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Prime Video subs will soon see ads for Amazon products when they hit pause

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Amazon’s ad affinity —

Amazon is adding three types of shoppable ads to Prime Video’s ad tier.

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A scene from the Prime Video original series <em>Fallout</em>.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/fallout-800×334.jpg”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / A scene from the Prime Video original series Fallout.

Amazon Prime Video subscribers will see new types of advertisements this broadcast year. Amazon announced today that it’s adding new ad formats to its video streaming service, hoping to encourage people to interact with the ads and shop on Amazon.

In January, Prime Video streams included commercials unless subscribers paid $3 extra per month. That has meant that watching stuff on Prime Video ad-free costs $12 per month or, if you’re also a Prime subscriber, $18 per month.

New types of Prime Video ads

Amazon has heightened focus on streaming ads this year. Those who opted for Prime Video with commercials will soon see shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive brand trivia ads, as Amazon calls them. Amazon said that advertisers could buy these new displays to be shown “across the vast majority of content on Prime Video, wherever it’s streamed.” All the new ad formats allow a viewer to place advertised products in their Amazon cart.

With carousel ads, subscribers will be pushed to shop “a sliding lineup of” products during ad breaks during shows and movies, Amazon said, adding: “The ad automatically pauses so that customers can browse, and automatically resumes play when ad interaction has stopped.”

The pause ads will be visible during Prime Video TV shows, movies, and live sports. These types of ads have been around since Hulu introduced them in 2019. Since they can show up whenever someone hits the pause button, these displays mean that Prime Video users will see ads beyond their scheduled breaks.

In Prime Video’s case, pausing the program will bring up “a translucent ad featuring brand messaging and imagery, along with an ‘Add to Cart’ and ‘Learn More'” overlay, per Amazon. Advertisers can also use pause ads to acquire voluntary viewers’ email addresses (so viewers can “get more information,” per Amazon).

Amazon trivia-themed ads will also appear during shows, movies, and live sports. The ad will try to sell stuff by offering “rewards like Amazon shopping credits.”

Amazon’s ad business is growing

Amazon is already one of the three biggest digital advertising firms (in addition to Alphabet and Meta). But its interest in using its streaming service to sell ad space has grown as ad dollars continue shifting away from linear, traditional TV platforms. The streaming industry has been trying to capitalize on advertisers’ growing interest with new ad types that users can shop from. Amazon research from 2023 claims that interactive ads increase product page views and conversions for products sold on Amazon tenfold.

On the other hand, Amazon has not released research publicly on how much constant ad viewing can impact the user experience or interest in a streaming service.

Still, Amazon claimed today that Prime Video ads reach an average of 200 million people monthly. Amazon hasn’t provided a firm figure on how many Prime Video subscribers it currently has overall, however. In 2021, Amazon said that Prime, which includes Prime Video, had 200 million subscribers.

Amazon has, however, boasted about how well it is selling ads recently. In its Q1 2024 earnings report released on April 30, Amazon said its ad business grew 24 percent year over year. Most of Amazon’s ad dollars come from its retail business, as The Hollywood Reporter noted, but in a statement at the time, Amazon CEO and President Andy Jassy noted that Prime Video was also a contributor.

According to a Hub Media Entertainment survey from January to March 2024, 6,338 US TV viewers between 16 to 74 years old watched at least one hour of TV per week, and 85 percent of Prime Video subscribers in the survey are on Amazon’s ad tier. (Amazon hasn’t confirmed those figures.) The Hub Entertainment Media survey claims that Amazon has a higher ad-based-to-ad-free ratio of subscribers than all other video-streaming services examined, including Netflix, Max, and Hulu. But it’s worth noting that Amazon automatically moved all Prime Video subscribers to its ad tier in January, while others, like Netflix, introduced ad tiers as a new option to sign up for.

A fine line

Like all streamers, Amazon is toeing a fine line between using ads to boost the average revenue it makes per user and aggravating subscribers to the point of cancellation.

Amazon is already facing a lawsuit regarding ads on Prime Video that seeks class-action certification and was filed by people who purchased annual subscriptions.

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All the ways streaming services are aggravating their subscribers this week

ads, Comcast, nbcuniversal, netflix, peacock, Sony, streaming, Tech, warner bros. discovery / /
man watching TV, holding face

Streaming services like Netflix and Peacock have already found multiple ways to aggravate paying subscribers this week.

The streaming industry has been heating up. As media giants rush to establish a successful video streaming business, they often make platform changes that test subscribers’ patience and the value of streaming.

Below is a look at the most exasperating news from streaming services from this week. The scale of this article demonstrates how fast and frequently disappointing streaming news arises. Coincidentally, as we wrote this article, another price hike was announced.

We’ll also examine each streaming platform’s financial status to get an idea of what these companies are thinking (spoiler: They’re thinking about money).

Peacock’s raising prices

For the second time in the past year, NBCUniversal is bumping the price of Peacock, per The Hollywood Reporter (THR) on Monday.

As of July 18, if you try to sign up for Peacock Premium (which has ads), it’ll cost $7.99 per month, up from $5.99/month today. Premium Plus, (which doesn’t have ads), will go up from $11.99/month to $13.99/month. Annual subscription pricing for the ad plan is increasing 33.3 percent from $59.99 to $79.99, and the ad-free annual plan’s price will rise 16.7 percent from $119.99/year to $139.99/year.

