The Hollywood Reporter reports: “Broadcast viewing typically rises in the fall, with the start of a new TV season and a host of live sports offerings. The fall of 2024 is proving no different. Broadcasters claimed their highest share of TV use in the United States in nine months in October, accounting for 24 percent of all viewing for the month.”
Digital Music News reports: “TikTok parent company ByteDance is valuing its business at $300 billion, despite the looming ban for TikTok in the United States. The valuation results from a recent buyback offer by ByteDance, according to the Wall Street Journal. President Joe Biden signed a law earlier this year that would force ByteDance to divest from TikTok by January or face a ban in the United States.”
Broadband TV News reports: “Record numbers steamed the Netflix boxing event featuring Jake Paul and Mike Tyson on Saturday night. The streaming service says 60 million households watched the Paul vs. Tyson main event live around the world, peaking at 65 million concurrent streams. 50 million also tuned in for Serrano vs. Taylor 2, which is likely to be the the most watched professional women’s sporting event in US history.”
GamesBeat reports: “Under outside pressure, Roblox announced updates to its safety systems and parental controls today to protect children. In a blog post, Matt Kaufman, chief safety officer at Roblox said the updates will better protect the platform’s youngest users and provide easy-to-use tools to give parents and caregivers more control and clarity over what their children do on Roblox.”
TechCrunch reports: “French AI startup Mistral has released a slew of updates to its product portfolio as it looks to stay competitive in the cutthroat AI space. Mistral’s Le Chat chatbot platform can now search the web — with citations in line, a la OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It’s also gained a “canvas” tool along the lines of ChatGPT Canvas, allowing users to modify, transform, or edit content, like webpage mock-ups and data visualizations, leveraging Mistral’s AI models.”
Games Industry Biz reports: “Play Ventures has closed its third gaming fund, having raised $140 million. As GamesBeat reported, Play Ventures will continue to invest in early-stage games companies. However, this round will focus on mobile free-to-play games and infrastructure and AI-enhanced gaming tools. Play Ventures has made eight investments since the closure of its third round in June 2023, including in AI startup Beyond.”
The Verge reports: “Microsoft has been turning its OpenAI deal into a big business. Earlier this year, much of its Azure OpenAI offering, which provides access to OpenAI’s language models, was contingent on a single big spender: TikTok. But I’ve now seen a recent list of its top customers, and it’s clear that Microsoft has managed to diversify the business with a selection of major clients spending more than $1 million per month on Azure OpenAI services.”
Bleacher Report reports: “The NBA and Warner Bros. Discovery announced Monday an agreement on an 11-year deal that includes broadcasting rights for Inside the NBA and other league-related content. TNT Sports will continue to produce Inside the NBA, but the legendary studio show will air on ESPN and ABC starting with the 2025-26 season.”
TechCrunch reports: “Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has once again teased the company’s long-delayed HiFi or “super premium” tier, a higher-qualify subscription offering the streaming service first announced in 2021 and then failed to roll out. In the company’s third-quarter earnings call with investors on Wednesday, the exec suggested that such a product was still on the way, while touting the company’s near-term advances in other areas, including a coming expansion of its video offerings and other products enhanced by AI.”
Games Industry Biz reports: “Texas-based studio Ruckus Games has raised $19 million in a series A funding round led by Krafton. Bitkraft Ventures, Transcend, and Hypergryph also contributed to the round, among others. The funding will go towards the development of Ruckus’ debut game, a roster-based co-op shooter.”
