Does Netflix even know how to fail? It made a valiant effort in April 2022 when it reported a loss of 200,000 subscribers and projected more pain ahead. But since then, the company has rebounded and then some, this week reporting the addition of 18.9 million subscribers in Q4 as it exceeded $10 billion in …
It was only days after Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery cancelled their planned Venu sports streaming service that DirecTV this week announced it would launch its own sports-centric service called MySports. The irony isn’t lost on observers, considering that DirecTV had threatened to continue the fight against Venu after the parties settled with Fubo …
For a company with little interest in major sports rights, Netflix sure talks a lot about sports – enough that we’re starting to wonder if its tip-toeing through the sports tulips will at some point become a prance that accelerates into a full-fledged sprint. We’re not there yet, of course. But while Netflix’s relatively error-free …
The movement toward widespread “shoppable ads” continues with this week’s expansion of Roku’s partnership with Instacart as Roku chases what it describes as “high-intent customers.” As QR code ads have gradually gained acceptance, the industry has been waiting for more sophisticated interactivity that could ease the customer conversion process and ultimately enable platforms to get …
At the end of 2023, YouTube announced a significant change to its ad break architecture for users viewing content on connected TV (CTV) devices. YouTube’s internal research revealed that 79% of viewers consuming long-form content on TV screens “prefer video ads that are grouped together instead of distributed throughout a video.” This insight led the …
The cable and satellite cash machine that once dominated the media landscape thrived on one principle: Bundling. Fast forward to today, and the bundle is back. But it’s a new, different model that remains in flux as competitors figure out how to organize what used to be a simple “expanded basic” package centered around one …
The deal terms (but far from closure) of the $8 billion Paramount Global-Skydance Media merger finally got signatures this week, ending a long and somewhat arduous negotiation that had more ups and downs than a theme-park rollercoaster. Ironically, Paramount doesn’t have a theme park yet, but we digress. Skydance will pay $2.4 billion for Shari …
As the proliferation of smart TVs continues, it may be that dominating the last yard to the customer through the screen itself carries more value than all the dongles, set-top boxes, and streaming devices combined. That’s part of the reason that many companies not traditionally in the smart TV business such as Comcast, Roku, Amazon …
“We are executing against our ambitious strategic priorities with both speed and determination.”– Disney CEO Bob Iger Disney sits at an intriguing crossroad, this week posting a quarterly profit on its direct-to-consumer business while spooking Wall Street with some of its projections for the rest of the year. But these days, Disney’s $47 million in …
Warner Bros. Discovery this week put out the word that it will start cracking down on password sharing late this year, with a full rollout of new rules in 2025. The news – delivered by WBD streaming chief J.B. Perrette at the Morgan Stanley investor conference – came as no surprise considering that Netflix’s much-maligned …
