Weekly Digest from the West
Jean-Baptiste Piron
Cultural Attaché I Attaché culturel I Québec Office Los Angeles
-15 big things: Snap, space, scooters & more from TechCrunch Disrupt: https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/15-big-things-snap-space-scooters-more-from-techcrunch-disrupt
-YouTube TV Now Available on Amazon Fire TV Devices: As promised, Amazon finally launched YouTube TV — Google’s $50-per-month internet pay-TV package — for most of its Fire TV devices. The move comes after Amazon and Google reached détente on their years-long business spat earlier this year. Under the agreement, in July, Amazon launched the free YouTube app on Fire TV devices while Google added native Amazon Prime Video support to Chromecast. According to Amazon, the YouTube TV app is now available on Fire TV Stick (second generation), Fire TV Stick 4K, the most recent Fire TV Cube, and all Toshiba, Insignia, Element and Westinghouse Fire TV Edition smart TVs. In addition, the YouTube TV is available on previous generation Fire TV devices including the first-generation Fire TV Cube, the second-gen Fire TV, and the third-gen pendant design Fire TV. (The YouTube TV app is not compatible with first-generation Fire TV Stick or Fire TV models). YouTube TV competes not only with traditional cable and satellite TV providers but with a newer generation of over-the-top pay-TV providers. Those include Hulu With Live TV; Dish’s Sling TV; AT&T TV and AT&T TV Now (formerly called DirecTV Now); Sony’s PlayStation Vue; Fubo TV; and Philo. YouTube TV provides over 70 channels, including local networks from all four major broadcasters — ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC — in nearly all U.S. markets as well as cable networks including Discovery, TNT, CNN, ESPN, and FX. The service provides has unlimited cloud DVR storage space (with recordings stored for up to nine months) and up to six accounts per household.
https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/youtube-tv-amazon-fire-tv-1203353512/
-Instagram’s launch notifier alerts you the moment a product drops: Instagram’s aggressive push into the ecommerce segment looks unlikely to reverse anytime soon. This morning, the Facebook subsidiary announced the launch of a new feature that pops up a notification when upcoming products become available. Via new stickers in Stories and tags in the Instagram feed, users can set reminders for a launch date and preview the product’s details ahead of time. Instagram has the reach to more than justify such shopping ventures. More than a billion people use the network every month, with over 500 million using it every day. And according to some third-party studies, more than a third have used their smartphone to purchase a product online, making them 70% more likely to do so than non-users. “With more of … shopping moments happening on Instagram, we wanted to make it easier for people to discover and follow upcoming product launches from brands and creators they love,” wrote Instagram in a blog post. “Brands and creators connect with shoppers eager to have those products the instant they’re available. The convergence of these activities make Instagram the place where collaborations and limited releases happen.”
-Verizon acquires Jaunt XR’s software and technology: Less than a year after a major restructuring that saw it lay off staff and shift its focus from virtual reality to augmented reality, Jaunt XR announced today that Verizon has acquired its software, technology, and unspecified “other assets” for an undisclosed amount. The deal will give Verizon access to volumetric video capture tools, which Jaunt has described as a good way to demonstrate the value of high-speed 5G networks. Well publicized for its work in VR cinema, Jaunt began publicly pivoting to AR streaming last fall, showing off 360-degree human capture tools before acquiring volumetric 3D video streaming software Teleporter. We reported in November that the company was seeking to sell off its VR business, and in a surprise move, company founder Arthur van Hoff joined Apple this April. Over the past year, Jaunt has positioned itself as a leader in the “scalable creation and distribution of volumetric video of humans,” using machine learning to aid in the process of aggregating and distilling multi-camera feeds of people into 3D avatars that can be viewed on multiple devices. The technology could enable believable holographic representations of athletes, celebrities, or other people to appear within AR apps, either for one-on-one interactions or mass simultaneous viewing.
