Weekly digest from the West
Jean-Baptiste Piron
Cultural Attaché I Attaché culturel I Québec Office Los Angeles
-4 sectors where we’ll see the first post-pandemic stars emerge: It might be challenging to find bright spots in financial news these days, but seismic economic shifts, such as the one COVID-19 has sparked, always give way to new markets and opportunities. As with past downturns, it’s in those areas that the next industry game-changers and investment darlings will emerge. COVID-19 has left a range of industries with a slew of new problems, and new startups will emerge to address them. As remote office and operational environments become permanent fixtures of business life, for example, cloud computing and software-as-a-service (SaaS) will proliferate beyond current applications thanks to their de facto remote accessibility. In addition, the recurring revenue models that typically underpin these technologies make them particularly sustainable in the face of future market upheavals.We’ll see the first big changes in industries that were already ripe for disruption, but where the pandemic has changed the trajectory of what that disruption looks like. Here are four prime candidates.
https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/24/4-sectors-where-well-see-the-first-post-pandemic-stars-emerge/
-HBO Max Is Available to Comcast Customers, After WarnerMedia Lands Post-Launch Deal: Better late than never: WarnerMedia clinched a deal with Comcast for HBO Max, with the final pact officially hammered into place just hours after the super-size streaming service launched earlier Wednesday. Comcast, one of the last big holdouts in picking up HBO Max, will help expand the fledgling streamer’s reach. The U.S.’s largest cable operator, Comcast reported 20.8 million total video customers as of the end of the first quarter of 2020, though that was down 4.7% from the year prior. HBO Max is still not available on the two biggest over-the-top platforms, Roku and Amazon Fire TV, including their channel stores. On Wednesday, WarnerMedia and Comcast announced that access to HBO Max is included for the operator’s current HBO subscribers, with HBO Max eventually to be integrated into Comcast’s guides. Under the deal, Comcast’s existing HBO subscribers with Xfinity X1 and Xfinity Flex will be able to log in to HBO Max’s apps and website — for no additional charge — and new customers will be able to sign up for HBO Max at $14.99 monthly directly from Comcast. The companies said HBO Max will soon be available natively on the Xfinity platforms, alongside nearly 200 other services, including NBCUniversal’s Peacock, Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video. WarnerMedia’s goal is to reach 50 million-55 million HBO Max customers in the U.S. by 2025, according to incoming AT&T CEO John Stankey. News of Comcast’s deal for the new streaming product comes after WarnerMedia inked a dozen distribution agreements ahead of HBO Max’s launch. Those include Apple, Google/YouTube TV, Hulu, Charter, Altice USA, Cox, Verizon, Samsung, Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4. In addition, AT&T, WarnerMedia’s parent company, is offering various HBO Max bundling deals and free-trial offers. HBO Max, in which WarnerMedia plans to invest $4 billion over the next three years, launched with more than 10,000 hours of premium content. That’s roughly double the lineup available on the traditional HBO service. Content on HBO Max includes everything on HBO and more — including all eight of Warner Bros. “Harry Potter” movies and full seasons of “Friends,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “Rick and Morty,” “Sesame Street” and “Pretty Little Liars.” The streamer also has rights to films from iconic animation house Studio Ghibli and offers movies from Warner Bros., New Line and DC like “Wonder Woman,” “The Matrix,” “Joker,” “Suicide Squad,” “Casablanca,” “Crazy Rich Asians” and “The Wizard of Oz.”
https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/hbo-max-comcast-deal-warnermedia-1234617114/
-Most Major Streaming Services Saw Viewership Increase in May, Study Says: Most of the top big names in streaming services have all seen an increase in viewership numbers during May due to COVID-19. That’s according to Comscore’s new Total Home Panel data which released the numbers on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney,+ and YouTube. Part of Disney+‘s recent success is attributed to the streaming service providing early on-demand access to recent movies like Onward. The animated film became available to stream just one month after hitting theaters. Disney+’s engagement grew from 4.3% on February 3, 2020 to 4.8% on May 11. Amazon Prime Video and Netflix both had had a 1.5% increase. However, not all of the household name streamers did as well. YouTube had a slight decrease from 21.7% to 21.6%, while Hulu saw a sharp decline in viewers, seeing a 2.9% fall in engagement from 17.6% to 14.7%. It’s not really clear why Hulu and YouTube’s numbers fell rather than increased during a time when millions of people were stuck at home with nothing much to do other than stream videos. One idea is that it might have to do with the two streamer’s content draw relying on live events, sports, and TV shows that were postponed. Comscore’s data report showed average household data usage was up 33% during the first week and a half of May 2020 compared to the first week and a half of May 2019. March and April also saw increased data consumption since last year. Since April 20, usage has slowly tapered off now that states are lifting stay at home orders and easing up on some restrictions. With more people going back to work and participating in social gatherings, data consumption and streaming hours are on the decline.
