Disney, Fox and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) have abandoned plans to launch Venu Sports, their live sports joint venture, after it ran into substantial legal opposition. Shares of WBD and Fox fell more than 1 per cent on the news, while FuboTV’s shares were up 7 per cent in premarket trading. The sport streaming venture […]
The first set of figures to be released in 2025 by the British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE) in association with the Official Charts Company (OCC) reveal the Timothée Chalamet adaptation of the magical Roald Dahl classic Wonka worked its magic for UK audiences in 2024, with 821k individual purchases or rentals of the film […]
Mark Lazarus, the prospective Chief Executive Officer of SpinCo, Comcast’s planned spin-off of select cable television networks, has announced additional appointments to the future senior leadership team of SpinCo. SpinCo will be an independent publicly traded media company comprised of USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel along with complementary digital assets […]
Channel 5 has reported that its streaming service, My5, grew at its fastest ever rate in 2024 with Barb TV Viewing Minutes (TVM) for the service up a record 53 per cent versus 2023. This record level of growth was higher than any other PSB streaming service over 2024 (based on Barb TVM year-on-year growth […]
Japan’s NHK public broadcaster is in trouble for the third year running suffering from a shortfall in licence fee payments. NHK’s 2025 fiscal year will post a deficit of some 40 billion Yen (€245m) according to The Japan Times. While this is a major shortfall, the sum is an improvement on the 2024 position which […]
Trade body the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has welcomed the publication by the Office of the US Trade Representative of its 2024 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy (the Notorious Markets List). MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said: “Every year, the Notorious Markets List identifies the world’s most brazen criminal operations that […]
A New York State appeals court has rejected a request by Fox Corporation to dismiss part of a $2.7 billion (€2.63bn) defamation lawsuit stemming from the broadcasting of misinformation around the 2020 presidential election. Now the suit, filed by Smartmatic, the voting technology company, is on track to proceed to trial in state court in […]
Western European incumbent telecom operators are likely to fare better in 2025 than some alternative cable operators as they benefit from historical investments in fibre and a continued focus on operational cost reduction, according to Fitch’s Western European Telecoms Outlook 2025 Most mobile markets are set to remain stable or improve this year, while the […]
The total telecom and pay-TV services revenue in Hong Kong is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.8 per cent over the forecast period 2024-2029, led by the growth in mobile data and fixed broadband service segments, according to GlobalData, the data and analytics company. GlobalData’s Hong Kong Telecom Operators […]
Telstra has announced a new collaboration with SpaceX’s Starlink to bring Satellite-to-Mobile (direct-to-handset) text messaging to customers in Australia. Telstra says the deal will enable them to provide better coverage from coast to coast, especially for those in regional and remote areas. The collaboration will initially focus on testing and refining a Satellite-to-Mobile text messaging […]
Anti-piracy coalition the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), has announced Mexico-based media and telecommunications company Megacable as its newest member, strengthening ACE’s presence in Latin America as a defender of intellectual property rights. Megacable further expands ACE’s antipiracy footprint in Latin America, where digital piracy continues to affect local and global content creators. ACE […]
The expected double launch of a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket as well as Elon Musk’s giant Starship, both initially expected to launch on January 10th, have been delayed. The problem is the weather which for the Jeff Bezos-backed New Glenn rocket is at least one of the problems. One report says that the Florida […]
Remember Deep Blue, the IBM computer that beat a Grandmaster at chess? Sometimes seen as the moment Artificial Intelligence entered the public consciousness? These days, it is front and centre in both the tech and the creative industries. Uniquely, you can find protagonists in both who regard it as humankind’s next great step, and those […]