Complementing traditional linear TV ad strategies with “premium long-form streaming” will grow “incremental” audience reach and “increase exposure with households less likely to be tuning in the traditional way,” reported Effectv, Comcast’s advertising sales division. It studied more than 20,000 “cross-platform” ad campaigns in 2021's first half, finding “57% of reach from streaming in those campaigns was incremental to linear TV campaigns,” it said Friday. It found streaming “impressions” were 209% “more likely to be served within households that viewed little or no traditional TV,” it said. Findings “demonstrate the tremendous ability of linear TV to reach audiences” and reinforce “how smart advertisers use streaming as a way to expand reach,” said John Brauer, Effectv vice president-insights and analytics. “Streaming advertising consistently extends traditional TV campaign reach.”

Over-the-top video services aiming to challenge market leaders Netflix, Amazon and Hulu need to feature a variety of programming, said Parks Associates Thursday. Ad-based OTT services have broadened their market appeal over the past few years by incorporating genre categories, with Crackle adding to its nonfiction content, Pluto TV bringing on sports channels and Tubi TV adding kids’ content. “We will see more bundling services emerge like AMC, which bundled together its niche services Shudder, Sundance Now, and IFC Films under the AMC+ service umbrella in order to give viewers more options,” said analyst Paul Erickson. Many niche services have been successful with genres including horror, religious, children’s, and anime content -- and services such as ESPN+, BritBox, and Crunchyroll are an important part of the ecosystem -- but they're unlikely to be the primary content source in a household, Erickson said. Some 44% of viewers who favor a particular genre spend three-quarters of their OTT viewing time on broad-based services, and about half of those spend less than a quarter of viewing time on niche services, said Parks data. Content looms large for consumers, but price is still the leading factor for choosing an OTT service, Erickson said. “A hybrid pricing approach meets consumers where they are,” he said, and maximizing revenue potential with hybrid pricing “will help services finance the growing cost of content library growth.”

A federal judge issued a permanent injunction barring David Goodfriend and his Sports Fans Coalition organization from operating streaming service Locast, said the order (on Pacer) issued Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. There was no objection to the injunction from Locast’s operators, and it was part of a prior agreement between broadcasters and Locast (see 2109030001) on what should happen if the court found Locast didn’t qualify for an exemption from copyright law. Broadcasters also asked the court in a Thursday letter (on Pacer) to schedule a status conference to set a date for a bench trial to determine damages in the case. Goodfriend and the Sports Fan Coalition are “considering the status of the litigation” and haven’t engaged with the broadcaster plaintiffs about damages, the letter said. The Sports Fan Coalition didn’t comment.

Ohio urged a state court not to dismiss its lawsuit claiming Google is a carrier and public utility (see 2108160025). Attorney General Dave Yost (R) responded Monday in case 21-CV-H-06-0274 at Common Pleas Court in Delaware County that Google’s dismissal motion “reads like search results compiled by Ask Jeeves. There is lots of talking around the issue, some in-depth analysis of tangential issues, and a few non-sequiturs, but the reader is left unconvinced.”

The UHD Alliance application to trademark the Filmmaker Mode logo as a certification mark for compliant TVs got a notice of allowance from the Patent and Trademark Office after the application cleared its 30-day publication window last month without opposition (see 2108130018), agency records show. UHDA has six months to file a statement of use on the logo’s commercial deployment before PTO will issue a registration certificate. UHDA filed for the trademark in May 2019 and introduced it publicly three months later as the uniformly named, ease-of-access TV picture setting free of the image processing that creators disdain for rendering content in the living room as if it were shot on high-speed video rather than film (see 1908270001). Filmmaker Mode has the announced support of Hisense, Kaleidescape, LG, Panasonic, Samsung, TP Vision and Vizio.

The next semiannual disclosures by U.S.-based foreign media outlets are due Oct. 12, said an FCC Media Bureau public notice Friday. The agency will transmit a report to Congress that summarizes the submissions by Nov. 6, the PN said.

Embratel is done with both phases of the C-band transition because it no longer provides any C-band services in the U.S. via its Star One C1 satellite, company representatives told FCC International Bureau, Wireless Bureau and Office of General Counsel staffers. A docket 18-122 filing Thursday said Star One C1 will cease operations by Oct. 3, with deorbiting to follow. Replacing it will be the Star One C2 satellite, which is authorized to provide Ku-band, but not C-band, service in the U.S., it said.

Sony Interactive Entertainment agreed to buy Firesprite, a U.K.-based videogame studio, it said Wednesday. Sony's 14th studio purchase lets the gaming subsidiary expand its catalog beyond PlayStation Studios’ core offerings, it said. Firesprite “pushed the boundaries” of interaction with the PS VR headset with a social element in The Persistence; an enhanced version, launched in June, optimized the game for PlayStation 5 to include wireless controller haptic feedback, adaptive triggers and raytraced rendering, Sony said. Day-to-day operations will continue to be run by Firesprite management.

Hulu is raising the price of its ad-supported plan to $6.99 monthly Oct. 8 and its commercial-free version to $12.99, it told subscribers Tuesday. Customers subscribed to the $64.99 Hulu + Live, $13.99 Hulu/ESPN+/Disney+ bundle or through a discount or promotional offer won't be affected by the $1 fee hike, it was learned. In another sign of the ever-shifting streaming space, Amazon emailed HBO subscribers last week saying “HBO has decided to leave Prime Video Channels.” Subscriptions will end Sept. 15, Amazon said, “at which time we will cancel your subscription and issue a pro-rated refund for any remaining service from your last billing cycle.” Amazon is offering HBO subscribers two months of Starz and Paramount+ for 99 cents each through Sept. 17. The companies didn't respond to questions.

Temporary spikes in streaming activity due to lockdowns early in the COVID-19 pandemic “have turned out to be not so temporary,” said a Q2 Conviva report released last week. A tipping point spurred by the pandemic “shows no signs of reversal,” with Q2 streaming rising 13% over the “pandemic heights” of Q2 2020, it said. Most of Q2’s gains came from outside North America, where streaming had a 7% decline in April from April 2020. North America returned to double-digit growth in June at 14% year on year. There was a 4% increase in ad impressions quarter over quarter, said the report. On YouTube, mobile phones were 63% of views but just 52% of watch time, as consumers tallied nearly twice as many minutes per view when watching YouTube on a console or connected TV than they did on mobile or tablet in Q2 2021, the report said. Smart TV viewing was up 46% in the quarter and up 5% on connected TV devices, but streaming on game consoles fell 14%. Viewing on smaller screens grew across the board: 30% on smartphones, 15% on desktop PCs and 9% on tablets. Roku, maintaining 31% of big-screen viewing time, lost some share as smart TV-only devices from Samsung, LG and Vizio increased share.