Yahoo said it made a deal with Xperi that will make content from Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports and In the Know available in new BMW 5 models.

The content is being distributed via Xperi’s DTS AutoStage Video Service Powered by TiVo.

“From taking a break between errands to sitting in line at school pick-up, drivers spend a significant amount of time idle in their vehicles,” Yahoo chief strategy officer Lara Davis said. “Through this partnership with leading automotive entertainment platform Xperi, we are now able to offer snackable content in a way that fits seamlessly into people’s daily routines, where they already spend time.”

BMW drivers in the United States, United Kingdom, Korea, Italy, Spain, and Germany will have access to Yahoo Finance Video-on-Demand, Yahoo Sports video podcasts, and In The Know video-streaming content at the touch of a button, the companies said.

“Xperi provides a best-in-class in-car connected entertainment experience for BMW drivers,” Jeff Jury, senior VP and general manager of connected car, Xperi, said. “Through partnerships with content providers like Yahoo, we can deliver free premium content across news, sports, and entertainment and offer consumers a personalized viewing experience tailored to their interests.”

For those of us frustrated this week by watching a big media company, following its second multi-billion-dollar merger in five years, spend hundreds of millions of dollars more to relaunch the same subscription streaming service all over again, Wednesday's in-car video announcement from Xperi Corp. is kind of refreshing. 

San Jose, Calif.-based Xperi, a company rooted in niche tech spaces including in-car entertainment, spent $3 billion three years ago to buy video company TiVo. And no part of the carcass seems to have gone unconsumed and wasted. 

As we've amply reported, Xperi is already hard at work trying to establish its "Powered By TiVo" platform as a gateway TVOS competitor to Roku, Amazon and Google in Europe. 

And now, BMW will use Powered By TiVo to deliver linear and on-demand video entertainment for Series-5 and above vehicle models. 

“Our independent media platform strategy is well suited for the automotive industry as they make advancements in in-cabin technology and creating new and adaptive experiences. We will work closely with BMW to ensure that the in-car video media platform by TiVo provides a best-in-class in-car entertainment experience,” said Jon Kirchner, CEO of Xperi, in a statement. “Unlike existing platforms, the Powered by TiVo platform traverses entertainment mediums and gives OEMs significantly more control over the user experience.”

Nice to see synergy does indeed exist somewhere. 

Let’s face it, there are consumers out there that will never, ever take a pay TV service from an incumbent cable operator.

Even the loudest, screaming call to action or best deal won’t get them to budge, because the hate level is simply too great to overcome. Or maybe the local pay TV operator’s brand has simply exhausted itself, and consumers have become blind and deaf to their marketing overtures.

But what if there’s a new pay TV provider in town — a new brand even — that strives to shake off cable’s longstanding stigmas by giving the customer the white-glove treatment, along with a fresh, new service that delivers a full-freight lineup of live TV and a massive VOD library that comes by way of fancy, colorful boxes outfitted with an intuitive, sharp-looking guide that even integrate Netflix and other popular OTT services and apps?

And so what if it’s all riding the incumbent internet-service provider’s broadband pipes? That’s just data. Everything else is new, new, new — down to the electric Teslas and BMWs that the field technicians and service installers use to roll around town.

It’s looking more and more likely that such a scenario could be playing into the strategy of Layer3 TV, the Denver-based IPTV service provider that bills itself as “The New Cable.”

Though Layer3 TV is leaning on a direct-to-consumer play in most of its launched markets, it’s becoming increasingly likely the company will also lean on deals with incumbent MSOs and telcos that could use its TV service as a “flanker brand” that enables them to gain video homes while also adding or retaining valuable, higher-margin broadband subscribers.

Layer3 TV and Suddenlink Communications (now part of Altice USA, which inherited Suddenlink’s investment in Layer3 TV) tested the idea starting in late 2015 in a couple of Texas markets, using the “Umio TV” brand.

Though that trial has since ended, a similar idea appears to be underway in Washington, D.C., where Layer3 TV is using the fiber network of incumbent telco Verizon Communications to market a broadband bundle as well as a standalone broadband service.

Neither side is commenting on the relationship, but people familiar with the linkage said the broadband component of Layer3 TV’s offer in the market (branded by Layer3 TV as “pure-Fiber”) does indeed run on the Verizon’s network. And while Verizon would perform the connection to the exterior of the customer’s house, Layer3 TV would handle everything else, from service activation to billing to customer care.

Financial terms of the agreement aren’t yet known, but it gives Layer3 TV the important ability to sell a broadband service without owning the access network. Verizon, meanwhile, is providing consumers in that market a pay TV option that is not Fios TV. Even if Verizon cedes a pay TV subscriber to Layer3 TV, Verizon still gets a broadband sub out of the deal, and prevents that customer from falling into the hands of Comcast or RCN.

Among other examples, Layer3 TV also has a service/bundling partnership with NextLight, a municipal fiber broadband provider in Longmont, Colo.