By The Information Staff March 15, 2019 | Two mega-entertainment deals, Disney’s $71 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment businesses and AT&T’S purchase of Time Warner, are putting a lot of veteran media executives on the job market. Just last week, AT&T announced the integration of the former Time Warner’s three main businesses, prompting an exodus of the top executives...
Do the movies we watch reflect who we are and who we aspire to be? March 19, 2019 | Each year, companies spend millions of dollars to craft brands that will resonate with the target audience. The movie business is no exception, with branding playing a key role in helping films compete for audience attention. But through what mechanism does the branding...
[Above] Poet Emily Dickinson will be played by actress Hailee Steinfeld in an Apple comedy series. By John Koblin March 17, 2019 | Apple has decided to put more emphasis on its services — think Apple Music and Apple Pay — to increase revenues. The strategy will include an expansion of Apple News, which is expected to be highlighted at the showcase,...
By Lucas Shaw, Mark Gurman and Julie Verhage March 13, 2019 | Apple Inc., after teasing investors for months about its ambitions to become a services company, is getting ready to showcase plans for its Apple streaming service and news products. All it needs now is for Hollywood to sign up. The company will host A-list celebrities and media executives on March...
By Ryan Faughnder March 8, 2019 |Walt Disney Co.’s entertainment kingdom is about to get a whole lot bigger thanks to the pending Disney purchase of Fox, and the rest of Hollywood has only just begun to grapple with the consequences of the company’s increasing power. The long-anticipated $71.3-billion acquisition will put the X-Men, Homer Simpson, the Avengers, Buzz Lightyear, Kylo Ren...
By Dino-Ray Ramos March 8, 2019 | Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman took the stage at SXSW to discuss their forthcoming short-form mobile streaming service. More accurately, they were defending it — and they unveiled new high-profile Quibi content projects in the pipeline to sell it. The platform launches next April and Katzenberg said they are going to release a...
By Julia Alexander March 7, 2019 | Disney+, the company’s upcoming streaming service, will carry Disney’s entire catalog of animated films, ending Disney’s long-standing “vault” program. CEO Bob Iger told shareholders today that Disney+ “at some point fairly soon after launch” will carry films that “traditionally have been kept in a ‘vault’ and brought out basically every few years.” That’s a major policy change...
By Tom Dotan and Jessica Toonkel March 5, 2019 |As Disney nears an April public unveiling of its Disney+ streaming services for Wall Street analysts, some key questions—including whether to distribute through U.S. cable operators or companies like Apple—are still being hammered out. One worry is whether the service will work well from a technical perspective. With that in mind, some insiders...
By William D. Cohan March 5, 2019 | Research analysts at MoffettNathanson estimate that AT&T could save “hundreds of millions” of dollars annually by combining the various independent pieces of WarnerMedia. And AT&T needs the money. As of the end of December, the company had total debt of about $180 billion, making it the most indebted company in the world. Read more...
(Above) Source: The NPD Group, The DTC Video Landscape Affordability is the No. 1 reason that consumers subscribe to a la carte TV channels, but the ability to get only the content they want is also important March 4, 2019 | Direct-to-consumer (DTC) is an evolving U.S. retail trend with startups such as Warby Parker and manufacturers like Harry’s Shave Club seizing...
