Executives at CBS Corporation and News Corporation are planning on making their TV networks a paid subscription because of a court decision that upholds Aereo’s right to stream broadcast TV without having to pay retransmission fees. FOX and CBS are looking for alternative ways to monetize their TV content including cutting off broadcast signals for a subscription-only model.
The high-quality video streaming content website Hulu is not for sale, but they are still receiving offers. AllThingsD is reporting that several potential acquirers have reached out to Hulu’s corporate parent companies, but they have not made a formal offer yet.
News Corporation is shutting down The Daily. This is why their staff members put together this music video to the tune of the song “So Long, Farewell.” The Daily started as an iPad-only publication in February 2011 and they hit around 100,000 subscribers in their first year. The subscription was $0.99 per week, but it costed News Corporation around $53 million per year to produce the publication. A lot of the workers are being laid off and some of them will work for The Post. Around 50 of the 170 staff members of The Daily was laid off in July. Check out the music video below:
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News Corporation announced today that they are shutting down the iPad-only digital newspaper publication known as The Daily effective December 15, 2012. The Daily will become part of a brand in “other channels” like The New York Post according to a News Corporation press release. The New York Post will adopt The Daily’s technology section and other components.
News Corporation is working with Allen & Co. to auction off the IGN Entertainment division of the company. IGN has a network of pop culture websites with an emphasis on video games. IGN’s websites has hub pages for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, TV, movies, and technology.
Providence Equity Partners has sold their 10% stake in Hulu at a valuation of $2 billion according to sources with TechCrunch. Hulu is borrowing money to fund the repurchase. Hulu CEO Jason Kilar will receive $40 million from this transaction.
You may recognize the icon at the top left as Apple’s signature icon for the Music application on the iPod, iPad, and iPhone. Apple applied for a trademark for the icon, but it looks similar to a trademark that is owned by MySpace. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) upheld an examiner’s decision to refuse Apple’s trademark protection for the orange music icon.
MySpace has redesigned their social network in an effort to look more modern and sleek, but it really just looks like a Windows Phone and Pinterest replica. I was actually hoping for better since former Facebook exec Blake Ross joined the team and that pop artist Justin Timberlake bought equity in the company. Yes MySpace may look like it was “built from scratch” since it first launched, but to me it looks like they looked at Pinterest.com, thought “hmm this looks cool,” and then relaunched based entirely on that design. Better luck next time MySpace, I think the UI still looks pretty bad. MySpace does not have a technology problem, they have a marketing and PR problem to address. Below is a video demo of the new MySpace:
