Newest

1. Apr 16•StockTitan: Gray Media Turns Local TV into a Single Streaming Stack

   Gray Media deployed a new cloud-native streaming platform across its 113 legacy TV markets, consolidating 1,300 digital touchpoints (websites, mobile apps, and smart TV apps) into a single architecture built with Quickplay and Google Cloud AI. The rollout centrally manages 269 live channels and 123 FAST channels, with distribution across platforms including Amazon Prime/Fire TV, Roku, Samsung TV Plus, and Vizio, and is positioned to support personalization, faster news delivery, and ad insertion.

2. Apr 15•Paramount: Pluto TV bets on 2000s comfort TV to win Gen Z

   Paramount-owned Pluto TV announced it will add the series "Hart of Dixie," "Arrow," "The 100," and "Everwood" to its free, ad-supported on-demand and linear channel offerings, with free-category exclusivity for those titles. The first three series plus "My Wife and Kids" arrive May 1, 2026, and "Everwood" arrives June 1, as Pluto targets 18–34 viewers with additional library programming.

3. Apr 15•Amazon News: Amazon adds generative AI, Wi-Fi 6 to new $35 Fire TV Stick.

   Amazon announced the launch of its new Fire TV Stick HD, priced at $34.99 in the U.S. The device is described as its slimmest ever, is over 30% faster than the previous generation, supports Wi-Fi 6, and can be powered by a TV's USB port. It ships with a redesigned user interface and includes the Alexa+ generative AI assistant for conversational search and discovery.

4. Apr 11•blog.youtube: YouTube’s 2025 playbook: TV-first, creator commerce, AI dubbing

   YouTube CEO Neal Mohan outlines four 2025 priorities: reinforcing YouTube’s role in culture (including podcasts), expanding creator business tools and monetization, accelerating connected-TV viewing experiences, and deploying more AI features for creation and localization. The post cites that TV is now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S. by watch time, with viewers watching over 1B hours of YouTube on TVs daily, and notes subscription scale including 8M+ YouTube TV subscribers and 100M+ YouTube Music & Premium subscribers (including trials). Planned initiatives include new CTV ad formats (e.g., QR codes and pause ads), interactive/second-screen TV features, “Watch With” live commentary experiments, wider availability of auto-dubbing in the YouTube Partner Program, and further generative AI integrations such as Veo 2 in Dream Screen.

5. Apr 11•NBCUNIVERSAL MEDIA: Peacock goes all-in on Dolby to win the “premium live” war

   NBCUniversal and Dolby Laboratories announced that Peacock will be the first streaming service to integrate Dolby’s full suite of premium picture and audio technologies, including expanded use of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos across more live sports in 2026. Peacock also committed to supporting Dolby Vision 2 and the Dolby AC-4 audio codec, which are expected to launch later in 2026.

6. Apr 11•Lowpass: YouTube’s “Stations” bet: FAST-style linear for the living room

   YouTube is introducing “Stations,” 24/7 pre-programmed linear streams that function similarly to FAST channels, beginning with channels curated around artists performing at Coachella. The feature targets lean-back, passive viewing behavior as YouTube’s consumption continues to grow on living-room TVs, positioning the service closer to traditional linear-TV navigation patterns common in smart TV EPG environments.

7. Apr 11•Businesswire: Roku’s $2.99 “Howdy” bets on ad-free bargain SVOD

   Roku announced the U.S. launch of Howdy, a new ad-free subscription video-on-demand service priced at $2.99 per month, initially available on the Roku platform. The service launches with thousands of titles totaling nearly 10,000 hours from partners including Lionsgate, Warner Bros. Discovery, and FilmRise, alongside select Roku Originals, with plans to expand to mobile and additional platforms later.

8. Apr 9•BroadView Software: BroadView, Uplynk Partner on Cloud-Native Broadcast Streaming for Global Client

   BroadView Software has partnered with Uplynk to integrate enterprise broadcast scheduling with cloud-native delivery solutions. This collaboration aims to centralize channel management and support live and linear streaming operations for a global media client across multiple continents. The solution focuses on delivering a scalable streaming workflow from scheduling to distribution.

