This Week in #TVNews: Lady Gaga, Tom Hardy and Streaming Platforms

Streaming platforms continue springing up; digital video spend is growing as marketers aim to reach people wherever they’re consuming content; and Lady Gaga and Tom Hardy break an October box office record with two very different movies. Read on for our round-up of TV news:

• A content stream becomes a river. WarnerMedia, Microsoft and Snapchat made streaming service announcements this week. A mobile-focused streaming service called Quibi, backed by Disney, Fox, NBC Universal and Alibaba, gets our pick for best new streaming service name. (Quibi is a combination of the words “quick” and “bite.”) Quibi already tapped “Shape of Water” director Guillermo del Toro to produce a zombie show.
• Digital video is on the up-and-up. Video ad spend is set to grow 30% this year to a total of nearly $28 billion. Twitter will get 55% of its total U.S. ad revenue from video this year. For YouTube and Snapchat, that figure is 73 and 60%, respectively. (eMarketer)
• I spot interest in measurement. Analytics startup iSpot.tv raised $30 million in Series C funding as it doubles-down on finding new ways to measure and evaluate TV ads.
• “Venom” and “A Star is Born” score a record October box office opening. You could say two stars were born: the Tom Hardy vehicle “Venom,” which made $80 million last weekend, and Lady Gaga’s “A Star is Born” remake, which brought in $43 million. Both films are expected to score another $30 million this weekend. And “A Star” isn’t just bringing in the big bucks in theater; music industry analysts estimate 200,000 sales of the movie’s soundtrack since its Oct. 5 release.

See highlights from last week here, and check back next week for more.