TiVo said Thursday Google expanded its multiyear patent license “to expressly include YouTube TV.” The agreement covers Google’s use of TiVo’s patented technologies worldwide and offers a license for Google’s products and services across internet-based platforms and devices, it said.
Roku announced Ad Insights Wednesday, a way for marketers to measure campaign reach and effectiveness on linear and over-the-top content. The tools help brands analyze the engagement of TV audiences as they “rapidly shift” viewing to streaming, Roku said. Insights are derived from Roku’s first-party data, along with linear and streaming viewership habits of millions of active accounts and billions of streaming hours, said the company, citing a time of “significant linear viewership decline.” Traditional pay-TV providers -- cable, satellite and telephone companies -- lost 1.7 million subscribers in 2016, it said, citing MoffettNathanson figures, “and the pace is accelerating with more than 2.6 million cutting the cord through September 2017.” The new Roku ad offering includes ways to quantify campaign reach by demographic segments across linear TV, OTT, desktop and mobile; a way for TV networks and content owners to measure effectiveness of content promotions they run on various media; a way for marketers to target and measure campaigns delivered to Roku users who don’t have traditional pay-TV subscriptions; and real-time feedback from short on-device surveys.
Content companies, including the content arms of Netflix and Amazon, are suing the Dragon Box streaming media device for copyright infringement, The docket 18-CV-230 complaint (in Pacer) filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles alleges Dragon Box deliberately provides customers with a customized configuration Kodi media player software that allows for pirating content. Plaintiffs in the suit are Netflix Studios, Amazon Content Services, Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Universal City Studios and Warner Brothers Entertainment. Also named as defendants are Californians Jeff Williams, a Dragon Box reseller, and Paul Christoforo, president of Dragon Media, doing business as Dragon Box. Dragon Box didn't comment Thursday.
Beyond the major over-the-top players based in the U.S., several international operations also have designs on customers beyond their borders, CreaTV Media Chairman Peter Csathy blogged Tuesday. "Multiple mega-companies" are vying to be the Netflix of China, he said, with Baidu's iQiyi planning its own original content strategy, plus Alibaba's Youku Tudou, Tencent and Wanda Cinemas' Line's Mtime in operation. Csathy said Bison Group's majority stake in U.S.-based OTT platform Cinedigm was aimed not only at Chinese viewers but also at bringing Chinese content to U.S. audiences. But Csathy said the lesson of LeEco -- which in 2016 was proclaiming itself the Netflix of China, only to scuttle its buy of Vizio and its plans for the U.S. OTT market -- is that effectively launching and monetizing digital-first video services is increasingly challenging given the competition, and internationalizing a customer base is even more difficult. Csathy said partnerships are proving key to accessing foreign markets, with examples ranging from Hooq -- a Singtel/Sony/Warner Brothers joint venture -- and iflix, backed by Hearst, Liberty Global and Sky and with access to flagship Disney content. He said Netflix and Amazon Prime have significant presence in Europe, but they face growing competition ranging from Sky to a joint venture between Discovery Communications and German media company ProSiebenSat.1.
Netflix and producer Mandalay Entertainment are denying they stole the two-volume Burning Sands book series for creation of the 2017 Netflix original film of the same name. In a pair of docket 17-cv-03212 answers posted Tuesday (see here and here, in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, the companies said the film was created independently of, and not copied from, books by plaintiff Al Quarles of Pennsylvania. They also said to the extent Quarles' books relied on facts, ideas, cliches and conventions of storytelling, his claims lack copyright protection. Quarles, in his 2017 copyright infringement suit (in Pacer), said his books are novels not based on real-life events or characters and alleged more than 100 instances of what he said was substantial similarity between the film and the books.
The average video viewer is watching 4.4 hours a day, plus spending another 28 minutes searching for content to watch, TiVo said Tuesday. Its online survey of 8,500 pay-TV and over-the-top subscribers in the U.S., U.K, France, Germany, Brazil, Mexico and Colombia also found about 90 percent of households are paying for traditional pay-TV service, while 60 percent also subscribe to an OTT service. In the U.S., more than 75 percent of video consumption still takes place on TVs, while in Latin America 50 percent of viewing takes place on some other digital device, it said.
Amazon Music is available on BluOS-enabled devices in Lenbrook’s Bluesound and NAD brands, said Lenbrook in a Monday CES announcement. In addition to the U.S., customers in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Spain can stream Amazon Music Unlimited and Prime Music, said the audio company. Customers have to upgrade to software version 2.14.2 or higher and download the latest BluOS apps, it said. The new app also allows customers to create a Pulse 4.1 wireless home theater system with Dolby Digital surround sound by linking the company’s Pulse sound bar and subwoofer with a pair of Pulse Flex speakers as wireless surround speakers.
Vine’s "cavalier attitude" toward unpaid creators drove them to competing platforms, which lead to the end of the video sharing service, nScreenMedia analyst Lloyd Dixon blogged Sunday. Vine's initial simplicity -- featuring six-second video clips -- became a limitation in the face of growing competition, it said, saying Snapchat and Facebook became more adept than Vine at providing routes for advertisers to reach users. With Vine shutting down in January 2017, most of its creators have moved to YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram, nScreenMedia said, adding "only time will tell" if those services have learned from Vine's mistakes.
CBS All Access streaming service now is available through Amazon Prime. The broadcaster said Friday it's the first Amazon Channels offering that includes a linear feed of subscribers' local stations alongside VOD.
A+E Networks content will be available via Verizon, including on Yahoo and AOL, under a carriage renewal deal Verizon announced Wednesday. It said the agreement includes first-window rights for content from A+E Networks digital entity 45th & Dean as well as continued carriage of A+E content on Fios.