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Wall Street’s hunger for sports deals is showing no signs of easing as more investors flock to a perceived stable form of entertainment — creating potential big returns as well as concerns.Since the MLB opened its doors to institutional investment in 2019, all the major leagues except the NFL have followed suit. Since then, private-equity firms have poured $54.6 billion into sports, according to PitchBook data. Two-thirds of the MLB and NBA teams now have private-equity backing, according to Pit…
4 days ago
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This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Paul Trillo, an LA-based artist and filmmaker whose experimentation with OpenAI’s Sora has produced videos like “Abstract” and “The Golden Record.” The following has been edited for length and clarity.I’ve been testing Sora since the end of February. I was interested in trying to find ideas and visuals that would’ve been more difficult or stranger to explore in traditional ways. So I’m doing a music video that has this dream logic where it ta…
9 days ago
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Netflix said it grew subscribers by 9.33 million worldwide in Q1 — double what Wall Street had expected.Boosting its performance was the company’s crackdown on password sharing, which has led to new signups, as well as its cheaper, ad-supported option. The ads tier costs less ($6.99 per month) than adding a member outside your household ($7.99 per month).Netflix “added more subscribers than many analysts, myself included, expected,” Emarketer senior analyst Ross Benes wrote. “This signals that p…
9 days ago
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Disney CEO Bob Iger emphasized that the company would focus on entertaining over advancing “any kind of agenda,” just after the media giant survived a proxy fight waged by activist shareholders.Asked during Disney’s annual shareholder meeting Q&A on April 3 if the company would just provide entertainment and stay out of politics, Iger said Disney’s job was to “entertain, first and foremost.”“I’ve always believed that we have a responsibility to do good in the world, but we know our job is not to…
24 days ago
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NBCUniversal is testing gen AI-driven ads, joining Google and Meta in the race to use generative artificial intelligence to sell advertising.The media conglomerate announced Wednesday at One24, its annual tech conference, that it’s using gen AI to analyze TV and social content across its vast content portfolio and link them to audiences’ emotions and motivations. Advertisers can then aim ads at people deemed likely to buy certain products, based on the themes and storylines they were drawn to.NB…
about 1 month ago
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Entertainment companies from Disney to Warner Bros. Discovery have a looming Gen-Z problem as they bet their futures on streaming.They’re spending billions to replicate the TV model with streamers, but their future customers may not want what they’re selling.New research from Deloitte shows members of Gen Z prefer to watch social video and livestreams (47%) about twice as much as TV shows (24%) and four times as much as movies (11%).The difference is even starker than it is for millennials, 33%…
about 1 month ago
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Apple has been making a string of advertising hires, more signs of its ambitions to grow its TV ad business.The latest big hire is Joseph Cady, a 14-year NBCUniversal ad exec whose most recent title was EVP of advanced advertising and partnerships, putting him in charge of data-driven and targeted TV advertising, Business Insider has learned. Cady also set up and oversaw NBCU’s partnerships with Amazon, Google, TikTok, and others. Earlier, he served in strategy and development roles. His exit cl…
about 2 months ago
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The end of peak TV has investors looking beyond Hollywood for their next bets as private-equity and venture-capital firms plow into areas like sports and AI.Venture funding in media, entertainment, and gaming fell 62% in 2023, when it represented its lowest share of deal volume in at least five years, according to a new report by investor Alignment Growth. That was a far steeper decline than the overall venture funding market, which declined 38% in 2023, the report said. (The report was based on…
about 2 months ago
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The Disney proxy battle continues to heat up — and ordinary shareholders could cash in.Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management, working with the former Disney exec Ike Perlmutter, and Blackwells Capital are challenging Disney CEO Bob Iger and trying to gain seats on the board when a new slate is voted on at the annual shareholder meeting on April 3.At issue is Disney’s stock price, which is down about 66% from its 2021 high, and how to boost it.The activist investors are taking their fight to the p…
about 2 months ago
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The pandemic delivered a windfall for NYT Cooking, but also raised questions at The New York Times about what would happen to the app’s popularity when foodies were no longer stuck at home and in their kitchens.Three years later, the Times says Cooking has held onto many of its new users and gotten them to return to the app more frequently, with subscribers who use the Cooking app more than tripling in the past four years.“What felt like an enormous victory was by and large really hanging onto t…
about 2 months ago
