Category: Entertainment

The 10 most innovative companies in video

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In 2020, people’s reliance on video for communication and entertainment skyrocketed due to the pandemic. Companies from all areas of the spectrum—livestreaming, video communication, shopping, as well as TV and movie platforms—all found ways not only to exploit this growing demand, but lean into it in ways that improved its users quality of life in new and unexpected ways. 1. Apple For proving that the streaming race is a marathon not a sprint The company’s, $5.99-a-month streaming service, Apple TV Plus , was slow out of the gate when it launched in late 2019. But in 2020 it picked up speed, launching an aggressive, event film strategy with Greyhound , the Tom Hanks WWII film that it bought from Sony and turned into summer water-cooler chatter. On the TV side, the company got past its initial stage of shows with glossy sheens that didn’t ultimately deliver and moved into a much more satisfying era of truly original-feeling shows like Ted Lasso and the Israeli thriller Tehran . Strong word of mouth and critical acclaim for these and other titles helped the service reportedly grow to about 35 million subscribers and nab eight Emmy nominations. The streamer took home one for Billy Crudup’s performance in The Morning Show , the flagship series when Apple TV Plus launched, but now a footnote in the streamer’s well-stocked portfolio. 2. Tubi For giving viewers the Netflix experience for free In response to Black Lives Matter, Tubi created a vertical called United Against Inequality showcasing movies and TV shows from the free, ad-supported streaming service’s library of 23,000 titles. None of them were Tubi originals—there’s no such thing—but the move showed how Tubi cleverly curates content from its vast library in order to draw users, which now number 33 million. In 2020 the company was acquired by Fox Corp. for $440 million, giving Tubi access to yet more content and ammunition with advertisers. This combined fire power, along with Tubi’s new, Advanced Frequency Management tool, which lessens ad repetition and improves frequency management of commercials, solved one of the biggest problems with ad-supported streaming and has helped make Tubi the streaming service you most need. Read More …

Why Disney wants $30 for ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ when ‘Soul’ was free

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Disney fans who spent the Christmas holiday streaming the Pixar feature Soul for their kids via Disney Plus may be a little confused this weekend. Disney Animation’s latest film, Raya and the Last Dragon , which is out March 5 and is about a Southeast Asian warrior princess on a quest to find a dragon that will unite her people, will also be on Disney Plus, but subscribers will have to pay an additional $30 to see it, at least right now. This summer, the film will be available to all Disney Plus subscribers for free. There’s one additional wrinkle: Raya is also being released in theaters. Well, some of them. Cinemark, the third-biggest movie theater chain in the United States is refusing to show the film, reportedly because Disney’s financial terms were too onerous for a movie that is also being released on streaming.   Consumer whiplash? Just a tad. This is a phenomenon that points to how entertainment conglomerates are still very much in experimentation mode when it comes to settling the streaming vs. theatrical debate, particularly when it comes to kids’ films. It also underlines just how many kinks still have not been worked out (i.e., with theater chains). For a sense of how chaotic and unresolved it all is—and how there is truly no single, settled-upon formula—consider that on March 4, Paramount released The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run exclusively on its new streaming platform, Paramount Plus, as well on premium video-on-demand rental platforms for $19.99 . A week earlier, Warner Bros. released Tom & Jerry both in theaters and on HBO Max (at no extra charge).   According to Paul Dergarabedian , senior media analyst for Comscore, this is the new world order wrought by the pandemic that has wreaked havoc on the theater exhibition business. “‘Are you going to go streaming or theatrical?’ That used to be the question, and there were two answers,” he says. “Now there are 10, 15 answers and permutations of how you can release a movie.”   Raya ‘s rollout mirrors Disney’s release of the live-action Mulan last summer, an approach that confused consumers—as well as generated ire . Thirty bucks when subscribers were already paying $7 a month for Disney Plus Read More …

T-Mobile wants your employer to give you home-office wireless broadband

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T-Mobile’s latest sales pitch might as well show up wearing a suit and slippers. On Thursday, the nation’s third-biggest wireless carrier announced a bundle of services for business and government customers that have been forced by the pandemic to pivot to work-from-home workforces. Called WFX Solutions , the new package combines a suite of calling and collaboration tools, business smartphone plans with generous mobile-hot spot data allocations, and a home internet service built on T-Mobile’s 4G and 5G networks Read More …

Why Paramount Plus is betting on sports to get you to subscribe to another streaming service

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Up until now in the streaming wars, live sports were something of a tantalizing appetizer. Mouthwatering and exciting, sure, but not the real reason you signed up. It was great that, say, Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming offering, was set to stream the Olympics last summer (they were postponed because of COVID-19), but fans were primarily interested in bingeing shows such as 30 Rock and The Office . And Netflix, of course, has been emphatic that it has no plans to stream live sports. Even pure sports streaming apps such as ESPN Plus have largely been sold as “complementary” and “additive” services to their linear siblings. There are a couple of reasons for this: One, viewers—and advertising dollars—still flow to traditional broadcast and cable networks, particularly for spectacles such as the Super Bowl, major college football games, and the NBA playoffs. Two, the rights for the most attractive sports content are still tied up with legacy networks, and for the last several years, at least, there’s been some uncertainty that the economics of streaming premium sporting events makes sense. Into this environment comes Paramount Plus , Viacom’s new entry into the streaming playoffs, which launches March 4 and costs $10 a month. (An ad-supported version is set to launch in June for $5 a month). Paramount Plus is seeking to flip the logic that’s put sports on the streaming sidelines. Rather than selling itself primarily as the home of Nickelodeon kids’ shows and big Hollywood movie franchises such as Mission: Impossible —it has those, too—when Viacom laid out its streaming plans last week, it led with a sports pitch. “Paramount Plus will be the leader in live sports,” CBS Entertainment Group head George Cheeks said bluntly. “Bottom line, everything sports fans love on CBS . . . all of this will be available on Paramount Plus.” That means live soccer: Paramount Plus is the exclusive home of UEFA soccer in the U.S., which includes the Champions League and Europa League, and it will air National Women’s Soccer League matches. Read More …