Hulu chief Jason Kilar used careful language in an interview at the D: Dive Into Media conference when discussing major content deals. He wouldn't confirm or deny any talks to bring Hulu Plus to the Apple TV. The executive was aware it was a potentially loaded question and denied it twice when pressed.
Earlier rumors of Hulu going back on its decision to sell itself off are proving true, two sources have told SAI. The bids, while they are still rolling in, aren't as high as initially hoped. Hulu's parent companies are reportedly looking for $2 billion for the online service.
Amazon.com and CBS Corporation on Wednesday announced they have entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement that will let Amazon Prime customers stream CBS TV shows. The deal will see 2,000 additional episodes from 18 CBS TV shows such as The Tudors, Cheers, and the complete Star Trek series collection, among others. Also, later this summer, regular Amazon Instant Video customers will get access to dozens of CBS shows.
News Corp. during its results call on Wednesday revealed that it had chewed through $10 million in losses for The Daily's first quarter on the iPad. COO Chase Carey explained the cash outlay as the result of early development, noting that it was "real early days" for the tablet publication. It had been somewhat over a month since it began charging for customers and was popular, but still a "work in progress," he explained.
Apple has managed to line up two major TV networks for its 99-cent iTunes TV rentals ahead of tomorrow's event, a late leak may have confirmed this evening. Previously undecided Fox as well as ABC have reportedly agreed to offer at least some of their shows. The WSJ sources warned that Fox might only offer rentals for a short time as a trial balloon and that it wouldn't include shows where rights aren't uniformly in its favor, like American Idol.
USA Today today said it would undergo a major overhaul of its structure to shift attention away from print. Most of its focus will now be on formatting for digital, including the iPad app, other mobile devices, and the web. It now has a VP of Digital Development, Steve Kurtz, who will focus primarily on refining the paper for its digital side.
Apple's ongoing discussions for 99-cent iTunes TV rentals were given support today by a pair of sources Tuesday evening. Anonymous contacts told the WSJ this evening that Disney was the closest to a deal and could agree to allowing some ABC shows soon. It's speculated that Apple chief Steve Jobs' position on Disney's board of directors would be a strong influence on the plan.
A specific Wall Street Journal effort for the iPad is in development, confirms Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of the newspaper's parent company, News Corp.. Apple CEO Steve Jobs is said to have been visiting the Journal and other publications in recent weeks, demonstrating the iPad in an attempt to sell them on the platform. Any WSJ iPad app is likely to expand on the current iPhone title, offering features like native resolution and inline video.
Apple was one of the top 10 US brands on the Internet in November, says ratings firm Nielsen. The company was precisely 10th in terms of parent company rankings, with just under 62.1 million people visiting at least one website owned by Apple, or launching an Apple-owned application. People spent an average of an hour and 18 minutes looking at Apple content.
Several media companies, including four magazine publishers and News Corp., have organized a joint venture aimed at optimizing content for the upcoming generations of electronic devices, according to The Wall Street Journal. People familiar with the matter suggest the new entity will be announced sometime Tuesday.
The Wall Street Journal will start asking those using the mobile version of its news to pay for the privilege, newspaper owner and News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch warned today. Although the company currently offers its phone-optimized version for free, a new plan launching within "one to two months" will ask non-subscribers to any WSJ edition to pay $2 per week for mobile access. Those who pay for either the online or print editions will have the rate cut in half, and only those who subscribe to both will get the mobile format for free.
Amazon's price cut of its Kindle 2 e-book reader have prompted some in the publishing industry to worry that the online retailer, which is far and away the leading provider of e-books, may put pressure on them to drop the prices for electronic versions of their books for the device, according to a Bloomberg report. Amazon reportedly pays between $12 and $13 to publishers for Kindle editions of books that are on the New York Times bestseller list and sells them for about $10 to customers. Many publishing houses are concerned the giant online vendor will put price pressure on them in order to bump its own profit margins.
Contrary to rumors, Apple has expressed no serious interest in buying Twitter, says All Things Digital's Kara Swisher. Some in the industry are said to be claiming that Apple is already in "late-stage negotiations" to buy Twitter, whose microblogging service has skyrocketed in popularity following adoption by celebrities like Stephen Fry, Lily Allen and Shaquille O'Neal. Apple has so far only "said hello" to Twitter though, according to Swisher.
A new video-sharing website may be in the works, as the four major music labels -- Universal, Warner, EMI and Sony BMG -- are in preliminary talks for creating their own web portal, according to a weekend Financial Times report. Early last week, news came of the four labels planning to band together to create a site devoted to music videos and related content. More recently word has leaked of the three options the labels are considering, due to unhappiness with the ad revenue derived from the Google-owned YouTube. Under consideration is a premium service on YouTube, a totally new site, or a partnership with Hulu, the film and TV site jointly owned by News Corp. and NBC Universal.
Dow Jones -- owned by News Corp., and responsible for financial publications like the Wall Street Journal -- has given its seal of approval to the iPhone, according to another one of its publications, Barron's. The company's Global Technology Services division is now supporting the phone through use of Microsoft ActiveSync technology, which enables the iPhone to access corporate e-mail via Exchange. Like most such services, users require a password and will have data locked or deleted in case a phone goes missing.
Fox's parent company News Corp. is unlikely to link up with Yahoo and offer an alternative to a Microsoft takeover, says News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch. Speaking at the Sun Valley conference, the executive claims that the likelihood of any deal is now slim despite early talks after Microsoft had first announced its plans to buy out Yahoo. The latter search engine company has been eager to find a partner for a deal that would bolster its value and either deter Microsoft from making a purportedly undervalued bid.
Microsoft has no intention to raise its bid for Yahoo past the original offer, say sources speaking with the Wall Street Journal. The Windows developer reportedly knows that it can afford to wait for Yahoo and that there is no incentive to spend more than the original $31 per share, which at the time of the original bid amounted to $44.6 billion. Without any imminent rival offers for Yahoo, Microsoft believes Yahoo will have little choice but to accept original terms.
Yahoo is extending the deadline for nominations to its board of directors, Reuters reports. While nominations were to have ended by March 14th, they will now take place 10 days after the company announces a date for its shareholders' meeting. The move is openly admitted by CEO Jerry Yang to be a delay tactic, preventing Microsoft from subverting Yahoo in order to ease its hostile takeover attempt. "Microsoft, of course, could still choose to name directors," says Yang in a letter filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, "but our objective here is to enable our board to continue to explore all of its strategic alternatives for maximizing value for stockholders without the distraction of a proxy contest."
