FIFA Launches Streaming Service; Live Matches, Fulwell 73 Series & Ronaldinho Doc Available From Kick-Off

Happy Endings was only on the air for three seasons, but Elisha Cuthbert is thankful that the sitcom even reached that milestone.

i news on Wednesday in which she wrote, “The competition for eyeballs is fiercer than ever – and we’ve got to ensure British broadcasters can hold their own in this fight.”She notes that the rise of “American streaming giants” over the last year has left linear channels such as the BBC and ITV with 20% less viewers. Her office has published a broadcasting white paper that would impose content regulations on U.S.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorComcast and Charter Communications, the two biggest cable operators in the U.S., are joining forces in the streaming wars.The two companies on Wednesday announced a 50-50 joint venture to develop and offer a next-generation streaming platform on a variety of branded 4K streaming devices and smart TVs to reach customers in major markets across the country with the platform.Comcast will license Flex, its aggregated streaming platform and hardware to the JV, contribute the retail business for XClass TVs, and contribute Xumo, the free, ad-supported streaming service it acquired in 2020. Charter will make an initial contribution of $900 million, funded over multiple years.The XClass TVs will be available through national retail partners and potentially direct from Comcast and Charter to provide more customer choice.

Uber is launching a new service which will allow passengers to book journeys while their pets accompany them. The minicab app company has announced that the service will be available in the UK from Tuesday.

Retail and media giant Amazon has unveiled a new way to stream TV shows and movies for free. Amazon is rebranding its IMDB TV service to Freevee which will go live on Fire TV devices, smartphones an tablets from April 27.

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Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorHulu was apparently experiencing broad technical difficulties Thursday, as many users spanning the U.S. complained about problems streaming video and accessing the Hulu app.User reports of issues with Hulu began to spike around 8 p.m.

The brand new streaming service CNN+ is already being shut down.

CNN's brand-new streaming service, CNN+, is shutting down only a month after launch.In a Thursday memo, incoming CNN chief executive Chris Licht said the service would shut down at the end of April.CNN+ launched when its parent was still part of AT&T. It combined with Discovery earlier this month in a new company, Warner Bros.

Disney’s focus on genre fans and programming makes Disney+ 30% more valuable than average streaming services, according to Fandom’s “State of Streaming” report.

Snoop Dogg has announced plans to launch a new streaming service just for music released by the Death Row record label, which he took full control of earlier this year. This follows the removal of the label’s music from other streaming services once that deal was completed.Speaking on the latest episode of the ‘Drink Champs’ podcast, the rapper says: “First thing I did was snatch all the music off those platforms traditionally known to people, because those platforms don’t pay.

When several marquee albums from Death Row's catalog were pulled from digital streaming platforms last month, there was speculation that Snoop Dogg might be preparing to take the label in a new direction after acquiring it in February. In a recent appearance on Drink Champs, Snoop explained his reasoning behind removing the albums from DSPs. "First thing I did was snatch all the music off those platforms traditionally known to people, because those platforms don't pay," he began.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe France-based streaming service Deezer, which has a relatively low profile in the U.S. but is one of the world’s largest streamers, is merging with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) with an eye toward going public at a $1.13 billion valuation, the companies told the Wall Street Journal.Deezer, which launched in 2007, is merging with Paris-listed I2PO SA.

IMDb TV, Amazon’s free, ad-supported video on demand streaming service, is rebranding to Amazon Freevee, beginning April 27. The rebranding had been in the works for awhile, with the idea for the new moniker to share the Amazon branding of its parent company.

EXCLUSIVE: Los Angeles-based Synepic Entertainment is launching Sakka, a streaming service specializing in Japanese cinema. The platform will debut in North America and select further territories in early May, the company said. At launch, it will feature five movies: Happy Hour, the 2015 movie from recent Oscar nominee Ryusuke Hamaguchi; Shô Miyake’s 2018 feature And Your Bird Can Sing; Seiji Tanaka’s 2018 film Melancholic; Chihiro Amano’s 2019 pic Mrs Noisy; and Hajime Tsuda’s 2020 drama Daughters. Synepic said it was focusing on independent films and would be acquiring two further titles later in the summer. The company is also looking to host in-person screenings of films it acquires. “We are beyond proud to create this unique platform for Japanese films of new generations,” commented Chiaki Yanagimoto, the president of Synepic Entertainment and the founder of the platform. “There are many Japanese films that unfortunately don’t see their full potential outside of Japan because of the traditional distribution system there. After the win of Drive My Car, several critics pointed out that the Japanese system is outdated and indifferent to the international market. It is time to change that narrative and find new ways to share these inspiring works coming from Japan, and create a platform that truly cares about the films and the filmmakers.”

FIFA has announced an ambitious plan for its own streaming service app, a global, ad-supported platform that aims to feature up to 40,000 live matches in 2022 alone, the association announced Tuesday.Called FIFA+, the service will offer live domestic league games, match stats, a massive archive and premium original content. Soccer’s highest governing body will not feature World Cup games on the service, however.FIFA says the streams will cover more than 29,000 men’s and 11,000 women’s matches across 100 member associations and all six global confederations.

LONDON -- FIFA is getting into the streaming platform business with a soccer version of Netflix and Amazon Prime.The service is free and largely featuring documentaries and some live games at the launch but it could eventually be a way for FIFA to broadcast World Cup matches itself at a cost.While increasingly positioning itself as a rival to existing media companies, FIFA+ will also be used by the governing body to promote its sponsors.“There is no plan to charge a subscription fee for the service, that doesn’t mean to say that we may not evolve over time should there be a value proposition that allows us to charge subscription if we step into premium rights or adopt other kind of models,” FIFA director of strategy Charlotte Burr said. “But there will always be a free experience on FIFA+."Geo-blocking can be used to limit matches broadcast on FIFA+ to specific territories.

Roku has added CNN+ to its channel store, filling a significant distribution gap for the stand-alone streaming service two weeks after its launch.

report on Wednesday, Nielsen reported a nearly 20% increase in unique programming across streaming platforms in the past three years. As of February, consumers now have over 817,000 unique program titles to choose from — compared to around 646,000 in December 2019. According to Nielsen, consumers say the rapidly increasing number of options “makes it more difficult to find the content they’re looking for.”The uptick in available content also corresponded with a rise in consumption.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterFX has ordered a limited series based on the ESPN 30 for 30 podcast “The Sterling Affairs” with Laurence Fishburne and Jacki Weaver attached to star, Variety has learned.The six-episode series tells the behind the scenes story of Doc Rivers (Fishburne) and the Los Angeles Clippers’ quest to bring a championship to one of the historically worst franchises in all of sports during the impending downfall of the team’s owner, Donald Sterling, whose notoriously racist behavior is brought to light amid the power struggle between his wife of 60+ years, Shelly Sterling (Weaver), and his mistress, V. Stiviano.Gina Welch serve as writer and executive producer on the series.