Thursday, March 26, 2015

3.26.15

Entertainment:
·         China’s Huayi Brothers Media and South Korea’s Showbox Mediaplex have struck a three year co-production agreement which will spawn at least six movies
·         Whipclip is launching an iPhone app today that makes it easy and legal to find and share some of your favorite TV clips
·         Rdio is giving 20 labels the opportunity to curate their own station and have it featured on their site
·         Michael Keaton will return to “Saturday Night Live” for the third time as host on April 4 with Carly Rae Jepsen as musical guest in her SNL debut
·         Channel 4 acquired a stake in factual indie producer Renowned Films
·         In another sign of Hollywood's ailing postproduction economy, Technicolor, Hollywood's storied postproduction house, is closing two of its facilities in the U.S. and UK
·         Steven Spielberg is set to direct “Ready Player One” the highly anticipated project based on the popular sci-fi book by Ernest Cline that takes place in a virtual world
·         United Talent Agency is becoming more aggressive on the commissions collection front with a series of lawsuits filed this week against former clients over money allegedly due
·         Pitbull launched his own SiriusXM channel, dubbed Globalization (also the name of his most recent album)
·         Kanye West has left CAA to join UTA
·         MarVista Entertainment has concluded a number of license deals with leading broadcasters
Tech:
·         Amazon’s Unlimited Everything plan means that users can now stash all of their digital files in your own private Amazon cloud locker for $60 per year
·         We Heart It, a visual bookmarking service popular with teenaged girls, is transforming itself into a messaging app with the launch of new feature called Postcards
·         Meerkat has confirmed a $12MM investment from some of Hollywood’s biggest names including Jared Leto, CAA, WME, Raine, UTA, and more
·         The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published a comment today pushing against a rising media narrative that it may have gone too easy on Google during its multi-year antitrust probe on the search company’s ranking of results to benefit its own products
·         Amazon’s Angie’s List competitor, called “Amazon Local Services,” has been rebranded as “Amazon Home Services” ahead of a larger launch happening Monday
·         Facebook is expanding LiveRail, the video ad platform that it acquired last year, with support for non-video mobile ads
·         Facebook introduced the ability to embed Facebook videos on other websites
·         Twitter has launched live-streaming video app Periscope, developed by the startup it bought earlier in 2015 for a reported $100MM, upping the battle with overnight mobile-app streaming sensation Meerkat
·         Microsoft's universal apps are now called Windows apps, and will no longer be referred to as Metro, Modern, or anything else
Deals:
·         Salus Capital Partners, a RadioShack lender, has asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon to intervene in the auction of the electronics retailer, saying its $271MM joint bid to liquidate the chain was "materially superior" to that of Standard General
·         Yesterday, six-year-old financial planning startup LearnVest was acquired by 158-year-old Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company
Business:
·         Frank & Oak, an online retailer of men’s apparel and goods, is today announcing plans to launch six different long-term pop-up shops across the United States
Exec Moves:
·         Catherine Cai, a longtime Merrill Lynch banker, will take over as chairwoman and head of the China business
·         Three months after Endemol Shine Group laid out the top executive structure for its international operations, Co-CEO Gary Carter has announced his departure from the company
·         Sky Deutschland has appointed Carsten Schmidt to succeed Brian Sullivan as chief executive effective 24 June 2015
Startups:
·         Steller is a story-telling app that has been around since the beginning of 2014, but today the company has announced a huge overhaul of the app’s UX to make editing and creating that much simpler
·         Chosen launched an invite-only beta of its battle of the bands app today on iOS
·         Roposo, a social network and discovery platform for fashion products based in Gurgaon, announced today that it has raised $5MM in new funding from Tiger Global
·         August, which creates technology that allows physical environments to seamlessly respond to users' behavior, raised $38MM in its Series B
Government:
·         Greece is optimistic about reaching a deal on economic reforms with its European partners early next week
·         Egypt and Saudi Arabia are planning a ground operation in Yemen, Egyptian officials said Thursday, a day after Saudi Arabia began bombing Houthi rebels in the country
Other:
·         The co-pilot of the downed Germanwings Airbus 320 who "intentionally" crashed the plane, according to French officials, has been identified as 28-year-old German national Andreas Lubitz


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