Hulu will team with the BBC to produce the fourth season of the satirical comedy, which focuses on the inner workings of the British government. The first three seasons of the show will start running on Hulu and Hulu Plus starting July 29. Read more at paidContent »
In one of the first moves under new president and publisher Larry Kramer, the paper will begin publishing daily listings of what its editors and reporters feel are the best currently trending web videos and podcasts. Read more at paidContent »
The maker of advanced set-top boxes acquires an audience research company on the leading edge of tying insight into what consumers buy to the advertising they see on television. Read more at paidContent »
The suspenders are back starting Tuesday night, with Family Guy and Ted creative mastermind Seth MacFarlane serving as the first guest on King’s new interview show. The half-hour program will run on Hulu, Hulu Plus and Ora TV in the early-evening hours Monday thru Thursday. Read more at paidContent »
Sure, the 2.9 million viewers Breaking Bad averaged Sunday was a series record. But it’s might take the more than 7 million viewers who will tune into the Oct. 14 season premiere of The Walking Dead to put AMC back on Dish. Read more at paidContent »
Bernstein Research’s Todd Juenger and Craig Moffett publish some of the best data yet on this rather epic carriage battle. It will take both sides a long time to come to an agreement, they predict, and the solution will come through Viacom curtailing its digital activities. Read more at paidContent »
The company, which licenses a technology to large wireless carriers that lets their customers watch live TV on their smart phones, pulls its $75 million IPO bid, citing “unfavorable market conditions.” Read more »
The hits just keep coming for the struggling Blackberry maker, with a San Francisco federal court jury on Friday directing it to pay up for violating technology patents in some of its enterprise software. And these damages could triple once government and foreign sales are included. Read more »
Addressing DirecTV’s 20 million subscribers in a heavily rotated, one-minute, 23-second propaganda spot, Mike White says, “At the very least, we think Viacom should be willing to give your family the choice to pay for only those channels you watch,” Read more »
Whoever ends up buying Variety will have to make up for “a decade of deferred maintenance” after they’ve coughed up $40 million or more, said a media executive who recently kicked the tires on the venerable trade pub’s sales book. Read more at paidContent »
Viacom has its way of dealing with a carriage dispute, and AMC Networks apparently has a very different way. AMC says it’ll stream Sunday night’s anticipated fifth-season premiere of Breaking Bad for the nearly 14 million blacked-out Dish Network subscribers. Read more at paidContent »
While the Viacom/DirecTV carriage dispute is commanding the bulk of attention Wednesday, several high-profile media analysts publicly advised Dish Network to end its own carriage war with AMC Networks, and to also bite the bullet and settle its expensive legal dispute with AMC over Voom HD. Read more at paidContent »
Legendary Entertainment, producer of Comic Book Guy-loved film properties including The Dark Knight, 300 and Inception, has purchased an online media company well versed in analyzing those movies in obsessively granular detail. Read more at paidContent »
Nickelodeon has been the top-rated cable channel for 66 straight quarters. But with Nicks’ ratings in decline, and its shows spread across Netflix and other OTT outlets, the channel’s negotiating position may be softening. In the lastest carriage renewal conflict, DirecTV will find out how much. Read more at paidContent »
With its channels now officially pulled off the programming guides of Dish’s 14 million U.S. subscribers, AMC gets straight to the point: This dispute has nothing to do with ratings or fees and everything to do with unrelated litigation, the programmer said Saturday night. Read more at paidContent »
Maker Studios will team with the hip-hop legend to produce exclusive content for his popular YouTube channel, WestFestTV. Snoop Dogg adds even more star power to a maker roster that already includes such YouTube heavyweights as Ray William Johnson and KassemG. Read more at paidContent »
How serious does Dish look about actually blacking out AMC channels? It just gave away AMC’s primo real estate to Mark Cuban’s HDNet and HDNet Movies. Yes, the No. 3 pay TV service is really ready to live without the most critically acclaimed shows on TV. Read more at paidContent »
New York-based Blip, long a leading platform for independent video producers to get their work seen on YouTube, will launch a Los Angeles studio, where it will work more closely with content creators to tailor genre-based video for advertisers. Read more at paidContent »
AT&T U-Verse is the latest to balk at AMC’s demands for huge pay TV carriage fee increases. With carriage talks with Dish having already gone south, AMC faces the real possibility of losing access to 18 million subscribers on Saturday. Read more at paidContent »
Yahoo’s latest deal with an entrenched traditional media brand will bring digital radio station portal iHeartRadio into its fold. Yahoo and Clear Channel will also cross-promote each other’s content, as well as partner on live events. Read more at paidContent »
Surveying 14,000 consumers in 14 regions around the globe, research group finds that 10 percent use their iPad or Android tablet to watch TV, up from just 4 percent a year ago. Read more at paidContent »
