly, reported Reviews.org Monday. New Mexicans spend the least, $39.58. The 54% of Americans with a cable subscription pay an average $107 monthly for service.

Vizio Ads, the TV maker’s “direct-to-device” advertising business, unveiled a “universal frequency control” (UFC) capability for brands to limit how often a Vizio TV set “is exposed to specific ad creative when placing an ad through its platform,” said the vendor Friday. This solves “one of the biggest problems” plaguing advertisers in the over-the-top and smart TV space seeking more precise audience measurement tools. UFC accurately measures the number of times an ad is exposed on each TV in a home across linear and cable channels, plus VOD and OTT services, it said. An “in-flight optimization” function lets brands limit the number of times a Vizio Ads media buy “reaches a device per day, week or month,” it said. UFC is powered using data from Inscape, Vizio’s automated content recognition data business. Inscape ran afoul of the FTC three years ago when the agency alleged Vizio used the service to fashion its smart TVs to spy on consumers' viewing habits without their knowledge and then sold the data to third parties (see 1702060042). Vizio paid $2.2 million to settle the allegations.

Nielsen launched Gracenote Inclusion Analytics Wednesday to provide visibility into the gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation of talent appearing in TV programming and the audiences watching it. The offering gives content creators, owners, distributors and advertisers data on on-screen diversity and representation to enable “more inclusive content,” it said. The service combines Gracenote global video program metadata and Studio System celebrity race and ethnicity data with TV ratings and subscription VOD content ratings data. It also delivers metrics on how different identity groups are featured in programming “and how evenly this reflects viewing audiences,” the company said. A challenge for the entertainment industry is to “ensure the talent associated with popular TV programming mirrors today’s increasingly diverse viewing audiences,” said Sandra Sims-Williams, Nielsen senior vice president-diversity, equity and inclusion. Democratizing information on representation in content can “push the industry toward better balance and a more equitable future,” she said.