March 25, 2020 | With theaters closed in the U.S. and other markets globally, and people hunkered down at home in an effort to control the spread of the novel coronavirus, the major studios moved quickly in the past two weeks to accelerate the home releases of some titles. Strategies range from the simultaneous theatrical and premium VOD release being...
By Kelly Gilblom March 23, 2020 | Over the weekend, Universal Pictures’ “The Invisible Man” and Walt Disney Co.’s “Onward” were the two most popular movies to buy or rent on FandangoNow, an online service. Both were supposed to be exclusively in theaters for the next several weeks, but those plans were upended when most of the 40,000 U.S. theaters closed due...
March 23, 2020 | “We are running into the global arena faster than anybody,” Jeff Hirsch, Starz COO declared at a June 2019 conference. He was referring to the fact that the Starz digital platform will soon serve over 50 territories throughout the world. Starz is not alone in focusing on global growth; Roku reported, in its recent fourth quarter earnings...
Universal/Dreamworks Animation’s Trolls World Tour, which was scheduled to be the first theatrical comeback title down the road in the midst of the coronavirus climate on Easter weekend April 10, will now go day-and-date in homes and on the big-screen. By Anthony D'Alessandro March 16, 2020 | In an unprecedented crunch of the theatrical window as several markets across the U.S. close down in...
(Above) Britbox's MI-5. By Ben Munson March 5, 2020 | BritBox, a North American subscription streaming video service from BBC Studios and ITV, said it now has one million subscribers, double what it had in January 2019. The company cited some Parks Associates research suggesting it’s the fastest growing targeted stand-alone SVOD service since its launch in March 2017. The service, which offers access...
TDG’s Michael Greeson on toggling, rebundling and what comes next This perspective appears in the 2020 edition of the DEG Q Member Magazine January 31, 2020 | Michael Greeson is President and Co-Founder of The Diffusion Group, the highly regarded media research firm whose work explores the intersection between consumer technology and media behavior. Just after the launches of Disney+ and AppleTV+,...
By Alex Sherman January 26, 2020 | Two major shifts in the past year have made scale — the concept of being as big as possible — more important than ever for media companies. The first is the transition from linear cable TV to streaming services, which are expensive to build out and run and require premium content to stand out. The second...
By Patrick Coffee January 23, 2020 | AT&T has made no secret of its desire to lead the increasingly fractured media landscape through its newly acquired WarnerMedia entertainment properties and Xandr adtech division. Business Insider obtained a strategy deck that WarnerMedia execs presented to ad agencies late last summer. It shows how much the strategy will focus on its streaming service HBO Max,...
By Elaine Low January 21, 2020 | You’d think that the steady drumbeat of streaming services being launched might dull the senses, but Wall Street is rather eager to embrace Peacock. NBCUniversal’s new over-the-top entertainment platform sent shares of corporate parent Comcast to an all-time high after its unveiling at the company’s Jan. 16 investor day. The service brought to you by one...
By Todd Spangler [caption id="attachment_5708" align="alignright" width="300"] Universal's Eddie Cunningham will head the joint venture.[/caption] January 5, 2020 |Universal and Warner Bros. — facing the continued deterioration of physical disc sales — want to pool their DVD distribution businesses under a major new deal. The studios announced that Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment entered into a pact to form a new joint venture...