Business

Young people are happy to shell out for online TV: Nearly 80% of Millennials said they watch or have access to streaming services, according to eMarketer, a digital research firm. But if other media companies follow the lead of Disney (and HBO and CBS), we could be up to our eyeballs in streaming subscriptions. That could get really expensive really fast.

Tribune stations have found success in using Facebook’s Instant Articles publishing tool. Facebook says the station group’s strategy to post stories as Instant Articles, fast-loading stories that show up in viewers’ Facebook feeds, has boosted engagement.

Google plans to change the options it gives advertisers for excluding site categories for the Display Network in AdWords. Several site categories are being eliminated, while a few are being added. Others are rolling up into a more concise name. To streamline the AdWords interface and improve serving, Google says it is merging some site category options and removing others.

“I want the humans to be able to hold their own against the strength of the machines.” That was perhaps the most ominous line spoken from the stage at the summer Television Critics Association press tour, and it came not from an actor or showrunner but FX Networks chief John Landgraf. He wasn’t describing the plot of a new scripted drama. He turned to the classic science fiction trope as a metaphor for the situation that he and other cable programming executives now find themselves in as Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple engage in a “titanic struggle” — Landgraf’s words — for domination in the video entertainment marketplace.

Investors’ unease over escalating tensions between the U.S. and North Korea had weighed on stocks earlier in the day Wednewday, pushing gold and bond prices slightly higher. But by the end of the day, traders appeared to take the geopolitical drama in stride.

Higher retrans money wasn’t enough to offset lower national and local ad dollars.

Raycom-owned Fox affiliate WXIX Cincinnati (DMA 36) today announced premiere dates for Cincinnati Connection, a new, weekly, community affairs program on the station and its Bounce digital subchannel. Cincinnati Connection, […]

Walt Disney Co’s shares fell 5% on Wednesday to their lowest in eight months as investors doubted whether the world’s biggest entertainment company can succeed with its plan to launch its own streaming services rather than rely on Netflix Inc to reach online viewers.

The shift to more lucrative light trucks, plus strong sales in other global markets offset worries about the drop in U.S. car volume, major suppliers told Wall Street analysts in New York.

“Investment in content is going to increase,” says John Stankey in his first interview since being named to oversee HBO, Warner Bros. and CNN as he reveals AT&T’s post-merger synergy strategy, Peter Chernin’s potential role and the top priority for making a mark in showbiz: “We’re going to have to earn our way in.”

Highlighting the steep cost of the original programming arms race currently unfolding in the SVOD market, Hulu’s losses through the first six months of 2017 have spiked 81% to $353 million. The data comes courtesy of BTIG Research analyst Richard Greenfield, who looked at SEC data filed by Hulu parents Fox, Walt Disney, Comcast and Time Warner.

The threat landscape has changed so dramatically, so fast, that it has outpaced previously sound security practices. The problem is twofold. One part of the problem is insoluble; but the other, businesses can remedy — and have no existential choice but to do so.

The dip to $466.1 million was due to lower core and political ad dollars but was largely offset by a 26% increase in retrans revenue.

The F word continues to haunt Comcast. The debate over the Philadelphia-based media giant’s controversial “broadcast” and “regional sports” fees — yes, that F — was drummed back up last week when a federal judge in California refused to dismiss a class-action lawsuit against Comcast.

Newsmax and The Blaze are among the outlets that have joined left-leaning critics of the Sinclair Broadcast Group’s proposal to acquire Tribune Media.

The sexual harassment scandal at Fox News has cost its parent company 21st Century Fox tens of millions of dollars, untold reputational damage and some of its biggest personalities. And the drama is far from over. At a confidential mediation proceeding in late July, the lawyer Douglas H. Wigdor asked for more than $60 million to settle several disputes with Fox News and 21st Century Fox, according to two people familiar with the matter. The company would not accept Wigdor’s offer and no resolution was reached, said the people.

The American Action Network (AAN) on Wednesday is launching a $2.5 million television ad campaign urging lawmakers to pass tax-reform legislation. The effort is the latest part of the group’s Middle-Class Growth Initiative to promote a tax-code rewrite that helps middle-class families and businesses.

Disney’s creating its own streaming service for its central Disney and Pixar brands and another for live sports. That would allow it to bypass the cable companies it relies on — and Netflix — to charge consumers directly for access to its popular movies and sporting events. “They’re bringing the future forward. What they talked about were things that looked inevitable, at some point,” said Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Weiser. (AP photo / Richard Drew)

The sale of KCSG Cedar City, Utah by West American Finance Corp. to Weigel Broadcasting Co. tops the latest list of TV station transactions submitted to the FCC for its approval, according to BIA/Kelsey.

It closes on the sale announced in April of the New Orleans Fox affiliate by Louisiana Media Co.

The former GM of WHO Des Moines will succeed the retired Doreen Wade as head of Meredith’s NBC affiliate.