AVIA OTT NEWSLETTER

Warner Bros. Discovery has halted plans to launch a $10 paywall for its B/R Sports tier, while also pulling sports and news content from the Max ad tier starting March 30.

South Korean VOD market hits $2 billion as Netflix maintains lead with 35% share, Tving surges to 34%, and Coupang Play rises to third.

Speaking at MIP London today with media cartographer Evan Shapiro, Justin Sampson, chief executive of U.K. ratings service Barb, discussed trends in viewership and engagement across platforms, highlighting an expanded initiative to track YouTube viewing on the television set.

Research by Ampere Analysis shows that among 18- 64-year-old Internet users, Smart TVs are now the predominant device for consuming content in the US.

Streamers will account for a fifth of global sports rights spend in 2025 according to Ampere Analysis sports media rights data.

The bosses at JioHotstar, the new brand name for the combined JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar service, talk challenges on day one of business.

Kantar, the marketing data and analytics company, reveals a growing consumer preference for ad-supported streaming, robust momentum for Apple TV+, increasing investment in sports content and Netflix’s continued strength in delivering engaging entertainment in its Q4 Entertainment on Demand (EoD) data on the global streaming market.

YouTube, the internet’s biggest streaming video platform, delivered a healthy 13.8% increase in global ad revenue for the year-end 2024 quarter to surpass $10 billion for the first time.

Consumers between the ages of 13 and 24 spend about 21 percent of their screen time on non-premium online video, namely YouTube and TikTok, with just 16 percent on traditional TV content, according to Hub Entertainment Research’s annual Video Redefined survey.

Parks Associates’ latest research from its Video Services Consumer Insights Dashboard reports that 56 million (46 per cent) of US internet households are cord cutters, which highlights the dominance of streaming video services.

Hritzuk’s research unearthed through a mix of survey and first-party data work what she describes as a an “extremely strong relationship” connecting users who who viewed social-video content related to a specific TV show or movie and viewing of full-length of TV episodes or movies.

Broadcast networks and global streaming platforms are actively collaborating, marking a shift from the past when domestic broadcasters exclusively provided content to their own platforms with little interaction with international services.

The Gauge report for December measured record usage for YouTube, Netflix and Prime Video.

New findings show the Disney-Max streaming bundle launched in 2024 could be "a game-changer" in the competition with Netflix, a top research firm says.

Warner Bros. Discovery‘s linear networks continued to lose ground amid ongoing challenges, weighing on the fourth quarter. But the company beat on other metrics and streaming added 6.4 million subscribers, pushing Max total subs to 116.9 million, and the division saw a profit. The TV studio and library continued to shine.

Magnite, the independent sell-side advertising company, has unveiled the results of its latest study, Why Streaming TV Is a Must-Buy, which highlights how UK audiences engage with streaming TV and the effectiveness of ads within premium content environments.

Gracenote, the content data business unit of Nielsen, has reported that five of the top SVoD services globally – Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Paramount+ and Netflix – have significantly grown their sports programming over the last quarter.

By 2027, Netflix will be the third-largest ad-supported streaming service in Australia, generating more than A$150 million ($94 million) in ad revenues in the market that year, according to Ampere Analysis.

Forecasts from Ampere Analysis predict that global content spend will increase by just 0.4 per cent year-on-year to reach $248 billion (€239.7bn) in 2025.

Roku overdelivered for the fourth quarter of 2024, boosting revenue 22% and narrowing its net loss to beat Wall Street expectations.

CEO Lachlan Murdoch unveiled plans for a direct-to-consumer streamer to be launched by the end of the year to target consumers no longer embracing the traditional cable bundle.

Barb, the UK organisation that compiles audience measurement and television ratings, has released data from its Establishment Survey showing that 20 million UK homes (68.3 per cent) had access to an SVoD service in Q4 2024.

With a greater number of lower-cost ad-supported TV sources available, TV viewers’ resistance to ads continues to wane.

Amazon's Prime Video has shifted its strategic focus towards live sports and away from original television shows and movies, seeking to meet internal corporate profit targets, The Information reported.

Disney says its streaming platforms collectively drew an average of 157 monthly global users, 112 million of them domestic, over the past six months.