Five years ago this week…
Then Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman was offered $72 million to step down, opening the door for a reputable replacement at one of the most world’s powerful content businesses. While much of the coverage focused on how much Dauman had profited from digging his heels in, Faultline noted that this was a Mote in God’s Eye compared to what Viacom could be worth if it were to finally embrace OTT. Certainly, with Dauman gone – the man who had tried to turn the tide of the internet by suing it – that door swung open.
—
Organizers of the upcoming Las Vegas-based tradeshows NAB and CES have announced that proof of vaccination against Covid-19 will be required for entry.
Charter Communications and Roku have finally broken bread after nearly nine months of blackout, agreeing that Charter’s Spectrum TV app will be carried on the Roku platform. Roku has been widely accused of egregious negotiation tactics.
German OTT video platform maxdome has been sold by Joyn, a joint venture between ProSiebenSat.1 and Discovery, to VoD provider Videociety, for an undisclosed sum.
US video platform provider Jackson Energy Authority (JEA) has launched a multiscreen streaming service called E+ Premier, to rival the likes of TiVo. Backed up by Harmonic’s VOS360 cloud streaming technology and the Nagra OpenTV Video Platform, E+ Premier claims to help distributors consolidate or even eliminate head-ends to cut costs, while bringing advanced video services, features, and compelling content to viewers.
South Korean telco KT streamed the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Live event last week using the Software-Defined Video Platform (SDVP) from broadcast over IP specialist Zixi. The SDVP technology delivered ultra-low latency and error-free transport based on patented Forward Error Correction techniques.
Also in South Korea, electronics giant LG has pledged to invest some $2.7 billion in new OLED panel-producing facilities.
Microsoft Azure is the first cloud infrastructure provider to use SES’s O3b mPower MEO satellite system to provide gigabit connectivity. Operating at 8,000km above Earth, O3b mPower will be fully operational next year, when Azure will make its migration.
AI-based WiFi analytics start-up Lifemote has secured London-based ISP Community Fibre as a customer – rolling out software to proactively fix WiFi problems before subscribers head to call centers to vent. It calls this a taskforce, which intervenes to ensure WiFi is being used efficiently, for example by identifying homes in need of extra mesh nodes, or those overusing the 2.4GHz band.
US-based live production company Vislink has acquired Dutch vendor Mobile Viewpoint, which makes portable encoders for use cases such as news reporting from remote locations, for $18.3 million.
T-Mobile Netherlands was the country’s only operator to gain broadband subscribers in Q2 2021, after KPN was found to have grown indirectly via acquisition after buying smaller operator Oxxio, according to research from Telecompaper, due to the saturated nature of the Dutch broadband market at 97% penetration.
Greek operator Wind Hellas has been acquired by United Group, bringing 4.2 million quad play subscribers and annual revenues of half a billion euros to the Southeast European telecoms provider.
Less than two months after going public, ad verification specialist Integral Ad Science (IAS) has acquired CTV ad vendor Publica for $220 million. IAS is hoping the acquisition will expand its relationships with CTV publishers, with Publica holding the likes of ViacomCBS, Fox and Philo as clients.
Contextual intelligence provider GumGum has acquired European ad marketplace JustPremium for an undisclosed amount. GumGum has put a recent $75 million investment from Goldman Sachs straight to work, and is hoping that JustPremium will grant it larger buying power in a contextual advertising market that some are predicting to reach $412 billion by 2025.
Global ad spend on Facebook and Instagram was up 50% YoY in Q2, according to a new State of Social Media report from Emplifi. The report also says live videos earned the most organic post interactions and delivered three times the engagement of non-live videos.
Sonos has secured an initial win in its ITC complaint against Google, with a judge ruling that five Sonos patents are being infringed on by Google’s smart speaker products. This could lead to an import ban, after a full review by the ITC, with a deadline of December. The litigation followed a close collaboration between the two, which soured quickly, leading Sonos to take its grievances public.
Measat has confirmed that it is de-orbiting Measat-3, after the satellite suffered an outage in June. The Malaysian satellite operator has not managed to bring the unit back online. Customers spanning 100 countries were moved onto backup capacity, including third-party providers. The satellite is a 15-year-old Boeing 601, and Airbus is already manufacturing a replacement.
OneWeb has secured another $300 million, this time from South Korea’s Hanwha Group. That provides an 8.8% stake, and brings total funding to $2.7 billion, suggesting a valuation of around $3.4 billion – and further diminishing the UK’s national stake.