VIACOM WHICH IS IN MERGER TALKS WITH SIBLING COMPANY CBS, CLOSES IN ON BIG ARGENTINA TV NETWORK DEAL
Bob Bakish, the longtime head of Viacom's international networks unit,
on Tuesday
started his new role as acting president and CEO of Viacom, and he
kicked things off with the $345 million acquisition of TV network Telefe
in Argentina. In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Bakish
discussed the rationale behind the deal and its benefits, as well as his
early focus now that he is in charge of the entertainment company's
day-to-day operations.
TIME INC BUDDIES UP WITH REELZ TO PRODUCE REAL LIFE CELEBRITY STORIES
Entertainment Weekly Presents: ’80s Stars—Where Are They Now?, hosted by Growing Pains star Alan Thicke, is set to premiere
Wednesday, November 30, at
9 p.m. On
December 21,
the network will debut TIME Presents: Milestones 2016—A Tribute to the
Stars We’ve Lost, which pays homage to cultural icons and the movie,
music, TV and sports stars who passed away in 2016. TIME Presents:
Celebrities on Trial will air on
Monday, February 6.
The special takes viewers inside prolific, shocking and absurd cases
where stars are in court and fighting for their money, freedom,
vindication or all three.
NEW YORK MAGAZINE LAUNCHES 'THE STRATEGIST' AND PROMOTES TWO
New York, which operates its namesake magazine and a slew of homegrown
sites such as Vulture, The Cut and Grub Street, launched e-commerce site
The Strategist
on Tuesday
and there are more projects on the way. According to New York, the new
vertical includes testimonials from editors at The Strategist and
sibling New York sites on their favorite products from e-tailers across
the web. New York gets an affiliate fee for every purchase made. It’s a
model the company has been testing out since March, according to deputy
editor David Haskell, who has been promoted to the role of editor for
business and strategy
SNAPCHAT OFFICIALLY FILES FOR IPO
Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, has filed confidentially for
an initial public offering, according to a person familiar with the
matter, who asked not to be identified as the details are
private. Snapchat will seek to raise as much as $4 billion in its IPO at
a valuation of about $25 billion to $35 billion, people familiar with
the matter said in October. So much for "Confidentially"
TASTEMADE GETS 20 MILLION VIEWS ON INSTAGRAM STORIES, BUT...
Tastemade isn’t making any money off any of these views. Instagram
doesn’t offer the opportunity for publishers to run ads in Instagram
Stories, and Tastemade hasn’t tried any brand integrations yet. The
company has already been monetizing on Instagram by selling product
integrations to food and beverage advertisers. It’s now in conversations
with advertisers on creating custom videos and integrations within
Instagram Stories — though nothing has been sold yet. New features, such
as outside links within Instagram Stories, will help on this front,
Katzeff said.
THE GUARDIAN, HUFFINGTON POST, FINANCIAL TIMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL AND THE ECOMOMIST WORKING TO MONETIZE VR
A flurry of PR announcements over the last week shows publishers are
still experimenting in earnest with virtual reality. Some of the new
projects, from the BBC and the Guardian, make use of Google’s latest VR
platform, DayDream. And more are coming down the pike from the Financial
Times and CNN International. Monetizing VR, though, is still tough. VR
audiences are small, and the content is costly to make.
BBC WORLD SERVICE EYES RUSSIA AND NORTH KOREA IN EXPANSION
The BBC World Service is undertaking its “biggest expansion since the
1940s,” including new services for audiences in North Korea and Russia,
the public broadcaster said
Wednesday. The
service’s Russian-language journalism will be boosted to include
extended news bulletins, a relaunched website and more journalists on
the ground in Russia. On the Korean peninsula, the BBC will broadcast
short-wave and medium-wave radio programs that will allow listeners in
North Korea to pick up impartial news that hasn’t been filtered by the
government’s censors.
AMC TAKES A MINORITY STAKE IN FUNNYORDIE.COM
AMC Networks has bought a minority stake in Funny or Die with the goal
of generating wide-ranging collaborations between the digital service
founded by Adam McKay and Will Ferrell and AMC’s IFC cabler. IFC and
Funny or Die are already working together on the upcoming Hank Azaria
starrer “Brockmire.” The investment from AMC will allow for much deeper
integrations between Funny or Die’s digital platforms and IFC’s linear
TV service.
BLOOMBERG MEDIA HANDS EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF NEWS DUTIES TO JOE WEISENTHAL
In his new position, Joe will help serve the news needs of the consumer
audience and better coordinate with the rest of Bloomberg News, using
his seasoned sense of reader tastes to expand our audience. He will be
instrumental in shaping coverage beyond markets news and setting the
pace for our flagship consumer website. Embedded with Rak Saluja’s U.S.
homepage team and Top, Joe has already helped refine news practices
ranging from story framing to headlines and optimal web play.
ALSO, BLOOMBERG.COM LAUNCHED AN AFRICA VERTICAL
Bloomberg announced the launch of
Bloomberg.com/Africa,
a regional edition of Bloomberg's flagship digital destination designed
to serve the continent's growing audience of business and financial
professionals.Bloomberg Media CEO Justin B. Smith unveiled the new
edition at the second Bloomberg 'Africa Business Media Innovators'
(ABMI) forum today in Naivasha, Kenya, which convened media, technology
and business influencers from 11 countries - including nine African
nations - to explore the role business and financial journalism plays in
bringing accountability, transparency and investment to African
economies.
SCROLL,
A START UP SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE HAS SOME BIG BACKING FROM THE NEW YORK
TIMES, NEWS CORP AND AXEL SPRINGER BUT HAVE WE SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE?
Scroll, a startup that wants to roll up a selection of stories from a
wide variety of publishers and sell monthly subscriptions. The big
selling point for readers: Haile says they’ll have a better experience
than the one they have now, when they read web pages clogged with crummy
ads. The big selling point for publishers Haile wants to recruit: He
says they’ll make more money sharing subscription revenue with him than
they do with those crummy ads.
PEOPLE'S 'TRUMP VICTORY' COVER IS A NEWSSTAND HIT
People Editorial Director Jess Cagle may have caused some celebrities to
boycott the Time Inc. weekly — while angering his own editorial staff —
when he put Donald Trump on the cover with photos of his loving family
spread across nine pages inside. The post-election issue hit newsstands
late last week. But as so with the Trump presidential victory, the issue
with cover boy Trump is yuuuge in the heartland.
-Good Morning
