With an eye towards 5G apps, Verizon inked a new tech development/marketing deal with Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. The companies plan to work together at Verizon’s 5G Labs to create augmented reality experiences for consumers as well as engage in exclusive distribution and co-marketing projects, such as Verizon preloading Snapchat on some 5G phones. The Snap Originals video series will also feature Verizon as a premium sponsor. Director Harmony Korine made a short experimental film with Snap’s Spectacles 3 camera. Continue reading Verizon, Snap Team to Create 5G-Enabled AR Experiences

The live-streaming gaming platform Twitch is hugely popular but has a goal to get even bigger. At the annual TwitchCon event, the company showed off an advertising campaign promoting itself as an all-purpose live-streaming platform. This move takes place just as the site’s biggest star, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, defected to Mixer, a rival streaming service owned by Microsoft. On the gaming front, the company also faces competition from Caffeine, a social broadcast platform that received $100 million from 21st Century Fox. Continue reading Twitch Makes a Bigger Play to Become All-Purpose Streamer

The NFL and Facebook renewed their video deal through the 2020 season. In the original deal, inked in 2017, the NFL provided recaps from all 256 regular season games plus other content for Facebook Watch. The NFL will continue to supply the season recaps, along with original content, content related to the NFL’s 100th anniversary and material from the NFL Films archive featured on “NFL Throwback.” Facebook says that, in 2017 and 2018, over 22 million people watched at least a minute of an NFL recap. Continue reading New NFL-Facebook Contract Will Run Through 2020 Season

CBS, Disney’s ABC, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Fox are suing non-profit streaming service Locast in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York. Locast, funded in part by AT&T, retransmits local television stations without permission, free to consumers. The Supreme Court shut down Aereo, which streamed content without permission in 2014. Locast says its status is legal under the Copyright Act of 1976, because, unlike Aereo, it is a non-profit operating “booster” and “translator stations” that strengthen a TV station’s signal. Continue reading Broadcasters File Federal Suit to Stop TV Streamer Locast

Locast is a streaming service that allows those without a pay-TV subscription to watch sports, news and primetime broadcast programming. Backed by the non-profit Sports Fan Coalition, Locast last week received a $500,000 contribution from AT&T. The service has launched in New York and Los Angeles among other large markets. But Locast has not received TV stations’ consent to carry their feeds, something required by federal copyright law, nor is it paying fees, which comprise a significant portion of broadcasters’ revenue. Continue reading Streaming TV Service Locast Receives a Boost From AT&T

It’s common for ticket resellers to use screenshots and photocopies of real tickets to sell in bunches to unknowing ticket buyers. To combat this fraud, Ticketmaster will start using a new technology called SafeTix, which is tied to a ticket holder’s mobile device via an encrypted barcode that refreshes every few seconds. Additionally, SafeTix supports NFC technology that allows fans to enter venues using a “tap and go” experience, and users will soon be able to use SafeTix via Apple Wallet on their iPhones and Apple Watches.

Continue reading Ticketmaster Combats Ticket Fraud With New SafeTix Tech

Twitter hosted its second-ever Digital Content NewFronts event this week, showcasing a series of new and renewed video content deals. The social media mainstay announced 13 video content deals, including a new one with Univision that will cover Spanish-language sports, entertainment, and news, including 2020 election coverage. It also announced a deal with The Wall Street Journal for an original show called “What’s Now,” and other deals with major players like the NFL, Bleacher Report, CNET and others.

Continue reading Twitter’s New Content Deals with Univision, WSJ and Others

In the age of television, sports fans typically watched their games on the couch or, if they were lucky, in arenas or stadiums. With the advent of virtual reality, however, that paradigm is about to shift. The future of sports promises to be more accessible, interactive, personalized and immersive. The fan might still sit on the couch — or at an office desk — but technologies including the Oculus Go VR headset and Intel’s True View will deliver the game in exciting new angles and a 3D view of everything on the field or court. Continue reading March Madness Live VR App Signals Future for Sports Fans

On February 2, electronic dance producer Marshmello performed a 10-minute concert — as a digital avatar — to gamers playing the popular game “Fortnite.” The runaway success of this unusual mix highlights how games can not only gather millions of players, but also become a stage for a variety of entertainment. Marshmello’s representatives stated that the concert “attracted millions of viewers.” In June, Marshmello participated in an Epic Games’ “Fortnite” tournament, teamed with Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, a celebrity gamer. Continue reading Electronic Dance DJ Marshmello Performs ‘Fortnite’ Concert

While Super Bowl LIII between the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams experienced a drop in television viewership (Nielsen indicates the game generated an average audience of 98.2 million viewers), CBS revealed that streaming the event reached new popularity this year. According to the network, the Super Bowl was viewed by 100.7 million viewers across all platforms, including digital and streaming. CBS notes that the game was streamed on 7.5 million unique devices, marking a 20 percent jump over the previous year and a new streaming record for the Super Bowl. It was available across an array of online and mobile properties. Continue reading Super Bowl Expands to More Apps, Sets Streaming Records

CBS Films is in the midst of a sea change. After releasing four scheduled films — “Five Feet Apart,” “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” “Pavarotti,” and “Lexi” in theaters, via its Lionsgate partnerships — it will be folded into CBS Entertainment Group in the next year. Its new mandate will be to find content for CBS’ streaming services, including, most likely, CBS All Access. Meanwhile, CBS is bringing more tech to live sports. The network is planning augmented reality graphics and some strategic 8K coverage and mobile streaming of the upcoming Super Bowl LIII. Continue reading CBS Films Moves to Streaming, CBS Preps for 8K Super Bowl

CTA senior director of publications Cindy Stevens looked at the various ways — from scriptwriting to production — that artificial intelligence can be integrated into entertainment. “Some people are afraid their creative talents could be replaced by machines,” she said. Comcast senior vice president of digital home, devices and AI Fraser Stirling, who noted that he prefers to use the term “machine learning,” is using it for deep search among other tasks. One project is to turn a three-hour NFL game into snackable pieces. Continue reading CES Panel: AI Poised to Change the Entertainment Ecosystem

CES 2019, which calls itself the largest and most influential tech event in the world — “where the entire technology ecosystem gathers to conduct business, launch products, build brands and partner to solve some of today’s most pressing societal challenges” — gets underway today with a full day of conference sessions and media briefings before the millions of square feet of exhibit space opens on Tuesday, January 8. CTA, owner of the show, highlighted a number of key sessions and exhibit marketplaces that visitors to CES may want not want to miss and our team will cover this week. Continue reading CES Returns to Las Vegas This Week with Expanded Exhibits

DAZN, thus far an ad-free sports-streaming service, plans to introduce advertising, but in a format that will prevent the annoyance of frequently repeating ads. This format — called “ad frequency” — can replay the same ad six times within a three-hour game, said DAZN Group executive chairman John Skipper, a former ESPN president. His new model, which will debut in the next six to eight months, will focus on sponsored content and product placement. DAZN targets sports deals to be the “exclusive over-the-top provider.” Continue reading Sports Streamer DAZN to Introduce Less Annoying Ad Model

In February, Verizon hosted a virtual reality Super Bowl LII experience over a 5G network at a virtual luxury suite at Minneapolis’ U.S. Bank Stadium. That NFL/Oculus Rift collaboration put viewers on the field in the midst of 3D holographic models, and is only one of numerous examples of the marriage of professional sports and virtual reality. The BBC app, for example, offered a virtual reality World Cup experience, and NBC let viewers pick their camera angles and access data for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Continue reading Sports Leagues Pioneer Virtual Reality-Powered Innovations