Media Star Says Thanks to Professionals in Media Industry
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Fox Corp’s CEO Talks of Success at Super Bowl, Fox News
Dow Jones: Fox Corp. took in about $600 million in advertising revenue for its coverage of Super Bowl LIV and the pregame and postgame content, said CEO Lachlan Murdoch. Fox's chief exec spent much of his call with analysts talking about the strength of Fox...
AT&T Plans WarnerMedia Studio to Make Streaming Films
Los Angeles Times: Movie studio Warner Bros. and HBO Max are launching a new division that will specialize in making movies specifically for streaming. The unit is designed to produce films for HBO Max, the upcoming streaming service owned by the studio's parent...
Disney Readies Global Rollout of Streamers Hulu, Disney+
World Screen: In a conference call with analysts, Disney CEO Bob Iger weighed in on the international rollout of Disney+, including the upcoming debut in India, and noted that global expansion of Hulu is likely to follow beginning in...
Netflix Brushes Off Disney Streaming Results as Low Risk
Bloomberg: Disney reported strong subscriber numbers for its Disney+ streaming service, but it's not the competitive risk that it may appear for Netflix. The "positive outweighs the negative," wrote BofA analyst Nat Schindler. Even with the competition, "Netflix...
Microsoft Taps New CEO for Professional Network LinkedIn
Associated Press: LinkedIn is getting a new CEO. Jeff Weiner will become executive chairman after 11 years as chief of the Microsoft-owned business. Ryan Roslansky, senior vice president of product, will become CEO as of June 1. Weiner said the timing felt right...
Quibi to Exploit Mobile Features by Ignoring Traditional TV
Protocol: By focusing exclusively on mobile, Quibi can try the kind of novel interactivity that other video rivals can't. Future Quibi shows could make use of a phone's gyroscope, location or camera. Launching on TV as well as mobile wouldn't allow show creators to...
Spotify Makes Fourth Podcast Buy with Simmons’s Ringer
Recode: Spotify is making yet another big-budget purchase aimed at getting a lead in the growing podcast industry: The streaming music company has agreed to a deal to purchase The Ringer, the podcast-centric media company run and owned by Bill...
Axel Springer Unveils Mexican Edition of Business Insider
Nieman Lab: The New York Times, BuzzFeed, HuffPost, El País, and others have all retrenched from Mexico in various ways recently. But Business Insider sees potential in reaching younger, upwardly mobile Mexicans. It starts off with a staff of...
Tribune Staffers Vow a ‘Fight to the End’ to Fend Off Alden
Vanity Fair: The campaign by Tribune Publishing staffers to fend off Alden Global Capital, the "grim reaper of US newspapers," is probably a long shot, they admit. "We still have hope that somebody, or a group of people, can step in. We're willing to go to the wall...
Conde Nast Lures Few Stars to Vanity Fair Pre-Oscar Party
Showbiz 411: What if you gave a party and no one's heard of the people who showed up? Seems like that's what happened last night in Hollywood when Vanity Fair threw a pre-Oscar opening at the Wallis Annenberg Center. But only three actual stars showed...
AMI’s Us Weekly Chief Sees Magazines as an ‘Indulgence’
Mr Magazine: Vicci Rose, chief revenue officer of Us Weekly, says she believes that magazines today are more of an "indulgence" than a "luxury" product. "The term luxury; what does that mean? Is it a small luxury? Perhaps. I would say that we're talking about...
Valence Media Lays Off Employees at Hollywood Reporter
WWD: The Hollywood Reporter is making some staff cuts. The industry publication has just laid off around a dozen staffers in total, a third of which are in editorial. The cuts are said to affect its web team, styles coverage and international...
Crain’s New York Media-Biz Reporter Exits After 16 Years
Crain's New York Business: "I came to Crain's 16 years ago to write about the media business," writes Matthew Flamm. "Over time, I ended up writing about everything else — from Uber and taxis, to cannabis laws, natural gas pipelines, and how New Yorkers can't...
BuzzFeed Eyes New Model to Power Growth in Commerce
Digiday: BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti believes that BuzzFeed and other media companies aren't receiving enough credit for the role they play in their audience's purchases. He hopes a new sponsorship program will help prove how much value BuzzFeed delivers....
