DirecTV has terminated its agreement to acquire the Dish and Sling TV television business from EchoStar. DirecTV had offered to buy its competitor for a dollar and assume about $9.75 billion of debt. The companies previously announced that they had reached a deal, but it required two-thirds of the creditors of Dish to agree to exchange their debt in Dish for debt in the combined company at a discount. The proposed deal would have created one of the largest pay television providers in the United States, with around 20 million subscribers remaining in a declining market.
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Comcast has confirmed that it will cut the cord on some of its own cable networks and spin them off into a separate publicly traded company. Comcast says it will continue its strategic focus on driving its core growth businesses, including residential broadband, wireless, business services and the NBCUniversal streaming, studios and theme parks businesses. The networks to be spun off into a separate company include USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel along with complementary digital assets including Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and Sports Engine.
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The Trade Desk, an advertising technology company, is building a connected television operating system called Ventura. The Trade Desk has been quietly working to build the operating system for three years. The world apparently really needs another television operating system.
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Netflix says that 60 million households watched its boxing bout between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, peaking at 65 million concurrent streams. The numbers, based on Netflix overnight data, are impossible to validate independently. Additional viewing information has yet to be released. There were widespread reports of problems accessing the live coverage, which Netflix did not acknowledge in its announcement.
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Amazon is dropping the Freevee brand of its free online video service after five years. The service, part of the IMDb business owned by Amazon, was rebranded Freevee in 2022. It will now be folded into Amazon Prime Video. At least it is one less brand distraction for Freely, the online platform pitched as the successor to Freeview in the United Kingdom.
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A new online service discovery platform will allow media providers to deliver interactive television features without relying on broadcast signalling. Compatible HbbTV televisions will be able to access and load online applications using watermarks embedded in audiovisual media. Screens that display services from an external device through an HDMI input will be able to support interactive applications and targeted advertising.
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