Thursday, February 5, 2015

2.5.15

Entertainment:
·         CBS boss Les Moonves, fearful a merger with Viacom will be forced upon his company after majority owner Sumner Redstone dies, is discussing ways to buy out the broadcaster’s controlling shareholder
·         Apple is in talks with programmers about content deals that would let it offer a Web-based TV service, similar to the one recently announced by Dish and the one being prepped by Sony
·         GoPro, the wearable-camera maker that wants to turn itself into a media brand, is coming to Roku
·         Please see below for an article on where ‘Better Call Saul’ is headed
·         Enter Restream.io, a self-funded startup from Ukraine that’s built a cloud service to let you stream your video gaming sessions (or any video feed) to multiple video sites all at once, without the additional CPU and bandwidth overhead that is normally required
·         Startup Vilynx pitches itself as a way for publishers to attract more eyeballs for their videos through a unique preview format - now it’s trying help those publishers make money, too, through advertising
·         Universal’s Steve Jobs movie will open on October 9th
·         YouTube rolled out a feature that lets you switch between different camera angles while the video is playing
·         Rvckvs (pronounced Ruckus) helps game companies monetize their biggest fans through merchandise
·         Los Angeles-based Typo, the startup backed by Ryan Seacrest, has been ordered to pay $860,000 to BlackBerry Ltd, for selling its iPhone case, which had been found likely to infringe on BlackBerry's patents
·         The Los Angeles Clippers are getting into fantasy sports, saying Wednesday afternoon that it has partnered with fantasy sports site DraftKings
·         Please see below for the complete list of winners at the VES 2015 Awards
·         Kodak announced today it will supply 20th Century Fox, Disney, Warner Bros, Universal, Paramount and Sony film for big screen and TV projects
·         Netflix will enter the Japan market in 2015, which will make it the streaming service’s first Asian market
·         XiveTV, an Internet-based network focused on documentaries of all kinds, launched today on YouTube and Hulu as well as on apps for the iOS and Android mobile platforms
·         A new Snapchat series is underway called ‘Literally Can't Even’, which comes from writers Sasha Spielberg and Emily Goldwyn, the daughters of Steven Spielberg and John Goldwyn
·         Vevo now has 10 billion views
·         Verizon's FiOS Mobile App has added Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, Spike and 20 other Viacom channels to its out-of-home line-up
Tech:
·         Please see below for an interesting article on why Twitter is dangerously becoming close to the Bing of social media
·         Twitter is reported to have struck a significant partnership with Google on the eve of its latest financial results. Bloomberg reports that the two companies have agreed a deal to put tweets from Twitter back into Google’s search results sometime “in the first half of this year.”
·         The non-profit business accelerator StartX has expanded its investment staff as it looks to place more bets into graduates of its Stanford-affiliated program
·         Tidal, a new hi-fi streaming service from Norway’s Asipro, today announced that it will be adding 22 more countries to its list of active markets this quarter on the back of the Jay-Z acquisition
·         Reuters has taken the wraps off of Reuters TV, a new iPhone-exclusive app that the company is positioning as "a revolutionary mobile TV news service….aimed at a growing segment of the informed, mobile and engaged consumers in their 30's and 40's
·         SpaceX and OneWeb are racing to build an internet in space
Deals:
·         BT agreed today to buy EE, Britain’s largest cellphone network for 12.5 billion pounds, or about $19B
·         Endomondo, a social fitness network and publisher of mobile apps that allow users to track their workouts and challenge friends, and health tracker MyFitnessPal have been acquired by athletic apparel maker Under Armour for roughly $560MM
·         The drugmaker Pfizer Inc. said it would buy Hospira Inc. for about $15B to gain access to biosimilars, copies of biotech drugs made from living cells
·         MaxLinear has agreed to acquire Entropic, for $287MM after the boards of directors of both parties unanimously approved the transaction
Business:
·         Anthem has been hacked which may have expose data on as many as 80 million current and former customers, including names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and income data
·         Verizon is said to be close to selling a package of wireline assets to the regional telecommunications company Frontier Communications for around $10B
·         UBS is again being investigated for allegedly helping wealthy clients evade U.S. taxes, six years after the Swiss bank paid a $780MM penalty for similar charges
Exec Moves:
·         Sony has just confirmed that Amy Pascal is stepping down from her position as Co-Chairman SPE and Chairman of the Motion Picture Group
·         Gary Loveman, the longtime chief executive of Caesars Entertainment, the casino operator whose biggest unit recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, plans to step down from that role, the company said on Wednesday
·         Thomas Staggs to be named Disney’s COO
·         ITV Studios America has tapped industry vet Bruce Gersh for the newly created position of EVP & Head of Digital, Strategy and Branded Entertainment
Retail:
Startups:
·         A new mobile application called HeartThis wants to make shopping across multiple retailers more convenient for smartphone users
·         Zingy has officially launched its on-demand, dog walking service
·         PicsArt, a photo editing app and social network akin to Instagram, has raised $10MM in funding from Sequoia Capital
Government:
·         China's new reserve-requirement ratio has commenced, freeing up more than $100B for its banks to lend after announcing a half a percentage point cut in the measure yesterday

Other:

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