By Lucas Shaw and Matthew Boyle April 28, 2019 | Walmart Inc. already sells more TVs than anyone. Now it wants to make the shows you watch on them, too. The retailer plans to bankroll at least a half-dozen original programs over the next year, and will unveil the first few to advertisers in New York this week, people familiar with the plans...
By Alex Sherman April 25, 2019 | Comcast has had a frustrating run as a partial owner of video streaming platform Hulu, but that doesn’t make the decision to sell its minority stake in the company any easier. Disney and Comcast are holding talks about working out a deal for Comcast’s 30% stake, according to people familiar with the matter. Comcast is now weighing the...
By Nick Bilton April 22, 2019 |Right now, Hollywood is booming. There are now almost 500 original scripted TV series being produced a year, an astounding increase of over 100 from six years ago. But as a longtime technology journalist who has watched technology decimate journalism (or at least journalism’s profit margins), it’s not hard to see why Hollywood is next—and why the...
April 25, 2019 | BTI Studios is the world's fastest growing localization company, providing dubbing,subtitling, and access services in any language. As digital distribution of movie and TV showsgrows around the globe, both content owners and aggregators such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu are translating content at a rapid rate and into more languages than ever before. "Stories, no matter what language they were...
By Todd Spangler April 22, 2019 | Disney+, the Mouse House’s new SVOD entry launching in the U.S. this November at $6.99 monthly, will cost nearly half of Netflix’s standard HD plan. But in its first year, the service will have less than one-fifth of the selections on Netflix in the U.S., according to a study by research firm Ampere Analysis. In the first year of launch,...
By Thomas K. Arnold April 21, 2019 | With the March 20 closure of Walt Disney Co.’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, much has been written about the storied history of the celebrated film studio, responsible for nearly a century’s worth of big-screen favorites, from Shirley Temple musicals to Star Wars, from The Sound of Music to Avatar. And yet hardly anything has been said about the...
By Sahil Patel April 18. 2019 | Later this year, Disney and WarnerMedia, hellbent on building their own direct-to-consumer video businesses, are expected to launch rival streaming services. Apple is introducing its own streaming offering, while Amazon and Hulu look to continue growing their own streaming services. Meanwhile, Netflix's costs continue to escalate as the company aggressively spends more and more...
By Wendy Lee and Meg James April 15, 2019 | Telecommunications giant AT&T sold its nearly 10% interest in Hulu for $1.43 billion, returning its stake in the streaming service now controlled by Walt Disney Co. AT&T said the deal, announced Monday, valued the Santa Monica-based streaming service at $15 billion. AT&T was expected to sell its interest in Hulu as AT&T’s...
With all eyes on the monthly pricing of Disney+ relative to (more expensive) Netflix, analyst Michael Nathanson takes a look at Netflix content and what viewers like about it [caption id="attachment_6348" align="alignleft" width="200"] Michael Nathanson | Moffett Nathanson[/caption] April 8, 2019 | As Disney+, Apple and WarnerMedia launch new direct to consumer products in 2019, the single most fascinating subject for media...
By Ryan Faughnder and Meg James April 11, 2019 | Walt Disney Co. pulled back the curtain on its highly anticipated streaming service Disney+, revealing key details about what content will be available on the app, including Disney classics and original shows and movies. Disney’s new service will launch Nov. 12 and cost $6.99 a month, Kevin Mayer, head of Disney’s direct-to-consumer...
