Two new job listings have hinted that Amazon will be the next commercial Internet video service to produce some of its own content. Its studio division is hiring for the People's Production Company to create comedies and children's shows. Unlike its counterparts, though, it would be developing for traditional formats as well.
New Nielsen data about TV viewing habits has shown that cord-cutters, or those who drop paid TV in favor of Internet viewing, are often decreasing their viewing habits as a whole. Someone who has broadband but only watches traditional TV over the air watches less than half that of a regular cable subscriber, at nearly 123 minutes a day on average instead of 257, but still uses it much more than Internet streaming. These viewers typically saw no more than 11.2 minutes a day of streaming video, which was over double the five minutes of a cable subscriber but far from a direct substitute.
Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman hinted in a discussion of fiscal results that his company was about to sign a significant digital content deal. The agreement was cast as for an online, subscription-based video on demand service and could be made public next week, The Hollywood Reporter understood. Which service, and what content, weren't divulged.
Hulu chief Jason Kilar used careful language in an interview at the D: Dive Into Media conference when discussing major content deals. He wouldn't confirm or deny any talks to bring Hulu Plus to the Apple TV. The executive was aware it was a potentially loaded question and denied it twice when pressed.
Netflix saw the fuller consequences of its more controversial decisions on Wednesday with results from the fall. The company added more streaming customers than it expected, 220,000, but the "continued impact" of its price hike for those keeping DVDs and streaming led to it shedding 2.76 million disc subscriptions. These, along with the costs of expansion outside of the US, dragged Netflix's profit down 13 percent year over year to $41 million.
TiVo posted a much-requested update for its Premiere-series DVRs mid-week that answered a number of complaints while adding upsides of its own. The 20.2 upgrade speeds up the interface to touch on a common lag problem and brings the Grid and Live Guides into HD for the first time. Those who have more than one TiVo now have the luxury of streaming a show recorded on one TiVo to another on the same network instead of having to transfer it completely.
Hulu followed in Netflix's footsteps Sunday by launching its first fictional, original TV series. Battleground covers a fictional political campaign in Wisconsin and is produced by JD Walsh, 500 Days of Summer's Marc Webb, and Hagai Shaham. It should be followed up by more documentaries, including a second season of Morgan Spurlock's A Day in the Life and Richard Linklater's new Up to Speed.
Motorola Mobility has reportedly moved to acquire SetJam, a startup that compiles data from a variety of streaming video services. The company offers a "data integrity engine" that indexes TV shows and movie listings from sources such as Hulu, Netflix, Amazon and iTunes. The system automatically determines the number of specific episodes available from each source.
A new Citi Investment Research study from analyst Mike Mahaney points to Netflix still increasing its share of Internet movie and TV viewing. Between May and December, Netflix's share of those watching movies on TV grew from 20 to 27 percent. Most of that came at the expense of Hulu, which was down from 19 percent to 15.
Since September, Yahoo has been searching for potential buyers for itself. Although there have been many potential suitors, with no apparent deal close at hand, the company is now refocusing itself on permanently filling the CEO slot, which has been vacant since Carol Bartz was fired abruptly three months ago. All Things D, citing its sources, claims that Yahoo's board is looking at Hulu's CEO Jason Kilar.
Streaming and video-on-demand on game consoles has seen a sharp increase over the past year, media researcher Nielsen revealed after performing a study in October. Users now spend 14 percent of their time on the Xbox 360, 15 percent on the PS3, and 33 percent on the Wii watching videos from services such as Netflix, Hulu, MLB Network, and ESPN3.
Hulu has just introduced a new feature for its streaming video service called Face Match. As the name suggests, it will have the ability to identify actors just by their face from clips and return more information about them. The feature requires users to just hover the mouse cursor over a character's face once the Hulu Face Match Engine is turned on.
The US Congress late Tuesday passed a modification to a law that would help get over blocks preventing Facebook integration with Hulu and Netflix. A change to the Video Privacy Protection Act backed by Virginia Congressman Bob Goodlatte would let users share their video habits online. Until now, the law required written consent, criminalizing attempts to share history or other more detailed content.
