The Walt Disney Company reported record revenue in its theme parks sector and strong gains in streaming, a rather unlikely situation of benefitting from both sides of the COVID-19 pandemic, as Disney+ added 11.8 million new subscribers while people flocked to its location-based U.S. venues. “We’ve had a very strong start to the fiscal year,” said CEO Bob Chapek, announcing “record revenue and operating income at our domestic parks and resorts, the launch of a new franchise with ‘Encanto,’ and a significant increase in total subscriptions across our streaming portfolio” for the company’s first fiscal quarter, ended January 1, 2022. Continue reading Disney’s Quarter Reflects Theme Park and Streaming Success

Streaming services had another strong showing with the latest Oscar nominations. Apple TV+ received six nominations, including its first in the Best Picture category for “CODA,” also groundbreaking as the first film with a majority deaf cast to contend in the top category. Apple acquired the film at last year’s Sundance Film Festival where it set a record with its $25 million bid. Apple also got noticed for Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” which earned Denzel Washington a Best Actor nod and is competing for Best Production Design and Best Cinematography. When the contenders were announced Tuesday morning, it was Netflix that tallied the largest haul, with 27 nominations, the most of any studio.  Continue reading Apple Joins Top Streaming Video Services in the Oscar Race

ABC Owned Television Stations, a division of Disney, announced it is launching free 24/7 live and local streaming news services in the eight markets where its stations are located. As brand extensions of New York’s WABC, LA’s KABC, San Francisco’s KGO, Fresno’s KFSN, Philadelphia’s WPVI, Chicago’s WLS, Houston’s KTRK and Raleigh-Durham’s WTVD, the streaming news channels will serve local news and weather, breaking news and lifestyle stories from ABC’s multiplatform Localish as well as exclusive content. The streaming channels will be available via websites, mobile apps, Roku TV, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV and more. Continue reading ABC Announces Launch of 8 Local Streaming News Channels

Snap has secured multiyear global content collaborations with Disney, NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS. The three corporations will not only continue bringing their current shows to Snapchat’s Discover feature, but also individually plan to expand offerings in the future. The deal sees programming from ESPN, Paramount+ and E! returning to the platform. Snap says more than 100 million monthly users watch entertainment content on the short-form Snapchat Discover. The mobile app, which turned 10 last year, reported 306 million daily active users worldwide as of September 30. Continue reading Snap Renews Major Content Deals and Updates AR Shopping

The Disney+ streaming video service, which launched in November 2019 and is already available in 64 countries, plans to launch in 42 additional countries and 11 new territories sometime this summer. The announcement did not include exact release dates or regional pricing, but the scope of the expansion should help the platform jumpstart subscriber growth to better compete with other streaming services such as Netflix and HBO Max. The expansion plans should also steer Disney toward its previously predicted target of 230 million subscribers before the end of 2024. Disney+ already had 118 million global subscribers by the end of last year. Continue reading Disney+ Service to Debut in 42 More Countries This Summer

Netflix stock dropped 20 percent Thursday on news that the streaming platform’s subscriber growth is slowing. Netflix missed its target only slightly, adding 8.3 million subscribers in Q4, versus its projected 8.5 million. But that missed target is combined with escalating content costs and a forecast that 2.5 million subscribers will be added in the first three months of 2022 as opposed to 4 million in Q1 2021. A significant portion of Q4’s subscribers growth was in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, up 3.5 million. Netflix added 1.2 million subs in the U.S. and Canada, only a slight improvement year over year. Continue reading Netflix Subscriber Growth Ebbs in U.S. but Is Solid Overseas

Consumer mobile app spending hit $170 billion in 2021, according to the State of Mobile in 2022 report released by App Annie. Charting expenditures across iOS, Google Play and third-party Chinese Android app stores, the figure represents 19 percent year-over-year growth, almost flat (down from 18 percent growth in 2020). While last year, consumers installed more apps than ever, the growth rate itself is slowing. Last January, App Annie reported year-over-year download growth of 7 percent from 2020, which has dropped to 5 percent for 2021. However, in all, consumers downloaded a record 230 billion apps in 2021. Continue reading Consumers Downloaded a Record 230 Billion Apps Last Year

Cinematic iconoclast Martin Scorsese has secured a perch for his legacy at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, which has announced the establishment of the Martin Scorsese Institute of Global Cinematic Arts (SICA). The new Institute takes shape not only to celebrate film history but to showcase the future and will encompass the state-of-the-art Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center to complement the Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies and provide general support for student scholarships, all of which is a result of the largest donation in the school’s history. Continue reading Scorsese Institute and Virtual Production Center New at NYU

