10 Stories You Should Know: 02/17/2023

Here are the global TV stories that should be on your radar

Here are the global TV and streaming stories that should be on your radar for Friday, February 17th, 2023:

‘The Great British Bake Off’ Showrunner Admits Much-Criticized Season 13 Was “Not Our Strongest” (Deadline)
The Great British Bake Off‘s executive producer has said that people were justified in criticizing Season 13 of the hit competition series. Critics including Scott Bryan, a self-confessed Bake Off superfan, said the Channel 4 show’s challenges became overly complicated and Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith’s judging was too harsh.

Canal+ Teases Box Office Movie Channel Launch In 2023 (Digital TV Europe)
Vivendi-owned media group Canal+ has unveiled plans to invest €1bn in cinema over the next five years. As part of its long-term commitment to the genre, the company also confirmed that it will be launching a new movie channel, Canal+ Box Office.

Berlin: Germany’s Sky Orders Two New Original Series (The Hollywood Reporter)
Leading German pay-TV network Sky Deutschland, part of Comcast-owned European TV giant Sky, is doubling down on its local-language originals slate, giving straight-to-series orders for two new high-end TV series.

Barb: Number Of UK SVoD homes Dips In Q4 (Advanced-Television)
Barb has released data from its Establishment Survey showing that 19.42 million UK homes (67.7 per cent of households) had access to an SVoD service in Q4 2022. This was a -0.6 per cent decrease from 19.54 million in Q3 2022.

Shahid: MBC Announces Massive 17% Price Increase For Streaming Service (Arab Business)
The MBC-owned streaming service is home to popular shows such as reality TV hit Joelle Unfiltered, the latest Arabic movies and sporting events such as Cristiano Ronaldo’s matches in the Saudi pro League.

Netflix And Spain’s LaLiga Warm Up For Soccer Doc Series (Deadline)
Netflix is working with Spain's top soccer division, LaLiga, on a doc series in the vein of Formula 1: Drive to Survive. Currently in pre-production, the series will follow the upcoming 2023-24 LaLiga season, which will feature the likes of club giants Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Viaplay Expands Content Offer In Netherlands, Poland (Rapid TV News)
Showing no signs of stopping its recent wave of activity in reaching new territories, Viaplay Group has now announced that it is to premiere its first Dutch film and has unveiled its second scripted commission for Poland.

Netflix Israel To Air Kan 11 Shows, Including ‘Checkout,’ ‘Dismissed,’ ‘Cramel’ (Times Of Israel)
Tal Fraifeld, vice president of television at Kan, said the deal with Netflix was an additional step in Kan’s mission to bring audiences the best Israeli and Hebrew language programming, and to help foster the talented Israeli TV production industry.

Japan's Top Streaming Services To Merge To Take On Netflix, Amazon (Nikkei Asia)
The two companies' merger on March 31 will create a leading Japanese video streaming service with combined sales of approximately 80 billion yen ($593 million) and more than 3.7 million paid subscribers, putting it in second place behind Netflix by market share in value terms.

Disney’s Hotstar Suffers Outage In An Apparent Domain Renewal Mess (Techcrunch)
Disney+ Hotstar is suffering an outage for some users in India in the middle of a popular cricket match, drawing flak from customers at a time when the Disney crown jewel is already facing several setbacks in the South Asian market.