Under its deal with the NCAA, Turner Sports will manage a March Madness channel on YouTube for the tournament that kicks off March 17. This marks the first official YouTube channel dedicated solely to providing updates of the NCAA basketball tournament. The channel will feature highlights and recaps from all 67 games in addition to news, analysis and press conferences from CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV. However, sports fans that want to watch entire games from the tournament online will require a pay TV subscription. Continue reading NCAA March Madness Gets First Dedicated YouTube Channel

YouTube has announced the 50 winners of its 2015 YouTube Music Awards, which were selected this time around by data analysis of growth in views, subscribers and engagement during the last six months on the Google-owned video site. The honorees include mainstream acts such as Ariana Grande, Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift — in addition to YouTube stars including Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix. The 50 artists collectively represent more than 164 million subscribers and 47 billion video views on YouTube. Continue reading YouTube Turns to Big Data for Selecting Music Awards Winners

In less than a year, Popcorn Time has become one of the most popular services to torrent pirated media content online. The slick grid interface looks similar to that of Netflix or Hulu, making the service look more legitimate and easier to navigate to find a TV show or movie. The program is actually an index of other BitTorrent sites. Popcorn Time’s popularity has been growing in the U.S. and abroad, especially in countries where streaming services are less established. Continue reading Popcorn Time Accounts for One-Ninth of U.S. Torrent Traffic

Twitch, the videogame-streaming site that Amazon acquired for nearly $1 billion last year, is now broadcasting online poker players. Twitch reportedly draws in about 100 million users each month, a number that is expected to increase with an additional wave of viewers tuning in for the poker channels. As with most videos on Twitch, the poker games are interactive, with a chat function that allows viewers to post comments and ask players questions about the strategies taken during gameplay. Continue reading Twitch Game Streaming Service Adds Online Poker Broadcasts

The FCC voted 3 to 2 yesterday to approve regulation of broadband Internet service as a public utility. The new rules, recently proposed by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, are designed to ensure net neutrality by discouraging content blocking and the introduction of “fast lanes” for Internet and media companies and “slow lanes” for others. Wheeler said the FCC was using “all the tools in our toolbox to protect innovators and consumers.” He added that Internet access is “too important to let broadband providers be the ones making the rules.” Continue reading FCC Rules in Favor of Regulating Broadband Internet as Utility

Popular multichannel network Machinima has signed a deal with Vimeo to help develop and distribute original content. Vimeo has pledged at least $500,000 to the network’s audience-developed original videos for an exclusive Machinima channel on the video on-demand platform. As part of the agreement, Vimeo will become the preferred transactional video-on-demand platform for Machinima’s 30,000 creators. These creators produce some 30,000 hours of content each month. Continue reading Machinima Creators to Sell Videos on Vimeo Through New Deal

Comcast, the largest cable company in the U.S., could potentially soon have more Internet subscribers than television subscribers. During the last quarter, the company’s video users increased by only 6,000 to 22.4 million, while its broadband subscribers jumped by 375,000 to nearly 22 million. The diminishing gap could be a sign of the times, with an increasing number of consumers becoming more interested in services such as Amazon and Netflix, as opposed to traditional TV. As a result, Comcast is working to attract more broadband users. Continue reading Comcast Subscriber Shift Points to More Web Than TV Users

While “The Lego Movie” did not bring home any Academy Awards for Warner Bros. on Sunday, it still managed to generate some Oscar gold in the form of a clever toy statuette made of 500 yellow plastic bricks. During the performance of “Everything is Awesome” (nominated for Best Original Song), Lego versions of the Oscar statuette were distributed to audience members Oprah Winfrey, Steve Carell, Emma Stone and others. Before long, #LegoOscar became a top trending topic on Twitter and a new star was born. Continue reading Lego Oscars Were a Major Hit During and After Academy Awards

StyleHaul, a digital startup with a focus on fashion, beauty and lifestyle content, is paving the way for some of its YouTube stars to make their television debuts. The company, which manages thousands of YouTube personalities, has recently secured a deal with Oxygen, Trium Entertainment and Lentos Brand to create a reality TV show. StyleHaul can leverage this opportunity to not only improve visibility for its YouTube stars but also take a cut of the ad revenue that supports cable TV.   Continue reading StyleHaul’s YouTube Stars Making the Transition to Television

Yahoo is wooing app developers with a new mobile development suite that makes it easier to build apps with search, integrate ads into the code, and analyze app performance. Yahoo is hoping that the development suite will not only encourage developers to build new apps, but also build apps that host its advertisements. Flurry Analytics, a Yahoo acquisition, will provide users with a collection of new tools designed to analyze their app’s performance and securely share that information with others. Continue reading Yahoo Unveils Mobile Development Suite with Analytics and Ads

Consumers criticized Samsung for recording users through its smart TVs and sending the data to a third party, but other companies reportedly take a similar approach. Many of the audio recordings come from devices with voice recognition, like LG’s smart TVs or Amazon Echo. Such recording of unknowing users is not limited to the living room. Automobiles from companies such as GM and Chevrolet can record and send information about a driver’s speed, location, and their route to work. Continue reading Numerous Smart Devices May Now Be Secretly Recording Users

Digital piracy tracking firm Irdeto reports that global downloads of pirated Oscar-nominated films jumped 385 percent in the 30 days following the nomination announcements on January 15. Irdeto suggests the pirated downloads represent about $41 million in lost revenue. While Hollywood studios and motion picture companies continue to struggle with the problem of piracy, some have recommended embracing the Internet for initial releases, making films available theatrically and online at the same time. Continue reading Academy Award Nominations Lead to Spike in Pirated Downloads

The Kardashian sisters, Howard Stern and rap artist Tyler The Creator are all getting new shows, only not on traditional TV but rather the Internet and a mobile app. Whalerock Industries, a company based in Santa Monica, has confirmed it plans to launch personal channels for these artists in the coming months. Each channel will feature an eclectic mix of premium content from the celebrities including videos, music, photos, merchandise and gaming. The app will be available this June.  Continue reading Whalerock to Launch Celebrity Networks via Web and Mobile App

Hulu recently introduced a new feature called Watchlist that combines the Queue, Favorites, and Shows You Watch features that already exist on the platform into a single personalized interface. Much like the existing features, Watchlist lets users keep track of shows, pick favorites and keep a list of those they have already watched. The new feature also detects a user’s favorite shows and automatically curates a list based on those shows with the most favored programs conveniently listed at the top.  Continue reading Hulu’s New Watchlist Feature Helps Simplify Your Binge Viewing

It seems that cord-cutting is continuing with the coveted 18- to 34-year-old demographic. New data from Nielsen indicates that traditional TV viewing among millennials dropped 10.6 percent between September and January, falling at twice its normal rate. According to Nielsen, there are nearly 20 percent fewer young adults watching primetime television than in 2011. Additionally, the median age of the TV audience is now 50, just outside the 18- to 49-year-old demographic important to advertisers. Continue reading Nielsen Notes Dramatic Shift in TV Viewing Among Millennials