Digital

The deal includes football, men’s and women’s basketball, as well as Olympic sports through 2032.

The company, which debuted last year with big plans to disrupt journalism, generated only $3 million in revenue by the end of December.

Netflix has said it plans to be in gaming for years to come. Now the company is trying to figure out how to make money from it, a potential shift in strategy for the streamer. Some of the ideas that have been discussed include in-app purchases, charging for more sophisticated games it is developing or giving subscribers to its newer ad-supported tier access to games with ads in them, according to people familiar with the discussions. Pictured: Netflix’s most popular original game is tied to its Too Hot to Handle reality show.

The agreement, struck in September after a blackout, pulls some of Disney’s streaming services into the linear bundle.

YouTube TV is not only the fastest-growing virtual pay TV provider with an estimated 6.9 million subscribers, but has surpassed Dish Network (6.7 million), and now has become the fourth-largest of any pay TV provider of any kind, says MoffettNathanson Research. YouTube TV has grown 35% year-over-year (at just over 5.1 million subscribers in the third quarter of 2022).

The YES Network and MSG Networks have formed a streaming joint venture that could one day lead to New York Yankees and New York Knicks games being housed on a single service. Gotham Advanced Media and Entertainment, or GAME, is the new 50-50 venture, which is aiming for technical and operational synergies. Like many players in the cash-intensive direct-to-consumer business, the two sports entities have found streaming to be a costly proposition.

Jeremy Helfand, who rose from a position at Hulu to supervise all advertising sales across Disney’s interactive businesses will take the reins as a vice president and head of sales efforts for Amazon’s Prime Video, the executive disclosed in a post on Linkedin on Thursday.

With television making the transition from a linear medium to a digital one, GroupM has formed a group designed to give advertisers a stronger voice in how TV advertising evolves. The GroupM Ad Innovation Accelerator consists of a combination of traditional media companies, streamers and tech companies. Initial participants are BrightLine, Disney, Kerv, NBCUniversal, Roku, Telly and YouTube. Other interested parties will be able to join.

Perplexity, a startup going after Google’s dominant position in web search, has won backing from Jeff Bezos and venture capitalists betting that artificial intelligence will upend the way people find information online. Started less than two years ago, Perplexity has fewer than 40 employees and is based out of a San Francisco co-working space. The company’s product, which it calls an answer engine, is used by about 10 million people monthly. Pictured: CEO Aravind Srinivas.

The search giant plans to remove a technology seen as critical to the digital-ad industry.

X, formerly known as Twitter, has lost over 71% of its value since April 2022, when Elon Musk bought the microblogging app, according to mutual fund Fidelity, a shareholder in X Holdings. Fidelity — which contributed over $300 million to Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover — originally marked down the company’s valuation in October, which decreased the value of its investment by nearly 65% over the first 11 months of Musk’s ownership.

In addition to major across-the-board viewership growth during the NFL season, Amazon Prime Video says it had major gains among younger and female viewers in its second year of the Thursday Night Football franchise. Younger 18-34 viewers averaged 2.4 million per game in 2023 — up 14% over a year ago versus its first year Prime Video airing (2.11 million) and 26% higher than the total that Fox/NFL Network earned in 2021 (1.9 million). For its entire 13-game schedule, Nielsen-measured TNF viewership was up 24% to 11.86 million viewers versus a year ago.

Though the legal drama racked up another 682M viewing minutes from Nov. 27 to Dec. 3, that wasn’t enough to be among the 10 most-watched streaming titles in the week after Thanksgiving. However, it did manage to remain on the acquired title list at No. 6. This marks the first time since June that Suits hasn’t claimed a spot on the Top 10, since eight of nine seasons landed on Netflix. Young Sheldon took first place on the overall list during this measurement period, up from fourth place the week prior.

T-Mobile is sweetening the deal for its most expensive wireless plan with another free streamer: The carrier is bundling the ad-supported version of Disney’s Hulu for no extra charge later this month. Starting Jan. 24, Hulu With Ads (normally $7.99 per month) will be included at no extra cost as a part of T-Mobile’s Go5G Next unlimited plan. Under such agreements, the distributor (i.e., T-Mobile) typically pays a wholesale per-subscriber fee to the content provider (i.e., Hulu).

In a memo, Stephanopoulos says he decided to step aside to give CEO Mark Thompson the “freest hand possible” to shape the organization.

Entertainment marketers promoting new shows and movies can now use Samba TV measurement to understand viewership conversions generated by Snapchat campaigns.

News headlines are back on X, formerly known as Twitter, nearly three months after the platform cut them, forcing users and news outlets alike to manually write them on articles shared to X — although the return of the feature comes with smaller, slimmed down headlines for reposted articles.

Rebrands, consolidation and AVOD set the tone as Netflix, Disney, Prime Video and more vie for ad-tier subscribers in the new year.

The “post-cable” news network said “unforeseen internal and external factors” caused the sudden work stoppage.

The company, an aggressive entrant to the digital news space, is expected to cut roughly two-dozen employees this week.

Omnicom this morning confirmed it has closed on its $900 million acquisition of Flywheel Digital from Ascential plc, which will operate as a new practice area within Omnicom headed by former Ascential CEO Duncan Painter, who has stepped down from Ascential’s board. The move fulfills Painter’s vision to spin off Flywheel as part of a strategic restructuring of Ascential, best known within the ad industry as the operator of the Cannes Lions festival.

Jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include openings for video technical support coordinator, investigative reporter, integrated digital specialist, local sales manager, creative services director, a news anchor/reporter and nightside news reporter.

Hulu, Netflix and other streamers are turning to bundles, discounts and ad-supported plans as customer defections rise.

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.

X argued that the law improperly compels speech in violation of the First Amendment and is meant to pressure social media companies to remove content the government deems objectionable.