Those already subscribed to Peacock won’t see the changes until August 17, six days after the closing ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, which will stream on Peacock.

The pricing changes will begin eight days before the Olympics’ opening ceremony. That means that in the days leading up to the sporting event, signing up for Peacock will cost more than ever. That said, there’s still time to sign up Peacock for its current pricing.

As noted by THR, the changes come as NBCUniversal may feel more confident about its streaming service, which now includes big-ticket items, like exclusive NFL games and Oppenheimer (which Peacock streamed exclusively for a time), in addition to new features for the Olympics, like multiview.

Some outspoken subscribers, though, aren’t placated.

“Just when I was starting to like the service,” Reddit user MarkB1997 said in response to the news. “I’ll echo what everyone has been saying for a while now, but these services are pricing themselves out of the market.”

Peacock subscribers already experienced a price increase on August 17, 2023. At the time, Peacock’s Premium pricing went from $4.99/month to $5.99/month, and the Premium Plus tier from $9.99/month to $11.99/month.

Peacock’s pockets

Peacock’s price bumps appear to be a way for the younger streaming service to inch closer to profitability amid a major, quadrennial, global event.

NBCUniversal parent company Comcast released its Q1 2024 earnings report last week, showing that Peacock, which launched in July 2020, remains unprofitable. For the quarter, Peacock lost $639 million, compared to $825 million in Q4 2023 and $704 million in Q1 2023. Losses were largely attributed to higher programming costs.

Peacock’s paid subscriber count is lower than some of its rivals. The platform ended the quarter with 34 million paid users, up from 31 million at the end of 2023. Revenue also rose, with the platform pulling in $1.1 billion, representing a 54 percent boost compared to the prior year.

Sony bumps Crunchyroll prices weeks after shuttering Funimation

Today, Sony’s anime streaming service Crunchyroll announced that it’s increasing subscription prices as follows:

  • The Mega Fan Tier, which allows streaming on up to four devices simultaneously, will go from $9.99/month to $11.99/month
  • The Ultimate Fan Tier, which allows streaming on up to six devices simultaneously, will go from $14.99/month to $15.99/month

Crunchyroll’s cheapest plan ($7.99/month) remains unchanged. None of Crunchyroll’s subscription plans have ads. Crunchyroll’s also adding discounts to its store for each subscription tier, but this is no solace for those who don’t shop there on a monthly basis or at all.

The news of higher prices comes about a month after Sony shuttered Funimation, an anime streaming service it acquired in 2017. After buying Crunchyroll in 2021, Funimation was somewhat redundant for Sony. And now that Sony has converted all remaining Funimation accounts into Crunchyroll accounts (while deleting Funimation digital libraries), it’s forcing many customers to pay more to watch their favorite anime.

A user going by BioMountain on Crunchyroll said the news is “not great,” since they weren’t “a big fan of having to switch from Funimation to begin with, especially since that app was so much better” than Crunchyroll.

Interestingly, when Anime News Network asked on February 29 whether Crunchyroll would see prices rise over the next two years, the company told the publication that predicting a price change for that time frame would be improbable.

Crunching numbers

Crunchyroll had 5 million paid subscribers in 2021 but touted over 13 million in January, (plus over 89 million unpaid users, per Bloomberg). Crunchyroll president Rahul Purini has said that Crunchyroll is profitable, but not by how much.

In 2023, Goldman Sachs estimated that Crunchyroll would represent 36 percent of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s profit by 2028, compared to about 1 percent in March.

However, Purini has shown interest in growing the company further and noted to Variety in February an increase in “general entertainment” companies getting into anime.

Still, anime remains a more niche entertainment category, and Crunchyroll is more specialized than some other streaming platforms. With Sony making it so that anime fans have one less streaming service option and jacking up the prices for one of the limited options, it’s showing that it wants as much of the $20 billion anime market as possible.

Crunchyroll claimed today that its pricing changes are tied to “investment in more anime, additional services like music and games, and additional subscriber benefits.”

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Roku OS home screen is getting video ads for the first time

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the price of cheap streaming —

Meanwhile, Roku keeps making more money.

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roku home screen

Roku

Roku CEO Anthony Wood disclosed plans to introduce video ads to the Roku OS home screen. The news highlights Roku’s growing focus on advertising and an alarming trend in the streaming industry that sees ads increasingly forced on viewers.

As spotted by The Streamable, during Roku’s Q1 2024 earnings call last week, Wood, also the company’s founder and chairman, boasted about the Roku OS home screen showing users ads “before they select an app,” avoiding the possibility that they don’t see any ads during their TV-viewing session. (The user might only use Roku to access a video streaming app for which they have an ad-free subscription.)

Wood also noted future plans to make the Roku home screen even more ad-laden:

On the home screen today, there’s the premier video app we call the marquee ad and that ad traditionally has been a static ad. We’re going to add video to that ad. So that’ll be the first video ad that we add to the home screen. That will be a big change for us.

Wood’s comments didn’t address the expected impact on the Roku user experience or whether the company thinks this might turn people off its platform. In December, Amazon made a similar move by adding autoplay video ads to the home screen of the Fire OS (which third-party TVs and Amazon-branded Fire TV sets and streaming devices use). Fire OS users who disable the ads’ autoplay function will still see ads as “a full-screen slide show of image ads,” per AFTVnews. Some users viewed the introduction as an intrusive step that went too far, and Roku may hear the same feedback.

