The new company that includes the DirecTV, AT&T TV and U-verse operations formerly owned by AT&T is launching a DirecTV Stream, a platform offering access to various streaming services, including HBO Max, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

Surprisingly, mobile phones and desktops generated larger shares of streaming time than connected TV devices.

The partnership adds combat sports to the ad-supported B2B streamer's mix of entertainment, lifestyle, nature and other sports short-form video, streamed in 13,000 bars, hotels, QSRs and other venues.

A Samsung Ads analysis of data from its 45-million-plus U.S. smart TVs and third-party data shows that allocating at least 40% of TV budgets to AVOD and the rest to linear achieves an optimal reach balance between viewers who are mostly streamers and those who are mostly linear watchers.

Sensical, from the for-profit arm of Common Sense Media, says its experts review every video and ad, as well as classify and organize all content by three age brackets.

Netflix spent $15.1 billion, but that would be topped by a combined WarnerMedia Discovery entity at $20.8 billion, reports Purely Streamonomics -- which projects that global content spend will hit $250 billion this year.

Dick's Sporting Goods managed to have top-10 videos for both holidays.

Buyers and sellers have widely different views on the data available for streaming campaigns and the effectiveness of programmatic and direct targeting, a new Conviva study finds. More than half of viewers abandon streaming when ads fail or take too long to load, and also say too many ads are repeated during the same break/episode.

Not surprisingly, time spent with media on connected TV devices, connected gaming consoles and smartphones will continue to increase, with OTT streaming services driving most of the connected-device gains.

With the AVOD version of the year-old streaming service debuting this week, here's what we know and don't know as yet.