By Jessica Toonkel February 8, 2019 | Under pressure from Netflix and Amazon, the entertainment industry is slowly consolidating. But one of the smallest of the publicly traded entertainment firms, AMC Networks, is resisting the trend. And in an interview, AMC CEO Josh Sapan warns that some of the big media deals underway may prove to be more challenging than anticipated...
By Erich Schwartzel and Maria Armental February 5, 2019 | Walt Disney Co. has less than a year to go before it finds itself operating three separate video-streaming services, and Chief Executive Robert Iger offered fresh details Tuesday on how that new strategy will affect the world’s largest entertainment company. For the first time, Disney reported quarterly earnings under a new company organization that introduces a direct-to-consumer segment—which...
By Paul Bond January 31, 2109 | Discovery says it isn’t interested in selling to CBS, or linking up with CBS and Viacom should those two eventually merge. But some analysts are saying that it’s something all three media companies should consider. Meanwhile, insiders speculate that Netflix may be in the mix because it might want a piece of Paramount, owned by Viacom. Netflix...
BY JANKO ROETTGERS JANUARY 30, 2019 | Ultraviolet, a cloud movie locker once hailed as Hollywood’s best bet to get consumers hooked on digital movies, is shuttering. The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), the industry consortium that has been tasked with running Ultraviolet, will shut down the service on July 31. Read more on Variety....
By Peter Kafka January 29, 2019| One terrible way to find out what Apple is planning on doing is to ask an Apple executive about Apple’s plans in public, before Apple is ready to make an Official Apple Announcement. People keep trying anyway. Today it was analyst Shannon Cross of Cross Research, asking Apple CEO Tim Cook about Apple’s TV plans. Spoiler: He didn’t...
By Cynthia Littleton January 29, 2019 | It’s become clear to Disney watchers that Chairman/CEO Bob Iger — who says he plans to step down when his contract expires in 2021 — has staked part of his legacy on proving that the empire can strike back with Disney streaming against Netflix and the upstarts that have so dramatically disrupted Hollywood’s old order....
Above | CuriosityStream makes some content available outside the pay-wall. There is reason to believe viewer interests will remain as broad in DTC as they are with traditional TV January 28, 2019 | The battle to become an anchor tenant in the entertainment bundle of most people will intensify in 2019. When Disney and WarnerMedia join Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu, it will be even harder for smaller direct-to-consumer (DTC) services to be seen by their intended audience. Does that...
Dissecting Disney’s closed, and AT&T’s more open, OTT content strategies [caption id="attachment_6348" align="alignleft" width="200"] Michael Nathanson | Moffett Nathanson[/caption] January 28, 2019 | 2018 will go down as the year in which some of the largest traditional media companies started to show their cards vis-a-vis their over-the-top (OTT) distribution strategies. With three large-scale mergers (AT&T-TWX, Disney-Fox, and Comcast-Sky) either complete or nearing completion,...
By Jessica Toonkel January 28, 2019 | Amazon Channels looked intent on becoming a powerful player in the streaming video market by allowing people to sign up for a wide variety of services through their Prime Video accounts—so much so that Apple, Roku and potentially Facebook are now copying the company’s approach. But even as competition increases, Amazon is scaling back...
Above: Even with a steep drop in new platform launches since 2015, relatively few have shut down. Specialty players continue to grow in a landscape of fewer launches, more major media company activity January 28, 2019 | The “Big Three” U.S. SVOD players – Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video – receive a lot of media attention for their original runaway hits (The...
