Media
Nickelodeon may be next to join the unbundling frenzy: Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman revealed during an earnings call Thursday that his company is looking to launch a paid streaming service with Nickelodeon programming that will be heavily mobile-focused, according to Reuters. Dauman didn’t share any additional details, but said that Viacom will have more to announce next month.
Mashable announced late Wednesday night that it has closed a new round of financing worth $17 million, led by Time Warner Investments — the venture-capital arm of the New York-based media conglomerate — and Business Insider is close to announcing its own new round of funding, said to be worth $25 million and led by German media giant Axel Springer, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. These investments come not long after a series of large financing deals for both BuzzFeed, which raised a total of $50 million led by Andreessen Horowitz, and Vice Media — which raised $500 million by selling a $250-million stake in the company to A&E Networks (a joint venture between Disney and Hearst) and a similar-sized stake to the venture-capital fund Technology Crossover Ventures.
The seven Harry Potter books, plus three spin-off titles, are now available through the ebook subscription site Oyster. The company says Harry Potter has been in its top-ten searches since launch. The Harry Potter series is also available in Amazon’s subscription service, Kindle Unlimited, so the differentiator here is the spin-offs — Quidditch Through the Ages, Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them and The Tales of Beedle the Bard — plus a few promotions that Oyster is running around the titles.
It looks like the WWE’s online video venture is starting to pay off: More than one million people have now subscribed to WWE Network, the online-only subscription streaming service that provides access to the league’s 12 key events per year, plus access to reality shows and past matches, for around $10 a month. WWE originally tried to hit that milestone by the end of 2014, but is now expected to sign up even more users before the WWE’s signature WrestleMania event in March.