Back in 2008, National Amusements, the controlling shareholder of Viacom and CBS (which were separate entities at the time), was forced to sell shares in both companies after the value of both companies collapsed (impacting the collateral value against NAI debt). In our November 2008 blog post, we highlighted then-Viacom and CBS Chairman and Chairman…
While the global coronavirus pandemic is clearly growing more serious by the day, it still came as a shock to hear the NBA season was suspended, just hours after the NBA decided to shift to playing games in arenas without fans (Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s reaction to the news captured it best in the ESPN clip embedded to the right). In our coronavirus thought piece last week (link), we highlighted the risks from sporting event cancellations. With the suspension…
While everyone is rightfully focused on growing fears around #coronavirus (see our thought piece on key issues around the pandemic from last Friday, link), we thought it would be useful to lay out the most impactful takeaways from Q4 2019 earnings with our own thoughts/snark following each memorable management quote. Dish CEO Charlie Ergen: Inevitable…
Given the worsening global #coronavirus pandemic, we thought it would be helpful to lay out what it has us thinking about in terms of our broader coverage universe from the impact on the movie business, television, gaming, sports, advertising, streaming and beyond. While we hope the brainstorming over the impact of coronavirus proves unnecessary, here…
Earlier today, Sinclair announced it had reached a new affiliation agreement with YouTube TV (link to press release), but the agreement is the most unusual agreement we have ever seen. After YouTube TV threatened to drop all of the Sinclair Diamond Sports Group RSNs last week (link), today’s agreement leaves off the RSNs in New…
T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint provides it with the mid-band spectrum it needs to become the 5G leader in the United States. We believe T-Mobile will ultimately execute on this opportunity, but the integration of Sprint, clean-up of the 2.5 GHz spectrum, and changing management team could create a bumpy ride over the next six months.…
UPDATED ON MARCH 24, 2020 to include the period from March 4-March 23 (new section added at bottom of this blog) If you spend time listening to legacy media executives, one would believe that most of the content being consumed on Netflix is high-profile, legacy media-owned library content and as they reclaim that content for…
AT&T has rolled out AT&T TV nationwide, an IP-delivered multichannel video service, vMVPD, that requires proprietary hardware (link). At first glance, you might think AT&T TV is AT&T’s version of Comcast’s Flex product, but it is actually quite different. Flex is effectively a streaming box for cord-cutters within Comcast’s wired footprint that Comcast recently stated…
Activist investor Elliott Management is seeking the removal of Jack Dorsey as CEO of Twitter with the nomination of four new directors to the Board. Twitter has three directors up for re-election (including Executive Chairman Omid Kordestani, along with board members Ngozo Okonjo-Iweala and Bret Taylor) and lost one director mid-last year with the departure…
Earlier this week, an RSN owner, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, finally admitted publicly what we already knew: the ONLY viable RSN economic model is to force everyone who takes multichannel television to pay an exorbitant price/sub/month to subsidize the TINY minority of fans that want to watch the channel; essentially forcing subscribers to subsidize how…
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