Business

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.

The former Media General and LIN executive will oversee KOVR and KMAX following Kevin Walsh’s move to San Francisco.

Nexstar Media’s and Sinclair’s ATSC 3.0 spectrum consortium — which has recruited Univision and Northwest Broadcasting as members — is looking for a CEO to run the venture full-time. Nexstar CEO Perry Sook says the companies have hired a firm to find a CEO who can focus full-time on finding new members and orchestrating future revenue opportunities for the soon-to-be-available spectrum.

The Bing Ads platform will remove non-performing keywords and/or ads that have not shown any performance during an undefined “significant” length of time.

After shopping her Judge Judy library around the industry for as much as $200 million, Judy Sheindlin’s stable of more than 5,200 episodes has landed back at CBS. The deal also includes several more seasons of future episodes of the No. 1 syndicated series.

Raycom’s CBS affiliate dominates social media actions in Savannah over the last six months according to data from audience insight firm Shareablee. WTOC has almost four times the number of actions than its nearest competitor. Sarah Smith, WTOC’s digital content manager: “We make sure that we’re hitting our audiences on all platforms, everywhere we can reach them digitally. We share as much on Facebook as we would anywhere else, as much as we would on the air.”

Montgomery, Ala.-based Raycom Media is shifting some of its digital production to Atlanta, taking 14 jobs out of Montgomery. The new digital content hub is set to launch in Atlanta on Jan. 1, said Susana Schuler, EVP for content and operations.

To dig into out-of-home (OOH) viewing, Nielsen analyzed data to see what content Americans are consuming beyond the comfort of their own couches. The analysis, which looked into total day out-of-home TV viewership from the beginning of 2017 to the end of May, uncovered a bevy of trends — some intuitive, and some surprising — that begin to scratch the surface of this new horizon in measured behavior.

The rise to $227 million is driven by increases in local and national advertising as well as retransmission consent money.

Hearst is out in front of a recent $133 million funding round for SVOD service iflix that is fending off the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video in emerging markets. Along with Hearst, Singapore-based EDBI and clients of DBS private bank are new investors in iflix, and are joined by existing investors Evolution Media, Sky PLC, Catcha Group, Liberty Global, Jungle Ventures and PLDT Inc.