Fox Corporation’s Tubi TV video streaming service is rolling out a proprietary movie recommendation app called “Rabbit AI” in a beta test for iOS customers in the U.S., with other platforms to follow. Powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4, currently available only to enterprise and other paying customers, Rabbit AI provides “a new way to navigate” Tubi’s library of more than 200,000 movies and TV episodes, “providing hyper-personalized recommendations based on the contextual meaning of the terms,” the company says. A Rabbit AI plugin for ChatGPT is also now available to OpenAI subscribers, Tubi says. Continue reading Tubi Chooses ChatGPT to Power Content Recommendations

Amazon has entered into a strategic investment in San Francisco-based Anthropic, founded by former members of OpenAI. The AI startup will train and deploy future models using AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips to train and deploy future foundation models with AWS as its primary cloud provider. In turn, Amazon says it will invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, as it strives to compete with other technology firms in the race to develop generative AI, seeding growth for what is shaping up to be an entirely new economic and social landscape. Continue reading Amazon Plans to Invest Up to $4 Billion in AI Startup Anthropic

Amazon Prime Video plans to introduce commercial breaks to its popular streaming service early next year, following top platforms such as Disney+, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max, which already offer ad-supported tiers. The company indicates it will run fewer ads than traditional linear TV broadcasters and broadband rivals but has yet to specify numbers. Subscribers in the U.S. who want to keep the streaming service ad-free have the option of paying an additional $2.99 per month. Amazon explained that its strategy to include ads would help it “continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.” Continue reading Amazon Prime Video to Run TV Commercials Early Next Year

Warner Bros. Discovery will begin adding free live sports to its Max streaming service beginning October 5 as a promotional period. Beginning February 29, 2024, subscribers will be charged an additional $10 per month to keep it as part of the new “Bleacher Report Sports Add-On Tier.” Max streaming sports will include Major League Baseball playoff games, regular-season National Basketball Association and National Hockey League games, U.S. soccer and the NCAA men’s basketball March Madness. The sports fee will be in addition to the subscription price for ad-supported or commercial-free Max. Continue reading WBD Will Begin Streaming Live Sports on Max in Two Weeks

Recorded music revenues in the United States reached $8.4 billion for the first half of 2023, an all-time high for the period that translates to a 9.3 percent increase, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Streaming continued to thrive, accounting for a whopping 84 percent of the six-month revenue total, or $7 billion. Total revenue from paid subscription services grew 11 percent to $5.5 billion, nearly double the growth in the number of individual paid accounts, which rose by just over 6 percent year-over-year, to an average of 95.8 million accounts. Continue reading Streaming Drives Music Revenue in the U.S. to a New Record

Stability AI is launching Stable Audio, a music generation AI tool that uses latent diffusion to deliver what the company says is high-quality 44.1 kHz music for commercial use. Stable Audio uses a web-based interface to generate music from text prompts and duration. Because its latent diffusion model architecture has been conditioned on text metadata as well as audio file duration and start time, it defeats a problem common to diffusion for generative audio — producing cohesive musical segments as opposed to arbitrary sections of a song that start or end in the middle of a phrase. Continue reading Stability AI Develops ‘Stable Audio’ Generative Text-to-Music

U.S. consumers are consolidating their devices, eliminating outdated ones to make room for new ones that better serve their needs, according to the fourth annual Deloitte Connected Consumer survey. The study found that while 48 percent of consumers purchased a minimum of one new connected device this year, the average number of devices per household fell to 21 in 2023 from 25 in 2021, “when many loaded up on technology during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Although many consumers may be attempting to streamline their digital lives, they remain very interested in virtual experiences and tech innovation. Continue reading Deloitte: Consumer Views of Connected Devices Are Changing

Beginning this fall, Apple Podcasts creators are getting more tools to measure user engagement and help grow their audiences, with the addition of premium subscription analytics and marketing tools provided by Linkfire, popular among artists and labels as a way to generate an unlimited number of smart links to pod landing pages and measure the ways listeners engage. Updated Analytics functionality lets creators use the Overview tab to see how many listeners started a free trial, the number of paid subscriptions, the percentage of listeners converting from free to paid, and estimated generated proceeds. Continue reading Apple Podcasts Creators Get Subscription Analytics, Linkfire

