Welcome to the latest installment of Dan Rayburn's Streaming Insights & Intelligence, a new weekly insights column on StreamTV Insider where the industry analyst puts facts and figures to the news you need to know about. Join the discussion on LinkedIn and check back each week as he unpacks key industry happenings.
Here’s Rayburn’s key news recap for the week of March 27, 2024: Streamers tee up sports features, deals; Kingsoft makes strategic adjustments; Sony launches FAST channels.
- NBCUniversal and the NFL announced that Peacock will be the exclusive national home of the NFL’s first-ever regular-season game in Brazil, streaming in primetime on Friday, September 6th. The Philadelphia Eagles will be one of the two teams playing, with the second team still to be announced.
- Starting this week, subscribers to NESN, which carries Boston sports teams, including the Red Sox and Bruins, will be able to tune into games by tapping a dedicated link on ESPN’s app or on ESPN.com. SportsNet Pittsburgh, which is operated by NESN, is also part of the agreement, though its telecasts will be added down the line. The offering will be geotargeted so that only those located in specific areas of the U.S. will see the option to watch their local games. The streams will not be housed within the ESPN app, which merely serves as a portal to the regional sports network (RSN) telecast, and viewers will still need to pay for access to the RSNs.
- YouTube TV is rolling out support for Multiview on the iPhone and iPad, but it does not work with all games. It works for select games only, and you must use version 8.11 of the YouTube TV app. If you have an older iPad and can't update to iOS11 or later, it won't work. In a support thread, YouTube said they will launch multiview on Android "in the coming months."
- During their earnings call, Kingsoft announced they are making "strategic adjustments” and "scaling down of our CDN business.” The company said they are "phasing-out of loss-making clients” tied to their CDN business and that the revenue share of their largest CDN customer was 12% in Q4 fiscal 2023. The company’s CDN revenue decreased by nearly 10% in the quarter compared to the previous quarter, and CDN revenue as a proportion of Kingsoft’s total revenue decreased to approximately 23%. Kingsoft reported revenue of $242.6 million for Q4 fiscal 2023, putting their CDN revenue at approximately $55 million for the quarter. Revenues from public cloud services decreased by 21.7%, and enterprise cloud services fell by 14.7%. Kingsoft Cloud’s CDN revenue comes primarily from delivery within China. Kingsoft had $317.7 million in cash and equivalents as of December 31, 2023.
- Just in time for March Madness, Max subscribers can save over 40% across all yearly plans when they prepay for one year. The deal ends April 9th and applies to new, existing, and returning customers.
- Amazon has agreed to a sublicensing deal with Viaplay to exclusively broadcast 38 live Premier League games a season in Sweden and Denmark. The deal is for the next four seasons and will be provided free of charge with local commentary. The deal also includes a range of Viaplay’s scripted entertainment programming to bolster Prime Video’s wider content library.
- Sony Pictures Entertainment has launched more than 50 FAST channels in Europe across LG Channels, Samsung TV Plus and TiVo+. Sony One’s channels will be curated and programed for local markets in different territories, with content being broadcast primarily in each region’s native language. Territories at launch include the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.
Dan Rayburn is an analyst in the streaming media industry, with regular TV appearances on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and Schwab Network amongst others. He is conference Chairman for the NAB Show Streaming Summit in Las Vegas each year, and his streamingmediablog.com website is one of the most widely read sites for broadcasters, content owners, OTT providers, Wall Street money managers, and industry executives. He also has a podcast at danrayburnpodcast.com. He can be reached at [email protected]
Dan Rayburn’s Streaming Analysis & Insights is an opinion column. It does not necessarily represent the opinions of StreamTV Insider.