During Roku’s earnings call, Wood also said the company is testing “other types of video ad units” and is looking for more ways to bring advertising to the Roku OS home screen.

This comes after recent efforts to expand ad presence on Roku OS, including through new FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV) channels and by putting content recommendations on the home screen for the first time, per Wood, who said the personalized content row “will be, obviously, AI-driven recommendations.”

“There’s lots of ways we’re working on enhancing the home screen to make it more valuable to viewers but also increase the monetization on the home screen,” he said.

Roku’s revenue rise

Roku saw its average revenue per user (ARPU) drop from $41.03 in Q3 of its 2023 financial year to $39.92 in Q4 2023 (in Q4 2022, the company reported an ARPU of $41.68). Last week, Roku reported that ARPU, a key metric for the streaming industry these days, rose to $40.65 in Q1 2024. Meanwhile, Roku’s active account count rose by 1.6 million users from the prior quarter to 81.6 million.

“Roku has a direct relationship with more than 81 million Streaming Households, and we are deepening relationships with third-party platforms, including [demand side platforms], retail media networks, and measurement partners. Our business remains well positioned to capture the billions of dollars in traditional TV ad budgets that will shift to streaming,” an April 25 letter to shareholders [PDF] authored by Wood and Roku CFO Dan Jedda reads.

Like many streaming companies, a shift toward ads has resulted in higher revenue potential and user discontent. In its Q1 2024 results, Roku reported that revenue for its Devices business reached $126.5 million, compared to $754.9 for its Platform business, which drives most of its revenue through ad sales, representing a 19 percent year-over-year (YoY) increase. Overall, revenue rose 19 percent YoY to $882 million, and Roku’s gross profit grew 15 percent YoY to $388 million.

But growing revenue doesn’t equate to an improved user experience. For example, an Accenture survey of 6,000 “global consumers” noted by The Streamable found that 52.2 percent of participants thought that streaming platform-recommended content “did not match their interests.” Similarly, an October TiVo survey of 4,500 viewers in the US and Canada ranked “streaming apps / home screen / carousel ads” as the fourth most popular method of content discovery, after word of mouth, commercials aired during other shows, and social media. While Roku is a budget brand associated with more affordable TVs and streaming devices, excessive ads could make people reconsider the true price of these savings.

Despite people’s ad aversion, Roku intends to find more ways to drive advertising opportunities. Among those ideas being explored is the ability to show ads over anything plugged into the TV.

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Password crackdown leads to more income for Netflix

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Sharing is caring —

Netflix to stop reporting subscriber numbers, prioritizing viewer engagement instead.

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screen with netflix login

Bloomberg

Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing helped the streaming service blow past Wall Street’s earnings forecasts, but its shares fell after it said it planned to stop regularly disclosing its subscriber numbers.

The company’s operating income surged 54 percent in the first quarter as it added 9.3 million subscribers worldwide, proving that the efforts to reduce password sharing it launched last year have had more lasting benefits than some investors expected.

However, Netflix said on Thursday that from next year it would stop revealing its total number of subscribers, a metric that has been a crucial benchmark for investors in the streaming era.

In its letter to shareholders, Netflix said it was shifting its focus to engagement—the amount of time its subscribers spend on the service—while also developing new price points and sources of revenue, including advertising.

“Each incremental member has a different business impact” with the new subscription plans, Greg Peters, co-chief executive, said in a call with investors. “And that means the historical simple math that we all did—the number of members times the monthly price—is increasingly less accurate in capturing the state of the business.”

He added that Netflix would “periodically update” on subscriber figures when it hits “major milestones.”

Paolo Pescatore, an analyst at PP Foresight, said Netflix’s decision to no longer disclose quarterly subscriptions starting in 2025 “will not go down well.”

“No matter the company’s attempt to switch focus from subscribers to financials, net [subscriber] adds is the key metric everyone wants to see,” he said.

The latest results showed there was still room for growth as a result of its password crackdown and push into advertising, Pescatore added. Netflix said memberships to its advertising-supported tier rose 65 percent from the previous quarter.

Before Thursday’s report the streaming pioneer’s shares had risen 30 percent this year, significantly outperforming the broader market. The shares fell 4.7 percent in after-hours trading following the earnings report.

Netflix executives said among their primary goals was improving the variety and quality of their entertainment, including television shows, movies, and games. It recently appointed Dan Lin as the new head of its film division.

“Even though we have made and we are making great films, we want to make them better,” said Ted Sarandos, co-chief executive. He added that he saw no need to spend more money on content.

Netflix has been pushing further into sports-related content, including a $5 billion deal to livestream World Wrestling Entertainment’s flagship Raw program in the US over the next decade.

It is also offering a livestream of a fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul in July, leading analysts to question whether the company plans to move further into live sport. “We’re not anti-sports, but pro-profitable growth,” Sarandos said.

Netflix reported earnings of $5.28 a share, well ahead of Wall Street forecasts of $4.51, while its number of subscribers rose 16 percent to 269 million from a year earlier.

Its revenue forecast for the current quarter of $9.49 billion was slightly below Wall Street forecasts of about $9.5 billion. But Netflix said it expected revenue to grow between 13 and 15 percent for the full year.

The company said it generated strong engagement in the first quarter from subscribers in the UK with Fool Me Once, which had 98 million views. Other standouts included the drama series Griselda with 66.4 million views and 3 Body Problem with about 40 million.