https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/30/verizon-acquires-jaunt-xrs-software-and-technology/
-DirecTV Rethinks NFL Sunday Ticket Deal Amid Cord-Cutting: The National Football League’s Sunday Ticket package, which allows football fans to view almost any game, has long been a cornerstone of satellite broadcaster DirecTV, which holds exclusive rights to the offering. But DirecTV-parent AT&T Inc. isn’t sure it wants to renew the deal. The company’s chief operating officer, John Stankey, said he believes Sunday Ticket’s value to the company has peaked and that a renewal—especially if it comes with a higher price tag—will be hard to justify at a time when consumers are canceling pay-TV connections, including at DirecTV. “There’s less profitability to support the decision” to offer Sunday Ticket, Mr. Stankey said in an interview earlier this week. “It becomes less critical to the business over time.” Any change may take some time. The current deal runs through the 2022 regular season and DirecTV pays an average annual rights fee of $1.5 billion, people familiar with the matter said. Still, it isn’t unusual for sports rights negotiations to begin well before contracts expire. DirecTV would be open to discuss sharing the package with other platforms. Typically, nonexclusive packages are far less costly. “We’d always look at it,” Mr. Stankey said. “It all gets down to what the price of something is.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/directv-rethinks-nfl-sunday-ticket-deal-amid-cord-cutting-11569603153
-Sony cuts PlayStation Now price to $9.99 a month, adds GTA V and God of War: Sony’s PlayStation Now streaming service is getting a big price cut — and some big games to match. The company announced today that the monthly subscription price is dropping to $9.99 a month, compared to the previous price of $19.99. Quarterly pricing will be $24.99 (down from $44.99), while the annual price will be $59.99 (down from $99.99). “Starting today, PS Now will be offered at a more compelling price that is comparable to other entertainment streaming services on the market,” the company says. “Current customers will see this new pricing reflected in their next billing cycle.” In addition to the price cut, Sony is also adding relatively current blockbuster games to the service. Right now, PlayStation Now has a library of more than 800 titles spanning the PS2, PS3, and PS4, but they’re generally older titles. Today will see four major games added to the service: Grand Theft Auto V, God of War, Uncharted 4, and Infamous: Second Son. The games are available now until January 2nd, 2020. Sony says that “each month, the service will add a new selection of marquee games that will be available for a limited period.” PlayStation Now currently supports streaming on PS4 and PC, and a select number of games are downloadable on PS4.
-Film News Roundup: Arthouse Specialist Kino Lorber Launches Digital Platform: Arthouse distribution specialist Kino Lorber is launching VOD platform Kino Now with more than 600 new releases, classics and international films. Kino Now, announced Monday, will offer exclusive early access to new theatrical releases, festival hits and exclusive titles not available on other streaming platforms or not yet available on home video. The platform will also include special “bundle” offerings of selected hard-to-find titles as well as collections from renowned filmmakers including international TV series such as “Deutschland 83” and “Bad Banks”; documentary series including Joseph Campbell’s “The Power of Myth”; auteur collections built around Jean-Luc Godard, Lina Wertmüller and Fritz Lang; and pioneers of cinema restorations of the early works of African American filmmakers and the first women filmmakers. The site will be annually refreshed with over 50 new theatrical releases from Kino Lorber’s first run and repertory divisions and over 500 yearly additional titles as “festival direct” exclusives and indie art house digital premieres. New titles coming soon include Rick Alverson’s “The Mountain,” starring Tye Sheridan and Jeff Goldblum; Chinese auteur Bi Gan’s box office hit “Long Day’s Journey into Night”; Lila Avilés’ “The Chambermaid” (Mexico’s current official Oscar submission), Franco Rosso’s 1980s British reggae hit “Babylon”; international documentaries like “Walking on Water”; and climate change spectacle “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch.” The news was first reported by Deadline.
-What’s Coming to Amazon in October 2019: October, the spookiest month of the year, is here and Amazon has updated its slate of movie and television offerings accordingly. “The Babadook,” the indie Australian movie that’s the stuff of nightmares, will be available to stream on Oct. 14. HBO’s continuation of Alan Moore’s macabre meditation on superheroes, “Watchmen,” premieres on Oct. 20. For the horror averse, the streamer has got you covered, too. Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi adventure “A.I.,” the inspirational Gene Hackman college hoops movie “Hoosiers” and the Jodie Foster court drama “The Accused” all drop on the first of the month. Then, just two days later on Oct. 3, check out Robert Pattinson’s art-house space odyssey “High Life.” Amazon will also debut the series “Modern Love,” based on the New York Times column, on Oct. 18. The anthology stars Anne Hathaway, Tina Fey, Cristin Milioti and Dev Patel.
