Discovery+ has been downloaded some 3.3 million times from the App Store and Google Play since its launch a month ago, blogged Apptopia Thursday. Channels on the service -- which costs $5 per month for ad-supported, $7 for ad-free -- include HGTV, Food Network, TLC, ID, Animal Planet and Discovery Channel. The streaming video service also has a special deal for Verizon customers. Android TV has a stand-alone Discovery+ app in addition to the mobile version. NBCUniversal’s Peacock TV, launched in July, had 3.7 million downloads in its first month live, and HBO Max, hitting the market late May, had about 3.1 million, said the data analytics firm. During Discovery+’s first month live, HBO Max gained 3.4 million users; Disney+ 3.6 million; Peacock TV 1.9 million, it said. Discovery+’s U.S. app averaged just under 1 million active daily users in the first month for a stickiness score of 62%, defined as daily active users divided by monthly active users. Reviews of the streaming service have been positive at 66.2% vs. 60.1% positive for Disney+, 41.2% for Peacock and 35.8% for HBO Max. Positive reviews are “overwhelmingly focused on how good the content/selection of shows is,” said Madeline Lenahan, Apptopia communications and content manager. “Bugs and design issues can always be fixed. But if your core content isn’t appealing, you’re in trouble,” she said. Discovery+ is “clear about the type of content it offers, making it a potentially stickier choice” than a subscription VOD service “with a comparably more broad content offering,” she said.

Starz added 800,000 streaming subscribers in fiscal Q3 ended Dec. 31, finishing the quarter with 28 million global customers, said Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer on a Thursday investor call. “We're well on our way to our goal of 50 million to 60 million global subscribers by 2025, the vast majority of which will be high-value streaming subs,” he said. “Amazingly, in spite of the challenges” from COVID-19, Lionsgate is shooting 19 scripted television series and another 20 unscripted shows globally, and five feature films “have returned to production,” he said. Lionsgate’s fiscal Q4 ending is perhaps the first time “where all the players are kind of on the field right now,” except for Paramount+, said Starz CEO Jeff Hirsch when asked about streaming competition. The “big broad-based streaming services,” including Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu, “are trying to service everybody in the home,” he said. “That's where the real competition is going to be, and you're going to see people competing on ad spend, people competing on price and people competing on bundling.”

MVPDs in the COVID-19 pandemic era need to ramp up efforts to engage subscribers with new innovations and business models “or risk accelerating customer losses,” blogged Parks Associates analyst Kristen Hanich Wednesday. Three in five pay-TV households are interested in streaming movies and TV shows from an over-the-top video service as part of their subscription, Hanich said, and many providers are responding to demand: The number of customers receiving OTT services has jumped 50% in a year. Nearly 80% of pay-TV households have both pay-TV and OTT subscriptions, with the number of OTT services among households with any online video service averaging 3.8 subscriptions vs. 4.2 for pay-TV homes. Other findings: 43% of pay-TV households want video calls on their TV; 40% want to control smart home devices and security systems; and 34% are interested in playing video games on TV via a cloud gaming service. Pay-TV providers must keep offering their most valuable content, including live sports and cultural events, Hanich said. In addition to offering streaming channels, they need to target new services to customers and “be willing to take a hit on pricing until this chaotic market stabilizes.”

Charter Communications ended 2020 with 19,000 more video customers than it had a year earlier, and it expects to do better in its video trends this year than the MVPD industry overall, CEO Tom Rutledge said during an analyst call Friday as the company announced Q4 results. Rutledge said the growth was driven in part by its broadband connectivity growth. He said industry growth will continue to decline "at a moderate pace," while Charter "won't have quite the internet growth … we had in 2020." Charter ended 2020 with 15.6 million residential video subscribers. It also ended the year with 27 million residential broadband subs, up 2.1 million year over year; 9.2 million residential voice subs, down 228,000; and 2.3 million residential mobile subscriptions, up 1.2 million. Rutledge said this year should have a return to pre-pandemic trends in internet subscriber additions, plus a full recovery of the advertising business as the economy also fully rebounds. He said that during Q4, Charter's minimum broadband speed offering of 200 Mbps went from being available in about 60% of its footprint to 75%. Rutledge said the 210 citizens broadband radio service priority access licenses that Charter bought for $465 million will be used on targeted 5G small cells. He said that over the next four to five years, up to a third of Charter's traffic might end up on the CBRS spectrum. The stock closed down 7.2% at $607.56.