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

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CNN, record holder for shortest streaming service, wants another shot

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CNN++? —

New CNN head thinks CNN+ “was abandoned rather briskly.” 

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: The logo of the US tv channel CNN is shown on the display of a smartphone on April 22, 2020

On March 29, 2022, CNN+, CNN’s take on a video streaming service, debuted. On April 28, 2022, it shuttered, making it the fastest shutdown of any launched streaming service. Despite that discouraging superlative, CNN has plans for another subscription-based video streaming platform, Financial Times (FT) reported on Wednesday.

Mark Thompson, who took CNN’s helm in August 2023, over a year after CNN+’s demise, spoke with FT about evolving the company. The publication reported that Thompson is “working on plans for a digital subscription streaming service.” The executive told the publication that a digital subscription, including digital content streaming, is “a serious possibility,” adding, “no decisions had been made, but I think it’s quite likely that we’ll end up there.”

CNN++, or whatever a new CNN streaming package might be named, would not just be another CNN+, per Thompson.

“We’ll know in a few years time if we’re beginning to make progress, even if that still doesn’t look like it because of the aggregation of declining platforms and growing ones,” he said, requesting patience regarding the next chapter in CNN streaming.

Thompson noted that success “won’t happen overnight,” which suggests a slow timeline.

CNN+’s short ride

Thompson told FT that CNN+ was “a big, bold experiment which was abandoned rather briskly.”

Company executives discussed plans for a CNN streaming service as early as December 2020, and in May 2021, employees learned that CNN+ was happening, Deadline reported. By July 2021, CNN confirmed the plans publicly.

But under a year later, CNN+ was no longer available, with the closure largely viewed as a casualty of parent company WarnerMedia merging with Discovery to form Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) 10 days after CNN+’s launch. The merger meant CNN now had a parent company that already owned the Discovery+ streaming service and HBO Max; it also had interest in merging Discovery content with that of HBO. In August 2022, a few months after CNN+ closed, WBD announced Max as its flagship streaming service, merging what was formerly HBO Max with Discovery+.

“In a complex streaming market, consumers want simplicity and an all-in[-one] service which provides a better experience and more value than stand-alone offerings,” Discovery’s streaming boss J.B. Perrette said in statement regarding CNN+’s closure.

CNN+ accrued high-profile news anchors, and in its three weeks of availability, it had an estimated subscriber count of 100,000–150,000, according to Variety, which reported that the early figure put the streaming service on track for year-one quotas. However, CNBC later reported that daily viewership was just around 4,000, citing an anonymous source.

In an internal meeting, Perrette showed “frustration” that CNN moved forward with CNN+’s rollout despite its parent company’s merger plans, according to CNN. Perrette reportedly told employees that “some of this was avoidable.” CNN’s report noted that during the merger process, Discovery executives were not legally allowed to communicate with CNN executives.

CNN+’s 29-day existence makes it the shortest-lived streaming service. It took the record from Quibi, which launched in April 8, 2020, and announced on October 21, 2020, that it was throwing in the towel (Roku eventually bought Quibi for cheap).

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Roku forcing 2-factor authentication after 2 breaches of 600K accounts

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Roku account breach —

Accounts with stored payment information went for as little as $0.50 each.

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Roku logo on TV with remote in foreground

Getty Images

Everyone with a Roku TV or streaming device will eventually be forced to enable two-factor authentication after the company disclosed two separate incidents in which roughly 600,000 customers had their accounts accessed through credential stuffing.

Credential stuffing is an attack in which usernames and passwords exposed in one leak are tried out against other accounts, typically using automated scripts. When people reuse usernames and passwords across services or make small, easily intuited changes between them, actors can gain access to accounts with even more identifying information and access.

In the case of the Roku attacks, that meant access to stored payment methods, which could then be used to buy streaming subscriptions and Roku hardware. Roku wrote on its blog, and in a mandated data breach report, that purchases occurred in “less than 400 cases” and that full credit card numbers and other “sensitive information” was not revealed.

The first incident, “earlier this year,” involved roughly 15,000 user accounts, Roku stated. By monitoring these accounts, Roku identified a second incident, one that touched 576,000 accounts. These were collectively “a small fraction of Roku’s more than 80M active accounts,” the post states, but the streaming giant will work to prevent future such stuffing attacks.

The affected accounts will have their passwords reset and will be notified, along with having charges reversed. Every Roku account, when next requiring a login, will now need to verify their account through a link sent to their email address. Alternatively, one can use the device ID of any linked Roku device, according to Roku’s support page. (Forcing this upgrade yourself is probably a good idea for past or present Roku owners.)

Security blog BleepingComputer reported around the time of the incident that breached Roku accounts were sold for as little as 50 cents each and likely obtained using commonly available stuffing tools that bypass brute-force protections through proxies and other means. BleepingComputer reported that “a source” tied Roku’s recent updates to its Dispute Resolution Terms, which all but locked Roku devices until a customer agreed, to the fraudulent activity. Roku told BleepingComputer that the two were not related.

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Prime Video looking to fix “extremely sloppy mistakes” in library, report says

Amazon, amazon prime video, Disney, Disney Plus, Hulu, streaming, Tech / /
Morfydd Clark is Galadriel in <em>The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power</em>.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/lotr-rings-of-power-listing-800×450.png”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / Morfydd Clark is Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Amazon Studios

Subscribers lodged thousands of complaints related to inaccuracies in Amazon’s Prime Video catalog, including incorrect content and missing episodes, according to a Business Insider report this week. While Prime Video users aren’t the only streaming users dealing with these problems, Insider’s examination of leaked “internal documents” brings more perspective into the impact of mislabeling and similar errors on streaming platforms.