Even before Jack Dorsey tweeted his resignation as Twitter CEO — and announced that another company he co-founded and runs as CEO, Square, will on December 10 change its name to Block — there was speculation that Twitter will soon be purchased. The rumors have been fueled by a belief that Twitter has potential beyond its stagnant share price — $44.47 as of yesterday’s close, slightly less than $44.90 the day of its November 2013 IPO — evidenced in its strong branding and popularity with elites. Top tech exec Parag Agrawal’s ascent to CEO is the corporate equivalent of staging in real estate.  Continue reading Talk of Twitter Sale Brews with Square/Block Floated as Suitor

Social media platforms, which have had challenges maintaining a safe, socially conscious online environment — as the year’s spate of whistleblower disclosures and global regulatory hearings proves — may face an even tougher time maintaining civility in the metaverse. The shift from monitoring text, images and video to supervising a live 3D world will be orders of magnitude more complicated, observers say. According to a 2020 safety video for “Horizon Worlds,” a game Facebook developed for its virtual reality platform Oculus Quest, the company plans to record what happens in the metaverse, storing data that transpires in users’ VR headsets. Continue reading Meta Building a Safe Metaverse While Expanding VR Holdings

Digital-first company Moonbug Entertainment has been purchased by the newly formed and as yet unnamed venture of former TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer and fellow Disney alum Tom Staggs, with backing from private equity firm Blackstone. An aggregate of YouTube channels with a focus on children’s content — including CoComelon, Little Baby Bum and Blippi — Moonbug launched in 2018 and currently has a market value of about $3 billion. Other recent children’s IP transactions include Epic Games’ purchase of SuperAwesome in September 2020, and the $500 million July acquisition by Indian educational firm Byju of a learning platform also named Epic. Continue reading Popular Kids Content Creator Moonbug Acquired for $3 Billion

Broadcasting the 2020 Summer Olympics and expenses related to its new direct-to-consumer businesses affected Discovery’s third quarter profits, despite adding three million streaming subscribers and overall increases in traditional revenues. The owner of the Discovery Channel, Food Network, TLC and Discovery+ said that while Q3 revenue rose 23 percent to $3.15 billion, net income fell 48 percent to $156 million. International was the big growth area, with foreign revenue surging 44 percent. Meanwhile, Discovery has hired Kevin Mayer as a consultant to help with its streaming strategy as the company preps for its merger with WarnerMedia.  Continue reading Discovery Touts Global Growth, Hires Consultant Kevin Mayer

University of Southern California students were invited to participate in the second of two scheduled Metaverse Experience Challenges, hosted by ETC@USC. Making use of current and emerging tools, students were tasked with developing original ideas for compelling metaverse experiences. Ten teams started work at 1:00 pm on Friday, October 8 and presented their ideas to judges from Epic Games, Universal Pictures, Disney Studios, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud at 3:00 pm on Saturday, October 9. Each member of the winning teams — MetaversEdu and MetaMall — received a Nintendo Switch “Fortnite” Edition, courtesy of Epic Games. Continue reading USC Students Compete in Second ETC Metaverse Challenge

During its streamed media event this week, Amazon introduced new devices including a wheeled robot named Astro and a sale-by-invitation-only Ring autonomous security drone for the home. While the unusual products added sizzle, the focus was largely on basics like its first smart thermostat, updates to the Echo speaker line and Ring security products. Several of the new products appear to target market share of products already on offer, including through Amazon, and many emphasize synergy among Amazon’s hardware brands. The company’s fee-based premium services were also emphasized. Continue reading New Amazon Devices Include Home Robot, Smart Thermostat

After analyzing hundreds of social media ad campaigns by the top streaming ad platforms, BrandTotal has found that Disney+ is leading in paid share-of-voice, with 30 percent of all impressions. HBO Max is next with 23 percent, with Hulu in third place at 21 percent. The top-five included Peacock with 16 percent and Paramount+ at 7 percent. Meanwhile, the report found Apple TV+ and Netflix to be the least active social media advertisers, with 2 percent and 1 percent, respectively. BrandTotal’s report — Social Intelligence Competitive Snapshot: The Streaming Wars — analyzed paid social advertising campaigns over 90 days beginning June 23, 2021. Continue reading Disney+ Leverages Social Platforms to Draw Streaming Subs