Netflix has added Anne Sweeney, recently Co-chair Disney Media Networks and President Disney-ABC Television at Walt Disney, and Brad Smith, Executive VP and General Counsel, Legal and Corporate Affairs at Microsoft to its board, bringing the total number of directors to nine. “We look forward to benefitting from Brad and Anne’s perspective as we continue […]
Mike Williams, telecoms analyst at investment bank Exane BNP-Paribas, says the battle for eyeballs – and subscribers – is escalating among pay-TV players and as OTT content quality and quantity continues to improve. The bank’s report says: “We expect them to increasingly try to compete as substitutes (rather than complements). Additionally, as OTT players, most […]
Intel is in talks to acquire Altera, a maker of “programmable” processors, in a deal likely to exceed $10 billion, according to reports. A transaction would be the chipmaker’s largest acquisition to date and among the biggest the technology industry has ever seen. Intel’s chips dominate servers in data centres, but the possible acquisition of […]
Last week’s special VIP 50th Anniversary screening of The Sound of Music was shown in a ‘better than original’ version thanks to digital remastering of an earlier 2000 photochemical restoration. But this time around the remastering, which took place at Burbank’s FotoKem post-production house, the technicians used modern colour-grading tools to help cure flicker and […]
The title for one of the year’s most anticipated new dramas, Fear The Walking Dead, has been revealed ahead of its premiere later this year on AMC channels worldwide. As previously announced, AMC Global acquired international television rights to the series, and plans to air each episode globally within 24 hours of its US premiere. […]
StarSat, the successor to South Africa’s ODM/TopTV pay-TV operator, is dumping its controversial adult TV channels. The channels have been on air since November 2013 and have been hugely contentious with various legal battles between civic community groups and the broadcaster, and between South Africa’s ICASA broadcasting regulator. ODM, in a statement from executive consultant […]
TiVo Research and Analytics, a subsidiary of TiVo, and clypd, a sales platform for media owners that enables programmatic TV advertising, have announced the incorporation of TiVo Research’s data products, including the True Target Index, into clypd’s product offerings to help media owners understand their audiences’ media consumption patterns well beyond the industry standard demographics. […]
Apple has approved ZOO Digital to deliver motion picture and television content directly to iTunes. Clients including major Hollywood studios and global broadcasters will now be able to benefit from a direct and efficient route to iTunes, making their content available for sale sooner in global territories. ZOO Digital President, Gordon Doran, commented: “ZOO is […]
Sony Pictures Television Networks (SPT) has reached an agreement with Liberty Global to acquire the Film1 group in the Netherlands. Under the deal, SPT will fully own and operate the five premium pay-TV channels under the Film1 umbrella along with its Film1 Go service, pending regulatory approval. The five Film1 channels include Film1 Premiere, Film1 […]
Conviva, a specialist in OTT video experience optimisation, has released the findings of its inaugural report, which found that stream interruptions, inadequate picture fidelity and other poor streaming experience issues prompt nearly three-quarters of all OTT video viewers to give up in the first four minutes of playback. The report reveals the steep challenges OTT […]