SiriusXM and its Stitcher and Pandora podcasting properties not providing transcripts for most podcasts they stream violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, New York State Human Rights Law and New York City Human Rights Law, the National Association of the Deaf said Tuesday in a complaint in U.S. District Court in Manhattan (docket 21-cv-10542). Not providing transcripts, even when they're available from third-party podcast producers, denies deaf and hard-of-hearing people access to the benefits hearing users are offered, said plaintiffs NAD and five of its members. Sirius XM didn't comment.
The AAA Club Alliance is offering free three-month SiriusXM platinum plan trial subscriptions in the first such agreement. The offer is open to drivers with a deactivated factory-installed SiriusXM car receiver, said SiriusXM Monday.
Gracenote announced a content analytics tool Wednesday that it said can forecast potential future entertainment programming performance. Audience Predict uses Gracenote content metadata, audience measurement data from parent company Nielsen and machine learning. With competition for content growing amid the surge in video streaming services, plus linear networks, “decision making around distribution has become increasingly challenging,” Nielsen said.
Sonos introduced support for Ultra HD audio and Dolby Atmos Music on Amazon Music, it emailed Tuesday. See also its blog post and 2112060048.
When Apple and Amazon wrapped hi-resolution music into standard music subscription packages in the spring, a fifth of all music streaming subscribers had access to high-quality music, Futuresource reported. Though the music services helped enable a “mass-market migration” toward hi-res audio, challenges are blocking widespread adoption, said Futuresource's Simon Forrest. The playback side hasn’t caught up, said the report: In 2022, devices will catch up with the capabilities of music streaming services. Forrest called super resolution a “potential, but unconfirmed, opportunity for the audio industry to use AI-based computation.” It would let spatial and higher resolution audio formats be synthesized on devices, similar to how HD video content can be upscaled, the analyst emailed us Monday.
FuboTV completed its buy of Edisn.ai (see 2111100003), a computer vision platform company based in Bangalore, India, it said Wednesday. Edisn.ai technology can recognize and track key individuals and objects in live video feeds, such as athletes, actors, brand logos and products, and it will help fuboTV improve its interactive live TV streaming experience through better play-by-play identification and frame-accurate video-data synchronization, it said. It will also enable the virtual MVPD to expand its ad tech capabilities, such as better detection of ad breaks and targeted contextual advertising. Edisn.ai technology will create the potential for integrated e-commerce to allow viewers to buy what they see on screen, fubo said. Edisn.ai CEO Ashok Karanth will join fuboTV as general manager-fuboTV India, along with about 20 data scientists and engineers. Terms weren’t disclosed.
At least 150 million subscription VOD accounts will be canceled globally next year, said a Deloitte report Wednesday, projecting a 30% industry churn rate. But more subscriptions will be added than dropped, the average number of subscriptions per person will rise, and many subscribers who cancel may re-up, it said. Analysts Chris Arkenberg and Andrew Evans called the trends signs of a “competitive and maturing SVOD market.” Retention will be more important than ever, they said: Churn costs SVOD providers up to $200 per subscriber in acquisition costs, and those could increase as the number of SVOD services grows and the pool of new consumers declines. Four in five U.S. households had a paid SVOD subscription this year, with about 35% churn, said the analysts. While providers are spending “billions of dollars” to shore up their content with top-tier programming, “consumers will only take so many price hikes,” they said, which has led to a rise in less-expensive or free ad-supported offerings.
ViacomCBS will sell its 55-acre Los Angeles studio facility, CBS Studio Center, and associated business to a partnership formed by Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management for about $1.85 billion, said ViacomCBS Tuesday. The proceeds will go to growth priorities such as streaming, it said, saying it will enter a long-term leaseback of a broadcast facility there. It said the deal is expected to close by year's end.
Netflix and Spotify are collaborating to launch the Netflix Hub on Spotify, offering Netflix fans “the full audio-streaming experience,” said the companies Tuesday: Within two weeks of Squid Game’s mid-September debut on Netflix, Spotify listeners “had created more than 22,500 unique themed playlists.”
Wanting to “surprise and delight” Netflix subscribers “by pushing the boundaries of visual effects” was the streaming platform’s rationale for its plans to acquire Scanline VFX, “one of the most creative and innovative VFX studios,” blogged Vice President-Studio Operations Amy Reinhard Monday. The transaction is expected to close in Q1. “Scanline is known for its complex, photorealistic effects and expertise in virtual production,” said Reinhard. Netflix will invest in Scanline’s “pipeline, infrastructure and workforce,” she said.