Insider didn’t publish the documents but said they show that “60 percent of all content-related customer-experience complaints for Prime Video last year were about catalogue errors,” such as movies or shows labeled with wrong or missing titles.

Specific examples reportedly named in the document include Season 1, Episode 2 of The Rings of Power being available before Season 1, Episode 1; character names being mistranslated; Continuum displaying the wrong age rating; and the Spanish-audio version of Die Hard With a Vengeance missing a chunk of audio.

The documents reportedly pointed to problems with content localization, noting the “poor linguistic quality of assets” related to a “lack of in-house expertise” of some languages. Prime Video pages with these problems suffered from 20 percent more engagement drop-offs, BI said, citing one of the documents.

Following Insider’s report, however, Quartz reported that an unnamed source it described as “familiar with the matter” said the documents were out of date, despite Insider claiming that the leaked reports included data from 2023. Quartz’s source also claimed that customer engagement was not affected,

Ars Technica reached out to Amazon for comment but didn’t hear back in time for publication. The company told Insider that “catalogue quality is an ongoing priority” and that Amazon takes “it seriously and work[s] relentlessly alongside our global partners and dedicated internal teams to continuously improve the overall customer experience.”

Other streaming services have errors, too

Insider’s report focuses on leaked documents regarding Prime Video, but rival streaming services make blunders, too. It’s unclear how widespread the problem is on Prime Video or across the industry. There are examples of people reporting Prime Video inaccuracies online, like on Amazon’s forum or on Reddit. But with some platforms not offering online forums and it being impossible to know how frequently users actually report spotted problems, we can’t do any apples-to-apples comparisons. We also don’t know if these problems are more prevalent for subscribers living outside of the US.

Beyond Prime Video, users have underscored similar inaccuracies within the past year on rival services, like Disney+, Hulu, and Netflix. A former White Collar executive producer pointed out that the show’s episodes were mislabeled and out of order on Netflix earlier this month. Inaccurate content catalogs appear more widespread if you go back two years or more. Some video streamers (like (Disney and Netflix) have pages explaining how to report such problems.

Streaming services have only gotten more expensive and competitive, making such mistakes feel out of place for the flagship video platform of a conglomerate in 2024.

And despite content errors affecting more than just Prime Video, Insider’s report provides a unique look at the problem and efforts to fix it.

Prime Video looking to fix “extremely sloppy mistakes” in library, report says Read More »

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The lines between streaming and cable continue to blur

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Here we go again —

Disney+ to offer 24/7 channels to play Star Wars content, commercials.

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O.B., aka Ouroboros, in Marvel's <em>Loki</em> show, which streams on Disney+.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ARC-201-10072_R-1200×800-5b2df79-800×533.jpg”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / O.B., aka Ouroboros, in Marvel’s Loki show, which streams on Disney+.

Despite promises of new and improved TV and movie viewing experiences, streaming services remain focused on growing revenue and app usage. As a result of that focus, streaming companies are mimicking the industry they sought to replace—cable.

On Monday, The Information reported that Disney plans to add “a series” of channels to the Disney+ app. Those channels would still be streamed and require a Disney+ subscription to access. But they would work very much like traditional TV channels, featuring set programming that runs 24/7 with commercials. Disney hasn’t commented on the report.

Disney is exploring adding channels to Disney+ with “programming in specific genres, including either Star Wars or Marvel-branded shows,” The Information said, citing anonymous “people involved in the planning.” It’s unknown when the Disney+ channels are expected to launch.

The report comes as streaming services continue trying to find ways to capitalize off cable companies’ customer base. NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service already offers subscribers over 50 always-on live channels. Hulu and Paramount+ offer live TV with cable channels. Streaming platforms are also eager to license content normally delegated to traditional TV channels, including old shows like Suits, the 2023 streaming record-setter, and live sporting events like WWE Raw.

Channel surfing 2.0

If you’ve followed the streaming industry lately, you won’t be surprised to hear that ad dollars are reportedly behind the push for live channels. Disney+, like many streaming services, aims to be profitable by the end of Disney’s 2024 fiscal year and extract as much revenue from each subscriber as possible (including by using tactics like password crackdowns) to fuel profits.

The news follows similar moves by Disney, including adding Hulu to the Disney+ app, as well as plans to add ESPN to Disney+, too, according to The Information. Disney is also attempting to launch a joint sports-streaming app with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). It’s not hard to imagine Disney one day (assuming the app ever debuts) making the sports app’s content accessible through Disney+.

“The idea is to make Disney+ a service that has something for everyone, anytime,” The Information reported.

That sounds an awful lot like cable, which spent years growing customers’ monthly bills by adding more channels and bundles aimed at specific interests, like children’s entertainment, sports, and lifestyle. The ability to hop from on-demand Disney kids’ movies to on-demand sitcoms on Hulu to live programming centered on (the seemingly endless piles of) Marvel and Star Wars content feels a lot like channel surfing. It wasn’t too long ago when channel surfing was viewed as a time-suck.

