Our weekly news brief summarizes cord-cutter news from around the Web. In this week's round-up: Details on YouTube TV and Hulu's live TV offering, the NCAA March Madness Live app is expanding to more devices, Sling TV adds cloud DVR to Fire devices, and more.
- Roku streamed 1 billion hours of video and music through 13.4 million active accounts in December. The company also brought in a record $400 million in revenue in 2016.
- The details of YouTube TV have finally been announced by Google. YouTube TV is the latest entrant in the increasingly-crowded live streaming TV field that includes Sling TV, Playstation Vue and DirecTV Now. YouTube TV will offer streaming from ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN, regional sports networks and many other popular cable networks and includes a cloud DVR with no storage limits. The announced price is $35/month. You can sign up to be notified of the official launch at tv.youtube.com.
- And don't forget that Hulu is jumping into the live TV game. Bloomberg reports that Hulu's video-streaming service "will carry six cable channels from A+E Networks including the History network in its upcoming live TV package, and has decided not to offer networks from Viacom," the owner of Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.
- NCAA® March Madness® Live™ will once again provide live streaming coverage of the 2017 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship. The NCAA March Madness Live app is expanding to 15 platforms this year. The app is currently available on Roku and will be available everywhere by Saturday, March 11 through www.ncaa.com/marchmadness, www.bleacherreport.com, www.CBSSports.com, Bleacher Report’s Team Stream App, CBS Sports App, Amazon Alexa devices, the App Store, Roku Channel Store, Windows Store and Google Play.
- Sling TV has rolled out their Cloud DVR service to Amazon Fire TVs, Fire TV Sticks and Fire tablets. Called "First Look," the service gives users 50 hours of storage for $5 per month. More details are available in this Sling TV blog post.
- A recent analysis TV ratings provider Nielsen found that more than 23% of TV homes own a digital streaming device, up from 19% in June 2016. The highest household penetration is by Roku and Apple T, followed by Amazon Fire TV and Google Chromecast.
- David Zatz reports on the TiVo Mavrik, a network-based TV tuner that "streams live over-the-air television and DVR recordings to set-tops... and mobile devices." TiVo Mavrik sounds very similar to the Tablo, which is currently available on Roku and other devices.
- Time Warner and Turner are launching Boomerang as a subscription video on demand service, starting at $4.99 per month. The VOD service is an extension of the Boomerang cable TV channel, which, according to Variety, "Turner distributes to some 144 million households worldwide and includes many of the same titles."
- The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) found that streaming video services are now as popular as pay TV. StreamingMedia.com reports that "the number of adults in the United States who stream from free or paid video subscription services (68 percent) is now roughly equal to the number of pay TV subscribers (67 percent)." In addition, only 51 percent of their viewing time is spent on TVs, with 49 percent of their viewing time on other devices like laptops, tablets, and phones.