https://variety.com/2019/film/news/amazon-october-2019-1203352536/
-TiVo debuts the Edge DVR and TiVo+, its own livestreaming service: Surprise — TiVo is not dead. Well, not yet anyway. Confirming an earlier leak, the company has just announced two new models of its famous DVR. The $350 TiVo Edge for antenna and the $400 TiVo Edge for cable both carry the features that TiVo owners know and love like Skip Mode, OneSearch, and OnePass, but make things a bit more interesting by adding Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos to the mix. TiVo also took the wraps off its TiVo+ live TV streaming service which will be coming soon to all TiVo customers in the U.S. The Edge DVRs are obviously more sophisticated than the TiVo Bolt DVRs that came before them. Those devices supported 4K and HDR, but not Dolby Vision or Dolby Atmos. However, it’s likely the shape of the Edge that will earn the appreciation of DVR enthusiasts. Gone is the unique but super-awkward wave design of the Bolt, replaced by a far more conventional (and easier to live with) stacked rectangular design that is more reminiscent of a Sony PS4 than any of the TiVo devices that have come before. Under the hood, the two Edge models are mostly identical. Both have the same generous 2TB storage capacity, which TiVo claims is good for about 300 hours of HD recording. The Edge for antenna has four discrete tuners, giving you the option to watch or record up to four shows simultaneously, while the Edge for cable gets six tuners. On-board is a wide variety of streaming services including, Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, HBO Go, Epix, VUDU, TubiTV, Ameba, Curiosity Stream, FlixFling, HSN, Plex, Toon Goggles, Vewd, Yahoo, YuppTV, Zone-ify, iHeart Radio, and Pandora. At launch, Netflix, YouTube, Vudu, and Plex will offer HDR and Dolby Atmos content, though we don’t yet know which of these will be supporting Dolby Vision specifically.
-Inside Disney’s New York Stream Factory: It’s early September, just two months before the Nov. 12 go-live date for Disney Plus. Michael Paull, president of Disney Streaming Services, sits five floors above Chelsea Market, the bustling mall and tourist attraction in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood — in the global nerve center of the Mouse House’s video-streaming operations. On Disney’s earnings call a few weeks earlier, CEO Bob Iger called Disney Plus “the most important product that the company has launched” during his 14-year tenure in the job. Paull and his team at DSS are responsible for the development, delivery, design, support and marketing of Disney Plus, as well as ESPN Plus. The stakes are high for Disney’s multibillion-dollar push into the streaming wars. Paull admits feeling “great responsibility” in delivering on the Disney Plus promise. But he expresses confidence that DSS has engineered Disney Plus with the right set of initial features and, just as important, has the technical personnel and infrastructure to deliver on the goal of racking up as many as 90 million subscribers within the next five years. “Being able to operate at scale is very different from being able to operate in sort of single-digit-million subscribers. It’s night and day,” he says. That operational know-how, and the group’s Chelsea Market home base, came to Disney through its deal to acquire majority control of Major League Baseball’s BAMTech for $2.6 billion. It’s a business that has been pumping video online since 2002 and has an unmatched track record, says streaming analyst and consultant Dan Rayburn — who calls DSS the “special forces of the streaming industry.” “Disney Streaming Services has more expertise and more resources than anybody else in the industry,” he says. “They are just snapping up so many good people in the industry.” What made BAMTech different is that it started life with a mission exactly aligned with Disney’s goals: taking media rights (in MLB’s case, launching the MLB.tv service) and monetizing them, says Joe Inzerillo, EVP and CTO of Disney Streaming Services. “When you look at other companies that have acquired service providers it hasn’t always worked out, because those providers didn’t do in-house services,” says Inzerillo, who has been with the organization for 16 years. For BAMTech, “the technology grew as it needed to.”
https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/disney-streaming-services-new-york-disney-plus-1203354576/
-Apple’s Movie Release Strategy Should Please Theaters, Irk Netflix: The streaming wars are kicking into higher gear, with an onslaught of new streaming options set to hit the market over the coming year. Perhaps the most consequential will be Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) Apple TV+, which is hitting the market Nov. 1 at a disruptive subscription price point of just $4.99 per month, with a one-year free trial for purchasers of a new Apple device. Apple’s enormous installed base of nearly 1.5 billion devices capable of accessing the service already gives the consumer tech giant huge reach and lots of space to market its new service, which will feature content from top-tier Hollywood talent. But streaming services aren't just showing episodic television -- every big streaming company is also bankrolling feature films as well. On this point, there has been some controversy. Feature films have traditionally been granted an exclusive three-month window in theaters before going to DVD or premium download. A few months after that, films usually arrive on pay-TV services such as HBO or, in more modern times, streaming services like Netflix. But with Hollywood studios and these pay-TV channels now often under the same corporate umbrella, many companies have been pushing for a shortened window between theatrical release and the time a film appears on a streaming service. These negotiations have been fairly controversial, with Netflix leading the charge for same-day releases in theaters and on the streaming service. It looks as if Apple has decided it will be adhering to cinematic tradition and respecting theatrical exclusivity. In this respect, Apple is joining the side not only of most Hollywood studios like Disney (NYSE:DIS) but also other top tech companies like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), which has also embraced the Hollywood tradition for theatrical exclusivity before bringing its films to Amazon Prime. Apple’s choice thus tips the scales much more toward tradition, and it has the potential to further isolate Netflix, which could potentially have consequences for the streaming leader.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/09/30/apple-movie-release-strategy-theaters-irk-netflix.aspx
