In this week's collection of recent cord-cutting news items from around the web: ESPN bringing live shows to Twitter, CBS All Access now available on Roku devices in Canada, Roku's platform revenue now exceeds player revenue, the most popular streaming services, Sling TV's cloud DVR expanded to more devices, Hulu Live TV gets new program guide, media disruption is accelerating, and more!
ESPN is bringing live shows and content to Twitter. A recent ESPN news release says that live shows and content in development include SportsCenter Live, Hoop Streams, Fantasy Focus Live, The College Football Show, and Rankings Reactions.
Roku announced in a blog post that CBS All Access now available on Roku devices in Canada. "CBS All Access ($5.99 CAD per month after a 1-month free trial) offers Canadian viewers more than 7,500 commercial-free episodes on demand spanning full current seasons of select CBS series, entire previous seasons and classic shows, as well as the ability to live stream CBSN, CBS News' 24/7 streaming news service."
Sling TV's cloud DVR has expanded to Chrome, Chromecast, Xbox One and smart TVs. According to the announcement, "By adding Cloud DVR to your account, you'll be able to record up to 50 hours of your favorite shows and movies and watch later for just $5 per month with any Sling TV subscription."
"Hulu Live TV finally gets a proper guide a year after launch," says Trusted Reviews. "[U]ntil now, the platform's apps have lacked a traditional programming guide, which means you either need to know what you're looking for or just scan the channels to chose from what's currently now... Now, a year after the service launched in beta, Hulu is finally adding a guide that’s easy for users to scan through and see what's on now and next."
Deadline reports on the meltdown of media stocks this week, saying that "While the major stock market indices recovered early losses amid jitters over the U.S. pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, media companies had a rough trading day, especially those with exposure to the traditional pay-TV bundle."
"Media Disruption Is Accelerating," according to Forbes contributor Brad Adgate. "As streaming video subscribers grow, the number of pay-TV subscribers appears to be in a freefall... The same digital disruption is occurring in radio/audio."
"Roku Just Hit an Important Inflection Point" says The Motley Fool. "For the first time ever, platform revenue exceeded player revenue. Platform revenue more than doubled year over year to $75.1 million, which represented 55% of total revenue of $136.6 million. Player revenue was $61.5 million. The platform business's growth over the past three years has been nothing short of impressive."
Ars Technica reports that "Formula 1 finally launched its livestream—and it was a total mess" with "[p]lenty of buffering problems for the stream's debut event."
"TiVo Exiting the Box-Making Business," says Multichannel News. "In a move that will get TiVo out of the hardware-making business, the company announced that it has signed a 'major' device manufacturer to serve as its direct-to-consumer box partner... this partner, yet unnamed, will also take over retail sales of TiVo products outside of TiVo.com, including outlets such as Amazon and Best Buy."
Inc. has identified, "in no particular order... the most popular streaming services:"
- Hulu
- Netflix
- Sling TV
- HBO Now
- Amazon Prime Video
- YouTube TV
- Philo TV
- Playstation Vue
- Pluto TV
- fuboTV
