Hollywood Reporter reports: “Streaming was merely the beginning. Here’s a First Amendment case that survived initial judicial review and has the Trump Administration fighting an electrical engineer over technology with broad applications.”
Variety reports: “Shares of leading Bollywood film distributor Eros International soared by 38% on Thursday following news of the company’s link up with Microsoft to develop a new generation of video streaming platform.”
Variety reports: “Viacom-owned Channel 5 and Comedy Central have joined BritBox, the “best-of-British” subscription streaming service created by the BBC and ITV. The platform, already available in North America, is due to launch on home turf in Britain by year’s end.”
Hollywood Reporter reports: “Content hubs are facing fewer viewers and less ad revenue as the platform readies sweeping changes following an FTC crackdown on collecting children’s personal data.”
Deadline reports: “The acquisition of Tribune Media by Nexstar Media Group has created the largest owner of local TV stations, but it also raises new questions about the future of WGN America and a nearly one-third stake in the Food Network.”
VentureBeat reports: “NBCUniversal made a big mistake this week by deciding to shut down the game publishing business that Chris Heatherly spent almost three years building. It was a work in progress, and the payoff from that investment would happen in the future, maybe in a couple of years. Instead, the strategic plan to internally publish games got cut short, and the company decided to fall back on licensing games to external developers and publishers.”
VentureBeat reports: “Would you interact with a digital ad featuring polls, games, augmented reality (AR), or some Frankensteinian combination of the three? Facebook seems to think so. The social network this morning announced it will broadly launch three new ad units on its platform, starting with polls and playable ads in the mobile News Feed and followed by AR ads in beta globally this fall.”
gamesindustry.biz reports: “After just over two years, NBCUniversal is to shut down it’s game publishing business, citing the increasingly competitive mobile landscape. As reported by GamesBeat, NBCUniversial will continue to license its entertainment properties, but is scaling back its direct involvement with games.”
Hypebot reports: “Over the past couple of years, TikTok, the brainchild of Chinese tech company ByteDance, has blown up particularly among teens. Not one to miss the party Facebook is now planning to incorporate some of the apps choice features into Instagram in the near future, according to recent reports.”
Variety reports: “As every year, Roku is going into the holiday shopping season with a handful of new devices: The company unveiled a revamped $30 entry-level Roku Express streaming device as well as new version of its $100 Roku Ultra streamer Thursday. Additionally, Roku also announced a new version of its software platform that puts a bigger emphasis on content curation.”
