In The Frame – April ’19

Streaming / Online / Tech

Netflix has published its first-quarter results which show that the company added 9.6 million new subscribers – “the highest quarterly paid net adds in our history”. Netflix now has just under 150 million subscribers globally.

In that same quarter, Amazon spent $1.7 billion on music and video, and, although the disclosure doesn’t reveal how much the company is investing in producing originals for its Prime Video service, it does indicate that Amazon is still spending a lot less than Netflix, which is expected to invest as much as $15 billion in original and licensed content this year.

Following Facebook and Twitter’s streamed baseball examples, YouTube will exclusively stream 13 Major League Baseball (MLB) games this season. The games will be live streamed for viewers in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico on MLB’s official YouTube channel, and on a forthcoming dedicated channel on YouTube TV.

BBC News

Ofcom has directed the BBC to undertake a lengthy public interest test following an admission by the corporation that it has lost the streaming battle with Netflix and declaration of changes it wants to implement in order to maintain a healthy position in the market. The BBC wants the iPlayer to show programmes up to a year after their initial release but Ofcom is concerned how such moves might affect other British broadcasters such as ITV and Channel 4. Ofcom is due to rule on whether to approve the changes by August.

BBC Studios has taken control of the lion’s share of UKTV, which runs 10 free-to-air and pay-TV channels, in a deal worth about £180m – the biggest in the corporation’s history. The BBC will take ownership of seven of the channels.

The 1,000th edition of the technology news programme Click will be the BBC’s first full-length interactive programme, letting viewers choose how they want to watch it. Available only online, a non-interactive version of the show will be broadcast as usual on the BBC News channel in the UK.

And finally...

• The BBC Introducing Radio 4 Comedy Award 2019 launched this month, “discovering and showcasing the most exciting new comedy acts that the UK has to offer”. Past winners and finalists of the award include Alan Carr, Sarah Millican and Peter Kay.
• Harvey Weinstein’s trial for rape and sexual assault has been postponed from June 3 until September 9, following a closed-court, pre-trial hearing.
• Avid has ‘redesigned and reimagined’ Media Composer with both new and existing users in mind.
• A number of potential uses of AI, including automated camera selection and robotic camera steering, have been suggested by EVS, the broadcast video technology company, as it looks to increase the speed and accuracy of VAR (video assistant referee).
• BT Sport is making football documentary called State of Play, based on the book of the same name by Michael Calvin, and looking at the human side of the game.
• BT has replaced Virgin as the most complained-about pay TV provider in the UK.
• Channel 4 is to house its new national HQ in Leeds’ historic Majestic building in the city centre – a former nightclub that inspired the Kaiser Chiefs song I Predict a Riot. The building will serve as a major hub for Channel 4 News and accommodate other roles from across the organisation.
• Fifty-year-old Lee MacDonald, who played Grange Hill’s heroin-addicted schoolboy Zammo McGuire, is to appear in EastEnders.

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