| M&E News: March 29- April 05 2013 |
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| Last Updated - 03-May-2013 |
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| North America |
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| 1. Facebook's mobile ad revenue forecasted to skyrocket in 2013 (cnet news) |
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| April 03 2013: Facebook is expected to make nearly $1 billion from mobile ad revenue in 2013, according to a report released by market research firm eMarketer. |
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| Overall, US mobile advertising grew by 178% in 2012 hitting a total of USD4.11 billion, according to eMarketer. And this is expected to rise by 77.3% to USD7.29 billion in 2013. By 2017, eMarketer predicts that USD27.13 billion will be spent on mobile advertising, making up 13.8 % of the entire ad market. |
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| 2. Nielsen takes online ad-tracking tool overseas (cnet news) |
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| April 03 2013: Nielsen, that tracks what people watch on TV, is taking its new online advertising measurement tool international. |
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| The company said that it plans to expand its service of measuring online advertising to countries outside the U.S., including Australia, Italy, Germany, and Canada. |
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| 3. Pandora Users Listening More (WSJ) |
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| April 03 2013: Pandora Media Inc. said more listeners tuned in to its online radio service and listened to more hours of music in March 2013 compared with a year earlier, a trend that should continue to push royalty costs higher for the music-streaming business. |
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| Listener hours during March 2013 rose 40% from a year ago to 1.49 billion, while the share of total US radio listening for Pandora in March was 8.05%, an increase from 5.73% at the same time last year. |
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| Asia Pacific |
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| 4. Digitization process giving DTH companies advantage in India: Cable operators (ET) |
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| April 05 2013: The digitization process being ushered in by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry was providing DTH companies advantage over local cable operators, the Cable Operators Federation of India (COFI) has claimed. |
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| A statement released by COFI president Roop Sharma said cable operators were finding it difficult to convince the subscribers to pay more than double the subscription for lesser number of pay channels every month apart from paying for the set-top-box that does not belong to them. |
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| 5. Broadcast sector: Information and Braodcasting Mininstry for dedicated 'techno-commercial' regulator in India (ET) |
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| April 05 2013: Union Minister Manish Tewari (Tewari), favoured setting up of a separate "techno-commercial" regulator for the rapidly expanding broadcasting sector, even as he maintained that government had no intention to control media content. |
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| Tewari said he felt that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India which currently serves as the broadcasting regulator was not originally supposed to carry out this function. |
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| 6. Colors, MTV among channels that go off air across 12 cities over fee dispute in India (ET) |
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| April 05 2013: Large cable operators Hathway and Gujarat Telelink have stopped airing a bouquet of channels, including Colors and MTV, across 10-12 cities of Gujarat, Maharasthra, Rajasthan, Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, affecting nearly 75 lakh TV viewers. |
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| The 35 channels are owned by IndiaCast, a global distribution company for Viacom18, which is not willing to pay a higher share of carriage fees to the multi-system operators. Not willing to yield either, the cable operators have stopped airing the channels from April 1 2013. |
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| 7. Paramount Partners With Chinese on 'Transformers 4' (WSJ) |
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| April 02 2013: In two moves that underscore how keen Hollywood is on the Chinese market, Paramount Pictures is planning to co-produce parts of Transformers 4 in China and it has tweaked its coming World War Z in order to not offend censors there. |
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| 8. Blockbuster Krrish extends franchise to create four animated movies (ET) |
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| April 02 2013: Hrithik Roshan's popular film Krrish, will now inspire four animated spin-off movies. Turner Intetrnational's Cartoon Network, Rakesh Roshan's Film Kraft Productions and Toonz Animation have partnered to create these four animation movies. |
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| Turner will hold the Broadcast rights of the four animated films, for the Asia Pac region, Film Kraft, will hold IP rights to the content. For producer Roshan, this is also an opportunity to grow the market for his Diwali release of Krrish 3. |
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| 9. I&B Ministry planning to blank out analogue signals in India (ET) |
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| April 02 2013: With nearly 25% TV viewing homes not installing Set Top Boxes (STBs) within the April 1 2013 deadline for the second phase of digitization, the Information & Broadcasting Ministry is planning to blank out analogue signals in a calibrated manner. |
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| Officials said that Multi-System Operators (MSOs) and broadcasters have been told to switch off the signals in a phased manner and depending on the situation in various cities. |
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| 10. Zee Entertainment to acquire minority stake in UK firm MirriAd (ET) |
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| April 01 2013: Media conglomerate Zee Entertainment Enterprises said its Mauritius-based subsidiary will acquire a minority stake in UK firm MirriAd Ltd, which specializes in brand integration. |
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| M&E News: April 06- April 19 2013 |
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| Last Updated - 03-May-2013 |
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| North America |
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| 1. Amazon eyes anonymous mobile payments system (cnet news) |
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| April 17 2013: the Amazon patent application appropriately dubbed "Anonymous mobile payments" describes a system that would let mobile users pay for items without having to reveal their name, phone number, e-mail address, or other personal details to the seller. |