9. Apr 7•Dispatch: France Goes Hybrid: Linear Still Leads, YouTube Gains Fast

   The article describes shifting video consumption patterns in France as streaming (SVOD) and YouTube usage grows while free-to-air linear television remains the largest overall viewing source. It highlights that changes are most pronounced among under-35 audiences, indicating an ongoing hybrid viewing environment combining linear TV and digital platforms.

10. Apr 7•LG USA: LG turns LG Channels into a walled-garden FAST network

    LG Electronics announced a “premiumization” push for its LG Channels FAST service, including new exclusive programming and channels aimed at advertisers and LG TV viewers. Additions include the All Chewed Up FAST channel (launching March 30, 2026 in North America), LG Channels World Pup (premiering in June with matches through July), expanded exclusive original programming for Matthew Berry’s Fantasy Life, and a Mohr Stories video podcast FAST channel in partnership with Cineverse.

11. Apr 6•MEDIANAMA: JioHotstar uses IPL traffic to launch 100-plus micro-dramas

    JioHotstar has launched "Tadka," a new micro-drama segment integrated within its main app, featuring over 100 short-format shows. The launch is timed with the Indian Premier League (IPL) to enhance user retention and increase time spent on the platform through short-form content. This initiative also aims to facilitate deeper brand integration within storylines and deliver targeted advertising experiences.

12. Apr 6•Vitrina AI: Samsung TV Plus turns FAST into a studio with Keanu

    Samsung TV Plus is expanding into exclusive original programming, including the six-part docuseries "Hooligans: The ARCH Racing Project" starring Keanu Reeves and Gard Hollinger, produced by V10 Entertainment. The platform also expanded its partnership with creator Mark Rober for a two-hour live global event and launched MotoAmericaTV, an exclusive FAST channel featuring 200+ hours of live motorbike racing, citing a footprint of 100 million monthly active users.

13. Apr 2•Deadline: Tubi’s Canada playbook: scale fandom with 600+ library adds

    Tubi has licensed more than 600 movies and TV shows for its Canadian ad-supported, on-demand library from Disney, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, and Warner Bros. Discovery. The company cited its strategy of using deep catalog programming to drive rediscovery and repeat viewing, and noted reported 30% year-over-year growth in Canadian monthly active users since 2020 along with a long-term strategic partnership with Bell Media.

14. Apr 2•TV[BE]urope: HbbTV tightens the screws on DRM and MSE compliance

    HbbTV released version 2026-1 of its Conformance Test Suite, expanding to 3,439 test cases (2,907 approved) and adding 64 newly approved tests plus quality improvements to more than 180 cases. The update adds new approved coverage for CTA WAVE Media Source Extensions (MSE) API tests and Widevine DRM support, and integrates test cases previously only available in the UK to broaden regional applicability.

15. Apr 2•TV[BE]urope: NASA+ Preps an Olympics-Scale Stream for Artemis II

    The article details NASA+ preparations to live stream Artemis II and subsequent mission milestones, projecting cumulative viewership around 25 million and describing a distributed production workflow across multiple NASA centers using a virtual master control room. NASA says it uses AWS-backed infrastructure, Akamai as its CDN with plans to add additional CDNs, and will leverage YouTube to handle demand spikes while also pursuing broader distribution via partnerships with services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, plus content partners including PBS and Canopy.

16. Apr 1•CivicScience: MLB intent jumps to 47% as ABS and streaming shift

    CivicScience data indicates a nearly 35% increase in intent to follow Major League Baseball (MLB) in the 2026 season compared to 2025, reaching 47% of U.S. adults. This rise is partly attributed to new rule changes, including the ABS challenge system, and an increased interest in sports betting, particularly among women. Furthermore, the article notes a shift in how fans access games, citing a Netflix exclusive opening-night game and some MLB teams moving to direct-to-consumer streaming.

