- Deadline | Streaming Boom Reaches 2021 Crossroads: Can Big Media Really Catch Netflix? (12 min read)
- The Information | Why TV Advertising Won’t Recover What It Lost in 2020 (6 min read)
- Los Angeles Times | YouTube has gone from Hollywood pariah to partner. Meet the executive who led the change (9 min read)
- Adweek | Luxe Brands Expected to Spur an Audio Ad ‘Gold Rush’ in 2021 at The New York Times (4 min read)
- The Wall Street Journal | From BuzzFeed to Axios, Digital Media Players Prepare for Deal Frenzy (5 min read)
- The Markup | In Georgia, Facebook’s Changes Brought Back a Partisan News Feed (9 min read)
- The Wall Street Journal | Roku Torments Entertainment Giants in Quest to Dominate Streaming (11 min read)
- Vulture | The 5 Stories That Shaped the Streaming Industry This Year (13 min read)
- The New Republic | Making Sense of the Facebook Menace (24 min read)
Articles by: "Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN"
DCN’s must reads: week of January 7, 2021
DCN’s must reads: week of December 10, 2020
Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:
- Buzzfeed | In 2020, Disinformation Broke The US (18 min read)
- The Washington Post | Five myths about the news business (6 min read)
- The Lenfest Institute | Inside TAPinto’s franchise model for local news (15 min read)
- Bloomberg | Google, Facebook Win Key Concession in Law to Pay for News in Australia (2 min read)
- The New York Times | Who’s Behind the Fight Between Warner Bros. and Hollywood? It’s AT&T (8 min read)
- Pew Research Center | The American public shows mixed familiarity with new and evolving forms of news (19 min read)
- Nextgov | Why Data Privacy Is Crucial to Fighting Disinformation (4 min read)
- NiemanLab | Google is now blocking the ads publishers sell if they don’t meet Google’s standards (4 min read)
DCN’s must reads: week of December 3, 2020
Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:
- The Wall Street Journal | Google, Facebook and Amazon Gain as Coronavirus Reshapes Ad Spending (4 min read)
- Reuters | U.S. states plan to sue Facebook next week: sources (2 min read)
- NBC News | Trump threatens to veto defense bill over social media protections (2 min read)
- Digiday | ‘Not something we think about’: Facebook News still a non-factor in publishers’ plans (4 min read)
- The New York Times | Hollywood’s Obituary, the Sequel. Now Streaming. (14 min read)
- NiemanLab | The moral argument for diversity in newsrooms is also a business argument — and you need both (25 min read)
- The Wall Street Journal | Europe Doubles Down on Data Protection to Ward Off Silicon Valley, Chinese Influence (5 min read)
- Ars Technica |Ajit Pai announces departure from FCC after four-year deregulatory blitz (5 min read)
- Reuters Institute | Newsrooms need young journalists. Here’s how to create a place where they can flourish (11 min read)
DCN’s must reads: week of November 19, 2020
Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:
- The New York Times | Zuckerberg and Dorsey Face Harsh Questioning From Lawmakers (15 min read)
- EFF | Don’t Blame Section 230 for Big Tech’s Failures. Blame Big Tech. (9 min read)
- Wired | The Senate’s Section 230 Discourse Somehow Keeps Getting Dumber (5 min read)
- Entertainment Weekly | Disney CEO hints at plans for more PVOD releases on Disney+ in wake of Mulan (2 min read)
- The Wrap | Cinemark Signs Deal With Universal to Shorten Theatrical Window (2 min read)
- Digiday | ‘More is more’: News publishers dial up the marketing heat on their subscription products (4 min read)
- One Zero | The Battle Over Facebook’s Top 10 List (10 min read)
- CJR | The Substackerati (25 min read)
- Adweek | How The Ad Industry is Lobbying The Corridors of Power (4 min read)
DCN’s must reads: week of November 12, 2020
Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:
- Adweek | Publishers Look Beyond Politics to Mitigate Deflating ‘Trump Bump’ (5 min read)
- NiemanLab | Can Spotify be the one to convince people to pay for podcasts? (6 min read)
