AT&T/WarnerMedia’s new streaming service due to debut in Spring 2020 will be called HBO Max and bundle original and classic content from AT&T-owned networks and studios, including Warner Bros., New Line, DC Entertainment, CNN, TNT, TBS, truTV, CW, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Crunchyroll, Rooster Teeth, and Looney Tunes.

AT&T still has not announced pricing for the service, but most expect it will end up costing around $16 a month, more than any other streaming service.

“HBO Max will bring together the diverse riches of WarnerMedia to create programming and user experiences not seen before in a streaming platform,” Bob Greenblatt, chairman of WarnerMedia Entertainment and direct-to-consumer, said in a statement.

To attract potential subscribers, AT&T has been pulling back content it owns or controls from other streaming services. In addition to The Office, AT&T announced it will also yank Friends reruns off of Netflix in early 2020, despite collecting $80 million from the streaming giant this year to carry the NBC series that aired its last episode in 2004.

To market HBO Max, WarnerMedia will tie it to the marquee HBO brand and its HBO Max and Go streaming services. HBO Max customers will receive access to the full HBO online catalog of on-demand content, along with more than a dozen new made-for-streaming TV shows and movies. Much of the new content will target a younger audience, including a large roster of CW shows, original movies and shows. But older audiences will also find a large library of classic content from the enormous Turner Classic Movies and Warner Bros. studio libraries.

A preview for HBO Max, WarnerMedia’s new streaming service, debuting in Spring 2020. (0:43)

AT&T today announced it was donating $500,000 to the non-profit group behind Locast, the online streaming service offering free access to local TV stations in more than a dozen U.S. cities.

AT&T’s altruism is a thumb in the eye of high-cost retransmission consent agreements with the corporate owners of local free over the air television stations. AT&T added Locast’s app to U-verse and DirecTV receivers at the end of May, giving subscribers a quick and easy way to access over the air stations if one or more are “blacked out” over a contract renewal dispute. AT&T also continues to offer antennas to customers that integrate with both services’ electronic program guides so subscribers can quickly access their favorite channels.

The Sports Fan Coalition, the group behind Locast, will use the money to further expand its service into other cities. At present, Locast is available to almost one-third of American TV homes, amounting to more than 32 million potential viewers. But the service has a very long way to go to stream local stations from all 210 U.S. TV markets.

AT&T will likely use Locast as a leveraging tool when negotiations become heated, letting TV station owners know they can simply point customers to Locast to continue watching stations. AT&T cannot legally redistribute Locast TV streams to customers without running afoul of copyright law, but it can provide customers with access to the independent Locast app and the internet connectivity that allows that app to function. AT&T does not currently plan to drop local stations already on the lineup in favor of pointing customers to Locast. But it will let customers know that blacked out stations are still available to customers through the Locast app.

As some Netflix shareholders grumble about the company’s massive investment in developing original content, some of Netflix’s smaller rivals claim the streaming service cannot forever depend on subscription fees alone to cover the billions being spent on new series and movies.

NBCUniversal’s Linda Yaccarino and Hulu’s Peter Naylor both believe Netflix will eventually have to begin inserting advertising into shows if it wishes to continue its spending spree on content while avoiding steep rate increases.

At a Cannes Lions panel held last week, content companies discussed the evolution of streaming services and their embrace of traditional advertising.

“When you have to make more programming that’s not guaranteed to be a hit, you have to spend more money, you have to build your brand, you have to help the consumer discover your stuff — the price will go up for the subscription, and it would be logical to mitigate those increases to take ads,” Yaccarino said.

Hulu remains the biggest and best-known example of a streaming service built on a traditional advertising model. Customers pay $5.99 a month for advertiser-sponsored content, similar to traditional linear television. Customers can buy their way out of advertising interruptions by paying $11.99 a month for a commercial-free plan that is roughly double the usual price. Just under 30% of Hulu subscribers currently select the commercial-free option.

Hulu’s bathroom break ad, displayed when a video is paused.

Naylor claims traditional advertising need not continue to resemble commercial broadcast television, despite the fact Hulu is still mimicking that experience.

“The future of ad-supported media does not resemble what we’re doing today in terms of ad load or even ad shape,” Naylor said. “It can be interactive advertising or nonintrusive advertising. I think you’re going to see a lot of innovation from all of these new OTT providers because we’re allowed to. We’re not married to the clock. Fifteen and 30-second ads were a product of linear TV. When everything’s on demand and served through an IP address, the ad experience is going to dramatically improve.”

