In The Frame – May ’17

ITV and Eurosport are among more than 40 channels that Amazon is now offering UK customers in the company’s latest move to grab market share from Netflix and Sky. The channels, which also include Discovery and reality service Hayu, are available at an extra cost of between £1.49 and £9.49 per month to Prime members, who choose and pay for individual services rather than bundles. The inclusion of Eurosport as part of the offer means that Amazon will show live sport globally for the first time, starting with the French Open and coverage of next year’s winter Olympics in South Korea.

Amazon has also moved into promoting live music to help boost its reach. Prime Live Events is the company’s latest move to attract subscribers. Starting with a Blondie gig in London, subscribers will benefit from exclusive access to established musicians performing in smaller venues, and each event will be streamed exclusively on Prime Video.

Netflix, meanwhile, has analysed six months of streaming data from the 22 countries, including the UK, Argentina, Brazil, India, New Zealand and the US. The data shows that people watching Netflix, which has more than 100 million subscribers worldwide, prefer comedy in the morning, drama in the middle of the day and documentaries late at night.

A partnership kicks off today (May 31^st) between Twitter and the BBC, who are teaming up for a live streaming election special. The two organisations will bring live video and breaking news from the corporation’s election coverage to the social network. Partnering for the first time, Twitter and the BBC show live streams during the election debate today, two Question Time Leaders’ Specials (on June 2^nd and 4^th), the Newsbeat Youth Debate on June 6^th and the Election Night Results Special on June 8^th.

In another partnership, Facebook has won a deal to stream 20 MLB games live this season, as the social platform pushes into premium video.

BBC News

The BBC has announced that iPlayer users will need to log in to access the online catch-up service within the next few weeks.

While the corporation has denied that this is a strategy designed to tackle TV licence fee evasion, it has acknowledged that collecting email addresses associated to registered accounts may allow it to identify people using the service without paying.

Andrew Scott, launch director of MyBBC, said that the reason for making the changes “isn’t about enforcing the licence fee, it’s about giving you a better BBC and helping you get the best out of it”.

The BBC was the biggest winner at this year’s BAFTAs. The full list of winners is here.

And finally…

• The second edition of the Media Production Show takes place next month at London’s Olympia. The two-day event, featuring exhibitors and seminars, is for people working in television, film and related industries.
• Kodak and Pinewood have announced a partnership to support the use of physical film in motion picture and television production. Kodak has signed a 5-year lease on part of the Ken Adam Building at Pinewood Studios in the UK to establish a new film negative processing lab.
• ITV’s chief executive, Adam Crozier, is stepping down at the end of June after seven years in charge.
• Entertainment One has announced that it’s producing 117 new episodes of its popular children’s cartoon series, Peppa Pig. In China, the show has been watched more than 24.5 billion times on multiple streaming or subscription-based on-demand platforms since it was launched two years ago.
• Channel 5 is to broadcast live Premiership rugby matches for first time on terrestrial TV in a four-year deal agreed for five games. The matches will go out alongside their transmission on BT Sport.
• HBO is to explore multiple possible spinoffs of Game of Thrones, which is the most-watched show in the network’s history.
• If you’re involved in specifying or procuring technology within your company, Broadcast magazine – which will produce a TECH supplement in June on the industry’s technology priorities for the next 12 to 18 months – wants to hear from you. Click/tap here to take the survey.
• The National Film and Television School is launching a Live TV Simulator Sports Production course in partnership with HBS, the company that provides host broadcasting services for the football World Cup.
• Arqiva starts sale proceedings this week. More on this story to follow.

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