-The future of sports tech: Here’s where investors are placing their bets: Sports have always been the ultimate unifier — transcending geographic borders, rising above partisan politics and enabling multiple audiences (and generations) to find alignment — the little-known secret behind this global unifier? Technology. Technology influences how athletes train and compete, how fans engage and consume content and how world-class venues are constructed. Technology has been quietly transforming the world of sports for years, with investment in areas like esports continuing to rise, surpassing a total of $2.5 billion in VC funding in 2018 — and some estimates predicting the sports tech sector will reach $30 billion by 2024. With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics less than a year away, a massive amount of investment and innovation are pouring into the sports technology industry ahead of this globally unifying event. But which technologies are making the biggest impact? Where are investors placing their bets? Which sports are at the forefront of the technology revolution and which factors are holding the industry back? In an attempt to pull the curtain back on the sports tech industry, we conducted a survey, The Current State of Sports Technology, of industry experts, including investors, founders and professionals from teams, leagues and media properties, to answer these very questions. Below you’ll find some key takeaways from our findings, pointing to the areas we believe the industry is headed in the year to come. When asked about which technologies would make the biggest impact on the sports industry in the next 12 months, an overwhelming 78% selected fan engagement technologies, such as live streaming, esports and content platforms, compared to technologies related to athlete performance (16%) and stadium experience (6%). Respondents also believe that this will hold true for the upcoming 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
-Tubi TV looking to raise $150 Million in new round of funding: Streaming service Tubi TV is looking to raise $150 million in a new round of funding, two people close to the matter told The Information. The ad-supported streaming platform has found its niche in the streaming market, differing itself from subscription-based outlets like Netflix and Hulu by offering a free alternative in streaming services. Launched back in 2014, Tubi TV had previously raised upwards of $35 million last year and operates under an interesting business model; the streaming service licenses “non-exclusive” older movies and television series with a library that includes Oscar-winning films and Emmy Award-winning shows. The company received a $25 million credit line from Silicon Valley Bank earlier this year, as well.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/tubi-tv-looking-to-raise-150-million
-Pricing Most Powerful Weapon In Streaming Wars, Survey Says: In today's video streaming wars amongst giants Netflix and Amazon Prime Video - and soon Disney+, Apple TV+, HBO Max and NBCUniversal's Peacock - content is king, right? Not just high-priced exclusive originals, but also classic TV content. That's why Peacock recently stole Netflix's Friends, which has been one of Netflix's most popular shows, in a development that is generally viewed by "the industry" as being a big loss for the reigning champ. That's why HBO Max reportedly spent $1 billion to exclusively feature The Big Bang Theory. And that's why Netflix fired back by paying up big ($500 million) to take down Seinfeld. Those have been the headline stories in entertainment circles over the past month (I have written about these content wars several times in Forbes in the past few weeks). But guess what? Consumers choose money over their Friends by a long shot - a ratio of over 4 to 1, in fact - according to a recent survey of 1,001 U.S. streaming subscribers in PC Magazine. Yes, for subscription streamers, PC Magazine concludes that cold hard cash still rules the day. Its survey says that a whopping 65% indicated they would cancel their existing subscription video on demand (SVOD) service over price increases, while only 14% say they will bolt if their SVOD loses their favorite content. Meanwhile, only 9% of those surveyed indicated they would leave if their SVOD lacked exclusive original content (content that, like Game of Thrones and The Crown, costs up to $15-$20 million per episode). PC Magazine’s survey also found that $33 monthly is the magic number that most streamers are willing to pay for all of their SVOD needs (a number consistent with the $35 monthly sum I recently calculated in my own SVOD math for Forbes).
-LA Investors Lead the Charge — Q3 LA Seed Deal Report by Amplify: We’re excited to share the most recent update of our LA Seed Report, encompassing all seed funding to LA companies in Q3. Q3 continued last quarter’s trend of increased seed activity, with 28 LA companies raising $68mm in venture funding, a 10% increase over Q2. This rise was driven largely by increased deal volume, as average round sizes remained stable QoQ. This quarter, we also explored where LA Seed capital is coming from in greater depth. Roughly 70% of lead investors were based in LA in Q3, as compared to an average ~40% last year. We’ve highlighted, in several prior reports, the influx of Seed stage capital in LA (both dollars and funds), and it’s exciting to note that more LA companies are finding local leads. Interestingly, LA has continued to see a proliferation of SaaS companies (historically underrepresented) across all different verticals. SaaS funding has topped the charts by volume every quarter this year, and by funding for the past two quarters. These companies operate across a diverse range of verticals- creating applications for finance, real estate, cannabis, eCommerce, media, and more.
https://blog.amplify.la/la-investors-lead-the-charge-q3-la-seed-deal-report-b84d1d828062