Hulu has been experimenting with different ad formats to gauge subscriber acceptance. Interactive advertising, viewer-selected ads, and banner ads that appear when programming is paused are all being tested. A 2 feet by 6 feet banner is perfect for making a big impression.

Although Hulu is dabbling in original content, NBCUniversal spent more than $28 billion on content acquisition and development last year. In contrast, Netflix spent $12 billion. Yaccarino said that as more streaming services launch, particularly those from Disney and WarnerMedia, Netflix will have to further increase its spending to keep up.

A Netflix spokesperson told CNBC all this talk was “wishful thinking from an advertising conference.” Netflix is not currently focused on incorporating ads into any of its shows, the spokesperson confirmed.

Locast, the not-for-profit cooperative that has successfully streamed local, over the air stations without running afoul of copyright law and attorneys, has announced a big expansion into the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sioux Falls and Rapid City (South Dakota).

The free, donation-supported service now covers (in addition to the aforementioned) New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, and Denver.

In each city, Locast streams all the major network stations, almost all independents, some low power outlets, and a host of digital sub-channels featuring digital multicast networks like MeTV, Grit, Comet, and many others. It skips home shopping outlets and some minority language stations. Viewers get a program grid to know what to watch, and picture quality is generally very good to excellent.

Locast has staked its position as a “virtual translator” operation. FCC rules allow independent groups to pick up and rebroadcast television stations without the permission of the stations involved, as long as the operation is not-for-profit:

Before 1976, under two Supreme Court decisions, any company or organization could receive an over-the-air broadcast signal and retransmit it to households in that broadcaster’s market without receiving permission (a copyright license) from the broadcaster. Then, in 1976, Congress passed a law overturning the Supreme Court decisions and making it a copyright violation to retransmit a local broadcast signal without a copyright license. This is why cable and satellite operators, when retransmitting a broadcast signal, either must operate under a statutory “compulsory” copyright license, or receive permission from the broadcaster.

But Congress made an exception. Any “non-profit organization” could make a “secondary transmission” of a local broadcast signal, provided the non-profit did not receive any “direct or indirect commercial advantage” and either offered the signal for free or for a fee “necessary to defray the actual and reasonable costs” of providing the service. 17 U.S.C. 111(a)(5).

Sports Fans Coalition NY is a non-profit organization under the laws of New York State. Locast.org does not charge viewers for the digital translator service (although we do ask for contributions) and if it does so, will only recover costs as stipulated in the copyright statute. Finally, in dozens of pages of legal analysis provided to Sports Fans Coalition, an expert in copyright law concluded that under this particular provision of the copyright statute, secondary transmission may be made online, the same way traditional broadcast translators do so over the air.

For these reasons, Locast.org believes it is well within the bounds of copyright law when offering you the digital translator service.

Earlier efforts to stream over the air stations without the permission of the networks or stations involved quickly resulted in lawsuits and eventual forced closedowns. Locast is the exception, at least so far, having launched first in New York City in January 2018. Since that time, no lawsuits have been filed against the service despite its rapid expansion.

Locast suggests viewers donate $5 a month to help cover its costs and is soliciting donations to launch in more cities. Currently, Seattle, San Diego, Alexandria, La., and Albany, N.Y. are the top contenders.

The service is geofenced, so only those present in a Locast-serviced city can access the service.

Discovery Networks has signed a new contract with streaming TV service fuboTV that will bring 13 more channels to its lineups and allow subscribers to access on-demand content from Discovery’s suite of networks.

“Today’s content agreement broadens the strategic relationship between Discovery and fuboTV that began almost two years ago with the former Scripps Networks,” said Joel Armijo, fuboTV’s chief financial officer. “We are excited to be adding more Discovery brands alongside their lifestyle networks, which we already carry. These brands, including HGTV and Food Network, are among our top performing entertainment networks, and this agreement allows us to extend our partnership for years to come. We expect to be similarly successful with our new Discovery networks.”

Base fuboTV Standard subscribers that pay $54.99 a month will see Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Investigation: Discovery, OWN-the Oprah Winfrey Network, and Motor Trend added to their lineup. Customers paying for fuboTV Extra ($5.99) will also receive the Science Channel, Destination America, Destination Family, American Heroes Channel, and Discovery Life. Two Spanish language networks — Discovery en Español and Discovery Familia will appear on fuboTV’s Spanish language lineup.

Discovery is aggressively signing deals with independent streaming TV services as cord-cutting continues to take a significant toll on satellite and cable television services. Preserving an established viewing audience will be crucial to Discovery’s marketing efforts for its own forthcoming streaming platform, which will look like a non-fiction/documentary version of Netflix.