Business of Media
The New York Times reports 11% increase in revenue as digital subscriptions climb
The New York Times Company said on Wednesday that it gained more than one million digital-only subscribers last year, helping to lift revenue from the year before despite headwinds facing the media industry, reports The New York Times’ Katie Robertson.
The new subscribers, who do not include the roughly one million who came with the acquisition of the sports website The Athletic last February, bring The Times’s total number of paying subscribers to 9.6 million. The company has set a goal of 15 million by the end of 2027.
The company said it had added 240,000 net digital-only subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2022, for a total of 8.8 million. The company had 730,000 print subscribers, down from 795,000 a year earlier.
“It was our second-best year for net digital subscriber additions, behind only 2020,” Meredith Kopit Levien, the chief executive of The Times, said in a statement. “Importantly, with each passing quarter, we saw more proof that there is strong demand for a bundle of our news and lifestyle products,” she added.
Fox Corp boosts buyback by $3 billion as World Cup powers earnings
Fox Corp expanded its share buyback plan by $3 billion on Wednesday and surpassed second-quarter revenue estimates as the FIFA World Cup and the U.S. midterm election boosted the Rupert Murdoch-controlled company’s advertising business, reports Reuters.
Its shares rose 5% after the company’s first results report since Murdoch last month scrapped a plan to reunite Fox and News Corp on grounds that the merger was not in the best interest of shareholders.
Fox’s ad revenue rose nearly 4% to $2.5 billion, beating expectations of $2.39 billion, in what was a tough quarter for ad-reliant companies as businesses worried about high inflation and rising interest rates cut back on marketing.
Chief Executive Officer Lachlan Murdoch said the results were aided by “a compelling fall sports schedule, combined with an active midterm political news cycle.”
“We’ll be looking at M&A and other opportunities to use to deploy our capital against,” he said on the post-earnings call.
Fox to seek acquisition targets after decision to drop News Corp deal
Fox Corp. Executive Chair and Chief Executive Lachlan Murdoch said the media company will be looking for merger-and-acquisition targets more aggressively after the decision to call off plans to remerge with News Corp, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Flint and Will Feuer.
“There will be things we will be sure to cast our eyes over,” Murdoch said on a call with Wall Street analysts to discuss Fox Corp.’s quarterly earnings. “Mergers and acquisitions will be a more important part of our tool kit.”
Fox Corp. has about $4 billion in cash that gives the company “a strong position to capture opportunities when they present themselves,” Murdoch said.
Murdoch didn’t elaborate to analysts about the decision last month between Fox Corp. and sister News Corp to withdraw a proposal to recombine the two companies. He said that he and his father Rupert Murdoch, who is executive chairman of News Corp and chairman of Fox Corp., “reached the conclusion that exploring a combination is not optimal for our shareholders at this time.”
Apologise and pay compo or I’ll sue, Bruce Lehrmann tells ABC
Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann has warned the ABC he will sue for defamation over its broadcast of the National Press Club address by Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame in February last year unless it takes down the YouTube video of the event, apologises and pays compensation, reports The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen and Stephen Rice.
In a concerns notice sent to the ABC on Wednesday, Lehrmann’s lawyers say the broadcast was “a malicious and an apparent contemptuous attempt by the ABC to prejudice the jury” in the rape case against him.
They say even though Lehrmann was not named in the broadcast, he was identifiable to many viewers because of the extensive reporting – including by the ABC – that he was the man accused of, and charged with, the sexual assault of Higgins.
If the ABC did not take the video down within 28 days, Lehrmann would “immediately institute proceedings”, lawyer Mark O’Brien said.
At time of writing, the video was still available on the ABC’s YouTube site and had been watched more than 126,000 times over the past 11 months.
Television
Netflix’s shared account crackdown begins in four new markets
Netflix on Wednesday began its shared account crackdown in four new markets — Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain — as the streaming giant seeks to convert moochers into paying subscribers, reports The Hollywood Reporter’s J. Clara Chan.
As part of the rollout, primary account holders will be required to set the primary location of their household, which is defined as people who live in the same location as the primary subscriber. Each member of the household will still be able to use their Netflix accounts while traveling and the company will not be requiring a verification code for members accessing their accounts from outside of the primary location, a Netflix spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.
That being said, the streaming giant will determine if a user is not part of a household — and, therefore, mooching off of an account — based on information like whether a device has used the wifi from the primary location at least once a month, the spokesperson added.
Should that be the case, those users will be prompted to create their own Netflix accounts or have the primary account holder add them to the subscription for an additional price, a feature Netflix has called “paid sharing.”
Users in the four regions impacted beginning on Wednesday will be able to add up to two people outside of their households for an extra CAD$7.99 a month per person in Canada, NZD$7.99 in New Zealand, 3.99 euros in Portugal and 5.99 euros in Spain.
True Spirit sails into Netflix’s weekly Top 10 Films globally
Based on the true story of Jessica Watson, True Spirit has debuted at #5 globally in Netflix’s top films (English) according to Netflix’s Global Top 10, from January 30 – February 5.
Released on February 3, the film has reached the Top 10 in 58 countries, including New Zealand, Canada, Spain and Italy with 11.09 million hours viewed.
When the tenacious young sailor Jessica Watson (Teagan Croft) sets out to be the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world, many expect her to fail. With the support of her sailing coach and mentor Ben Bryant (Cliff Curtis) and her parents (Josh Lawson and Academy Award winner Anna Paquin), Jessica is determined to accomplish what was thought to be impossible, navigating some of the world’s most challenging stretches of ocean over the course of 210 days.
Natasha Exelby departs 10 News First
10 News First presenter Natasha Exelby will sign off tomorrow after many years with the network, reports TV Tonight.
On social media she told her followers,
“I can EXCLUSIVELY reveal I’m departing 10 News First this Friday. I look forward to drawing on my 20 years in journalism for the next adventure!
“Working in more than 50 countries and meeting extraordinary people has been the greatest privilege of my life so far.
“I’ve spent half of my career at TEN and so many colleagues have become friends and even family…. And will be forever”
Sports Media
An ancient athletics carnival, tailor-made for the digital TV era
In 1968, the Tanzanian runner John Stephen Akhwari cramped midway through the Olympic marathon and fell to the ground. Struggling to stand, he resumed the race, finishing an hour after the other competitors when just a few thousand spectators remained in the stadium. Captured by the television cameras, Akhwari said: “My country did not send me 10,000 miles just to start the race; they sent me to finish the race,” reports Nine Publishing’s Michael Idato.
See Also: Nine officially awarded Olympic Games broadcast rights up to 2032
Such moments are the stuff that Olympic magic is made of. The quadrennial meet is the apotheosis of the sporting world, where mortals are transformed into gods, in the finest Greek tradition. The games themselves may be some 2800 years old, but they have only been televised for the last 87. Which is good, to be honest because before that, everyone competed in the nude and the TV cameras would not have known where to look.
What is perhaps most extraordinary is the manner in which something so elegantly ancient – an athletics meet held in the shadow of a burning flame lit in front of the Temple of Hera in the ancient arena of Olympia, Greece – could be so perfectly tailor-made for digital television in the multichannel era. The organisers might make a fuss about the ticket sales every four years, but the best seat is literally in the house. Mine, yours, everyone’s.
As if the Olympics were not themselves a monumental undertaking, the television broadcast is larger still. A technological framework that fits over a biological framework. From the first analog coaxial cables that ran images and sound to broadcast trucks, to the digital play-out centre of the modern era that feed hundreds of channels into packages of content, all controlled by the viewer, armed with a remote control.