-Virtual filmmaking takes center stage in reopening Hollywood: When “Good Trouble” returns to screens, fans of the Freeform TV drama will reconnect with the two young women, Callie and Mariana, trying to make it in Los Angeles. But instead of shooting scenes in downtown L.A. — an impossibility during the shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic — filmmakers are digitally recreating the historic Palace Theatre and other landmarks on a set in Valencia. By fusing the latest advances from the video game world, using software that powers the hit game “Fortnite,” producers will shift much on-location shooting indoors to Santa Clarita Studios, projecting photo-real imagery of downtown’s skyline on LED video walls. “We are preparing all the virtual assets so that on Day One they can be as if they were shooting exterior L.A. but they will be on a set with limited people in Valencia,” said Sam Nicholson, chief executive of Pasadena-based Stargate Studios, which has partnered with the creators to create the virtual sets. As Hollywood faces mounting pressure to resume production and reemploy hundreds of thousands of cast and crew who’ve been out of work for months, filmmakers are turning to virtual producers like Nicholson as a route to reboot TV shows and features halted by the pandemic. Some predict the health crisis will accelerate the industry’s use of virtual filming to mitigate risks and reduces costs of on location shoots. “It’s the tip of the iceberg,” Nicholson said. “People have to utilize these tools to get back on line. Once they’ve utilized them and realized its faster, better, cheaper, you will see a lot more virtual production coming down the pipeline. ? Marco Fargnoli, director of photography for “Good Trouble,” said virtual production will provide a safe alternative to cast and crew as they return to work.
-New ‘Star Wars’ VR Experience Based on Galaxy’s Edge Coming From Lucasfilm, Oculus Studios: Disney is hoping to lure Star Wars fans back to its theme parks — once they’re allowed to reopen this summer — with the assistance of a new virtual-reality experience that extends the storylines encompassing the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge attraction. ILMxLab, Lucasfilm’s immersive entertainment studio, announced the development of “Star Wars: Tales From the Galaxy’s Edge,” a new VR experience, in collaboration with Facebook’s Oculus Studios. The title, slated to be released later in 2020, will feature both “iconic” and new characters from the Star Wars universe, according to ILMxLab. “Tales From the Galaxy’s Edge” will include multiple styles of gameplay and various difficulty settings, designed to appeal to both casual fans and hardcore Star Wars buffs. The VR experience takes place in the time between “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” on the planet of Batuu. It’s set on the outskirts of Black Spire Outpost of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, the new land at Disneyland Resort in California and Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.
https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/star-wars-vr-experience-parks-lucasfilm-oculus-1234618617/
-Hulu Begins Testing a Watch Party Feature: Hulu announced today that it will begin testing Hulu Watch Party, a social feature that will enable viewers to watch content virtually with others. Hulu said “At Hulu, we recognize that watching your favorite shows and movies with loved ones is vital to feeling connected. As we continue to stay-at-home, we also wanted to help viewers stay engaged with friends and family outside their homes as well.” Those who have access to the test will find the feature though a Watch Party icon on the Details page of shows and movies in Hulu’s on-demand library. They will then be given a link to invite their family and friends to join. A watch party can include up to 8 people, all of which must be subscribed to the Hulu (No Ads) plan. All members of a watch party must be 18 or older. During a watch party, viewers can interact and react to the content with a chat function. Each user can also control their own content without disrupting the viewing for the rest of the group, so go ahead pause if you need to grab a snack or use the bathroom. You can rejoin by hitting a “Click to Catch Up” button when you’re ready to jump back in. The feature is currently being tested on Hulu.com and with Hulu (No Ads) subscribers. The feature will be available for thousands of movies and shows in Hulu’s on-demand streaming library. Users can check if a title is available by looking for the “Watch Party” icon in the Details page.
https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/hulu-begins-testing-a-watch-party-feature/
-Netflix Users Have Fewest Technical Problems of Any Streaming Service, Study Finds: Netflix is delivering the most trouble-free streaming service amid the jump in video streaming during the coronavirus crisis, according to a new study. Netflix users reported just 0.07 technical problems per hour of content streamed on average, according to a J.D. Power April 24-26 survey of U.S. streaming users. That’s meaningfully lower than problem incidents reported for Amazon Prime Video and Hulu (0.11), Disney Plus (0.12) and YouTube TV (0.13). Technical problem rates were even higher among all other streaming services, at 0.17 per hour streamed. To be sure, the error rates are very low across all streaming services in the study. But in the streaming wars, even the tiniest incremental differences can have big ramifications in retaining subscribers. With its high rates of content engagement and low technical problems, Netflix is the No. 1 service consumers said they would keep in response to the hypothetical question of which service they would pick if they could keep only one. About 54% of respondent said they would choose Netflix, followed by Amazon Prime Video (17%), Hulu (13%) and Disney Plus (4%), per the J.D. Power study. (A caveat: The survey did not poll users about price.) “There is no question that the great content is critical for streaming service success, but the quality of audio and video… is the key differentiator for top-performing streaming providers,” Ian Greenblatt, managing director of J.D. Power’s technology, media and telecom practice, wrote in the report released this week. He cited factors such as sharp picture resolution, fast loading speeds, responsive controller inputs and perfect synchronization between audio and video as contributors to overall customer satisfaction.
-Why It’s a Good Year for the TV Academy to Increase the Number of Nominees in Top Categories: “The Good Fight” is the kind of show that deserves to be in the Emmy conversation. The acclaim is almost universal: The program has a solid 80 rank on Metacritic, and Season 4 received a stunning 100% score from 16 critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Yet the series has received just two Emmy nominations: one for main title theme music (in 2017) and another in original music and lyrics (2018). In an earlier time, “The Good Fight” would be a contender, just like its predecessor, “The Good Wife,” was. But “The Good Wife” was nominated for outstanding drama series in 2010 and 2011, on the eve of Peak TV. These days, it’s not enough to be “Good.” (And “The Good Fight” is more than good.) There’s not only too much TV, there’s too much great TV. I know I’m a broken record on this, and I’m not the only one. So consider this my annual appeal to the Television Academy: Please, please, expand the number of nominations in the key program categories to 10. Yes, even 10 feels like too few slots, and plenty of fantastic shows would still be snubbed in the expansion. There obviously has to be a limit, but there’s already a precedent: As we know, the Motion Picture Academy expanded the possible number of nominated best pictures to 10 in 2009. The Television Academy currently allows seven nominees in the outstanding drama and comedy categories, six in variety talk, variety sketch, structured reality, unstructured reality and competition categories, and five in everything else (including the ever-growing limited series field). Ties will occasionally bump up those numbers. Television last expanded the drama and comedy race in 2015, from six. Yet the number of series on TV continues to balloon: According to FX’s annual tally, there were 532 scripted original series in 2019. Although there isn’t a count in the unscripted space, that number is believed to be perhaps closer to 1,000. That growth in shows includes new entries from Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus, of course. But now Quibi, HBO Max and Peacock are entering the fray. Even as some basic cable networks pull back on their scripted fare, there’s still a lot of TV, and not enough space to honor it. That leaves many shows flying under the awards radar, particularly at smaller outlets like CBS All Access — the “Good Fight” streamer that doesn’t have the same reach as Netflix or Amazon. And the broadcast networks continue to get squeezed out. Even once-reliable nominees like NBC’s “This Is Us” and ABC’s “Black-ish” are no longer considered sure-thing nominations given the influx of new, high-profile programming. Going to 10 nominations might at least get a few more worthy shows — and perhaps one or two surprises — into the mix. What’s the stumbling block? Last year, we theorized that it might come down to the Primetime Emmy ceremony. Add multiple nominees to several major categories, and suddenly an already crowded Microsoft Theater becomes unwieldy. And perhaps more important, as previously noted, it costs $750 for a seat at the show and Governors Ball, but nominees who are TV Academy members get comped two tickets. Adding all those new nominees might dig into revenue from the event. So here’s this year’s twist: Since it’s pretty clear there won’t be a regular ceremony, those obstacles go out the window. You don’t need to worry about finding space in the Microsoft Theater or at the Governors Ball, because all signs point to a virtual Emmy event. This is the year to experiment with 10 nominations. If it works, it opens the door to a much more vibrant race next year, once networks and studios feel comfortable with in-person campaigning again. This gives the Academy room to figure out how to accommodate more nominees in 2021 — I’m sure it could figure out a solution by then. AEG owns and operates Staples Center as well as the Microsoft Theater — perhaps it’s time to move to Staples (like the Grammys) and take advantage of all that extra space. The problem of too many contenders isn’t going away, not as long as we live in Peak TV times. There’s a lot to quibble about concerning awards and the Emmys, but I honestly think the push to expand the number of nominees in the key categories is a battle worth waging. You might call it … a Good Fight.