Microsoft is about to launch its Xbox 360 fall Dashboard update, and we've had the opportunity to use it early on our own system ahead of when it goes live December 6. The update is Microsoft's second major revamp in the Xbox 360's history and is geared around turning the Xbox 360 into a media hub. Read on for hands-on time and why it may be the definitive answer to the Apple TV.
In sync with the fall Xbox 360 Dashboard update, Microsoft has provided a listing of TV providers that will be ready to go this week. Along with existing access to ESPN, Hulu, and Netflix, the December 6 update will also bring EPIX authenticated video in the US, Lovefilm in the UK, MediaSet's Premium Play in Italy, Sky Go in Austria and Germany, Telefonica Espaņa's Movistar Imagenio, and MSNBC's Today in the US.
Software giant Microsoft has purchased VideoSurf, a company that developed a way to search for video clips online. The deal is believed to be worth tens of millions of dollars, though the exact number isn't revealed. VideoSurf did raise $28 million from former US President Al Gore, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Verizon Investment Fund, Pitango Venture Capital, Orbotech, founder Hanan Gilutz, and SurveyMonkey CEO David Goldberg.
Microsoft kicked off the tenth anniversary of the Xbox with a celebration page and bonuses. Everyone gets access to a free avatar prop for Xbox Live that provides a gift box that opens to reveal fireworks. Some downloadable games will also be on sale as part of the anniversary.
Tablet owners, and more specifically iPad owners, are much more likely to be engrossed in watching video, a new Ooyala study uncovered. On average, they watched one minute and 17 seconds of video for every minute of viewing on the desktop, or more than a quarter of viewer. They were also more than twice as likely to reach the end of a video; only 30 percent of desktop viewers even passed a quarter of the clip.
Amazon revealed on Friday that the Kindle Fire will have access to both Hulu Plus and ESPN when it launches, putting it over the Nook Tablet. During the initial app announcement, the movie and TV show streaming service wasn't mentioned, though other premium services such as Netflix and games from EA and Zynga were. This now gives the Fire the edge over the Nook, as Amazon has its own video and music store, while Barnes & Noble doesn't.
Barnes & Noble at its special event confirmed the rumored launch of the Nook Tablet. The seven-inch sequel to the Nook Color is now much more of a media tablet with a dual-core processor and a doubled 1GB of RAM. The speed upgrade lets the Android 2.3 device handle 1080p video along with new Hulu Plus and Netflix apps and newer games.
CBS chief Les Moonves may have inadvertently confirmed Apple's negotiations for a streaming TV service during the company's fiscal results call. He claimed that CBS had turned down a deal for a service because it would have split ad revenues. The executive didn't give details of what the service would have involved.
Barnes & Noble is planning to drop its claims of focusing only on reading and attack the tablet market more directly, a slew of leaks confirmed to Android Central late Thursday. Its November 7 event will see it roll out the Nook Tablet, the rumored high-end model. Although it will still have the Nook Color's heavily customized Android interface, it will carry a much faster dual-core, 1.2GHz TI OMAP processor with 1GB of RAM, similar to Motorola's Xoom 2, and 16GB of storage with a microSDHC slot.
An unverified rumor maintains that Hulu Plus has a largely complete app waiting to be upgraded into the Apple TV. The TV streaming service has supposedly been ready for "at least a month" but has supposedly been on hold for competitive reasons, 9to5 heard. While Netflix is considered acceptable both out of sheer demand and its emphasis on older shows, Hulu Plus focuses mostly on new content and might cut into iTunes.
Disney and its ABC division on Monday recommitted themselves to Internet video Monday with separate deals for Amazon Instant Video and Netflix. Both deals give it access to all prior seasons of both active and recently ended shows as well as back catalog access. Amazon's deal gives it both access to on-demand Instant Video as well as unlimited access for Prime subscribers.