- MIT Technology Review | What Biden means for Big Tech—and Google in particular (6 min read)
- Politico | EU unveils antitrust charges against Amazon (2 min read)
- Journalism.co.uk | Where does the buck stop for social platforms when it comes to responsible publishing? (4 min read)
- The New York Times | Biden Is Expected to Keep Scrutiny of Tech Front and Center (7 min read)
- Bloomberg | Apple, Sony Both Held Talks About Buying Podcaster Wondery (3 min read)
DCN’s must reads: week of November 5, 2020
Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:
- The Verge | Apple TV Plus one year later: still on trial (5 min read)
- Forbes | Media M&A 2021: Are Big Deals In The Picture? (6 min read)
- The New York Times | ‘There Are Tons of Brown Faces Missing’: Publishers Step Up Diversity Efforts (7 min rad)
- Adweek | California Prop 24 Passes: What Marketers Need to Know (4 min read)
- The Wall Street Journal | Quibi Was Supposed to Revolutionize Hollywood. Here’s Why It Failed. (11 min read)
- The Hollywood Reporter | Behind Netflix’s Upheaval: Departures, Anxiety and Another Reorg (5 min read)
- The New York Times | How 2020 Changed the Internet (6 min read)
- Digiday | ‘Our biggest quarter ever’: Publishers’ ad businesses are rebounding into the end of the year — for now (4 min read)
DCN’s must reads: week of October 29, 2020
Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:
- The Wall Street Journal | Quibi Is Hollywood’s Biggest Short-Form Failure—but Not Its First (5 min read)
- Politico | Europe is going after the internet’s business model. A new one is urgently needed (5 min read)
- The New Yorker | Taking Back Our Privacy (42 min read)
- CNBC | Media executives are finally accepting the decline of cable TV as they plot a new path forward (12 min read)
- MediaPost | Ad Execs Reveal How They Turn A Blind Eye To Walled Gardens, Suspend Measurement Standards (2 min read)
- NBC News | Fake news spread on WhatsApp to Indian Americans plays stealth role in U.S. election (3 min read)
- The Wall Street Journal | Facebook Seeks Shutdown of NYU Research Project Into Political Ad Targeting (5 min read)
- The American Prospect | Google’s Guardians (13 min read)
DCN’s must reads: week of October 22, 2020
Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:
- Rolling Stone | Has Covid Leveled Peak TV? (10 min read)
- Mother Jones | Facebook Manipulated the News You See to Appease Republicans, Insiders Say (9 min read)
- The New York Times | As Local News Dies, a Pay-for-Play Network Rises in Its Place (18 min read)
- The Wall Street Journal | Google Antitrust Lawsuit: Why Is the Justice Department Suing the Search Giant? (8 min read)
- The Markup | The Citizen Browser Project—Auditing the Algorithms of Disinformation (2 min read)
- Press Gazette | Axios CEO Jim VandeHei: Digital media’s ‘crap trap’ is gone… now we face a truth crisis (8 min read)
- The Wall Street Journal | Google’s Exclusive Search Deals With Apple at Heart of U.S. Lawsuit (5 min read)
- Forbes | Despite Claims That More Targeting Means More Relevant Ads, Nope. Here’s Proof. (6 min read)
- VentureBeat | Japan to join the U.S. and Europe in regulating Big Tech over market abuses (2 min read)
- Digiday | ‘Retention has been one of our best stories of the year’: Bob Cohn on steering The Economist through crisis (39 min listen)
Parks’ latest OTT Market Tracker digs into Disney’s decision to skip theatrical premieres
New research from Parks Associates’ OTT Video Market Tracker shows that through Q3 2020, the number of OTT video services in the U.S. has more than doubled since 2014. The market now includes nearly 300 different services. The rate of closure has also declined. It reached a peak in 2018 when 19 services left the market. However, only six have ceased operations in 2020 so far.
Notably, Parks’ latest report examines the impact of Covid-19 on the longstanding practice of theatrical windowing. Many studios have put off premieres until 2021. However, Disney opted to debut two films on VOD, except in markets where its Disney+ service had not yet launched.