https://variety.com/2020/tv/in-contention/tv-academy-emmy-nominees-1234618005/
-Eminem has joined an invite-only startup that’s betting texting between celebs and fans will become a big business: On Monday, the music artist Eminem tweeted out a phone number to fans with the instructions ? text me, ill hit you back." The rapper's listed phone number, 313-666-7440, isn't his personal digits, even though its Detroit area code suggests it could be. The number was created by Community, an invite-only text-marketing startup that works with celebrities and influencers to offer what is essentially a text-message version of a standard email-marketing tool like Mailchimp. Community gives each celebrity a unique phone number that they send out to their followers. Fans can sign up to receive texts from a public figure like Eminem by filling out an informational form, similar to how a brand or media company might ask customers to opt in to receiving promotional emails or newsletters. In the case of Eminem, the artist appears to be using his Community phone number to promote merchandise and new music he’s releasing in celebration of the 20th anniversary of his album "The Marshall Mathers LP." Setting up Community to boost sales of merch is one of several use cases celebrities and influencers have tested out on the app, which has drawn a mix of early users, including music artists like Paul McCartney, the Jonas Brothers, and Jennifer Lopez, and influencers like Jake Paul. "I've only been promoting it a little bit, and I've got around 10,000 people on my text platform," Joshua Weissman, a food influencer who's been testing Community, told Business Insider last month. "I sent out a text message, and it went out to 9,900. It had a 98% open rate. ? While Community can serve as a promotional tool for public figures to push direct-to-consumers sales, the app also allows its users to respond directly to texts from fans and send out things like personalized birthday messages. Weissman told Business Insider that he’d been leaning into the app's birthday-notification feature. ? If it's like 10 people's birthdays that day, I'll just take 30 minutes, and I'll send a video-selfie message of me saying happy birthday to that person," he said. In addition to collecting data on a fan's date of birth, Community asks for a user's name, gender identity, city, and email address (which is optional) when they sign up. An opted-in user also agrees to the company’s terms of use and privacy policy, which highlight some of the ways that they will end up interacting with a celebrity through the app. Community says in its terms of use that it's possible not all texts will be sent directly by the influencer or celebrity who shared their phone number. ? A message sent by a Customer may actually be sent on his/her behalf by a public relations or other social media representative," the company says. The company also says in its terms that any texts that a user sends back to a public figure can be used by their team and Community for ? developing, producing, and marketing products and/or services," with the ability to "publish in searchable format." While Community is still a relative newcomer to the influencer-marketing world (the company launched last year), its direct-messaging format ties in well with a broader trend toward more direct-to-consumer interactions between celebrities and their followers.
-Ad-Free Subscription Streaming Growth Outpaces Ad-Supported Fare During COVID-19: Overall time spent streaming has more than doubled since March, when the U.S. and other countries largely shut down due to COVID-19. But growth has been slower for ad-supported players than for ad-free subscription ones, a pattern Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar said Friday proves consumers are getting more sophisticated as they adjust to streaming. The analyst cited recent data from Nielsen as well as ReelGood, an online search tool for streaming programming. Fully ad-free subscription services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video thrived March 25 to May 13, as has the ad-supported, non-premium content on YouTube. Services in between — namely Hulu’s popular basic tier, with a $6 monthly subscription fee but a light ad load — have grown at a slower pace. Venkateshwar said Hulu viewing grew 107% during the pandemic period, while Netflix rose 116% and Amazon climbed 124%. The big winner, though, was YouTube, which increased 134% and also upped its share of the streaming market to 20% from 18% in the same span in 2019. In his weekly review of media and tech news for clients, Venkateshwar argued that the data is a warning sign for AVOD services flooding the market. NBCUniversal’s Peacock, which launched on Comcast platforms in April ahead of a national rollout in July, is positioned as a major AVOD entrant. HBO Max, which launched on Wednesday, is ad-free for now but will add an AVOD tier in 2021. CBS All Access, like Hulu, has a limited-ad version as well as an ad-free one. (The burgeoning crop of free, ad-supported services like Tubi, Pluto and Crackle, did not factor heavily into the report.)
Doer...
4 年Merci pour ton article Jean-Baptiste