The FCC Media Bureau approved the Dish Network and Tegna requests to dismiss their retransmission consent cross-complaints against one another (see 2202090043), per a docket 21-413 order Thursday.
ViacomCBS is now Paramount Global. The name change "represents our rich and storied history in entertainment and embraces our transition into the future," the company announced Tuesday.
More than 78% of global Super Bowl viewing time was on a big-screen TV, reported Conviva Tuesday. Of that subset, Roku-equipped TVs led those of other platforms with 36.3% of viewing time, with Amazon Fire TV second (19.4%) and Samsung TV third (12.8%), it said. Apple TV had 6.6%, Xbox at 4.5%, LG TVs 4.4%, while Vizio TV, Android TV and PlayStation each took about 3% share. Chromecast had 1.3% viewing time, said the report. Mobile phones had 13.9% of viewing time, desktops 5.4% and tablets 2%, it said.
Disney doesn't "subscribe to the belief that theatrical distribution is the only way to build a Disney franchise,” said CEO Bob Chapek on an earnings call Wednesday for fiscal Q1 ended Jan. 1. Disney added 4.1 million paid domestic U.S. Disney+ subscribers in the quarter, said Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy, including about 2 million incremental subscribers from including Disney+ and ESPN+ as part of a Hulu Live subscription. Disney continues to see “value in the moviegoing experience,” said Chapek, but Disney’s theatrical business swung to a $98 million operating loss in the quarter, while Disney+ subscriptions jumped 37% to 129.8 million, including 18% growth in domestic U.S. subs to 42.9 million. “The continued growth of our streaming services was certainly a standout,” said the CEO. Chapek estimates Disney+ is “roughly one-third penetrated” in potential U.S. subscribers, he said. Stock closed up 3.4% at $152.16.
The Missouri and Georgia communities backing Reno, Nevada, in its legal fight seeking franchise fees from Netflix and Hulu also are supporting similar litigation brought by Ashdown, Arkansas. In a docket 21-3435 amicus brief Wednesday filed with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Creve Couer, Missouri, and the various Georgia localities largely echoed their arguments made in the Reno amicus brief filed this week with the 9th Circuit (see 2202080088). They themselves are suing the streaming services, seeking local franchise fees (see 2112230003). Ashdown is appealing a lower court's dismissal of its suit seeking back franchise fees from the streamers.
Spotify’s loyalty to controversial podcaster Joe Rogan is partially driven by music rights fees, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post Wednesday. “The more that music costs, the more incentive there is for a music service to find alternative audio programming to provide to its listeners,” Oxenford wrote. “So, as long as music royalties remain high, expect talk programming to grow.” This calculation is also the reasoning behind broadcasters such as iHeart expanding their podcast offerings, he said. When Spotify users are listening to podcasts, they aren’t also listening to playlists of streaming music, so talk programming both costs less and reduces song royalty payments, Oxenford said.
Dish Network and Tegna asked the FCC to dismiss their fall retransmission consent cross-complaints against one another (see 2111050028) (see here and here) in docket 21-413 Wednesday. Dish said they resolved their retrans dispute and signed an agreement.
The Hart-Scott-Rudino waiting period for Discovery's acquisition of AT&T's spun-off WarnerMedia (see 2105160003) expired Wednesday, Discovery said in an SEC filing that day.
The Roku Channel added 25 linear channels, including AfrolandTV, Ax Men, Fox Weather, Modern Marvels, Project Runway, Redbox Romance, Spark TV, Supermarket Sweep and This Old House Makers Channel, it emailed Tuesday.
Warner Music Group CEO Steve Cooper cited the company’s “unique position” in the new era of recorded music on the company’s Q1 FY ’21 earnings call Tuesday. “Music is no longer linear, transactional or limited by format,” Cooper said. “It’s complex, multifaceted and interactive.” The “intersection of virtual social spaces, gaming and music presents enormous opportunities to engage with massive and diverse audiences,” he said. WMG is "well on our way to being an immersive, tech-enabled 21st century digital company,” said Cooper. WMG still sees growth in conventional streaming in mature and emerging markets, said Cooper, referencing the number of streaming music subscriptions relative to smart device population: WMG is confident that "long-term sustained growth ... is quite probable" in its traditional streaming music business. On Web3, which Cooper defined as wrapping in blockchain, cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens, WMG sees “the beginning of interactive models coming to the surface and beginning to engage fandom around the world.” Cooper envisions “more opportunities than we can even imagine and believes Web3 “will further amplify the importance” of music labels and publishers. The technology of blockchain, “the perils of navigating crypto,” the skillsets required to deal with distributed, autonomous organizations," he said, will require companies like WMG “that have the financial resources, the intellectual capital … the specific skill sets and the global footprint” to help artists and songwriters navigate through a “brave new universe."