News
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Piracy’s Bill Comes In: £1.35 Billion a Year in the UK, €280 Million in the Nordics
Piracy’s Bill Comes In: £1.35 Billion a Year in the UK, €280 Million in the Nordics WPI Economics puts illegal streaming’s cost to the UK economy at £1.35 billion a year — equivalent to more than 10,000 jobs and £366 million in lost tax — in a report commissioned by BeStreamWise. In parallel, Mediavision finds nearly one in ten households across Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden pay about €20 a month for illegal IPTV, close to €280 million a year.
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NBCUniversal Makes U-Next the Exclusive Japanese Home of Universal+ in a Sweeping Alliance
NBCUniversal Makes U-Next the Exclusive Japanese Home of Universal+ in a Sweeping Alliance A strategic alliance makes U-Next — Japan’s second-largest paid streamer with 5.2 million subscribers — the exclusive Japanese home of NBCUniversal’s Universal+ brand from October 2026. The deal spans three pillars: streaming carriage, joint marketing around Universal Studios Japan’s 25th anniversary, and the export of Japanese dramas, anime and U-Next originals via Peacock in the US and Universal+ in Latin America.
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Cleveland Cavaliers Drop Local Pay TV for a $19.99 DAZN Exclusive — DAZN’s Third US Local Deal in Two Weeks
Cleveland Cavaliers Drop Local Pay TV for a $19.99 DAZN Exclusive — DAZN’s Third US Local Deal in Two Weeks A multi-year deal makes DAZN the direct-to-consumer streaming home of all non-national Cleveland Cavaliers games from the 2026-27 season at $19.99 a month, with two concurrent streams, offline downloads and team-produced originals. It follows DAZN’s MSG/YES Networks agreement and its Indiana Pacers deal — three US local-rights moves in two weeks.
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JioHotstar Enters the West: India’s 500-Million-User Streamer Launches in the UK, Canada and Singapore
JioHotstar Enters the West: India’s 500-Million-User Streamer Launches in the UK, Canada and Singapore JioHotstar, the Reliance-Disney joint venture with more than 500 million active users, has gone live in the UK, Canada and Singapore — its first expansion beyond India into Western markets. The service carries a catalogue of more than 160,000 hours plus roughly 30,000 new hours a year.
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Bertelsmann Closes BMG-Concord Merger, Creating a $2.5 Billion Music Company
Bertelsmann Closes BMG-Concord Merger, Creating a $2.5 Billion Music Company Bertelsmann completed the combination of BMG and Concord on 1 September, taking 67% of the merged company while Great Mountain Partners holds 33% and received a one-time $1.16 billion cash payment. Operating under the BMG name with a catalogue of more than four million works, the business targets over $2.5 billion in revenue and $1.2 billion EBITDA in the midterm, with Concord’s Bob Valentine as CEO and incoming Bertelsmann group chief Thomas Coesfeld as Chairman.
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TF1 Doubles Down on Netflix Distribution: ‘Netflix Is Not Cannibalising TF1, It Opens Doors’
TF1 Doubles Down on Netflix Distribution: ‘Netflix Is Not Cannibalising TF1, It Opens Doors’ TF1 content chief Ara Aprikian says the group’s June 2025 distribution deal with Netflix hit all its targets within three weeks of going live, reaching households that had drifted away from linear TV, and TF1 will keep co-producing five projects a year with the platform. A series co-produced with Amazon Prime Video is coming, discussions are under way with Disney — but a comparable distribution deal with YouTube is not on the agenda, as Aprikian says visibility and remuneration are not guaranteed there.
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ZDF Launches More Than 15 Ad-Free Thematic Streaming Channels, a Public-Service Answer to FAST
ZDF Launches More Than 15 Ad-Free Thematic Streaming Channels, a Public-Service Answer to FAST From 1 September, ZDF’s streaming portal carries more than 15 algorithm-programmed thematic linear channels — crime, Terra X, true crime, nature and comedy among them — under a new Live & TV tab, with skip-to-next-item functionality and no advertising. The licence-fee-funded channels replicate FAST’s lean-back mechanics without its monetisation model.
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Barb: Disney+ Adds 1.1 Million UK Homes in One Quarter as Sky Bundling Becomes the Growth Engine
Barb: Disney+ Adds 1.1 Million UK Homes in One Quarter as Sky Bundling Becomes the Growth Engine Barb’s Establishment Survey shows Disney+ jumping from 7.8 million to 8.9 million UK homes in Q2 2026 — including roughly 700,000 ad-tier homes — after its March deal placing the service inside eligible Sky packages at no extra cost, while total UK SVoD penetration slipped fractionally to 20.7 million homes. Netflix eased to 18 million homes, 41% of them now on its ad tier, and Paramount+ added 0.5 million to reach nearly 4 million.
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Médiamétrie August: TF1 Retakes the Lead at 18.1% as M6 Falls Back to 7.8% After Its World Cup Summer
Médiamétrie August: TF1 Retakes the Lead at 18.1% as M6 Falls Back to 7.8% After Its World Cup Summer TF1 rebounded 1.8 points month-on-month to 18.1% audience share in August while M6 dropped 5.5 points to 7.8% as the World Cup effect ended; France 2 posted 15.4%, the biggest year-on-year gain of any channel. Across July and August combined, M6 still recorded 10.2% — its second-best summer since 2016 and third place nationally.
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Comcast Technology Solutions Unveils Six Production-Ready AI Workflow Applications Across Its VaaS Portfolio
Comcast Technology Solutions Unveils Six Production-Ready AI Workflow Applications Across Its VaaS Portfolio Comcast Technology Solutions introduced six AI applications — video verticalisation, regional-language dubbing, smart chapters, metadata enrichment, automated quality control and natural-language clipping — built on its VideoAI platform and deployable across Comcast Media360, Comcast Sports360 and standalone Cloud Video Platform installations. The tools slot into its Cloud Media Processing orchestration layer as pre- or post-processors requiring no in-house AI expertise, with commercial availability phased through 2026 and 2027 and a full showcase at IBC 2026 in Amsterdam on 11–14 September.
