Google continues to prioritize its Google TV app, making it the new destination for Google device users to rent and buy TV shows and movies.

Starting in May, the Google Play store, which resides in the Android operating system, will no longer feature a "Movies & TV" tab. Instead, to rent and buy video, users of devices like Android phones and tablets, as well as smart TV's powered by Google TV, will now rent and purchase video titles through the "library" tab of the Google TV app. 

Google introduced Google TV in October 2020 as a kind of next-generation iteration of Android TV. In addition to powering its new Chromecast OTT dongle with the software, it made Google TV a pre-installed app on Android mobile devices to watch movies and shows, replacing the "Play Movies & TV" feature within Android. 

The move marks the further diminishment of Google Play, which was already shrunk big-time in December 2020, when Google stopped selling songs and full-length albums and ported its music biz to subscription service Google Music. With the exit of movies and TV shows, Google Play is now a store for apps and books. 

It should be noted that elements like Google Play and Google Play Movies & TV haven't disappeared from the face of Earth. For example, if you rent or buy a movie title on an Apple iOS device through the Google app, you'll still need to watch it via the Google Play Movies & TV app for iOS. 

Unclear to us: A number of third-party device makers, including smart TV manufacturers, still use Android TV. We're not yet sure how the change will affect users of Google's legacy CTV OS platform. 

Google said in January that Google TV and Android TV are now used in 110 million devices worldwide. 

Signaling a major challenge to a multibillion business established by Apple and Google, the Arizona House of Representatives voted Wednesday to advance an amendment that would allow app providers based in the state to avoid fees charged by the tech giants’ respective app stores. 

The 31-29 vote to advance a major amendment to Arizona’s existing HB2005 comes two weeks to the day after the North Dakota State Senate voted down similar legislation. 

The amendment prohibits app stores exceeding 1 million downloads—basically, Google Play and Apple’s App Store—from requiring “a developer that is domiciled in this state to use a particular in-application payments system as the exclusive mode of accretive payments from a user.” Videogame consoles are exempt. 

Epic Games, maker of the popular online game Fortnite, is currently battling Apple and Google in court over a policy that requires the firm to share 30% of its sales generated by its apps sold in Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. 

The Fortnite app was banished from Google Play and the App Store last after it directed Fortnite players to use an alternative payment system to purchase in-app trinkets. If Epic were based in Arizona, and the amendment were to pass the Arizona State Senate and get signed off on by the Governor Doug Ducey, Apple and Google would have to restore the Fortnite app.

Collectively, Google and Apple made $33 billion in app commissions in 2020, according to Sensor Tower data. 

“Today, Arizona put a marker down and became the first state in the nation to advance a digital market that is free and fair,” said the Coalition for App Fairness, the industry group that drafted the bill, and includes Epic games, Match Group and Spotify. 

“The Coalition for App Fairness is pleased to see the House passage of HB 2005, which will encourage business innovation in Arizona and protect consumer choice. While this is cause for celebration, it is only a first step toward achieving a truly level playing field for all …We look forward to working with the Arizona State Senate to move a solution forward that builds on this momentum to provide consumer freedom, lower costs, and increase developers’ ability to thrive and innovate.”

This legislation has implications far beyond video games and includes areas like video streaming. For instance, Google told Netflix in September that it was going to close loopholes that allowed the top SVOD service to avoid its in-app fees. 

Georgia and Massachusetts are considering similar legislation, and lobbyists are pushing for nearly identical bills in Minnesota and Wisconsin. 

Epic Games, maker of the popular online game Fortnite, has gone to battle with Apple and Google over the way they charge fees in their app stores. 

The fast-escalating kerfuffle started Thursday, when Epic Games, via a sneaky-quite software update, directed its users to purchase in-game trinkets directly from the gamemnaker, at a 20% discount, and not Apple’s App Store. Apple quickly booted Fortnite out of its store. And Epic Games quickly filed suit against Apple. 

The same process unfolded with Google and the Google Play Store hours later. The wild Thursday afternoon ride, which culminated in the publicizing of Epic’s lawsuits, was highlighted by a video Epic snuck into its Apple version parodying the computer giant’s landmark Orwellian “1984” commercial. 

“The open Android ecosystem lets developers distribute apps through multiple app stores. For game developers who choose to use the Play Store, we have consistent policies that are fair to developers and keep the store safe for users,” Google said in a statement. “While Fortnite remains available on Android, we can no longer make it available on Play because it violates our policies. However, we welcome the opportunity to continue our discussions with Epic and bring Fortnite back to Google Play.”

Both Google and Apple take a 30% revenue cut from in-app purchases. 

