Peacock grows its paid subscriber base to 15 million.
Peacock added more over 2 million paid subscribers in the third quarter, bringing the total to over 15 million, according to information provided by NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell in an interview with CNBC. The latest expansion demonstrates that the streaming service is on the mend following its slump at the end of the second quarter, when Peacock halted at 13 million paid subscribers.
Shell asserted that a strong content selection, which included NBC next-day episodes that Peacock recaptured from Hulu, was to blame for the increase in subscribers.
Shell added that Disney will, as anticipated, purchase Comcast’s 33% ownership in Hulu. “It appears that [Disney] will purchase it… It’s a great asset,” he declared. “If it were placed up for auction, it would sell for a lot of money; it would be a pretty robust auction. We’d want to participate in the auction… that’s not what we anticipate happening.”
Once Comcast sells its investment in Hulu, the firm will lose a significant asset. Hulu, Peacock’s main rival, has 46.2 million customers, leaving Peacock in the dust. Click here to read more.
Cinedigm Adds FAST Channel ‘RetroCrush’ to Sling TV Platform.
Cinedigm announced the launch of RetroCrush, one of its free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels on Dish-owned Sling TV. With this agreement, Sling and Cinedigm will now offer 14 additional channels to their customers for free without the need for a credit card or other kind of payment.
The website RetroCrush, which targets enthusiastic and fervent anime fans, is devoted to the Golden Age of the medium. The portal presently has more than 100 series and 40 features, offering a vast selection of vintage anime TV shows and motion pictures.
Cinedigm channels on Sling include Bloody Disgusting TV, The Bob Ross Channel, offering “The Joy of Painting”, Comedy Dynamics, go-to stand-up comedy destination, Realmadrid TV, dedicated to the Spanish soccer team, family-themed Dove Channel, pop culture powerhouse CONtv, documentary destination Docurama, as well as The Only Way is Essex, MyTime TV, The Elvis Presley Channel, So…Real, Film Detective and Lonestar.
According to John Stack, senior director of Cinedigm Business Development, “the expansion of our partnership with Sling embraces [our] mission to bring its channels to the widest enthusiast audiences possible.” Click here to read more.
MLB Expands Partnership With Google Cloud To Further Personalization Strategy.
In order to provide more real-time and individualized media products and experiences for worldwide fans, Major League Baseball has extended and renewed its strategic agreement with Google Cloud.
In March 2020, Google Cloud replaced AWS as MLB’s cloud supplier, supporting the organization’s commercial operations, fan-facing Film Room, and Statcast, the league’s tracking system. MLB will now use more technologies and solutions to improve and secure the production and delivery of live and on-demand video. MLB.TV, the league’s streaming service, will test the Media CDN (content delivery network) from Google Cloud in order to provide more immersive experiences utilizing the same infrastructure as YouTube.
MLB’s fan engagement plan explicitly emphasises personalization, and to do this, it will increasingly leverage Google Cloud’s artificial intelligence and machine learning to categorize and store the sport’s massive video archive and provide viewers with more relevant suggestions. Along with MLB, Google will revamp the streaming supply chain for improved latency and speed. Click here to read more.
FAST channel with a Halloween theme launches on Samsung TV Plus.
Samsung TV Plus, the company’s free ad-supported TV (FAST) service, continues to expand the channels it offers. In preparation for everyone’s favorite spooky holiday, the TV manufacturer is this week adding six new channels to its free service, including one with a Halloween movie theme.
Throughout the Spooky Season, the Halloween Movies channel will continuously show spooky, spine-tingling movies. The list will feature various Halloween-themed movies, such as “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist,” and “Exorcist III.”
Additionally new to Samsung TV Plus are the American drag racing network NHRA TV, the western-focused Grit XTRA, and ION Mystery, which focuses on procedural crime dramas like the “NCIS” and “CSI” series. Also new to Samsung TV Plus this month are three Weather Nation local news channels, providing viewers with access to local news as well as live and breaking weather updates. WN Charlotte, WN Portland, and WN St. Louis are those channels.
With the addition, Samsung TV Plus now has more than 220 channels. Currently accessible in 24 nations worldwide, the service connects to more than 465 million devices, including mobile phones and smart TVs.
In the past few months, Samsung has significantly expanded its FAST service. In August, Samsung announced the relaunch of Samsung TV Plus, and since then, the company has taken significant steps to improve the offering. Click here to read more.
``Always On`` YouTube Measurement Enabled in Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings.
YouTube video ad campaigns will now be measured by Nielsen’s “always on” Digital Ad Ratings (DAR). By extending Nielsen’s coverage of YouTube and YouTube TV in DAR, this release will give advertisers and agencies the information they need to more effectively measure reach, control frequency, and demonstrate the effectiveness of media buys across desktop, mobile, and linked TV (CTV). Because it increases visibility into a campaign’s effectiveness and uses data to inform more effective media plans, Nielsen’s “always on” measurement is essential for advertisers and publishers who want to maximize their return on investment.
It has been difficult for advertisers and publishers to deliver the appropriate advertisement to the appropriate audience. In a media landscape that is becoming more dynamic and fragmented, marketers and publishers need more thorough data to confirm that ads are reaching the target audience and to make more informed decisions for upcoming campaigns.
By removing the need for marketers and agencies to manually tag or enable campaigns, YouTube’s continuous, “always on” measurement streamlines the measurement of marketing campaigns. The capacity to send advertising to target audiences, understand reach and frequency management, and better understand the audience that views the advertisement will all improve for marketers who enable “always on” DAR.
In order to better assess performance metrics across all ad campaigns, Nielsen will now let U.S. advertisers and agencies to access “always on” Digital Ad Ratings YouTube measurement across platforms. Click here to read more.