Viewers watched an estimated 2.3 billion minutes of Wonder Woman 1984 during its first two days of streaming availability, emailed Nielsen Friday, giving its first public release of viewership data for HBO Max content. Nielsen releases subscription VOD viewership data publicly on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Disney+. After Wonder Woman, top SVOD programs for the week of Dec. 21-27 were Disney+'s Soul at 1.7 billion minutes, The Office (192 episodes, Netflix) at 1.4 billion and Bridgerton (eight episodes, Netflix) at 1.2 billion.

Movie pricing for Kaleidescape’s new rental option (see 2101280046) is “generally around" $7.95 per title, “though premium VOD can be higher,” emailed CEO Tayloe Stansbury Thursday. “Of the 12,000 titles available in our movie store in the US, 8,000 are available for rental (5,500 available for rental in Canada).” Kaleidescape’s main rationale for offering the rental option was that “sometimes a customer is interested in a movie, but not enough to purchase a perpetual playback license,” he said. “They get the rental in the same high-bitrate format as a purchase, and if they love it and want to keep it, half the rental price is applied to purchase.” Most movies in the Kaleidescape store cost $15-$20 to buy, with some priced at $25 and $35. Rental viewing is for a 48-hour window, and the purchase option is available within 30 days of the rental transaction. PVOD movie titles “will sometimes be made available early for rental only,” and that was another rationale for the offering, he said.

The best on-demand streaming services are YouTube TV (for value), Hulu + Live TV (families), Netflix (original content), Hulu (newer content) and Sling TV (live TV budget pick), Reviews.org reported. Average monthly costs are $57.25 for internet, $50.17 for cellphone plans and $39.96 for streaming services. Canceling one $10 monthly streaming service adds up to saving $7,253 over a lifetime over 78.5 years.

Kaleidescape communicated to dealers this week a new movie rental option on its Strato devices for viewing feature films at the same full resolution as purchased titles, we learned. Once customers download a rental movie, Kaleidescape will give them 30 days to start watching it, with a 48-hour viewing window. A rented movie can be downloaded to only one home at a time and watched on only one player at a time, dealers were told. If a customer decides to buy the rented movie within 30 days of the rental transaction, half the rental price will be applied toward the purchase. Kaleidescape didn't comment.

Forty-three percent of U.S. broadband households with traditional pay TV are likely to switch to a virtual MVPD in the next 12 months, reported Parks Associates Thursday, reversing a trend of slowing growth. Before the pandemic affected streaming video consumption, vMVPD subscriber growth was “waning, with some vMVPDs posting continued losses,” said analyst Paul Erickson. Though COVID-19 drove growth “and in some cases recovery in the category, recent increases in vMVPD pricing make it uncertain how consumers will respond long term,” he said. The absence of live sports and performances challenged vMVPDs, but services like Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV successfully pushed advantages in pricing, content and platform flexibility, Parks said. Though traditional pay-TV operators have either deployed over-the-top services, or plan to, Parks expects vMVPDs to continue to grow “dramatically,” and gradually become “the dominant offering in the pay-TV landscape,” said Erickson. Some 17% of vMVPD subscribers switched from traditional pay TV within the past 12 months, said the analyst. VMVPDs should “remain conscious of consumer price sensitivity while keeping a strict adherence to a consumer-centric experience,” Erickson said.

Home entertainment content spending topped $30 billion in 2020, driven by the huge shift toward digital consumption amid COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, Redhill Group President Judith McCourt told a Digital Entertainment Group webinar Wednesday. Digital content spending jumped 32.6% to $26.53 billion, but physical media sales declined 25.6% to $2.45 billion, and content rentals fell 26.8% to $1.04 billion, she said. Streaming generated 80% of the digital spending in 2020, rising 37.2% to $21.22 billion, she said. Total 2020 home entertainment spending jumped 21% for the year, peaking at a 34% increase in Q2, when COVID-19 lockdowns began in full force, said McCourt. Spending increased 19% in Q1, 18% in Q3 and 16% in Q4, she said.