Business

Recent research by Samba TV and HarrisX may shed further light on how consumers are likely to respond to Netflix having last week moved to cut off free password sharing and charge $7.99 for adding an outside-the-household user. On the upside, more than four in 10 of the 2,500 U.S. adults polled at the end of March said they would be willing to pay more to share their account with someone outside of their home, with 41% saying they would pay up to $10 more per month, and another 10% that they would pay up to $15 more.

Sinclair Broadcast Group said it sold its controlling interest in Chicago sports network Stadium to Jerry Reinsdorf’s Silver Chalice. Reinsdorf is the owner of the Chicago White Sox of Major League Baseball and the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Chalice has owned a stake in Stadium since it was started in 2017.

CBS, Cox and Fox have agreed to pay a total of $48 million to end claims in Illinois federal court that they participated in a scheme among major U.S. broadcasters to artificially inflate television advertising prices.

Fox’s handling of the defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, which settled for $787.5 million, left many unanswered questions.

New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include openings for a morning news anchor/reporter, evening meteorologist, latenight news anchor/reporter, news reporter, transactional sales manager and multimedia journalist.

TVNewsCheck will not be distributing our AM, PM and Marketing Monday newsletters today. We’ll return on Tuesday, May 30. Pause and give thanks to those who made the ultimate sacrifice so we can enjoy our freedom.

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached an “agreement in principle” to raise the nation’s legal debt ceiling late Saturday as they raced to strike a deal to limit federal spending and avert a potentially disastrous U.S. default. However, the agreement risks angering both Democratic and Republican sides with the concessions made to reach it.

Tech led more gains on Wall Street on Friday. The upbeat finish to the week for major indexes comes amid lingering anxiety over persistently high inflation, the risk of a U.S. debt default and broadly weak corporate earnings.

The era of consolidation in podcasting seemed like it might have effectively started and ended when Spotify, Amazon, SiriusXM and others gobbled up major names in the space in an effort to diversify their audio lineups. But now, four years after Spotify got into podcasting by buying Anchor and Gimlet Media, we’re witnessing the dawn of a second wave. This time around, the companies up for sale are smaller production studios and networks.

Former CBS shareholders reached a proposed $167.5 million settlement to resolve allegations that Shari Redstone, the daughter of late media magnate Sumner Redstone, pressured the company into an unfair merger that created ViacomCBS Inc, now known as Paramount Global, according to a court filing.

Comcast Corp. CEO Brian Roberts has a penchant for lining up a huge deal around every five years or so. It was 2018 the last time he made a big acquisition, and Wall Street is ready for his next dramatic move. Gaming and streaming could be in the cards.

DirecTV, which held the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket for nearly three decades until YouTube took over the package, has struck a deal to continue distributing it to bars, restaurants and other commercial businesses. The satellite operator, which is owned by AT&T and private equity firm TPG, closed a multi-year agreement with EverPass Media, a specialist in delivering live sports and entertainment programming to businesses. The arrangement begins with the upcoming NFL season.

Workers from other unions have shown solidarity with the strikers, catching entertainment companies off guard.

The 2023 Television Academy Honors have been canceled due to the ongoing writers strike. “After discussions with the WGA and out of deference to those impacted by the ongoing labor dispute, the Television Academy is canceling the Television Academy Honors reception which was scheduled for the evening of May 31. We appreciate everyone’s understanding,” an email sent to TV Academy members reads.

A new Convergence Research overview report on U.S. streaming (OTT) and pay TV trends highlights continued but slowing growth in streaming revenue, in an analysis of 50-plus providers (80 services) led by Netflix, Disney (including Hulu), Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon.

At $1.66 a month, the discount is $30 off the annual $50 price for the base Peacock Premium package.

Hulu’s parents, Walt Disney Co. and Comcast, are negotiating to end their troubled marriage. Comcast can require Disney, which owns two-thirds of Hulu, to buy its one-third stake, or Disney can require Comcast to sell under a deal starting in 2024. Hulu has a minimum valuation of $27.5 billion under the agreement.

AI frenzy pulled Wall Street higher Thursday despite U.S. debt woes. The S&P 500 rallied 0.9% after chipmaker Nvidia gave a monster forecast for upcoming sales as it benefits from the tech world’s rush into AI. It helped the Nasdaq composite leap 1.7%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%.

Dish Network is in talks to sell wireless plans for its nascent mobile phone service through Amazon, according to people familiar with the matter, an arrangement that could give the telecom company’s 5G rollout a critical lifeline. Details of the new phone plans sold through Amazon’s U.S. website could be announced as soon as June, the people said, though several factors could still delay or derail their launch.

CNN will shift the bulk of its operations behind its Spanish-language efforts to Mexico City, scaling back production of content for linear television in favor of work aimed at reaching a younger audience that favors mobile video. The move is likely to mean the elimination of jobs in Miami and Atlanta, but will also result in a ramp-up of jobs in Mexico and Los Angeles, where CNN will aim to add more than staffers, according to a person familiar with the plans, which were disclosed to employees Thursday afternoon.

Gray Television is suing the FCC over its decision to fine the broadcaster over half a million dollars for an affiliation move in Alaska the regulator said violates its duopoly restriction. That is according to an appeal filed late Wednesday (May 24) in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction includes Atlanta, where Gray is based.

In the company’s first call with analysts since 2021, the CEO said “I did not have a lot of interaction with the FCC,” during concerning the now-scuttled buyout by Standard General. “Nor did Standard General have a lot of interaction, or as much as they would have liked,” he added.

Meta has begun its third round of layoffs as part of the company’s multibillion-dollar plan to save costs. The latest round of cuts targets members of Meta’s business groups and follows a previous round of layoffs in April that affected employees in technical roles. About 10,000 workers will lose their jobs between the April and May cuts, following the company’s first round in November that affected 11,000 employees.

Marlo Thomas was honored with Lifetime Achievement Award. Presenters and attendees included Atsuko Okatsuka, Jodi Balfour, Bishop Briggs, Rachel Lindsay, Keltie Knight, Rose McIver, Kerri Kasem, Ellen K and Harriet Dyer. Pictured: Becky Brooks, Marlo Thomas and Annie Howell (Getty for the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation)

Avid Technology, a provider of video and audio editing software and equipment to TV, filmmakers and recording studios, is exploring a potential sale, according to people familiar with the matter. The Burlington, Mass.-based company is working with Goldman Sachs Group on the sale process and has asked for binding offers from interested parties, the sources said. Avid’s shares jumped 18% on the news to $24.35 in Wednesday afternoon trading, giving the company a market value of about $1 billion.

The drama roiling the industry was evident in all the Writers Guild of America picket signs that swarmed around the major events held from May 15 to May 17. That added to the general madness of the week that is a television and advertising industry tradition but is starting to feel anachronistic in the streaming era. But the upfronts are still a hard habit to break.

Wall Street sank Wednesday as stocks tumbled worldwide. The S&P 500 dropped 0.7% after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Republicans and Democrats remain “far apart” in their efforts to prevent a potentially disastrous default on the U.S. government’s debt. The main U.S. stock index is on track for its worst week in more than two months as the once-unthinkable creeps closer to possibility.

The media start-up’s new backers include Henry Kravis, a founder of the private-equity giant KKR, and Jerry Yang, a Yahoo founder.