Netflix has also reportedly considered ways to unite other streaming platforms with Netflix in order to extend the amount of time spent on Netflix. In late 2022, Netflix “explored creating a store within its app for users to subscribe to and watch other streaming services, all without leaving the Netflix app,” The Information said, citing an unnamed person “who was involved in those exploratory discussions.” Netflix reportedly decided not to move ahead with the plans for now but still could. It hasn’t commented on The Information’s report.

As we saw with Netflix’s password crackdown and streaming’s shift to ads, streaming companies tend to copy each other’s strategies for revenue growth. And live channels could be something more streaming companies get involved in, as WBD and Amazon, as examples, already have (albeit separate from their flagship, on-demand streaming apps, which differs from what Disney+’s live channel reportedly will reportedly be like).

Disney, notably, is no stranger to the business of online live channels, having 21 similar offerings within the ABC.com app, including a channel for ABC News and another for General Hospital.

Subscription-based streaming services may even have an easier time competing for ad dollars than free, ad-supported TV (FAST) streaming channels, such as those on Tubi and Pluto TV. Susan Schiekofer, chief digital investment officer for GroupM, the top US ad-buying company, told The Information that advertisers might feel more comfortable allotting dollars to ad-supported channels that are tied to users who have already spent money on a subscription.

Streaming services initially were a way to get only the content you wanted on demand and commercial-free. But the report about Disney+ and Netflix are just two examples of growing interest in reinvigorating the strategies of linear TV. Instead of jumping from network to network within cable, there’s interest in getting people to jump from one streaming service to another within one platform—with plenty of commercials along the way.

The lines between streaming and cable continue to blur Read More »

after-pushing-cloud-storage,-tv-provider-to-auto-delete-61-day-old-dvr-recordings

After pushing cloud storage, TV provider to auto-delete 61-day-old DVR recordings

Bell Canada, cable, Canada, Cloud, Policy, streaming, Tech / /

“Wish I knew this before” —

Customers originally had 365 days to enjoy the recordings.

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hand holding tv remote in front of TV with static

Canadian telecom Bell Canada has been pushing its cloud-based DVR service to its Fibe TV subscribers for years. While it has given customers advantages, like the ability to view their recordings from more devices, such as phones, compared to using local DVR storage, users don’t have as much control over the recordings as they thought they had.

On May 1, Fibe TV will automatically delete recordings stored on its Cloud PVR (personal video recorder) offering once the recordings hit 61 days of age, as confirmed by Canadian online newspaper Daily Hive. Currently, customers maintain access to recordings stored via Cloud PVR for 365 days.

Fibe TV apparently started alerting customers of the upcoming change this month.

A Bell Canada spokesperson, Jacqueline Michelis, minimized the idea of disruption to customers, telling Daily Hive: “The viewing of nearly all recordings takes place within 60 days, so there is minimal impact to customers.” Michelis didn’t provide more details on how Bell Canada arrived at this conclusion.

An X user (formerly Twitter) user going by SimonDingleyTV shared what he said was a notice he received from Fibe TV about the policy change. He claimed that a company representative told him that the reason for the change was to “save space.”

Bell updated its website to acknowledge the time limit and noted that Cloud PVR also has a limit of up to 320 hours of recordings. If users surpass that limit, the oldest recordings will start getting deleted.

“Absolutely ridiculous”

Customers have turned to Bell Canada’s online support forum to share their discontent with the changes, with some saying that they don’t align with the services they expected to receive when signing up for Fibe TV. Thankfully, Bell Canada won’t be able to delete recordings stored on DVR hardware inside customers’ homes.

Other complaints are coming from users whose recordings are being deleted even when they haven’t come close to maxing out their cloud storage or if their recordings aren’t available on demand.

A user going by camisotro on Bell Canada’s online support forum called the announcement “absolutely ridiculous” and condemned what they perceived to be years of telecoms pushing back against users’ ability to record content:

… Bell eliminated the option for any device that actually records TV locally, forcing customers onto an inferior TV box with ‘Cloud PVR.’ Now they are nerfing it to a nearly useless 60 days of recording. This is not the service I signed up for on contract, and yet I am still continuing to pay increasing prices.

Like rivals, Bell pushed customers toward cloud-based DVR, with its website stating, “Fibe TV has evolved to a cloud-based storage system for all your recordings.”

However, some users may not have realized the trade-offs.

“Wish I knew this before I traded PVRs to change to cloud storage! No one told us that !!!,” a forum user known as Crazy aunt said.

Another user, Thornquills, called the news a “deal-breaker” because they’re “paying $10.00/month for cloud storage,” and “2 months is too restrictive, in my opinion.”

Meanwhile, Bell Canada rival Rogers Ignite confirmed to The Canadian Press that it will continue allowing its customers to keep DVR recordings stored in the cloud for one year, as its cloud PVR offering exists to “help manage storage capacity.”

Fibe TV’s policy change comes about two months after Bell Canada announced that it was laying off 4,800 workers and selling 45 of its 103 radio stations.

After pushing cloud storage, TV provider to auto-delete 61-day-old DVR recordings Read More »

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Spotify’s second price hike in 9 months will target audiobook listeners

Spotify, streaming, Tech / /

Searching for profits —

Bloomberg report claims price hike coming to Australia, Pakistan, and the UK first.

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Spotify logo on phone screen with headphones around the phone

Spotify Premium subscriptions include up to 15 hours of audiobook listening. But starting in April, the company will charge an extra $1 to $2 per month for the feature, Bloomberg reported today, citing anonymous “people familiar with the matter.” The reported price hike would be the second that Spotify customers have faced in nine months.