Fortnite, which had amassed 350 million players worldwide as of May, can still be downloaded and played on iOS and Android mobile devices, as well as personal computers, directly from Epic. 

This battle is undoubtedly being watched closely by app operators in the video streaming world, which have also lamented the revenue splits demanded by Apple and Google to transact in their respective online stores. 

“Rather than tolerate this healthy competition and compete on the merits of its offering, Apple responded by removing Fortnite from sale on the App Store, which means that new users cannot download the app, and users who have already downloaded prior versions of the app from the App Store cannot update it to the latest version,” Epic said in its lawsuit against Apple.

It’s not the first time Epic has pushed back against app store hegemony. It only recently returned its Fortnite app to Google Play after an 18-month tussle that began in June 2018. 

A hiccup emerged Wednesday morning amid the national rollout of new OTT app Peacock, with Android mobile and Android TV users unable to search for the new Peacock TV app with the Google Play Store. 

As of 11:30 a.m. EST Wednesday, the Peacock app has been uploaded to Google Play and is available via this link. However, it doesn’t currently surface in the Google Play search bar—which is ironic, really, considering Google is the global leader in search technology. 

Update: The issue was resolved as of Wednesday afternoon. 

Also read: Peacock Set for Flight

The Peacock TV app did surface readily on Apple’s app store, as well as via Microsoft Xbox One and PlayStation 4 gaming consoles. We haven’t tested LG and Vizio smart TVs, but there have been no reports of issues. 

"We do not have control over when platforms release and surface the app to their users, but the app is now live," a Peacock rep told CNET. "We have a large marketing and promotional plan with Google, which you will see across Google platforms starting today.”

The Google Play hangup, which seems like a quickly correctable technical issue, has assumed a bit of prominence, given the limited compatibility of the Peacock app.

Also read: Peacock Gets Sony PlayStation 4 Support Starting July 20

Like the May 27 launch of HBO Max before it, Comcast and its NBC Universal unit were unable to negotiate app support for their new streaming service with the two leading connected TV device makers, Roku and Amazon. Leading smart TV OS maker Samsung also doesn’t provide support.

Also notable: The paid/premium version of Peacock is being offered free for an extended period to users of Google devices. 

Google is testing a new system that will give streaming services the option of letting new subscribers sign up their platforms on Android TV similar to how it’s done on Amazon Prime Channels.

Google first discussed this year ago at its I/O developers conference as part of a broader redesign of the Google Play Store component within its Android TV OTT device ecosystem. 

The redesign subsequently rolled out. But the new “Channels”-like feature is only now entering what Google conceded is a “pilot” phase.

The new feature, outlined in this Google support page, allows Android TV users to select a subscription streaming app within Google Play, then subscribe to it using their Google authentication data, thus cutting down a whole lot of data entry steps. 

"We’re always working on improving the user experience for Android TV users. This feature that we are piloting with select partners make it easier to subscribe and install apps in Google Play more quickly,” Google said in a statement published by Android Police. 

It’s unclear as to what video publishers, if any, have agreed to participate in Google’s pilot so far. 

Also read: Google Reportedly Moving Forward with Android TV-powered, Nest-branded OTT Device

Amazon Prime Channels has offered the convenience of “one-click” sign-up to consumers since 2015. And major SVOD platforms including HBO Now, CBS All Access and Acorn TV have significantly grown their subscriber bases through Prime Channels, but that has come at the expense of not only sharing large chunks of subscription revenue with Amazon, but also ceding the direct-to-customer relationship. Users watch their content through the Amazon Prime Video app, and Amazon handles data collection and billing. 

Roku and Apple have copied the Prime Channels strategy, but publishers including AT&T and Disney have pushed back on it of late, seeking to control more aspects of the customer relationship. 

Tian Lim, the former CTO of Hulu, recently joined Google Play as VP of user experience and product.

According to an update to Lim’s LinkedIn profile, spotted this week by Variety, he joined Google last month.

It’s been confirmed that Barry Steinglass, SVP of engineering at Hulu, has taken on the interim CTO role at Hulu as the company seeks a permanent successor.

Lim, who had joined Hulu in 2014, played a key role in developing and launching Hulu’s live TV service, which launched in beta form in May.

RELATED: Hulu’s Aim: Modernizing the TV Experience (subscription required)

Prior to Hulu, Lim was an engineering exec Sony Network Entertainment International, and had also served as director of development at Microsoft and its Xbox platform.

Lisa Martinez Gilpin, global head of news and publishing at Google Play, broke down the attributes of both virtual reality and augmented reality at the VR 20/20 opening session, and spelled out the roles both will play in the media going forward.

