Lizzo and Amazon Studios have signed a deal that gives the company an exclusive first look at the star's projects. They jointly announced the agreement at the Aug. 6 virtual Amazon session of CTAM's press tour.
ViacomCBS reported that its second-quarter revenue was down 12% to $6.275 billion, thanks to the pandemic-ravaged advertising market. But the company was bullish in regard to subscription streaming, touting a 52% year-over-year increase in paid OTT revenue, and a 75% uptick in SVOD subscribers, reaching 16.2 million, as it finally revealed some of its plans to the reboot its five-year-old CBS All Access SVOD platform.
Bilingual journalists for Noticias Telemundo and NBC News will collaborate on stories serving the Latino community. Subjects will include the upcoming elections and coronavirus developments.
Cable One has acquired stakes in two providers of fixed wireless internet, buying 40% of Illinois' Wisper ISP and no more than 10% of Texas' Nextlink Internet. Nathan Stooke still holds the most Wisper stock, while Bill Baker remains majority owner and CEO of Nextlink.
Comcast's NBCUniversal plans to split its entertainment sector into creative and business divisions, and has named Frances Berwick to lead negotiation and strategy. Matt Strauss will handle the direct-to-consumer aspects of NBCU and the company will name a new content chief.
The Federal Communications Commission has approved the procedure for the auction of C-band capacity that starts Dec. 8. Partial economic areas will form the organizational basis for the 5,684 licenses that the FCC is selling.
Smart TVs are becoming more popular than streaming boxes, sticks and dongles as the primary mechanisms for enjoying connected TV in the American home. Citing Parks Associates data, subscription digital publication The Information noted that smart TV adoption is up to 54% in the U.S. vs. 47% a year ago. Meanwhile, U.S. adoption of HDMI-connected streaming devices from brands like Roku, Amazon and Apple has only reached around 42%.
TikTok launched an app on Fire TV yesterday, marking the first time the popular social streaming platform is available on a connected-TV device. The launch of "More on TikTok" comes as President Trump signed an executive order that will ban the social media app in 45 days, unless its Chinese-owned parent ByteDance sells the company to an American-owned company.
Wall Street is going to have to wait a little longer for Discovery to provide details of its plans for a direct-to-consumer product. On the company's earnings call yesterday, CEO David Zaslav said that if Disney Plus and other recent DTC plays by media companies were sports cars, Discovery would be rolling out an SUV. But he was short on details.
Paul Telegdy, chairman of NBC Entertainment, is leaving the company following allegations of racist, sexist and homophobic behavior. The move comes as the company announced a new streamlined structure for its TV and streaming businesses.