Currently, Spotify charges nothing for its free plan with ads, $5.99/month for students, $10.99/month for its Premium plan, $14.99/month for its Duo Premium plan for two users, and $16.99/month for its Family Premium plan with up to six users.

Bloomberg reported that individual plan prices will go up by approximately $1 per month and multi-member plans will increase by $2 per month.

The changes will reportedly start in Australia, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and two other markets by the end of this month. Subscribers in the US will reportedly see prices rise “later this year.”

Spotify will usher the changes by offering a ‘new’ basic tier that lets users access everything on Spotify except audiobooks for $10.99/month, per Bloomberg. That would mean that people who only use Spotify for listening to music and/or podcasts would avoid paying a higher monthly rate. Basic plan members will still be able to buy audiobooks through Spotify, Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg didn’t specify whether Spotify would default current subscribers to this plan so that their monthly costs wouldn’t change or if users would have to take steps to sign up for what would be marketed as a new plan. It also didn’t mention if the basic plan would have additional drawbacks.

The upcoming price increase would be Spotify’s second since it introduced Premium pricing in 2011. In July, Spotify bumped the starting Premium price from $9.99/month to $10.99/month. Spotify’s announcement followed price hikes from rivals like Amazon Music and Tidal.

Spotify tries to be profitable

Spotify may deem these changes necessary to buoy audiobook revenue. The company is heavily invested in the sector and spent $123 million to acquire Findaway in July 2022. Spotify said it was the second biggest audiobook brand after Audible, citing Bookstat data published in The New York Times. But as it stands, Spotify only generates revenue from audiobooks if users go beyond the 15 hours per month limit included in their Premium plan, per Bloomberg.

Spotify, which launched in 2008, hasn’t had a profitable year (although it has reported profitable quarters at times). Audiobooks represent an opportunity for the company to diversify revenue streams beyond its traditional routes, which include paying hefty royalty fees. Spotify says it paid $9 billion in music-related royalties last year, or about 69.7 percent of its 2023 revenue ($13.2 billion). Bloomberg said Spotify’s music industry partners “have been pushing Spotify and its competitors to raise prices” amid concerns about royalty prices.

Spotify has also invested over $1 billion in a podcast business that is currently unprofitable (although Bloomberg noted that Spotify expects this to change in 2024). In December, Spotify announced it was laying off 17 percent of employees.

Audiobooks could help Spotify’s wallets. But charging extra for a service it’s been pushing since October risks losing some of the listeners it’s earned. At the same time, if Spotify ensures that long-time users who simply want Spotify for its original bread-and-butter aren’t impacted, it could help minimize disruption.

As with any price hike, though, Spotify’s changing pricing structure will force users to reassess whether they want to keep paying for Spotify or consider alternatives. Those who’ve been waiting for Spotify to offer high-fidelity audio since 2021, for example, may decide the app doesn’t fit their needs.

A Spotify spokesperson declined to comment on Bloomberg’s report to Ars Technica.

Spotify’s second price hike in 9 months will target audiobook listeners Read More »

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Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy: Lawsuit

ads, antitrust, facebook, Meta, netflix, privacy, Social Media, streaming, Tech / /
A promotional image for Sorry for Your Loss, with Elizabeth Olsen

Enlarge / A promotional image for Sorry for Your Loss, which was a Facebook Watch original scripted series.

Last April, Meta revealed that it would no longer support original shows, like Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk talk show, on Facebook Watch. Meta’s streaming business that was once viewed as competition for the likes of YouTube and Netflix is effectively dead now; Facebook doesn’t produce original series, and Facebook Watch is no longer available as a video-streaming app.

The streaming business’ demise has seemed related to cost cuts at Meta that have also included layoffs. However, recently unsealed court documents in an antitrust suit against Meta [PDF] claim that Meta has squashed its streaming dreams in order to appease one of its biggest ad customers: Netflix.

Facebook allegedly gave Netflix creepy privileges

As spotted via Gizmodo, a letter was filed on April 14 in relation to a class-action antitrust suit that was filed by Meta customers, accusing Meta of anti-competitive practices that harm social media competition and consumers. The letter, made public Saturday, asks a court to have Reed Hastings, Netflix’s founder and former CEO, respond to a subpoena for documents that plaintiffs claim are relevant to the case. The original complaint filed in December 2020 [PDF] doesn’t mention Netflix beyond stating that Facebook “secretly signed Whitelist and Data sharing agreements” with Netflix, along with “dozens” of other third-party app developers. The case is still ongoing.

The letter alleges that Netflix’s relationship with Facebook was remarkably strong due to the former’s ad spend with the latter and that Hastings directed “negotiations to end competition in streaming video” from Facebook.

One of the first questions that may come to mind is why a company like Facebook would allow Netflix to influence such a major business decision. The litigation claims the companies formed a lucrative business relationship that included Facebook allegedly giving Netflix access to Facebook users’ private messages:

By 2013, Netflix had begun entering into a series of “Facebook Extended API” agreements, including a so-called “Inbox API” agreement that allowed Netflix programmatic access to Facebook’s users’ private message inboxes, in exchange for which Netflix would “provide to FB a written report every two weeks that shows daily counts of recommendation sends and recipient clicks by interface, initiation surface, and/or implementation variant (e.g., Facebook vs. non-Facebook recommendation recipients). … In August 2013, Facebook provided Netflix with access to its so-called “Titan API,” a private API that allowed a whitelisted partner to access, among other things, Facebook users’ “messaging app and non-app friends.”