17. Mar 27•Broadcast: DAZN eyes the sky: live sports streaming goes inflight

    DAZN announced plans to launch a new division, DAZN Inflight, in 2027 to distribute DAZN live sports to passengers on aircraft and vessels, citing improving onboard connectivity, reliability, and bandwidth. The unit will be led by Aviv Giladi (president, DAZN Partnerships) and would compete with existing inflight live sports providers such as IMG’s Sport24, which distributes 24/7 sports channels to airlines and cruise lines.

18. Mar 27•TV[BE]urope: Bitmovin bets on vertical video: faster ads, smaller web player

    Bitmovin released upgrades to its Player Web X web video player, adding vertical video support and new advertising playback capabilities aimed at publishers, news, and social media use cases. The update leverages a Load Control API to preload main content and streaming ads for faster transitions, and introduces a package/bundles architecture and Package API to enable deeper customization without modifying source code. Bitmovin also claims improved performance and footprint, including faster startup times and a smaller fully featured bundle versus comparable alternatives.

19. Mar 26•Broadcast: BBC’s Olympics playbook: fewer linear hours, triple iPlayer streams

    BBC Sport reported major digital growth for the Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games, with iPlayer streams nearly tripling versus the prior Winter Games (83m vs 31.4m) while linear reach also rose to 26.3m despite a 25% reduction in broadcast hours. In a podcast discussion, head of major events Ron Chakraborty described reallocating resources from linear to digital and prioritizing iPlayer usability as viewing continues to shift online. The BBC also highlighted large increases in social video views and cited a new YouTube partnership expected to play a bigger role around the upcoming World Cup.

20. Mar 26•NETINT Technologies: In 2026, Video Scaling Breaks in the Control Plane

    NETINT argues that as video pipelines scale, operational coordination (a “video control plane”) becomes a larger bottleneck than raw encoding performance, especially in event-driven architectures and Just-In-Time (JIT) transcoding. The article positions partner platform Scalstrm as a unified control plane across ingest, transcoding, packaging, and delivery (including origin/CDN functions), citing operational features like intent-based scheduling, backpressure, and failure isolation plus claimed cost/power/footprint reductions when orchestrating CPU/GPU/VPU resources.

21. Mar 24•TV[BE]urope: Reuters bets on cloud IP to retire satellite-era news delivery

    Reuters is working with TVU Networks on a phased migration from satellite-based delivery to a cloud-managed, IP-based live news distribution model, with the first region already live and global rollout underway. The system uses TVU MediaHub for signal processing/routing and TVU NOC for monitoring and incident response, aiming to improve consistency, security, and reliability via geographically distributed redundancy, automated failover, and elastic scaling.

22. Mar 23•TV[BE]urope: ChannelSurfer brings “cable mode” to YouTube—no algorithm required

    London-based developer Steven Irby launched ChannelSurfer.tv, a web interface that repackages curated YouTube channels and playlists into a linear-style electronic programme guide (EPG) so viewers can “channel surf” instead of relying on recommendation algorithms. The static Next.js site is hosted on Cloudflare, uses PartyKit, and refreshes EPG data daily via GitHub Actions from a curated list of ~200 YouTube channels and 40 music playlists, with an optional client-side bookmarklet to import a user’s YouTube subscriptions. Irby says the product is independent of YouTube, uses embedded YouTube videos, does not block ads, and he aims to expand to TV platforms like Fire TV, Apple TV, and Chromecast.

23. Mar 20•StreamTV Insider: Fire TV’s Next Act: The Home Screen Becomes the Storefront

    Amazon is planning its first major redesign of the Fire TV user interface since 2020. The update aims to shift the connected TV home screen toward a more modern, content-discovery-focused experience, positioning Fire TV more explicitly as a discovery hub.

24. Mar 20•NVIDIA Blog: NVIDIA pushes GeForce NOW into 90fps VR streaming

    NVIDIA announced an update to its GeForce NOW cloud gaming service focused on virtual reality, targeting gameplay streaming to VR devices at up to 90 fps. The post also notes that the game "Crimson Desert" will be playable at launch using GeForce RTX 5080-class performance in the cloud.

