The idea that HBO would license out high-profile, prestige originals to a competitor like Netflix would have been laughable only three years ago. Today, the idea makes some sense considering Warner Bros. Discovery’s mission to monetize as much library content as possible to shed merger debt and find at least $4.5 billion in synergies. This …
With fewer industry gatherings these days, we tend to pack as much discussion and debate into the ones that remain – and the StreamTV Show in Denver this week was no exception. Nearly 1,000 streaming execs, entrepreneurs, and business gurus converged on the Westin Westminster to try to derive order from an industry that seems …
Whether it’s the implosion of the RSN ecosystem or the gradual migration of sports content to streaming platforms, the entire TV sports infrastructure is experiencing its biggest sea change since the launch of ESPN in 1979. The turmoil threatens to upend the economics around live sports, even as leagues continue to extract more money than …
It’s hard to know where to start when it comes to Disney’s fiscal Q2 earnings call, which revealed plans to combine Hulu and Disney+ into a “one-app experience” in the U.S. and Canada by year-end, as well as strip enough content from its streaming services to incur $1.5 billion-$1.8 billion in impairment charges this quarter. …
Warner Bros. Discovery executives went biz-casual this week (sneakers and all) at a Los Angeles press event to unveil their new “Max” streaming service blending HBO Max and Discovery+ into a significantly retooled app that will launch in the U.S. on May 23. Prices won’t change for the old HBO Max ad-supported and ad-free tiers …
Roku’s latest round of layoffs this week reflects continuing pressure on the media landscape, especially when it comes to the advertising market. Roku, like many of its peers, relies heavily on robust ad spend to drive revenue across its Platform division, and last year’s soft scatter market that spurred a 200-headcount reduction at Roku in …
It has been roughly a year since Q1 2022 closed out, followed by Netflix’s disastrous earnings call in late April disclosing a 200,000 subscriber loss in the quarter and a dark forecast of more to come. The company has since returned to sub growth, but that April stumble inspired the entire media business to cut …
From Dish dropping nearly all RSNs to Comcast’s ongoing disputes with RSNs like Altitude Sports, RSNs have been on the defensive lately. But this is a relatively recent phenomenon. Consider that when Sinclair bought Fox Sports RSNs in 2019 for $10.6 billion, it seemed like a great way to further leverage negotiations with television providers. …
In the first unsurprising development of 2023, Roku is finally launching its own smart TV. The question now is whether the company – whose stock is down 80% in the last year and faces myriad challenges – can leverage the news to reinvigorate its hardware business as it copes with an advertising slowdown challenging its …
It’s been a good few months for Comcast NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service, which continues to post impressive growth even though its overall subscriber numbers pale next to its big media peers. This week, NBCU CEO Jeff Shell told the UBS conference that the service has reached 18 million paid subscribers, up 20% in only the …
