Netflix plots move into video games as subscriber growth slows July 21, 2021 Netflix last night confirmed plans to move into video games after the streaming giant suffered a sharp slowdown in new subscriber growth. The streaming giant added 1.54 million subscribers over the last quarter, below analyst forecasts and a significant fall from its 2020 boom. In the same quarter last year, at the peak of the [...]
Media group Future shares jump as it hikes profit forecasts July 21, 2021 Shares in Future pushed higher this morning after the magazine publisher said it expected its full-year profit to be “materially” ahead of market expectations. The media group, which owns titles such as Country Life, Four Four Two and Tech Radar, today said it had continued to perform strongly in the second half despite challenges posed [...]
Channel 4 chair hits back at ‘very harmful’ privatisation plans July 20, 2021 Channel 4’s chairman has hit back at the government’s plans to privatise the broadcaster, saying such a step would be “very harmful” to viewers and risk thousands of jobs. Last month it emerged that the government is preparing a consultation into the privatisation of the broadcaster. But in a letter to culture secretary Oliver Dowden, [...]
Scam at first sight: Criminals target dating websites to promote bogus investments July 20, 2021 More than £15m has been lost to criminals offering bogus investment opportunities on dating platforms this year, according to new data shared with Morning Wire this afternoon. The average loss per victim is £15,936, with a total of £15,665,332 lost so far this year, the UK’s reporting centre for fraud and cyber crime – Action [...]
BBC Three relaunch faces delay as Ofcom opens competition probe July 20, 2021 The BBC’s plans to relaunch BBC Three as a traditional TV channel have been put in doubt after Ofcom said it would launch a full competition investigation into the proposal. Earlier this year the public service broadcaster said BBC Three would return to screens six years after it was made online-only as part of a [...]
Pegasus spyware investigation reveals scale of surveillance July 19, 2021 Human rights activists, journalists and lawyers have been targeted by spyware sold to authoritarian governments by the Israeli technology firm NSO Group, according to media reports. An investigation into a data leak by human rights group Amnesty International and NGO Forbidden Stories revealed a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers that may have been [...]
Bill Ackman remixes Universal Music deal after SPAC plan questioned July 19, 2021 Billionaire investor Bill Ackman has been forced to rejig a $4bn deal to buy a 10 per cent stake in Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, after investors and regulators criticised his original SPAC plan. Pershing had agreed last month to buy 10 per cent of the world’s largest music company through a blank-cheque company called Pershing [...]
Tencent pushes British gaming group Sumo to hit $1.27bn valuation in bid to buy July 19, 2021 Chinese tech giant Tencent has pushed the valuation of video game group Sumo to hit $1.27bn today in its bid to buy the British firm. Sumo’s shareholders will gain 513p per share, Tencent said, at a 43 per cent premium to Sumo’s last closing price of 358p. The British video game group, behind games like [...]
GB News director John McAndrew quits to avoid fuelling culture-wars July 16, 2021 The director of GB News John McAndrew has quit the new rightwing broadcaster today, according to reports. It has been suggested McAndrew had come under pressure to up culture war topics instead of his local reporting focus, and so chose to resign. The senior executive handed in his resignation after a row regarding the gesture [...]
Screenshot: Will a streaming overhaul tidy up the UK’s messy music sector? July 16, 2021 This week: **Media Moment of the Week: ‘Oh fiddlesticks’ **Could a streaming crackdown tidy up Britain’s messy music sector? Media Moment of the Week: ‘Oh fiddlesticks’ In a situation you wouldn’t have thought possible in 2021, the BBC somehow found a man in Nottingham on Monday morning who still didn’t know the result of the [...]