Linear TV viewership fell below 50 percent for the first time in July, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge, which tracks total broadcast, cable and streaming consumption via television. Among total TV viewership, broadcast and cable accrued record low shares of 20 percent and 29.6 percent, respectively, representing a linear television total of 49.6 percent. Combined, it still topped TV set streaming viewership, at 38.7 percent, a 2.9 percent increase from June and that month’s streaming record-high share. YouTube (not including YouTube TV) was again the top streamer with a 9.2 percent TV share, up 5.6 percent versus June. Continue reading Linear TV Viewership Dips Below 50 Percent for the First Time

X is developing a video-calling feature to add as part of its rebranding as an “everything app.” X CEO Linda Yaccarino shared the news in her first television interview since leaving NBCUniversal to become head of Elon Musk’s social media platform in June, when the platform was still known as Twitter. Yaccarino said X users will soon be able to make video calls based on their social ID alone, without sharing phone numbers. Long-form videos, creator subscriptions and the ability to make payments on the platform are additional features that Yaccarino explained will be coming to X. Continue reading Yaccarino: X Getting Video Calls with Its ‘Everything’ Rebrand

Apple experienced its third consecutive quarter of declining sales in Q2, with a 1.4 percent slip to revenue of $81.8 billion. But the Cupertino-based company managed to generate record performance in its Services division, up 8.2 percent to $21.21 billion. Sales of the company’s largest device segment, iPhones, underperformed estimates with $39.7 billion in sales, a 2.4 percent dip year-over-year. Overall, however, Apple slightly overperformed Wall Street expectations, which were forecast at $81.64 billion for the quarter ending in June. For Q2, Apple reported 1 billion paid subscriptions — including Apple Music, Apple TV+ and third-party apps. Continue reading Apple’s Sales Decline Tempered by Record for Services Arm

Roku’s Q2 earnings came with the news that it added 1.9 million new active accounts and became the top selling TV OS in the U.S., according to the company. Roku now touts more than 73.5 million active accounts on Roku Players and Roku TVs, and claims that its number of sets sold beat the next three manufacturers combined. The company posted Q2 revenue of $847.2 million, an 11 percent increase year-over-year, against a net loss of $107.6 million. Advertising-supported Platform sales were up 11 percent, to $744 million, despite continuing troubles sector-wide. Continue reading Roku TVs, Unique Ad Units Drive Q2 Revenue Up 11 Percent

Microsoft Cloud drove record sales and profits for Q2, which saw a year-over-year revenue gain of 8 percent to $56.2 billion for April through June. Net income topped $20 billion, a 20 percent gain that beat analyst expectations and the company’s own estimates. Microsoft Cloud revenue for Q2 was up 21 percent, to $30.3 billion. And the company is beginning to see the results of its investments in artificial intelligence. Q2 is Microsoft’s second record-setting quarter this year, topping the three-month high of $52.9 billion in Q1. The previous profit record was $18.8 billion in Q4 2021. Continue reading Microsoft Q2 Marks a Quarterly Sales Record of $56.2 Billion

Netflix is updating its mobile user interface to consolidate watch activity in one place. Rolling out for iOS now and Android in August, My Netflix is the new hub for watchlists, downloads and views in progress. The “one stop shop” also collects My List items, notifications, trailers and other content with which users have interacted, including TV shows or movies that have been validated with a subscriber’s thumbs-up. My Netflix replaces the Downloads section globally, and the streamer says the more users interact with it the more customized it will become. Continue reading UI Update ‘My Netflix’ Aims to Streamline Mobile Experience

As expected, Spotify unveiled its first premium subscription rate hike in 12 years after mounting pressure from the music industry and musicians — and as competing services hiked their rates. A premium Spotify streaming subscription in the U.S. will now cost $10.99 per month, a $1 increase. Now the largest paid music service in the world, with about 210 million subscribers, Spotify is also raising rates in some 50 additional markets, including Canada, parts of Europe and Asia, South America and Australasia. Existing customers are getting one month’s notice before the new rates kick in. Continue reading Spotify Announces Anticipated Price Hikes for Subscriptions