Thursday, October 23, 2014

10.23.14

Entertainment:
·         Paramount Television, in tandem with Anonymous Content, has signed a two-year, first-look deal with Kyle Killen, creator of ‘Lone Star’
·         PalmStar Media Capital and Thunder Road Pictures have made an overall financing deal that will give Basil Iwanyk's production company more than $200MM annually
·         EuropaCorp, the French mini-major co-founded by Luc Besson in 2000, signed a five-year $450M credit facility deal
·         Redbox has reported losses with its joint venture with Verizon
·         ABC has officially ordered the ‘Shark Tank’ spinoff ‘Beyond The Tank’, a companion series that will focus on what happens to entrepreneurs after they have struck deals with the sharks
·         Please see below for Zach Galifianakis’ ‘Between Two Ferns’ with Brad Pitt
·         Christian Bale to play Steve Jobs in Sony’s upcoming biopic penned by Aaron Sorkin
·         NBCUniversal agrees to a $6.4MM settlement of intern lawsuit
·         Sam Smith, 5 Seconds of Summer, and Mary J. Blige to perform at AMAs
·         Microsoft has announced plans to shut down the free version of its music streaming service ‘Xbox Music Pass’ in December
Tech:
·         Ello’s founders and investors have signed a new charter that prohibits the company from selling user data or ads, and has raised $5.5MM
·         Mark Zuckerberg surprises everyone as he answers a Q&A exclusively in Mandarin
·         5by, the video recommendation startup that became StumbleUpon’s first acquisition, is relaunching to encourage users to seek out videos for themselves, get a notification about the next viral videos, and chat with friends about the videos they’re watching in real-time
·         Tencent lead a $350MM investment in China’s Koudai Gouwou, a mobile focused rival of Alibaba
·         Telegram, the security-focused messaging app with Snapchat-like hold to view media, now lets you add friends without necessarily knowing their phone number
·         Vint offers a monthly subscription service for unlimited on demand fitness training
·         Twitter introduced Fabric, a set of APIs aimed at developers to encourage them to build apps and services on top of its platform
·         Amazon’s Rewards Visa Card will support Apple Pay
·         The Matchstick is a new streaming dongle powered by Mozilla’s Firefox OS
·         Draftster.com, which operates an online fantasy sports service, has signed on former NFL player Terrell Owens in an endorsement deal
·         One of the first Apple computers has sold at auction for $905k
·         Twitter promises to make signing up for the service easier, and wants to change by promising to not share as much info as Facebook does
·         Please see below for a sneak peek of Yahoo’s new home page that will be rolled out next month
Deals:
·         Progress Software, which helps companies build business software, announced it was buying Telerik for $262.5MM
Business:
·         Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the VC firm who is defending itself against allegations of discrimination and retaliation, won’t have to disclose documents in the case
·         Caterpillar posted stronger-than-expected results for its Q3
Exec Moves:
·         Tesco Chairman Richard Broadbent is stepping down, as the company scrapped its full-year trading profit outlook due to last month's accounting error
·         Current head of Procter & Gamble’s $32B North America business, Melanie Healey, is leaving the brand giant next year
·         Colin Callender has brought in All3Media executive Louise Pedersen as Managing Director of UK operations for his production company Playground Entertainment
·         FremantleMedia has appointed Samantha Glynne as VP Branded Entertainment in the Digital & Branded Entertainment Division
Retail:
·         Sears continues to downsize as it plans to lay off more workers and close stores
Startups:
·         Zignal Labs, a company that helps brands and organizations monitor online media to see who’s talking about them or about topics relevant to them, raised $10.7MM in new funding
·         Boostable raised $2.6MM in a seed round to make advertising easy and effective for sellers on marketplaces
Government:
Other:


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