Augmented reality (AR) offers the user a “push and pull kind of dynamic,” she said, whereas virtual reality (VR) is more immersive.

Martinez Gilpin detailed Google’s history in VR, including 2014's Google Cardboard viewer, which she described as “simple with a lot of meaning.” She said a New York Times partnership a year later delivered more than 1 million Cardboard viewers to Times subscribers.

“Talk about coming into a really personal space,” she said. “We’re right there at your front door.”

Next was Daydream, offering a more breathable material than Cardboard. “There’s lots of great content to snack on,” said Martinez Gilpin, “as well as episodic content.”

VR 20/20 is happening Monday (Oct. 16) at the Stewart Hotel in Manhattan as the kick-off event of NYC Television Week.

Read More: Complete Coverage of VR 20/20

Martinez Gilpin said VR has a significant role in realms as varied as news and commerce. She spoke of “educating journalists to user VR cameras to tell their stories.”

Martinez Gilpin talked of ARCore, a platform for augmented reality apps. She described AR’s role in helping a consumer virtually try on clothing, or see how a coffee table fits in a family room, or check out a new car in different colors.

Read More: Complete Coverage of #NYCTVWK

Google’s Visual Positioning Service (VPS) can offer on-the-go consumers a look at a store’s layout before they visit. “It’s a great way to think about user flow,” she said, “and where products sit in store.”

VR, and AR, are part of the present, Martinez Gilpin suggested, not the future. “What used to take months now takes hours from a production standpoint,” she said. “It’s a lot more seamless and frictionless.”

The Obama Administration has teamed with the White House Historical Society and Nexus studios to produce an augmented reality (AR) app creating a 3D video of the White House that pops up out of a dollar bill.

The free app is now available for iPhones or pads at the Apple Store or for Android phones and tablets on Google Play.

The Obama Administration has been all about whizbang tech, whether it was allowing google Street views of White house rooms, putting government data online, streaming White House events to even creating its own White House online programming.

The app is billed as using AR to "to educate and inspire Americans to learn all about what the People’s House stands for." It compresses a year--from the iconic Easter Egg Roll to a State Arrival [in the rain, no less] to a snowman on the lawn to fireworks--into a handheld device.

That comes as a new resident--President-elect Donald Trump--prepares to move in, though how much time he will spend their versus his New York digs remains an open question.

It’s been called a Shark Tank for ganjapreneurs, but The Marijuana Show’s producers, Wendy Robbins and Karen Paull, think of their online reality program as more of a dolphin tank. Budding weed capitalists who come in seeking investments for, say, a car with a body made from cannabis or a seed-to-sale inventory system for marijuana dispensaries always get encouragement and help achieving their dreams.

Starting July 8, Robbins and Paull will see their own efforts pay off with broader over-the-top distribution of the show, on platforms including Amazon Prime, iTunes, Google Play and Xbox. The pair held auditions June 14 in New York for the show’s third season and said going OTT worked for them. “In terms of the [traditional] network model, they pretty much wanted to control the creative and take [us] out,” Paull said. “We want to retain the brand, the marketing, and really the back end is where we make a lot of the money” via relationships with invested companies.

Feedback from meetings, via show developers, included recommendations to change the name, and “they wanted us to make it [dumber],” Robbins said. “You know, like we are goofy people … and it’s so opposite of what we’re trying to bring in, which is a financial, educated, medicinal show.”

Half-hour episodes from season 2 will be available on the new OTT platforms first, and the producers said they have pitched outlets including Hulu, DirecTV and Netflix as well.

To find out where auditions will be held this summer — including in Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and San Diego — and to see a sample of the program, go to themarijuanashow.com.

While most televised professional and college sports games can be watched online on multiple devices, a good number of major pay-per-view ring-sports events have yet to enter the digital arena.

FITE TV is trying to change that. The mobile app, developed by digital media company Flipps Media, currently offers live boxing events, as well as pro wrestling and mixed martial arts content, streamed to mobile phones. The app is available via iTunes or Google Play and gives users the option of watching on their devices or connecting directly to a smart TV.

Through distribution deals with such event providers as Golden Boy Promotions (boxing), TNA (pro wrestling) and World Series of Fighting (MMA), FITE TV is streaming an average of eight live free and fee-based ring sports events per week.

FITE TV CEO Kosta Jordanov recently spoke to Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead about the service, as well as his aspirations to eventually offer fight fans the opportunity to watch the biggest PPV ring-sports events online. An edited excerpt of their conversation follows.