25. Mar 19•TV[BE]urope: Leyra Bets on ‘One Stack’ OTT SaaS for Growth

    Accedo One and Magine Pro have officially launched their previously announced joint venture as Leyra, combining both companies’ SaaS businesses into a single entity. The Leyra offering unifies Magine Pro’s end-to-end subscriber lifecycle platform with Accedo One’s OTT technology and Accedo One Marketplace to provide an integrated OTT SaaS platform focused on engagement, retention, analytics, and simplified third-party integration.

26. Mar 18•Nagra: The TV Home Screen Becomes Streaming’s Next Power Center

    NAGRAVISION recaps discussions from the Connected TV World Summit in London focused on content discovery, AI/LLM-assisted search and recommendations, and competition to control the TV home screen and user interface. Panel participants including Magenta Telekom, One Hungary, and Narrative Entertainment discussed operators’ interest in retaining control of the viewing entry point (often via set-top boxes) and the role of metadata and ecosystem collaboration in improving contextual discovery.

27. Mar 18•Wowza: Wowza’s checklist for fixing “buffering” that isn’t network

    Wowza published a technical guide for troubleshooting common Wowza Streaming Engine configuration problems, focusing on Manager/REST API access failures (service not running, port 8087 blocked, credential and auth-method mismatches, IP whitelists) and licensing-related 402 errors. It also covers ingest and codec troubleshooting for SRT and RTMP workflows, including listener/caller role alignment, UDP port and NAT checks, SRT-to-RTMP republishing considerations, and recommended encoder settings (e.g., H.264/AAC, consistent GOP/keyframe intervals) to reduce buffering-like artifacts and transcoder instability.

28. Mar 17•Gizmodotech - Latest Gadgets, Mobile Specs, and Tech News: Disney+ Joins the Vertical Feed Rush With “Verts”

    The article describes “Disney Plus Verts,” a TikTok-style vertical video feed that is now available to U.S. Disney+ mobile users. It outlines how the feature works, what content is included, and what additions may be planned, positioning the move within a broader streamer shift toward short-form, vertical feeds.

29. Mar 12•Streaming Learning Center: Netflix Keeps Winning by Shipping the Streaming Playbook

    The article discusses Netflix’s engineering approach to operating streaming services at scale, framed around its broader technical contributions to the streaming ecosystem. It references Netflix innovations including per-title encoding, the VMAF quality metric, and its development and promotion of the AV1 codec, while contrasting Netflix’s technical posture with Amazon.

30. Mar 9•Todd Nicolini: FAST’s Channel-Count Arms Race Hits 1,572 Channels

    A LinkedIn post cites FASTMaster Intelligence data showing that as of February 2026 there are 1,572 unique FAST channels across nine platforms, with Prime Video (824) and The Roku Channel (693) leading by channel count. It also highlights genre growth from 2020 to 2026, including Sports FAST channels rising from 38 to 115 (over 200% growth) and increased availability of Local News FAST channels.

31. Mar 9•NewsRamp™: Twitch’s next sports play: universities get their own channels

    TheLinkU and Twitch announced a partnership to launch StreamU, a college-athletics-focused livestreaming network built on Twitch. StreamU is positioned to let universities operate branded channels and monetize via subscriptions, advertising, sponsorships, and Twitch’s built-in tools, with TheLinkU providing operational and compliance support. The rollout is planned around Selection Sunday with a larger activation during Final Four weekend in Indianapolis.

32. Mar 5•StockTitan: Harmonic bets on hybrid, SSAI, and AI orchestration at NAB

    Harmonic announced it will debut upgrades to its video appliances and SaaS offerings at the 2026 NAB Show, including a next-generation Spectrum X media server and enhancements to its XOS Advanced Media Processor for playout, encoding, and ATSC 3.0/DTV+ delivery. The company also highlighted hybrid streaming advances such as a production deployment of VOS Media Software on Red Hat OpenShift, plus new server-side in-stream advertising and configurable server-side multiview within VOS360 Media SaaS. Harmonic will introduce an AI overlay service for orchestrating AI functions across its platform, including GPU-accelerated HD-to-UHD upscaling powered by NVIDIA.

