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TECH MEDIA NEWS
Artificial Intelligence-related marketing companies drew $1 billion in investment in 2Q19, according to GP Bullhound. Over half of marketers plan to use AI in ten different ways within the next two years, said the report, including personalizing the channel experience, improving customer segmentation and personalizing the customer journey. The European market accounted to 30% of transactions in the first half of 2019.
Dish Network struck a deal with INCOMPAS, the internet and competitive networks association, through which Dish will allow service providers to offer their customers video platforms and products including Hopper 3, Dish’s whole-home DVR featuring integrated apps, voice remote, Dish Anywhere, and Dish Outdoors. INCOMPAS members can also offer virtual Sling TV and AirTV. “This agreement is good for our members and their customers because it enables service providers to offer differentiated, value-added video and streaming services to their residential and business customers,” said INCOMPAS CEO Chip Pickering.
Global solutions provider Globecast announced it has been selected by Orby TV to provide a range of broadcast media operational services for the pay TV startup. Launched in spring 2019, Orby TV offers affordable prepaid, pay-as-you-go satellite pay TV service directly to consumers, no internet service required. Using its fiber and satellite network, Globecast is managing for Orby TV channel aggregation, providing Orby TV’s co-location services, handling technical operations and the uplinking of the channels.
Just 34% of Gen Z women say they are optimistic about tech’s impact on society, 15 points below US women overall, and 61% report finding it hard to take breaks from their digital devices, 20 points higher than women overall, according to GfK’s Global Consumer Life survey. That said, younger women prefer products that offer the latest tech features by eight percentage points over women overall.
Centro announced the availability of a two-way API integration with FreeWheel, pairing Centro’s Basis digital media activation and management platform with FreeWheel’s Strata platform for finance management. Basis sends contracts, media activation and delivery data into Strata for billing and reconciliation in real-time, with the information automatically rationalized and formatted. “With industry complexity continuing to increase and brands attempting to pay agencies less for their services, it’s critical that software companies work together to automate as much of the manual processes as possible,” said Shawn Riegsecker, founder and CEO, Centro. “The FreeWheel integration with Basis is a huge first step in marrying platforms for traditional media and digital media, so agencies can focus on value-additive, strategic and important work.”
Video software provider Synamedia and Triveni Digital, provider of program guide and metadata management, data broadcasting and service quality assurance solutions, are partnering to help customers to transition to ATSC 3.0. Triveni Digital’s Digital Broadcast Chain, which includes GuideBuilder XM and Broadcast Gateway, provides architectural support on a unified platform for a coherent workflow across both services, while Synamedia’s compression technology allows broadcasters to repack existing ATSC 1.0 and free up the required bandwidth to launch new ATSC 3.0 services.
STREAMING
TiVo’s ad-supported streaming platform, TiVo+, has launched, featuring free, ad-supported channels and integrating live TV, DVR recordings and third-party streaming apps. “With TiVo+, we’ve made it easy for users to watch on their own terms, bringing live streaming channels, like Hell’s Kitchen, Unsolved Mysteries and other favorites, thousands of movies, and TV shows into an app-free environment,” said TiVo CEO Dave Shull.
Netflix reported earnings of $1.47 a share, handily beating analysts’ expectations of $1.04/share. Global subscriber base increased 6.8 million, to 158.33 million and in the US, 500,000 new subs were added, less than had been estimated. “Since our US price increase earlier this year, retention has not yet fully returned on a sustained basis to pre-price-change levels, which has led to slower U.S. membership growth,” the company said in a letter to shareholders. “On a member base of more than 60 million, very small movements in churn can have a meaningful impact on paid net adds.”
SOCIAL
A new integration allows sharing of text, link and image-based posts on iOS from Reddit’s “Safe for Work” to Snapchat. Reddit users who have Snapchat installed in their device can tap the “Share” icon on posts in the Reddit iOS app, and select the Snapchat option. “With this integration, Snapchatters will be able to share interesting posts they find, adding new context and conversation-starters to their Snaps,” said Ben Schwerin, VP of Partnerships at Snap Inc. “As shared Snaps drive engagement back to Reddit – this helps advance the power of community and connection across both platforms.” Snapchat is the first platform partner for the content sharing test.
Twitter responded to calls from some – most notably Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris – who think President Trump’s Twitter account should be suspended for objectionable content, by saying the messages of world leaders are of public interest. While “the accounts of world leaders are not above our policies entirely,” said Twitter, they can stay online if they have a clear public value. “We recognize that we’re operating in an increasingly complex and polarized political culture,” said the company in a blog post. “These are constantly evolving challenges and we’ll keep our policies and approach under advisement.” In the most recent Democratic debate, Harris said Trump’s account had been used to “intimidate and threaten witnesses.”
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