Online TV and movie service Hulu has just secured a five-year deal with The CW for rights to stream its in-season episodes. The CW is a joint venture between CBS and Warner Bros. Under the deal, the five most recent episodes of each show will be available to Hulu Plus subscribers the next day after broadcast. Those who use the free, ad-supported Hulu service can watch the same five episodes eight days after they originally air on The CW.
Netflix faced a tough end of the year after tough results and a more difficult fall. It lost 800,000 subscribers in the US over a combination of its price hikes for those who want to both stream and watch DVDs as well as the flip-flop on Qwikster. It ended up with 23.79 million total US customers, lower than the 24.5 million most market watchers had predicted.
Viacom on Tuesday tried to have a New York City Second Court of Appeals overturn a dismissal of its YouTube lawsuit. The media giant didn't believe that the basic principles of safe harbor applied to Google's video site and that it should be held liable for any illegally copied video that reaches YouTube, no matter how difficult it was to detect. Attorney Paul Smith portrayed the upheld ruling as having disastrous consequences for the entire media industry, as it would lead to "vast exploitation" of content online.
With yesterday's report that Hulu is no longer for sale, a new report from SAI sources suggests it's still considering a sale to Google. Google did make the largest bid for the streaming service, though it also wanted concessions that Hulu wasn't willing to make. Google's bid, at about $4 billion, was more than twice as big as Dish Network's $2 billion.
Hulu in a brief note said it had decided to stop its attempted selloff. The statement, which had the support of Disney, investor Providence Equity Partners, and Fox's parent company News Corp., claimed that each of the owners though there was too much of a "unique and compelling strategic value" for each of them to sell. It would instead center on existing plans.
Roku hoped to lower the price floor for networked media hubs Tuesday with the Roku LT. By shedding the Ethernet, SD card slot, and Bluetooth used for the Roku 2's gaming on many models, the box drops to just $50, or half the price of an Apple TV. It can still output 720p video streamed over Wi-Fi and has all the channels of regular Roku players, such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, and Pandora radio.
Yahoo is reportedly out of the increasingly uncertain bidding process for Hulu, a claimed leak said late Sunday. The search engine has allegedly been identified by the WSJ sources as the original mystery bidder but also to have exited entirely. The internal turmoil following Carol Bartz' firing and the possibility of a sell-off were attributed to the departure.
Western Digital on Tuesday brought out its next-generation WD TV Live media box and companion WD TV Live Hub. The new version has a revamped, tray-based interface and now has Spotify music. Listeners with a Spotify Premium account can stream at the full 320Kbps with support for making playlists, sharing, and getting access to others' content through profiles and the song inbox.
Miramax chief Mike Lang explained to those at the MIPCOM media conference Wednesday night that his studio was trying to prevent Apple from repeating its effect in music on the movie industry. He saw the iTunes operator as having walked in on a digital music business with poor competition and taking a control that persists to this day. With so much influence, he said, labels couldn't set the agenda and showed what could happen if movie studios didn't act faster.
Microsoft's Xbox 360 live TV option is being unveiled on Wednesday, a late-breaking scoop identified. As expected, providers like Comcast and Verizon will let users pipe video directly to the Xbox, either from the cable itself or through the Internet, AllThingsD found. Viewers will have to authenticate like they do for HBO Go or other cable-owned services, though, as legacy carriers try to shelter themselves from cord-cutting.
Earlier rumors of Hulu going back on its decision to sell itself off are proving true, two sources have told SAI. The bids, while they are still rolling in, aren't as high as initially hoped. Hulu's parent companies are reportedly looking for $2 billion for the online service.
US cable and satellite providers signaled Tuesday that they wanted to unbundle their channel packages to stave off the incursion of Internet video and a tough economy. DirecTV, Mediacom, Suddenlink, and others are pushing the FCC and others to alter retransmission fee systems and let them sell access by the channel so that they can lower the actual cost of selling TV services. At costs as high as $4 per month just for ESPN and now with normally free-to-air networks charging for access, they argued to Reuters and others that they were forced to charge high prices.