33. Mar 3•Broadcast: Netflix wants BBC channels inside Netflix, not iPlayer

    Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said the company is eager to strike a deal to host BBC and other UK public service broadcasters’ channels and content within Netflix, potentially enabling viewers to access BBC content via Netflix rather than iPlayer. Peters cited Netflix’s interface and reach as reasons it could help broadcasters connect with larger audiences, and referenced TF1’s similar arrangement with Netflix as a precedent. He also contrasted Netflix’s economics with YouTube’s model amid reports the BBC plans to launch around 50 public service channels on YouTube within 12 months.

34. Mar 2•TV Technology: HbbTV 2.0.5 makes DRM a baseline, not a bonus

    The HbbTV Association published HbbTV core specification version 2.0.5, updating hybrid broadcast-broadband interactive TV requirements. The release formally integrates DRM into the core spec—requiring support for at least one listed system (Microsoft PlayReady or Google Widevine)—and adds/clarifies capabilities including optional AV1 and VVC codec support, formal WebAssembly support, and enhanced DVB-I integration and security measures. The association also plans an RfP to extend its Conformance Test Suite for HbbTV 2.0.5.

35. Mar 2•Mux Blog: When JIT Meets Storage: 22 Days of Silent Segment Corruption

    Mux describes a 22-day incident (Jan 8–Feb 4) in which about 0.33% of served VOD audio/video segments were corrupted, leading to playback issues such as brief audio dropouts and visual stuttering, without loss of source video data. The postmortem attributes the issue to interactions between JIT transcoding, a new storage architecture, cloud object storage read/replication slowdowns after a scaling change, and a cleanup path that allowed partially written segments to be treated as valid and replicated. Mux reports deploying fixes on Jan 29 and completing remediation by regenerating affected segments and purging CDN caches by Feb 3, alongside planned improvements to observability and support escalation.

36. Mar 2•Broadband TV News: HbbTV makes DRM mandatory: hybrid TV goes premium-ready

    The HbbTV Association has published HbbTV Core Specification version 2.0.5, formally adding DRM support to the standard for the first time and requiring devices to support at least one approved DRM system (Microsoft PlayReady or Google Widevine). The update also adds specification-level support for WebAssembly, clarifies and enhances DVB-I integration, and defines optional support for next-generation codecs AV1 and VVC, alongside additional security and interoperability changes.

37. Feb 25•The Daily Record: Netflix Deadline: Millions Could Lose Access March 2

    The article reports that Netflix has warned that millions of users will lose access to the service after a March 2 deadline. The brief excerpt references a linked story for further details that are not included in the provided text.

38. Feb 24•David Sanderson: Indexing the Long Tail: Opportunity Beyond Top 8

    David Sanderson highlights data indicating that the top eight SVOD services control only 36% of movie titles and 55% of TV series, with the majority of subscription content spread across hundreds of smaller niche platforms. He argues that this fragmentation creates challenges for consumer discovery and for studios seeking to monetize catalog content, and positions infrastructure and data providers like Reelgood, which indexes titles across platforms and markets, as key to enabling better licensing and catalog value strategies.

39. Feb 23•OGAnalysis: Online Video Platforms to Hit $53B by 2034 — 17% CAGR

    A market report from OG Analysis forecasts the online video platform market will reach $53.39 billion by 2034. The sector is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.89% over the forecast period 2025-2034.

40. Feb 23•Samsung: Samsung TV Plus Tops 100M Monthly Users — FAST Momentum

    Samsung reports that its free, ad-supported streaming service Samsung TV Plus has surpassed 100 million monthly active users as it enters 2026. The platform’s growth is attributed to marquee live events, interactive fan experiences, and key industry partnerships.

41. Feb 20•VideoNuze: Apple and IMAX Team Up to Amplify F1; YouTube’s TV Rise

    Apple has partnered with IMAX to screen five Formula 1 races at 50 IMAX locations in the U.S., extending the reach of its five-year exclusive U.S. F1 broadcast rights tied to Apple TV. The article also reports that more than half of YouTube’s UK audience now watches on connected TVs and that YouTube is the fourth most-viewed navigation platform in the UK. Additionally, it notes that Stephen Colbert used YouTube to stream an interview that CBS declined to air on broadcast television.

