Clix, a service that helps streamers find what to watch, said that 99% of its global audience of 12 million users are getting their video recommendations on mobile devices before watching on any screen or platform.

More viewers and more shows are streaming, especially on a burgeoning number of free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels. Discovering content is difficult and a return to scrolling program guides is not what younger viewers want, Clix said.

"Our consumers, especially millennials and Gen Z, expect to get their information about what-to-watch instantaneously — anytime, anywhere in this ever-shifting landscape," Ed Sullivan, Clix founder and CEO, said. "Our users know Clix is allied with top streamers to make it easier to find the best of what to watch."

Clix said its registered users are growing by almost 800,000 monthly in the U.S., citing Google Analytics.

"Everyone is walking around with a TV in their pocket — and that time-burning question on their lips: 'What should I stream today?'" Stacy Jolna, Clix founder and chief marketing officer, said. "Clix on your iPhone or Android device is the quickest way to see our 'discover and watch' recommendations called ClixPix, whether you're riding the subway, simply bored in class, or group chatting about the hottest new series and movies."

Clix said its what-to-watch methodology combines artificial intelligence and machine learning with human editorial curation. Script and cinematography excellence, great acting and directing contribute to its recommendations.

In addition to recommendations, Clix offers its own original content and is available via Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and LG Smart TVs.

"Our top video-centric suggestions of what to stream, ClixQuizzes on TV, movies and sports, as well as our growing shopping functionality for just what you want to buy, together, creates a personal connection to our viewers," Patricia Sullivan, founder and CEO, added. "Our viewers' demands and desire are Clix's guide for what we will unveil next. We know they don't want more guides and grids to struggle through as they search for their entertainment experience." ■

The companies behind the top streaming services agreed with the FCC that delivering potentially life-saving emergency alert information to the public is of "paramount importance," but they argued their OTT services should not be required to participate in that system, saying it would not appreciably increase the number of people who get such alerts, but would appreciably increase the burden on streamers if they were required to deliver them.

And the obligation would not just be on the major streaming video services, they said, but Peleton, and even online instructional yoga videos.

Broadcasters agreed that streaming companies should not be required to carry the alerts.

The streamers argued the FCC's Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alert System (WEAS) are already robust programs that ensure "timely and relevant" alerts get to the public, which the FCC is making better in the proceeding on which the commission sought comment.

One of the comments the FCC wanted was whether those improvements should include extending the alerts beyond traditional media to the new, and burgeoning, streaming services. Congress mandated that the FCC explore extending alerts to over-the-top.

The Motion Picture Association, whose members include the studios behind Disney Plus, Hulu, ESPN Plus, Peacock, Paramount Plus, and HBO Max, said no.

"[T]he Commission should advise Congress that it should not seek to expand the class of entities required to participate in EAS to include streaming services," they said, adding to do so would could create "alert fatigue," not to mention being "tremendously burdensome" if not "entirely impracticable" as a technical matter, they said in comments to the FCC.

On that last point, they echoed arguments long made against defining over-the-top services as MVPDs.

"Streaming services are less like physical networks and systems that provide EAS today and more similar to the providers of content delivered over such systems." Like an individual broadcast network or cable channel, they said, "because such content providers do not control the underlying distribution architecture, do not have knowledge of where a particular end user receiving their content over such distribution architecture might be located, and are far greater in number than the EAS participants, these individual content providers are not responsible for delivery of EAS alerts."

The FCC's EAS obligation is imposed on individual TV stations and cable systems, not the content providers.

Among the technical challenges they cite:

1. "Streaming services’ relative lack of knowledge as to a user’s precise location;

2. "Difficulties in geographically targeting alerts in a service that is provided on a nationwide basis and delivered over the public Internet; and

3. "The total impracticability of streaming services monitoring for, ingesting, and delivering EAS alerts."

They said any of those demonstrates the infeasibility of applying alert mandates to them.

The National Football League will kick off its 2020 playoff season with two additional playoff teams and several new, and somewhat surprising, TV distribution outlets.

NFL team owners voted Tuesday to add one additional Wild Card team in the AFC and the NFC for a total of 14 playoff teams, according to ESPN. Under the new playoffs format, only the top seeded playoff team in each conference will get a first-round bye. Previously, first and second-seeded teams in each conference received first-round byes. 

The traditional wild card weekend will now expand to three games instead of two, with NBC and CBS each telecasting one of the two new playoff games.

On the CBS side, streaming service CBS All Access will also stream the game live, while kids-targeted Nickelodeon will feature its own production of the game targeted to its young audience, according to reports.

For NBC, its soon-to-launch streaming service Peacock will simulcast the game along with Spanish-language network Telemundo.

The NFL's move to include streaming, Spanish-language and kids-targeted services into its television distribution portfolio signifies the league’s desire to not only reach its current fans currently streaming content, but also to groom the next generation of fans.

“The NFL is continuing to hedge its bets,” said sports analyst Lee Berke. “It is continuing to show tremendous support to broadcasters because they can step up with the dollars necessary, but it is also saying that there’s a strong Spanish-speaking audience that we want to cater to, there’s a younger audience we want to attract and there’s a streaming audience we want to be part of.”