Meta said it rolled out end-to-end encryption “for all personal chats and calls on Messenger and Facebook” in December. And in 2018, Facebook told Vox that it doesn’t use private messages for ad targeting. But a few months later, The New York Times, citing “hundreds of pages of Facebook documents,” reported that Facebook “gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages.”

Meta didn’t respond to Ars Technica’s request for comment. The company told Gizmodo that it has standard agreements with Netflix currently but didn’t answer the publication’s specific questions.

Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy: Lawsuit Read More »

“disgraceful”:-messy-tos-update-allegedly-locks-roku-devices-until-users-give-in

“Disgraceful”: Messy ToS update allegedly locks Roku devices until users give in

arbitration, Policy, Roku, streaming, Tech, TVs / /

Show’s over —

Users are opted in automatically unless they write a letter to Roku by March 21.

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A promotional image for a Roku TV.

Enlarge / A promotional image for a Roku TV.

Roku customers are threatening to stop using, or to even dispose of, their low-priced TVs and streaming gadgets after the company appears to be locking devices for people who don’t conform to the recently updated terms of service (ToS).

This month, users on Roku’s support forums reported suddenly seeing a message when turning on their Roku TV or streaming device reading: “We’ve made an important update: We’ve updated our Dispute Resolution Terms. Select ‘Agree’ to agree to these updated Terms and to continue enjoying our products and services. Press to view these updated Terms.” A large button reading “Agree” follows. The pop-up doesn’t offer a way to disagree, and users are unable to use their device unless they hit agree.

Customers have left pages of complaints on Roku’s forum. One user going by “rickstanford” said they were “FURIOUS!!!!” and expressed interest in sending their reported six Roku devices back to the company since “apparently I don’t own them despite spending hundreds of dollars on them.”

Another user going by Formercustomer, who, I suspect, is aptly named, wrote:

So, you buy a product, and you use it. And they want to change the terms limiting your rights, and they basically brick the device … if you don’t accept their new terms. … I hope they get their comeuppance here, as this is disgraceful.

Roku has further aggravated customers who have found that disagreeing to its updated terms is harder than necessary. Roku is willing to accept agreement to its terms with a single button press, but to opt out, users must jump through hoops that include finding that old book of stamps.

To opt out of Roku’s ToS update, which primarily changes the “Dispute Resolution Terms,” users must send a letter to Roku’s general counsel in California mentioning: “the name of each person opting out and contact information for each such person, the specific product models, software, or services used that are at issue, the email address that you used to set up your Roku account (if you have one), and, if applicable, a copy of your purchase receipt.” Roku required all this to opt out of its terms previously, as well.

But the new update means that while users read this information and have their letter delivered, they’re unable to use products they already paid for and used, in some cases for years, under different “dispute resolution terms.”

“I can’t watch my TV because I don’t agree to the Dispute Resolution Terms. Please help,” a user going by Campbell220 wrote on Roku’s support forum.

Based on the ToS’s wording, users could technically choose to agree to the ToS on their device and then write a letter saying they’d like to opt out. But opting into an agreement only to use a device under terms you don’t agree with is counterintuitive.

Even more pressing, Roku’s ToS states that users only have “within 30 days of you first becoming subject to” Roku’s updated terms, which was February 20, to opt out. Otherwise, you’re opted in automatically.

Archived records of Roku’s ToS website seem to show the new ToS being online since at least August. But it was only this month that users reported that their TVs were useless unless they accepted the terms via an on-screen message. Roku declined to answer Ars Technica’s questions about the changes, including why it didn’t alert users about them earlier. But a spokesperson shared a statement saying:

Like many companies, Roku updates its terms of service from time to time. When we do, we take steps to make sure customers are informed of the change.

What Roku changed

Customers are criticizing Roku for aggressively pushing them to accept ToS changes. The updates focus on Roku’s terms for dispute resolution, which prevent users from suing Roku. The terms have long forced a described arbitration process for dispute resolution. The new ToS is more detailed, including specifics for “mass arbitrations.” The biggest change is the introduction of a section called “Required Informal Dispute Resolution.” It states that except for a small number of described exceptions (which include claims around intellectual property), users must make “a good-faith effort” to negotiate with Roku, or vice versa, for at least 45 days before entering arbitration.

Roku is also taking heat for using forced arbitration at all, which some argue can have one-sided benefits. In a similar move in December, for example, 23andMe said users had 30 days to opt out of its new dispute resolution terms, which included mass arbitration rules (the genetics firm let customers opt out via email, though). The changes came after 23andMe user data was stolen in a cyberattack. Forced arbitration clauses are frequently used by large companies to avoid being sued by fed-up customers.

Roku’s forced arbitration rules aren’t new but are still making customers question their streaming hardware, especially considering that there are rivals, like Amazon, Apple, and Google, that don’t force arbitration on users.

Based on comments in Roku’s forums, some users were unaware they were already subject to arbitration rules and only learned this as a result of Roku’s abrupt pop-up.

But with the functionality of already-owned devices blocked until users give in, Roku’s methods are questionable, and Roku may lose customers over it. Per an anonymous user on Roku’s forum:

I’m unplugging right now.

“Disgraceful”: Messy ToS update allegedly locks Roku devices until users give in Read More »