Impact on theaters and OTT competitors
As the report points out, Disney+’s Premier Access program initially bypasses all of the major services in the OTT space. It provides a single direct access point to viewing a piece of premium and exclusive content. As such, it not only directly competes with theaters but leading OTT services as well. It looks like Disney’s Premier Access concept is impacting the transactional VOD system and customers alike.
Disney’s strategy with Premier Access is two-pronged:
- Drive incremental revenue among existing Disney+ subscribers. They are much more likely than non-subscribers to pay a premium on top of their monthly subscription fee to get exclusive access to a Disney-produced first-run movie;
- Drive incremental Disney+ subscriptions among households with younger children who are interested in seeing a blockbuster title from Disney but do not yet subscribe to the service.
Long-term industry impact
Other subscription-based OTT services that produce and distribute original movies, such as Netflix and Amazon, have circumvented the traditional content windowing process with movie theaters, physical media, and other VOD platforms for years. Whichever path Disney takes for its upcoming blockbuster titles, the precedent has been set with the development of its Premier Access program.
The full financial picture has not yet emerged, despite the early success of Disney+. It will be interesting to see whether other studios follow suit and test major OTT premieres. And, of course, the entire industry is watching to see whether this was a short-term strategy to address the impact of Covid-19 or becomes a transformative trend in the film and video industry in the long term.
DCN’s must reads: week of October 15, 2020
Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:
- Vanity Fair | “Journalism Needs Help to Survive This”: Despite a Crushing Spring, the Media’s Pandemic Reckoning Is Far From Over (4 min read)
- The New York Times | The First Amendment in an Age of Disinformation (35 min read)
- Digiday | ‘A common set of interests between publishers and privacy nerds’: Why publishers are backing the sequel to ‘Do Not Track’ (5 min read)
- The New York Times | PBS Showed TV the Future. But What Does Its Own Look Like? (13 min read)
- The Drum | Mobile’s dirty little data secret under Washington’s microscope (5 min read)
- Engaget | Google drops curated news plans in Australia over ‘unworkable’ policy
- WNIP | “Digital subscriptions and paywalls are rapidly emerging as the primary revenue driver for many media businesses”: FIPP Report (4 min read)
- RJI | Why local journalism needs a funding pipeline (5 min read)
DCN’s must reads: week of October 8, 2020
Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:
- The New York Times | House Lawmakers Condemn Big Tech’s ‘Monopoly Power’ and Urge Their Breakups (7 min read)
- The Financial Times | How podcasting became a new front in the streaming wars (6 min read)
- Vox Recode | Google and Facebook hate a proposed privacy law. News publishers should embrace it. (5 min read)
- The Wall Street Journal | How Russia Today Skirts High-Tech Blockade to Reach U.S. Readers (9 min read)
- Vanity Fair | “Being Removed Is Life or Death”: Is Apple’s Fortnite Feud the Next Stage of the Techlash? (8 min read)
- Buzzfeed | The News Site Was Bogus. Facebook Still Let It Build A Real Audience. (5 min read)
- Business of Fashion | Coronavirus Is Rewiring the Symbiotic Relationship Between Brands and Media (5 min read)
- Digiday | ‘Quite cynical’: Publishers leery about Google’s $1 billion news licensing pot (5 min read)
DCN’s must reads: week of October 1, 2020
Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:
- The Wall Street Journal | Even in Streaming TV, Advertisers Are Dealing With Fraud (4 min read)
- The Financial Times | Brussels drafts rules to force Big Tech to share data (3 min read)
- The Wall Street Journal | People are streaming more TV. They’re also seeing the same ads over and over again. (5 min read)
- MIT Technology Review | How democracies can claim back power in the digital world (9 min read)
- Axios | Media’s failed attempt to take on the duopoly (3 min read)
- The New York Times | Google Demands 30% Cut From App Developers in Its Play Store (3 min read)
- The Guardian | The disruption con: why big tech’s favourite buzzword is nonsense (17 min read)
- Ars Technica | Senator asks DHS if foreign-controlled browser extensions threaten the US (4 min read)