42. Feb 20•Nagra: Memory Shock: Time to Swap the Set‑Top Box?

    The article examines how rising DRAM and NAND memory prices, driven by cloud and AI hyperscaler demand, are increasing the bill of materials and squeezing margins for hardware-dependent pay-TV models, particularly set-top boxes. It argues that this cost pressure, combined with consumers’ shift to connected TV app experiences, is accelerating operator moves to boxless, app-based distribution. Nagravision highlights its TVkey Cloud solution and OSN’s deployment on connected TVs as an example of delivering a secure, operator-controlled UX without set-top box hardware.

43. Feb 20•Atul Patil: YouTube Shorts Hits Unprecedented Scale in 2026

    The post states that YouTube Shorts streaming activity has reached unprecedented scale in 2026, highlighting the growing dominance of short-form vertical video in global digital consumption. It directs readers to an external link for additional statistics.

44. Feb 16•Apple: Apple brings HLS video to Apple Podcasts — ad market opens

    Apple is adding HLS-based video podcast support to Apple Podcasts, allowing users to watch or listen interchangeably, download for offline viewing, and benefit from adaptive streaming quality across devices and the web. Creators will be able to distribute HLS video via participating hosting providers and ad networks, retain control over content and monetization, and insert dynamic video ads, while Apple plans to charge ad networks an impression-based fee for video ad delivery later this year. The feature enters beta in iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS 26.4 now and will roll out broadly this spring across iPhone, iPad, Apple Vision Pro, and the web.

45. Feb 16•AWS for Media & Entertainment Blog: TV 2 Norway Scales Live Sports to 20,000 Cloud Streams

    TV 2 Norway has built a largely cloud-based video platform on AWS to scale its live sports coverage to more than 20,000 events per year, including up to 1,000 simultaneous streams, for distribution via linear channels and the TV 2 Play app. Using AWS Elemental MediaLive and MediaPackage, Amazon CloudFront, Lambda, S3, and Step Functions, the broadcaster has automated much of its live workflow, supports hybrid linear/OTT delivery, and reports that about 90% of its streaming and broadcast workloads now run on AWS. The team is also experimenting with generative AI to rapidly prototype tooling such as traffic management UIs.

46. Feb 12•TechCrunch: YouTube Goes Native on Apple Vision Pro — Two Years Late

    YouTube has released a dedicated app for Apple's Vision Pro headset, after holding off for two years following the device's initial launch. The move brings a native YouTube experience to the Vision Pro platform for the first time.

47. Feb 11•Grabyo: ISE: Cloud, AI and Remote Production Enter Pragmatic Phase

    The article summarizes key themes from ISE Barcelona around the maturation of live and cloud-based production, highlighting hybrid cloud/on-prem workflows, mixed-protocol IP networking, and remote/distributed production as the emerging norm. It notes a shift toward pragmatic AI applications (captioning, metadata, automation), persistent complexity in live monetization and ad insertion, and growing but still maturing support for vertical and short-form video in production stacks. Overall, it frames the industry as moving through a practical consolidation phase where tools must integrate smoothly with existing workflows rather than promise wholesale disruption.

48. Feb 10•Synamedia: Synamedia says live sports must monetize without higher costs

    Synamedia published a blog post discussing how live sports streaming platforms can optimize workflows to scale efficiently and monetize events. The post focuses on the need for platforms to drive engagement and revenue without increasing costs. It aims to provide insights on how to achieve monetization and efficiency at scale in live sports.

49. Feb 9•Kyle McInnis: Peacock Delivers Low-Latency Super Bowl Stream — A Win

    The article reports on NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service performance during the 2026 Super Bowl LX, focusing on streaming latency. It notes that NBCU, as the event’s broadcast host, kept viewers close to the action, implying relatively low delay between the live game and the stream.

50. Feb 7•Dan Rayburn: NBC's Super Bowl Stream: Deep Device-Level Tech Audit

    The article live-blogs NBC's 2026 Super Bowl livestream across more than 25 devices and OTT platforms, documenting how the event is delivered over streaming infrastructure. It focuses on detailed technical specifications and performance characteristics of the live stream implementation.