So how should Congress go about revising two-decade-old regulation of the television industry? At a House Communications Subcommittee hearing Wednesday, testimony by Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen and others continued to dance around the core topic of broadband operators controlling content and distribution. Read more at paidContent »
Big Frame is a Hollywood media company dabbling in virtually all portions of the YouTube business model. In addition to representing talents such as MysteryGuitarMan, Destorm Power and Mike Diva, the company produces branded content and operates its own channel, Bammo. Read more at paidContent »
As basic cable original series prove to be important product differentiators for over-the-top services like Netflix, some of the networks that produce these shows are actually relying more on high-priced theatrical movie acquisitions to maintain or increase their subscriber counts and drive ad revenue Read more at paidContent »
With its video widgets now serving up half a billion recommendations a day for publishers ranging from the New York Times to USA Today, Taboola secures a Series C funding round of $10 million. Founder Adam Singolda says the money will be used for infrastructure. Read more at paidContent »
After partnering on the Super Bowl in February, second-screen app maker Shazam and NBCUniversal will extend the social TV experience to next month’s London Olympics. Read more at paidContent »
While upgrading Netflix’s stock rating to “neutral” from “sell,” Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Tony Wible said that slow-moving competition as well as studios’ “addiction” on licensing fees will benefit the subscription streaming service in the near term. As for the long-term, Wible’s still not a believer. Read more at paidContent »
After disappointing sales of its first-generation Google TV product, Sony will launch an updated version of its Android-based set-top next month. It will also be the first to extend the platform beyond the U.S., with plans to debut it in Europe and Latin America. Read more at paidContent »
According to research firm Parks Associates, only about a fifth of pay TV subscribers know that their cable, satellite or telco service provider offers products that let them view video content on digital devices over the internet. Read more at paidContent »
Yes, the business of promoting other people’s content has become a major audience driver, as the trailer for Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 generates more than a quarter of Yahoo Movies’ monthly traffic in a single day. Read more at paidContent »
Looking to catch up to a serialized drama like Breaking Bad before the new season starts next month? Well, you can stream seasons 1-3 on Netflix, but you’ll have to buy season 4 on disc or through iTunes. We’ll examine a savvy digital distribution strategy. Read more at paidContent »
Speaking at a Mulitchannel News conference Wednesday, a Comcast executive predicted that on-demand viewing of basic cable programming is about to grow into a lucrative advertising business. Read more at paidContent »
Switching its cloud computing infrastructure from Amazon to its own optimized data center has resulted in far greater efficiency and performance for the social gaming company, its CIO, Debra Chrapaty, told GigaOM Structure 2012 Wednesday. But the technologies needed to optimize power consumption still need improvement. Read more »
Application development for smart TVs has been hampered by myriad proprietary platforms. But an alliance announced Wednesday by manufacturers LG Electronics and Philips seeks to create on open set of HTML-based standards. Read more at paidContent »
Research firm Parks Associates finds that nearly one-fifth of premium cable subscribers would consider switching their entertainment dollars to Netflix. And 16 percent of cable/satellite subscribers would consider subscription video-on-demand over their pay TV provider’s VOD service. Read more at paidContent »
The world’s biggest music label has always regarded music videos as promotional tools. But now that Vevo, the music video platform Universal co-owns with Sony, is making $150 million a year, the label agrees the indie artists who render these works deserve compensation. Read more at paidContent »
Microsoft is getting into the tablet hardware business. It showed off a family of new Windows 8-based tablets Monday called Surface at a press event in Hollywood. Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer took the stage at a small Hollywood production facility, Milk Studios, to introduce the new […] Read more at paidContent »
Once the fastest growing content supplier in the online video business, Vevo has seen its U.S. internet audience shrink by 20 percent over the last year, according to numbers released Monday by comScore. The measurement, however, does not reflect migration to mobile platforms. Read more at paidContent »
Defunct Web 1.0-era VOD company Intertainer continues to file patent suits, alleging Viacom transgresses its technology when streams shows like Spongebob Squarepants. Intertainer is currently litigating with Hulu and has a 10-year history of filing complaints and winning settlements. Read more at paidContent »
Disney’s new iOS apps let youthful Comcast Xfinity subscribers watch live feeds and a limited video-on-demand selection of their favorite shows on iPads and iPhones. Missing is the catalog depth found on Netflix. Is Disney trying to carve space for its licensing partner, a cable-industry rival? Read more at paidContent »