Politico Publisher Unveils Tech News Site Called Protocol
Adweek: After Robert Allbritton, publisher of politics-centric news organization Politico, saw the need to cover an aggressively changing tech industry, he landed on a concept that borrowed from the political site’s model: niche reporting that would draw loyal...
Barnes & Noble Drops ‘Diverse’ Classic Novels After Outcry
New York Post: Barnes & Noble has suspended its plan to release "diverse editions" of classic novels for Black History Month after getting slammed online for "literary blackface." The partnership was between the company's Fifth Avenue store and Penguin Random...
Strand Book Store to Open New Outlet on Upper West Side
Crain's New York Business: The Strand Book Store, a legendary fixture of the bookselling scene for the past 93 years, will be expanding from its Union Square home next month and moving into 450 Columbus Avenue, the former home of Book Culture on...
Media Star Says Thanks to Professionals in Media Industry
Media Star wishes to thank the many people who have stepped forward to help support this service. Industry professionals say (and tweet) that Media Star helps them keep up on all the latest in media and tech news. Does Media Star help you? Please help Media Star with...
Disney Earnings Reveal Strong Entrance in Streaming Wars
Reuters: Disney's new streaming service Disney+ reached 28.6 million paying subscribers this week, the company said on Tuesday as it reported quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street forecasts. The results showed Disney made a strong entrance into the streaming video...
AT&T Breaks Promise of ‘Irrational’ Moves at WarnerMedia
Ars Technica: AT&T's decision to prevent Time Warner-owned shows from streaming on Netflix hurt the company's quarterly revenue by $1.2 billion. In 2016, AT&T had told Congress that it would not restrict distribution of Time Warner content, claiming that the...
Comcast NBC Affiliates Object to Late-Night Show Streams
TVNewsCheck: Stung by NBC's plan to "pre-air" the Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers late-night shows on the upcoming Peacock streaming service hours prior to their regular broadcast, the affiliates board has been talking to network brass about modifying or scuttling the...
Netflix Spending Goes ‘Over the Top’ in Effort to Win Oscar
Wall Street Journal: Awards season typically takes over Hollywood. But this year has been especially over the top thanks to Netflix. The company's costly tactics have sparked an arms race with other studios that has rival awards strategists reeling — and might even...
Google Apologizes for Sending Users’ Videos to Strangers
CNBC: Google has confirmed that some people recently received private videos from strangers that were uploaded to Google Photos. When people used Google Takeout to download their content, they were accidentally given videos uploaded by people they don’t...
Yahoo Teams with DeGeneres on Viewer Play-Along Show
Variety: Yahoo Entertainment is launching "Reality Star Showdown," a party-game show from Ellen DeGeneres' digital media company, in which viewers play along in guessing games with reality-TV contestants. The series is hosted by "Ellen" producers Andy Zenor and Tracy...
Facebook’s Instagram Brings in More Than Quarter of Sales
Bloomberg: Instagram, the popular photo-sharing app Facebook acquired for $715 million in 2012, generated more than a quarter of the social-media company's revenue last year. The app brought in about $20 billion in advertising revenue in...
Snap Still Unprofitable Nearly Two Years After Going Public
TechCrunch: Snapchat still isn't profitable nearly two years after its IPO. Snapchat's user growth has been on tear, thanks to international penetration, especially in India. But Snap will need to figure out how to squeeze more cash out of the international market to...
Amazon CEO: Lawsuit from Girlfriend’s Brother is Extortion
CNBC: Jeff Bezos accused his girlfriend’s brother of seeking to extort him by suing for defamation, according to a court filing. Responding to a defamation complaint by Michael Sanchez, lawyers for Bezos filed a motion to strike the suit in the Superior Court of...
NYSE Owner Makes a Takeover Offer for Online Giant eBay
Wall Street Journal: The owner of the New York Stock Exchange has made a takeover offer for eBay that could value the sprawling online marketplace at more than $30 billion. Intercontinental Exchange Inc., known as ICE, has approached eBay in the past and did so again...
Apple Loses Conde Nast Veteran as Head of News Business
Bloomberg: The head of business for Apple's news app stepped down less than a year after launching a high-profile subscription product that has struggled to attract paying readers. Liz Schimel, the outgoing executive, joined in mid-2018 after leaving Conde...