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| The invention follows in the footsteps of other mobile payment systems. However, Amazon takes it a few steps further. |
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| Beyond shielding the personal information of the buyer, Amazon's system would use a special code, or temporary identifier, to conduct the mobile transaction anonymously. Such a code would be passed between the buyer and the seller with Amazon acting as the middleman so that no personal details are exchanged. A single code could also have an expiration date and be used multiple times. |
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| 2. Theater Owners, Studios Rethink Video Releases (WSJ) |
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| April 17 2013: Hollywood studios and theater owners are rethinking the idea of letting people pay extra to watch movies at home while the films are still playing in cinemas. |
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| Adam Fogelson, the chairman of Comcast Corp.'s Universal Pictures told a panel discussion at the Cinema-Con movie industry convention, that studios should partner with theaters to experiment with "premium video on demand." |
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| Mr. Fogelson said such experiments are necessary so studios can "claw back" some of the billions of dollars in revenue they have lost from shrinking DVD sales. |
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| 3. Aereo throws punch in streaming battle by publishing ad in NYT (cnet news) |
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| April 17 2013: Live-television streaming service Aereo is revving up its fight against major U.S. broadcasters. |
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| The company took out a full-page ad in the front section of The New York Times, making a case as to why its business isn't breaking copyright law. |
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| Aereo is currently in the middle of a heated court battle with Fox, NBC, ABC, and CBS (the parent company of CNET) over the right to stream broadcast TV without paying retransmission fees. |
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| Earlier this month, a federal appeals court in New York upheld a lower court ruling in favor of Aereo, which uses tiny antennas to pick up over-the-air broadcast signals that it then streams to subscribers' Internet-connected devices. |
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| Fox announced last week that it was considering alternative ways to monetize its television content in the face of Aereo's service, including cutting off broadcast signals in favor of a subscription-only model. CBS quickly followed suit. |
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| 4. Apple's iTunes dominates the music downloading world (cnet news) |
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| April 16 2013: Music downloading is as strong as ever, according to a new NPD study based on data from 5,400 consumer surveys. Though streaming services, like Spotify, Pandora, and Rdio, have grown at an extraordinary rate, music fans still want to own albums. According to NPD, 44 million US residents paid for the download of at least one song track or album last year. And this number has stayed basically the same for the past three years. In fact, 2012 saw a 6% increase in paid-for downloads. |
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| 5. Twitter reportedly in talks for video content from Viacom, NBC (cnet news) |
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| April 15 2013: Twitter is in talks with TV networks Viacom and NBC to bring more video content to the microblogging site. |
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| The deals under discussion would allow Twitter to stream videos to its users in exchange for splitting the resulting revenue with the TV networks. |
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| 6. Facebook boosts mobile with Osmeta acquisition (cnet news) |
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| April 11 2011: Facebook, has confirmed that it has acquired mobile software startup Osmeta. In the past, Osmeta engineers had worked on Android, Chrome for Android, Chrome OS, along with a whole host of other software. It's possible that Facebook's interest in Osmeta had more to do with the startup's talent than an actual product that it was working on. |
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| 7. Google Music adds seven new countries to its roster (cnet news) |
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| April 09 2013: Amping up its music game, Google Music is expanding its reach to seven more countries. The Web giant announced today that consumers in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, New Zealand, and Portugal now have access to the free music storage service. |
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| With this service, users can store up to 20,000 pre-purchased songs on Google Play and stream them via an Android smartphone or tablet or the Web. Several of the countries that now have access to Google Music will also get the "Artist Hub," which is a platform for independent and local artists to sell music directly to listeners. |
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| Google debuted its free music storage service in 2011 with a handful of major record labels making it easy for users to buy new music. With the service, Google added music to the Android store, where it already sold movie rentals and books. |
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| 8. Apple patents method to let you buy iTunes content offline (cnet news) |
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| April 09 2013: Granted to Apple by the US Patent and Trademark office, the patent appropriately named "On-device offline purchases using credits" describes a system of using credits to purchase iTunes content that's stored on a device but which one does not already own. The goal is to allow one to unlock and play iTunes songs, videos, and other items without having to be online. |
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| One would first buy credits that can be applied to future offline iTunes purchases. There is also a library of items on one’s mobile device that the person doesn’t actually own but may wish to purchase. These items could include recommendations from iTunes that were downloaded the last time that person was online. Since the person doesn’t actually own the items, they remain locked until you he pays for them. |
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| 9. News Corporation Executive threatens to make Fox subscription-only (cnet news) |
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| April 08 2013: News Corporation upset with court decision that upheld the right of Internet TV company Aereo to stream broadcast TV to its customers in New York without paying retransmission fees says the Company will find new ways to monetize its content if the courts don't protect its copyright interests. |
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| Fox, will change its business model to ensure it gets paid for TV content it produces, if the courts and the politicians in Washington don't protect its current revenue model. |