Two members of the US Congress have asked the FTC to investigate the use of "supercookies" by several online sites including MSN and Hulu. In a letter to FTC chairman, Jon Liebowitz, Republican Joe Barton and Democrat Ed Markey, expressed concern that the use of these tracking tools might be an unfair or deceptive act or practice under the Federal Trade Commission Act, which empowers the FTC.
Sources say that Dish Network is the frontrunner in the bid to buy Hulu, beating out Google, Amazon, and Yahoo. Its offer is reportedly in the range $1.9 billion. Other bidders may have been put off by Hulu's plans to move away from its free, ad-supported model or the lack of certainty about the availability of content. For instance Google's bid was in the $4 billion range according to sources, but came with the demand that the networks continue to provide programming after their current contracts expire in a few years.
Facebook continued its string of news at f8 by detailing its media sharing. Part of a new system of verbs that replace the generic Like, it focuses most on music: users can spot someone listening to a song in the live ticker and start listening to the same track. Services will still need to launch the separate app if it exists, but the method will let anyone listen to similar content if it exists in a subscription service.
Hulu has reportedly signed up more than a million customers willing to pay for the company's $8/month subscription. CEO Jason Kilar is said to have made a prediction early this year that Hulu Plus would fetch 1 million subscribers before the end of the year, however the executive has confirmed that the goal was reached before the end of the summer.
Hulu has continued to slowly expand the list of Android devices supported by the company's Hulu Plus app. The latest release adds support for a variety of smartphones, including HTC's Incredible 2, EVO 3D and Sensation; Motorola's Droid 3, Bionic and X2; and LG's Revolution and G2X. Aside from the handsets, the app can also be accessed from HTC's Flyer tablet.
Netflix hoped to contain a potentially damaging situation Wednesday with a response to a claim that it was limiting Internet video streams. After it accidentally sent out a policy that would have limited the number of streams depending on the plan, the company in a statement quickly said this cap didn't exist. "No Netflix member is limited to less than two" simultaneous streams, communications VP Steve Swasey said.
Google's bid for Hulu may involve a much more elaborate prospect than anyone else, insiders gave out Tuesday. Amazon, Dish, and Yahoo are all offering conventional bids of up to $2 billion, but Google is now thought to have said "there's enough money" for a much more involved deal. Tips to AllThingsD didn't identify what the intentions were, but the amount was enough that Hulu would have normally thrown it out were it not for the cash involved.
Dish Network is planning a big push into direct competition with Apple, Netflix, and other big Internet video services through its acquisitions, two leaks showed Friday. One scoop had it one of just three companies clearing the
In addition to expanding to Japan, Hulu has released an updated Hulu Plus iOS app for the US. Of special interest is the return of HDMI output support for the iPad 2. The option was blocked in April, little more than a month after the launch of the iPad 2 itself.
Hulu on cue has launched Hulu Plus for Japan. The country is the first outside of the US to get Hulu and gives it a very different business model. Plus is the only option in the country and costs the equivalent of $19 per month, almost twice as much as the $8 it does in the US.
Brief remarks in an overview of Tim Cook's new position as Apple CEO have hinted that Apple is developing a new approach to TV. The company was cryptically described as making a "new technology to deliver video to televisions." What that entailed wasn't elaborated by the WSJ source.
Korean phone giant SK Telecom quickly dismissed rumors that it would bid on Hulu. Being unusually direct, a spokeswoman said her company was aware of Hulu's self sale but that its managers "do not plan to participate" in the bidding process. A rumor earlier claimed SK Telecom was looking once more at a US company as a way of reducing its dependence on cellphones and its native country.
Hulu has reportedly reconfigured its streaming video service to block access attempts from HP's TouchPad tablet. Although the tablet was discontinued less than two months after it first reached US customers, sales have reportedly maintained a fast pace after HP decided to slash prices for the 16GB variant from $500 down to just $100.
South Korean wireless provider SK Telecom is expected to join the Hulu bidding with its own offer later this week, a source told SAI. It will be one of a few, though the others haven't been named. Hulu sent out a letter to all interested parties, asking them to send a non-binding expression of interest that includes what their bid range is once they do their due diligence of the company's finances, the source said.
