Variety reports: “SiriusXM today announced first quarter 2019 operating and financial results — the first since the company completed its acquisition of Pandora Media on Feb. 1 — and its quarterly profit was down 44% from the previous year.”
The Verge reports: “Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming services will continue to be free to submit their films to the Oscars next year, after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided against changing its entry rules to more clearly favor films intended primarily for theatrical release.”
TechCrunch reports: “Embrace, an LA-based startup that offers a mobile-first application performance management platform, today announced that it has raised a $4.5 million funding round led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital. This brings the company’s total funding to $7 million.”
Hollywood Reporter reports: “The team behind the upcoming Disney+ streaming service will not focus on being “bigger than Netflix,” Kevin Mayer, chairman, direct-to-consumer and international at the Walt Disney Co., said at a media, entertainment and telecom industry event in Indonesia on Wednesday.”
Billboard reports: “Snapchat has put an end to its user growth slump. The messaging app’s parent company, Snap, on Tuesday said it had 190 million daily active users during the first quarter of the year, up from 186 million DAUs during at the end of 2018.”
The Verge reports: “AT&T is now planning a showcase for its own WarnerMedia service that includes HBO, according to CEO Randall Stephenson. During today’s AT&T earnings call, Stephenson said the company is planning to demonstrate the paid video service sometime in either September or October.”
TechCrunch reports: “Just days after Google and Amazon buried the hatchet over their longstanding streaming feud, Google has made another interesting inroad in its bid to bring yet more ubiquity to its YouTube-based premium video efforts.”
Variety reports: “Playing video games used to be simple. You bought, borrowed, or rented a cartridge, gave it a good blow to “get the dust out”, and popped it in your system. The advent of connected consoles, growth of digital distribution, and departure from physical media have muddied the waters.”
gamesindustry.biz reports: “Tencent is imposing tighter controls on its players in China, raising the minimum age of its “digital lock” measures from 13 to 16 years-old.”
The Verge reports: “Twitter notched a small win last quarter, adding users for the first time in a year. The addition sees Twitter grow to 330 million monthly users, from 321 million last quarter, the company announced in an earnings release this morning. But that figure is still lower than its peak, of 336 million this same quarter last year.”
