Amazon is expected to win EU antitrust approval for its $8.5 billion (€7.6bn) buy of MGM, reports Reuters. The MGM acquisition would bring a movie library and franchises including James Bond and Rocky. It also licenses content for video games, which could benefit Amazon’s development efforts in that area. The Federal Trade Commission is also […]
Based on preliminary data, the European Audiovisual Observatory estimates that the cinema attendance in the European Union and the UK increased to 383.2 million tickets sold in 2021. This is 83.8 million admissions more than in 2020, representing a year-on-year growth of 28 per cent. The rebound was less pronounced in the European Union only […]
Official figures published by the BFI’s Research and Statistics Unit show further growth in the economic recovery of UK film and high-end TV (HETV) production in the wake of the pandemic with record levels of spend contributed to the economy. The combined spend by film and high-end television production (HETV) during 2021 reached £5.64 billion […]
Dolby Laboratories, usually one of the more reliable technology stocks, crashed 10 per cent on February 4th following poor Q1 results and warnings that Covid-based problems were still impacting the business. On the upside the company said it had acquired ultralow-latency specialists Millicast. San Francisco-based Dolby’s numbers saw a near-41 per cent decline in Q1 […]
Tom Hanks (Finch, Greyhound, Captain Philips) and director Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace, World War Z, Finding Neverland) are set to begin shooting on SF Studios’ life-affirming comedy A Man Called Otto, adapted from Fredrik Backman’s 1# New York Times bestseller “A Man Called Ove” and the film of the same name, written and directed […]
The latest Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report has outlined an even greater recovery for the UK’s advertising market than previously expected, with revised estimates for growth in 2021 standing at 26.4 per cent to reach a total of £29.7 billion (€35.6bn). The findings upgrade October’s projection for 2021 (+24.8 per cent) by 1.6 percentage points, equating […]
Figures released by the British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE) spotlight the renaissance of UK Home Entertainment, as its value rose to £3.7 billion (€3.1bn) in 2021. Based on data from the Official Charts Company, Futuresource Consulting, Omdia, and Kantar, this demonstrates 13.3 per cent growth Year on Year (YoY), finishing 2021 on a high […]
Universal Music Publishing Group (UPMG) has announced the signing of Banijay, the global independent content creation and distribution group to exploit its music assets. Under the deal, UMPG will work with Banijay Brands which has a portfolio spanning some of the world’s most recognisable shows, including Peaky Blinders, Survivor, Temptation Island, Lego Masters and Hunted. […]
BritBox UK has announced a new, three-part original factual commission, available exclusively to subscribers from March 2022. Secrets of the Spies delves deep into a world of secrets and lies; from James Bond to Ian Fleming, Kim Philby to Sergei Skripal; the world of espionage is one of blurred lines where fact is often stranger […]
New advertising spend forecasts for 100 markets show that the global ad market has largely weathered the impact of Covid-19, so far, and is on course to reach a value of $1 trillion in 2025, with more than half of this money paid to just three companies: Alphabet, Meta and Amazon. This is according to […]