Variety reports: “Walt Disney’s ABC has sold more than three-quarters of its commercial inventory for its February 24 broadcast of the glitzy awards fest, according to Jerry Daniello, senior vice president, entertainment brand solutions, for Disney ad sales, pacing ahead of its progress at this time last year.”
Tech Crunch reports: “French startup Molotov is slowly becoming the leading platform to stream TV in France. With a single account, you can watch TV on your phone, tablet, computer and set-top box. The company is about to release a VR app that lets you watch TV using a virtual reality headset — but there’s a twist.”
Deadline reports: “Canadian public broadcaster CBC has rolled out a streaming service that will offer more than 4,000 hours of live and on-demand programming including the exclusive launch of Netflix co-production Northern Rescue. The streaming service, which also offers French-language programming from ICI Radio-Canada, will offer a free, ad-supported service as well as a premium membership for $4.99 per month.”
The Hollywood Reporter reports: “FoxNow, the streaming service of Fox Networks Group, will debut in Europe through Spain’s Vodafone TV, the companies announced today in Madrid. The service, which will include full seasons of series from the Fox and Fox Life channels as well as a catalog of other films and series, will be available exclusively to Vodafone TV Total customers starting Dec. 14.”
Variety reports: “The telco spent around $10 billion to acquire Yahoo and AOL, merging them under the Oath operating division. But the internet-media business isn’t performing as well as Verizon originally expected — and on Tuesday, Verizon said it expects to record a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of approximately $4.6 billion (pre-tax) in the fourth quarter of 2018.”
Venture Beat reports: “RobotCache has signed up 22 publishers with 700 games for its alternative PC app store powered by blockchain technology.The announcement shows progress in the past year from San Diego, California-based RobotCache, which was started by famous game developer Brian Fargo and other veterans who hoped to change the way people buy games.”
Gamesindustry.biz reports: “As part of its ongoing efforts to handle sexual content on Steam, Valve has begun cracking down on games that feature themes of ‘child exploitation’. While this is unsurprising, some developers have complained that characters in their games are explicitly stated to be over the age of 18.”
Variety reports: “Including esports in the Olympic Games was a point of discussion ultimately determined to be “premature” during the seventh Olympic summit on Saturday, according to a post on the official Olympics website. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) met in Lausanne on Saturday to discuss various concerns, of which the inclusion of esports in the Olympic games was included.”
Tech Crunch reports: “China’s largest music streaming service has had a whirlwind year. With 800 million monthly users across multiple apps and a profitable business, Tencent Music Entertainment is gearing up for one of this year’s most anticipated initial public offerings in the US. But the firm has landed in hot water in the months leading up to its first-time shares sale.”
The Hollywood Reporter reports: “A new study from research firm Ampere Analysis, released Monday, suggests that Comcast after its recent $39 billion acquisition of European pay TV giant Sky and Walt Disney after its $71.3 billion deal for large parts of 21st Century Fox, set to close early in 2019, will dominate global content spending, putting some distance between themselves and Netflix.”
