Anne Sweeney, President of Disney-ABC Television Group, has branded the Barry Diller-backed Aereo online TV service as “opportunistic piracy”. Interviewed at the AllThingsDigital conference, Sweeney said: “I think Aereo is wrong, it is illegal, and it is opportunistic piracy, It’s taking advantage of our content, of our creative community, and using it for their own […]
Gatekeeping is a cornerstone of academic media theory – that boom industry of the Noughties. But it is a theory under strain as the idea of a few privileged outlets choosing what content is relayed and in what form, and thereby shaping cultural and political agendas, seems less convincing in the Internet driven, social media […]
The success of content ownership ecosystem UltraViolet will depend on the actions of those major studio, CE and online players who are currently holding out against UltraViolet, according to ABI Research. By 2018, the firm expects active UltraViolet (UV) accounts (those with multiple movies) to exceed 65 million worldwide – up from the estimated 6 […]
Research carried out by Dataxis has confirmed that 100 per cent of the top 25 free-to-air (FTA) television networks in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru are now broadcasting a digital terrestrial TV (DTT) version of their analogue networks. Pushed by telecoms regulators that are looking to free up radio-frequency space for new wireless […]
US telco Sprint and Japan’s SoftBank have announced that SoftBank has been granted approval by the USA’s Committee on Foreign Investment to proceed with their merger proposal for Sprint. This does not mean that SoftBank’s bid for Sprint is a done deal. However, the announcement appears to bury any anxieties that SoftBank’s links to China […]
Netflix stock fell by more than 6 per cent as investors reacted to poor reviews of the first new Arrested Development episodes since Fox canned the TV series seven years ago. The shares shed $14.55 on Tuesday to close at $214.19, marking the biggest one-day drop in the stock in nearly six months. Netflix declined […]
Amazon has announced the five original TV series it will make this year after seeking customer feedback on 14 pilot shows. Political comedy Alpha House, starring John Goodman, and Betas, a sitcom about Silicon Valley, were among those selected for full series production. Children’s programmes Annebots, Creative Galaxy and Tumbleaf will also be made. The […]
DISH Network has sent a letter to Clearwire Corporation with an offer to acquire Clearwire for $4.40 per share in cash. DISH said it is making this offer public in light of the limited time remaining prior to the Clearwire stockholders’ meeting to be held on May 31st. DISH intends to commence a tender offer […]
A month ago, satellite giant Intelsat disappointed Wall Street by setting its Initial Public Offering at just $18 a share, well below the anticipated level of $21-$25. At the end of the day, Intelsat banked $348 million, and did its best to take a pragmatic outlook on what had not been the easiest of times […]
Romania’s broadcasting landscape has shifted with the launch of Freesat, a new TV platform available from the Eutelsat 16A satellite. Freesat is a DTH platform of Standard Digital and High Definition channels available for a yearly subscription of only 99 lei (€23) and a one-off investment in a conditional access smartcard. It assembles Romania’s most […]