Business

With the 10th edition of the College Football Playoff set to cap off a high-rated season starting on New Year’s Day, Disney says advertising inventory is nearly sold out for the semifinals and championship. The level of buy-in is a welcome development for Disney as a challenging 2023 winds to a close. This season’s viewership surge precedes the expansion of the CFP field and negotiations for new media rights deal

Several major publishers have been in talks to license content to the creator of ChatGPT, but agreement on the price and terms has been elusive.

Meta Platforms on Wednesday pressed its argument that the Federal Trade Commission’s structure, including the way it conducts in-house enforcement actions, is unconstitutional. “The commission’s dual role as prosecutor and judge … is flatly inconsistent with fundamental principles of due process,” Meta argues in papers filed with U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss in Washington. The company is seeking an injunction to halt an in-house proceeding that could result in an FTC order banning Meta from monetizing minors’ data.

Altice USA closed a deal on Thursday to sell the youth-skewing business news streaming channel Cheddar News to Archetype, a media company owned by private equity firm Regent LP.

Stocks wavered Thursday in muted holiday trading on Wall Street. There are few economic indicators out of Washington this week. The latest weekly report on unemployment benefits showed that applications rose last week, but not enough to raise concerns about the labor market or broader economy.

Las Vegas trade show CES always kicks off the new year in gadget-happy style, showcasing the innovations that will (sometimes) define the future. Alongside all of the autonomous vehicles and 8K drone cameras at this year’s January confab, something less tangible but just as significant will take up space: streaming advertising. Disney, which launched an ad-supported tier of Disney+ a year ago and now fully owns veteran ad purveyor Hulu, will have a sizable presence, as will players like Roku, Paramount Global, NBCUniversal and Amazon. Netflix, which entered the ad game just before Disney, will have its first-ever booth on the CES show floor.

As Hollywood can’t wait to close the book on one of the most disruptive years in history, marked by a industry-paralyzing double strike that shut down production for more than six months, there is a lot of hope riding on 2024. There is also a dose of anxiety about what exactly the new normal might be.

Nonfiction field and story producers have cheered gains made by the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA in their deals with studios, but also have noticed that they’re one of the only departments unprotected by a union even on unionized sets.

Analysts say they have “a hard time seeing” a transaction happen, compare it to catching “a falling knife” or even a “financial death sentence.”

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers say their study’s findings show a need for government regulation of social media since the companies that stand to make money from children who use their platforms have failed to meaningfully self-regulate. They note such regulations, as well as greater transparency from tech companies, could help alleviate harms to youth mental health and curtail potentially harmful advertising practices that target children and adolescents.

Between the brutal Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes, a crumbling TV advertising market, and looming uncertainty over the economy and generative artificial intelligence, it was a year to forget for the business. While the strikes are over and everyone is back to work (at least after the holidays), 2024 is shaping up to be nearly as uncertain, with venerable Hollywood studios likely to make market-moving decisions, the continuing evolution of generative AI spooking creatives, and macroeconomic factors all taking their toll.

The transaction announced in August adds 6,500 film and television titles to Lionsgate’s large library; diversifies and strengthens its scripted and unscripted television businesses; extends its portfolio of brands and franchises; and expands its presence in Canada and the U.K. The deal is for $375 million in cash plus the assumption of some production financing loans.

The NBA on Wednesday approved Cuban’s sale of a controlling interest in the Mavericks to the Adelson and Dumont families, who run Las Vegas Sands Corp. The deal was approved just shy of a month since Miriam Adelson and Sivan and Patrick Dumont announced their intention to buy the club. The purchase is in the valuation range of $3.5 billion.

Prime will include ads beginning on Jan. 29, the company said in an email to U.S. members this week, setting a date for an announcement it made back in September. Prime members who want to keep their movies and TV shows ad-free will have to pay an additional $2.99.

Ted Hearn: “Did the FCC just say that Nexstar and Amazon do not compete in the video programming marketplace? Didn’t Amazon Prime announce today that it will begin showing ads on TV shows and movies starting on Jan. 29? Financial pressure on TV station owners isn’t new, but it isn’t going away, either. But that didn’t seem to bother the FCC. The FCC’s new rulebook is long and complex, technical and tedious – which means a full understanding of the new rules won’t surface until the agency reviews proposed transactions or issues enforcement rulings against a TV station that pushed the limits.”

Wall Street drifted higher Wednesday as a strong year for markets winds down. The subdued activity in the market with two trading days left in the year is capping off a broader rally to a strong finish.

The U.S. ad market expanded for the eighth consecutive month in November — albeit at mostly modest rates, according to a revised analysis of Guideline’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker. The tracker, an index of U.S. ad spending derived from actual media buys processed by 12 of the largest U.S. agencies’ — including the six major agency holding companies and major independent media services — billing systems.

In what will be a closely watched legal salvo, the publisher claims the generative artificial intelligence giant was using its writing “without permission to develop their models and tools.”

The new contract covering stations in 56 markets replaces one that was set to expire at the end of the year.

This year proved to be yet another tough one for pay TV, as more people cut the cable cord. But it wasn’t exactly kind to streaming services, either, as platforms dealt with subscriber declines, slumping ad revenue and stubborn losses while Netflix continued to assert its dominance.
Still, the age of the cable bundle is giving way to the era of a new kind of bundle that could give both streamers and cable providers a path forward. Media executives told CNBC this month that 2024 could finally be the year that media companies get serious about the bundle. “The Charter-Disney deal was a sign of the times,” said Macquarie analyst Tim Nollen.

Vivek Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign has ceased spending on television advertising ahead of next month’s Republican presidential contests, NBC News reported Tuesday. The Republican biotech entrepreneur’s campaign reduced TV ad spending from $200,000 during the first week of December to $6,000 last week, according to AdImpact, a website that tracks advertising spending, NBC reported. (Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP)

Disney said in a lawsuit filed Friday that the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, often referred to as CFTOD, has been so slow in fulfilling its public records duties that it has failed to respond completely to a request the company made seven months ago when it paid more than $2,400 to get emails and text messages belonging to the five district board members appointed by Gov Ron DeSantis.

The purchase of KPPI-LD Garapan-Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands by DB Media tops the latest list of TV station transactions submitted to the FCC for its approval, according to BIA Advisory Services.

Amazon announced in September that ads were on the way for Prime Video‘s entertainment content. Now we have a date. On Jan. 29, 2024, commercials will be introduced to series and movies airing on the service in the U.S., UK, Germany and Canada. That will be followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the year. The move was announced in a letter sent to subscribers that described the addition of what was termed “limited advertisements” to allow the service “to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.”