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A new five-episode series for Roku, “Side Hustlers,” presents six women who will be “fighting for a life-changing investment” from entrepreneur Emma Grede and model and TV personality Ashley Graham.“Whose business will flourish and who will remain a side hustler?” a voiceover says ominously in a trailer that dropped last month.The series comes not from a traditional reality TV producer but from Ally Bank, which wanted to speak to the challenges faced by women during the pandemic in an entertaini…
about 2 months ago
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Overtime has gained a big following with young sports fans, first as a distributor of high-school sports videos and then as a producer of its own shows and operator of its own sports leagues.Now, it’s building a big business with advertisers that want to reach its audience.This year, Overtime is on track to make $100 million based on deals that are locked in, a 40% year-over-year increase. It said some 80% of that comes from advertisers. Across its leagues, top sponsors include GMC, State Farm,…
about 2 months ago
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Vice Media is in the process of shutting down its website and shifting focus to its studio, which will involve laying off hundreds, CEO Bruce Dixon wrote in a staff memo Thursday.Vice is also in the process of selling the woman-aimed site Refinery.com, which it acquired in 2019, Dixon wrote.Rumors of a shutdown of Vice.com emerged Thursday afternoon, sowing confusion among Vice staff and sending them scrambling to download and preserve their work from the site.Staffers expressed a mix of frustra…
2 months ago
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As Vice Media descended into bankruptcy last year, four of its top marketers decided to strike out on their own to continue the tech-driven work they were doing for brands like Coca-Cola.The result is Sounds Fun, which they call an AI and innovation studio and announced this month. It’s led by Iain S. Thomas, the former global head of innovation for Vice agency Virtue Worldwide and a poet who cowrote a book on AI, “What Makes Us Human?” Thomas, who is chief vision officer, is joined by CEO Isa…
3 months ago
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It’s become accepted wisdom in some circles that Netflix has “won” the streaming wars — a story that was validated by its best fourth-quarter report ever in terms of subscription growth. Netflix added 13.1 million subscribers for a total of more than 260 million — leaving second-place Disney+, with 111 million global subscribers (excluding Hotstar), in its dust.But focusing on Netflix’s dominance in Hollywood overlooks a bigger player in media: YouTube. And YouTube’s dominance could have dire co…
3 months ago
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Suma Wealth, a 3-year-old fintech company that combines culturally relevant content and experiences with financial tools to help Latinos build wealth, raised $2.2 million in new funding.Leading the round was Radicle Impact, which was joined by Vamos Ventures, OVO fund, and the American Heart Association Impact fund. They joined previous backers Ulu Ventures, Female Founders Fund, and Chingona Ventures. The new round brings Suma’s total funding to $5.5 million.Suma plans to use the new funding to…
3 months ago
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Gray Television is teaming up with other TV stations to launch a free, local-news streamer, and running Super Bowl ads starring John Stamos to get the word out.The service, called Zeam, comes from streaming-tech company Syncbak, which is backed by Gray, the National Association of Broadcasters, and others and is led by technology vet Jack Perry. Zeam said about 300 stations from Gray, CBS, Hearst, and others representing nearly 80% of the country’s media markets committed to participating in the…
3 months ago
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Amazon is about to shake up the TV ad marketplace as it prepares to show ads to Prime Video viewers starting Monday.The e-commerce giant’s entrance into the streaming ad wars is its latest move to grow its $38 billion ads business.With its scale, data, and broad ad offerings, Amazon enables an attractive play for advertisers that struggle to reach streaming viewers who are now fragmented across multiple services.It could appeal to advertisers eager for alternatives to traditional linear-TV playe…
3 months ago
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Cash-hungry entertainment studios are back in the content licensing game, sending their valuable shows like HBO’s “Sex and the City” and Disney’s “Grey’s Anatomy” back to Netflix.But while the studios may benefit from licensing, they could be helping the streamer become even more dominant.The resurgence of licensing has also brought new scrutiny to a time-honored practice as the job has gotten tougher and more complex.Licensing has historically been a mainstay of entertainment companies, except…
3 months ago
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“Sue Bird: In the Clutch,” a documentary on the career and personal life of the WNBA star, wasn’t the most buzzed-about film at Sundance. But it was significant for another reason: It was backed by a relative newcomer to Hollywood, Nike’s 3-year-old production arm Waffle Iron Entertainment.Brand-backed films have a history at Sundance. Back in 2016, a Netscout and Werner Herzog collaboration, “Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World,” showed festival-goers that a brand-funded movie didn’t…
3 months ago
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Netflix is still riding high while other streamers struggle to catch up — and its fourth-quarter earnings report is further evidence of its lead.The dominant streamer just had its best Q4, adding 13.1 million global subscribers for a total of more than 260 million.This growth widens its lead over newer competitors like Disney+, its closest streaming rival, which trails far behind with 150 million global subscribers.Its dominance also shows up in video viewing share. Nielsen data shared by Netfl…
3 months ago
