Blaming "the highly competitive Pay TV industry," Sony will shut down PlayStation Vue (its video streaming service) on January 30, 2020. Ironically, this announcement comes as Disney, Apple and WarnerMedia are all entering the business.
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ESPN
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Apple, Disney, WarnerMedia, and just about everyone who can configure a streaming server is getting into the direct-to-consumer (DTC) content business. In a couple of weeks, you’ll have so many options to pay for content à la carte, you won’t really know where to start. Wondering what all this will cost? Forget your calculator, you’re going to need a spreadsheet. Continue Reading →
Last week the S&P Media Index lost 8.3 percent (approximately $53.7 Billion of value) in just three days. During that time, shares of Viacom lost 20 percent, 21CF (Fox) and Discovery Networks lost 11 percent, Disney took a 9 percent hit and even CBS dropped 6 percent. It was a tough week. Is this the beginning of Mediamageddon? Continue Reading →
The highlight is what makes sports come alive, and Microsoft knows that. With the Xbox 360’s ESPN app, which debuted in November 2010 and was expanded two years later to include the sports giant’s full slate of live programming, Microsoft demonstrated a strong focus on delivering sports through the console. Now the company is moving Continue Reading →
Walt Disney’s ESPN sports network has held preliminary talks to offer programming on a Web-based TV service like those proposed by Google, Sony and Intel. An Internet TV provider would have to pay as much or more than cable and satellite services, President John Skipper said today at ESPN’s campus in Bristol, Connecticut. He declined Continue Reading →
Before you know it, smartphone-wielding football referees will be able to review their calls and respond to nasty tweets about those calls all in one go. ESPN is set to start embedding video streams of instant replays into its tweets, according to various reports. Through a partnership with Ford and Twitter, ESPN’s college football account, Continue Reading →
ESPN on the Xbox just got a helluva lot better. Instead of being an awkward, half-featured sports channel, Xbox Live is now getting the real deal: a WatchESPN app. That means you can watch ALL of ESPN’s channels: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNU and more. We’ve been expecting WatchESPN to launch on the Xbox since it Continue Reading →
Let me begin with a disclaimer. I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and supported him for re-election this year. I like his character, I like what he’s done in foreign policy, and I like what he did in bailing out General Motors and Chrysler. But I don’t like his attitude toward “salesmen.” In a Continue Reading →
This week finds me in Chicago visiting my family. Go Bears! I’m not a huge Bears fan, but I’m from the West Coast, where football is a religion like it is in other places in America. Plus, when in Rome… I’ve roped my family into helping with the column this week. My family is more Continue Reading →
Your chance to shout voice commands at Engadget is coming, as Microsoft is rolling out its Fall Dashboard update to the Xbox 360 Tuesday, headlined by the inclusion of Internet Explorer. The update also adds a version of its popular “pinning” functionality, a variety of specialized sports apps (NBA, NHL, and Monday Night Football from Continue Reading →