In The Frame – May ’19

Streaming / Online / Tech

The biggest story this month was the completion of the deal in which Disney took full control of Hulu, the SVoD service. A quieter story this month, also involving Disney, concerned the entertainment company’s now “worthless” $400 million investment in Vice Media. Disney says its outlay won’t deliver a return, despite Vice riding high at one point on the back of a $5.7 billion valuation.

Netflix is understood to have closed a leasing deal with Pinewood Studios worth £6 million per year to enable the streaming company to make more content in the UK.

A survey of more than 2,000 UK consumers to explore sentiment on SVoD services has revealed that almost three quarters do not consider any form of sponsorship or advertising on their services as acceptable. Twenty-three per cent of Netflix subscribers surveyed said they would upgrade to an ad-free premium model, should Netflix begin to show ads; 39 per cent of the same group said they would either cancel their subscription or switch to another paid service that did not carry ads.

Original content for WarnerMedia’s upcoming streaming service will include specially produced films as well as series.

OTT platform DAZN has won the broadcast TV rights to Major League Soccer (MLS) in six international markets (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Brazil) from 2019 to 2022.

Staying with sport, the French Tennis Federation, Orange and France Télévisions have teamed up to broadcast matches live in 8K for the first time. Virgin Media, meanwhile, has become the first UK TV platform to broadcast an event in 4K Ultra HD (UHD) with High Dynamic Range (HDR) with its retransmission of Eurosport’s coverage of the tournament.

BBC News

The BBC has published its first TV commissioning supply report in order to provide greater transparency for the production sector, while an initiative designed to increase the proportion of female contributors appearing in BBC English language news, current affairs and topical programming has been praised as the number has radically increased.

Gavin and Stacey is set to return for a one-off, one-hour Christmas special. New episodes of the sitcom were last screened in the UK in 2010.

The final episode of Line of Duty went out this month and was watched by more than nine million viewers – the biggest overnight audience of 2019 so far.

BBC Bitesize has launched a campaign to support children who are preparing to start secondary school. News of the launch is here and the campaign is here.

And finally...

• According to BARB, the final episode of Game of Thrones averaged 3.2 million viewers when it aired overnight in the UK. The show’s absence is apparently causing a headache for HBO and Sky.
• The winners of the 2019 Bafta Television Awards, which were presented this month, are here.
• ITV and BBC are to share coverage of FA Cup football for the first time in more than thirty years when the competition returns in its entirety to free-to-air TV in 2021.
• BT will be showing the Champions League final free of charge. It’ll be available to live stream on the BT Sport app, at btsport.com/final, via BT Sport’s YouTube channel and on Virgin TV.
• The latest edition of The Viewing Report, the annual exploration of the UK’s TV viewing habits published by the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB), is now available. The report has found that the UK’s “enduring affection for traditional TV and viewing patterns persist, despite an upsurge in digital”.

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