On Monday, Fubo reached an agreement to merge with Disney-controlled Hulu Live, with Disney owning 70% of the merged company and existing Fubo shareholders 30% (note: we wonder how the never-ending Disney buyout of Comcast’s Hulu stake is impacted by this transaction as it impacts the value of Hulu). As part of the Fubo/Hulu Live…
Happy New Year! As always, we are publishing our predictions for the year ahead. This year we are breaking a tradition. In the past, we have added one extra prediction each year to match the number of predictions to the year. This year we are going backwards as we seek greater accuracy and save you…
MSG Networks has now been dark on Optimum for 36 hours. We do not expect a resolution anytime soon, if at all. This could set off a bankruptcy for MSG Networks, which would have impact on SPHR, MSG Sports and the wider sports media ecosystem. Altice’s decision to drop MSG Networks is not surprising. RSNs…
As usual, our most read post of the year was the first post of the year: the LightShed Team’s predictions for the year ahead. Topics that drove the most interest largely revolved around legacy media companies attempting to reposition secularly declining businesses for the future, including through M&A and strategic alternatives (Paramount’s sale process and…
The lines between professional/premium video content and user-generated content (UGC) will blur rapidly starting in 2025. GenAI video creation tools will enable consumers all around the world to create far higher quality content than ever before, without the need for any video creation skills beyond their imagination. While there has been an incredible amount of…
WBD shares fell below $7 in August 2024, down nearly 70% from the initial $24 stock price when the WarnerMedia/Discovery transaction closed in April 2022. Following the loss of Turner’s NBA rights (starting with the 2025-2026 season) a month earlier, WBD investors feared Turner affiliate fees would be decimated by Comcast and other MVPD/vMPVDs. Given…
On April 24, 2024, President Biden signed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) into law after being passed with bipartisan support in Congress (as part of a larger spending bill, not a standalone bill). On May 7, 2024, TikTok sued the US Government, stating PAFACA was unconstitutional (a copy of their…
In 2018, the year after Fox agreed to sell the majority of its assets to Disney, The New York Times Magazine reported (link) that Lachlan Murdoch attempted to buy his siblings’ ownership stakes in the Murdoch family trust (known as Cruden Financial Services). While details on the attempted transaction are scarce, the buyout discussions reportedly…
Last Friday, LightShed’s Rich Greenfield was interviewed by Puck News’ Matt Belloni on The Town podcast, embedded in full below, followed by key highlights with timestamps. The discussion started with why Comcast/NBCU is uniquely positioned to spinoff its linear cable network assets relative to its legacy media peers, the acquisition opportunities for SpinCo go well…
Basic cable is in trouble, big trouble. Comcast is kicking their cable networks out of the company, Warner Bros. Discovery investors are begging the company to spinout/separate their cable networks, Paramount ignored multiple opportunities to sell-off non-core cable networks (selling the entire company instead) and Disney explored exiting its linear TV assets. We signaled the…
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