By Todd Spangler July 7, 2020 | In September 2019, Steve Burke, then NBCUniversal chief executive, called Matt Strauss, with a question: Would he take the wheel of the Peacock project? Strauss would need to unleash the service across the U.S. on a dauntingly short timeline — in just 10 months, pegged to the Tokyo Olympics (more on that later). Peacock would face massive competitors and come to...
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 Nellie Andreeva [caption id="attachment_409" align="alignright" width="150"] Matt Strauss is also Chair of DEG.[/caption] October 7, 2019 | NBCUniversal is making sweeping changes, restructuring its broadcast, studio and digital operations and assigning new roles to a number of the company’s top TV executives, including Bonnie Hammer, Paul Telegdy and George Cheeks. Universal Television and Universal Content Productions will move under a single business unit named NBCUniversal...
By Joe Flint and Micah Maidenberg May 14, 2019 | Walt Disney Co. and Comcast Corp. have struck a wide-ranging deal that turns operational control of Hulu over to Disney and gives Comcast the option to sell Disney its stake in the streaming-video service. Under the deal, Comcast can require Disney to purchase the one-third stake its NBCUniversal subsidiary owns in Hulu as early...
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 Rani Molla December 6, 2018 | Following Netflix’s lead, nearly every major video company is moving into the streaming media business. And that means also moving their content off Netflix and onto their own services. Disney — along with its soon-to-be purchased Fox — is launching its streaming service, Disney+, next year and pulling its content, including Pixar and Marvel films, from Netflix. The combined...
By Thomas K. Arnold December 6, 2018 | Comcast’s Xfinity Digital Store has joined digital movie-collection service Movies Anywhere, with the cable giant becoming its seventh digital retail partner — and first pay-television partner. Comcast’s Xfinity TV customers are now able to synchronize their accounts with Movies Anywhere, combine eligible movie purchases from the Xfinity Digital Store with those from other Movies Anywhere digital retailers,...
By Jennifer Saba September 27, 2018 | The Mouse House is about to buy Fox’s entertainment and international assets, including the Sky stake, for $71 billion. Disney’s chief executive, Bob Iger, has allowed discretion to conquer any ideas of valor: He plans to use the $15 billion windfall from the sale to pay down debt and invest in direct-to-consumer products, including Hulu. Read...
By Cynthia Littleton August 21, 2018 | Trying to play catch-up to Netflix, the largest U.S. media conglomerates are bent on reinventing part of their operations as a direct-to-consumer business model. The industry’s biggest content producers aim to tap into the efficiency of streaming video via the internet to build proprietary pipelines into America’s living rooms, laptops, tablets and smartphones. “The modern media...
By Ben Munson June 22, 2018 | The Walt Disney Company is promising to sell off even more Fox assets if its $71 billion deal for the company’s studio and cable network businesses earns regulatory approval. In a filing with the SEC, Disney said that it would be willing to part ways with Fox assets representing up to $1 billion in total EBITDA. That’s an...