RELATED:Spring's Live Ring Sports on Cable and Broadcast

MCN:Do people actually want to watch a fight on a mobile phone?

Kosta Jordanov: It depends on the content. The trend is that people are shifting to short-form clips, and for those people who watch that content, the size of the screen doesn’t matter that much.

When it comes to sports, however, people want to watch live sports on a large screen. For a three-hour show that you’ve paid $30 to $40 for, the small screen doesn’t work. You want to sit with friends, drink a beer and watch a fight on the large screen. That’s what’s so attractive about FITE TV. The biggest differentiator is our technical ability to connect the stream and bring it to the big screen. We don’t have any hardware for a specific box to be connected to the TV, and there’s no need for a cable subscription.

Basically, we do IP delivery over the big screen using the mobile device as a remote-control interface. The only requirement is that the mobile device and the TV have to be on the same network. The stream goes through a cloud service that we support going to the big screen.

MCN:What are some of the rights deals that you have with ring sports providers?

KJ: We already have deals with 35 event providers on the wrestling, MMA and boxing side. We have a deal with TNA [and] Ring of Honor, on the wrestling side; Legacy [Fighting Championship] and WSOF [World Series of Fighting] on the mixed-martial-arts side, and Golden Boy Promotions and Integrated Sports for boxing. There really isn’t a reason for a content partner not to work for us — it’s all upside for everyone involved.

We’re just one more distributor that they have to work with, but we have a slightly different reach. We’re reaching cord-cutters; people outside the country. We also help our partners with the promotion of the event through Facebook and Twitter ads, sponsored ads. We can also provide content to specific countries.

MCN:Do you see a time when you’ll be able to stream a major PPV boxing event from HBO or Showtime?

KJ: I think it’s doable. I think we would probably start with some distribution outside of the prime window, or it could start with streaming of prelims, weigh-ins and other supporting events leading up to the main-event card. Again, we’re just another Dish or DirecTV; we’re one more provider that can help provide revenue.

MCN:How does a consumer purchase an event to stream?

KJ: Through the FITE TV app, you can purchase the event just like you would through iTunes or Google Play. Once purchased, you get a confirmation from both FITE TV and from iTunes or Google Play.

MCN:The knock on streaming has been the piracy factor — there’s a lot of stealing of the signal when it’s on the Web. How can you assure event providers that you can eliminate piracy?

KJ: We have a very secure content-protection platform that we’ve been working on for the last four years. Through this platform, we’ve streamed content from CBS, Bloomberg [Television] and some of the movie studios that really have high requirements for signal protection. That said, every single signal can be hacked, but we’re actually more safe than traditional systems. It’s harder to steal the content from us than it is from cable.

MCN:Are there any plans to extend your content beyond ring sports?

KJ: We’re very focused on ring sports — we don’t have any plans to go to any areas until we own the space. After that, we may look at other events.

Consumers buying a Disney movie from either Apple TV or Google Play Store can watch the film on nearly all smartphones, tableta and digital devices, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Subscribers of Disney Movies Anywhere app can buy a copy of Maleficent or any Disney movie title offered through Google Play Store and watch it on an Apple TV device or iPad as well as through any portable Android device.  Prior to the deal neither Apple or Google allowed distribution of content across a competitor’s platform.

Both Apple and Google will pay Disney a wholesale rate for each film they sell and keep any profits, regardless of what device the consumer watches the film on, according to the Journal.  

Adding a key content offering to its lineup of apps, Roku has launched Google Play Movies & TV to its Channel Store in the U.S., Ireland and Canada. 

Google Play Movies & TV, also offered on Google’s own TV-connected Chromecast and new Android TV-powered Nexus Player (as well as via apps for Android and iOS tablets and smartphones), offers a mix of new movie releases, some before their DVR and Blu-ray windows, as well as TV shows for purchase and rental.

Google’s service competes with electronic sell-through services such as iTunes, VUDU, Amazon, as well as EST products from Comcast and Verizon Communications. .

Roku said the new offering is available on “current generation” players, meaning those introduced after June 2011 (Roku 3, Roku 2, Roku 1, Roku Streaming Sticks, Roku LT, Roku 2 HD, Roku 2 XD,  Roku 2 XS, and Roku HD). Support for Roku’s platform for connected TVs will be “coming soon.” Roku has shipped more than 10 million devices in the U.S., but hasn’t revealed international sales figures.

Roku, which adds Google Play Movies & TV to a roster of more than 1,600 channels/apps, is also supporting the “Gift from Google” section that’s currently offering a free HD copy of X-Men to users who sign up for  a Google Play account.