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Symbiosis, perhaps, best describes the relationship between social media platforms and traditional media. This is well understood; traditional media providing content in exchange for social media’s distribution. Everybody is happy. Well, not so much any more.
Austrian public broadcaster ORF officially said “Bye Bye” to Facebook last week. “Harmless content is often censored and deleted while (Facebook) does not manage to handle and violence on its platform,” said the ORF statement, quoted by Weiner Zeitung (March 28). The fight against political manipulation and “the spread of fake news” is “apparently hopeless.” Facebook, said the statement, is "a cooperation partner who is also a competitor who does not communicate and constantly changes the rules of the game.” (See more about social media here)
That may not be the only reason, suggest Austrian media observers, nodding to unofficial ORF sources. “ORF content brings more to Facebook than Facebook does to ORF.” That “massive reach” has been “lost” in Facebook’s “constant screwing with the algorithm,” noted Digital Fernsehen (March 29). The official ORF Facebook page disappears April 1st, while individual program pages will remain. (See more about media in Austria here)
Not all that long ago, ORF Director-General Alexander Wrabetz took the Austrian government to court over a ban on the broadcaster using social media platforms. In 2010 the Austrian parliament passed a revised ORF Act that, among other issues, banned the broadcaster from social media platforms. Publishers and private broadcasters, obviously, were delighted. The Austrian Constitutional Court overturned the ban, which was lifted in stages by 2017 allowing ORF to again use Facebook pages.
In addition to announcing a subscription video service, subscription video game service and a credit card, the big Apple product launch this week included Apple News+. It is a news subscription bundle served up on Apple devices. US and Canadian customers get the first peek, Australian and UK next, the rest of the world later. Obviously, it is an English-language thing.
Apple News+ resides within the Apple News app. It contains content from “more than 300” publications (heavy emphasis on magazines), said the launch statement. Available content is “curated,” meaning only selected content from any particular publisher is available, said an internal Wall Street Journal (WSJ) memo leaked to CNN’s Brian Stelter (March 25). Apple takes half the subscription fee and gives up none of the subscriber data. The New York Times and Washington Post decided to pass, because they can.
News publishers, whatever size and wherever they live, want one thing from big American tech companies: money. Don’t bore us with all the hoops to jump through, just send money. And, don’t get in the way. There are school fees to pay, and water polo lessons.
The one big thing Apple News+ addresses for news publishers isn’t money. It is the visceral fear of being left behind in the smartphone world. And that fear is big enough to forget about (momentarily) the minuscule fraction of that US$9.99 monthly subscription. There are 2.2 billion Apple devices out there, more than Facebook users. If one-half of one percent buy into Apple News+ that’s still new eyeballs.
Piano Media began offering a paywall bundle for publishers in 2011, first in Slovakia, then elsewhere. It received considerable attention from publishers, much of it favorable. Everybody liked the one-stop shopping idea. Venture money was raised. Eventually, the company morphed into a paywall software provider and the last bundle disappeared in 2016.
The long pot-holed road to Modern Times Group (MTG) exiting Bulgarian broadcasting company Nova TV smoothed this past week as competition authorities approved the transaction. Acquiring Nova TV is Advance Media Group, principally owned by brothers Kiril and Gerogi Domuschiev through the holding company Advance Properties. The companies announced a purchase and sale agreement in February.
Last year the Bulgarian Commission for the Protection of Competition (CPC) blocked the sale of Nova TV to PPF Group, the investment fund principally controlled by Czech investor Petr Kellner with “strange arguments,” noted capital.bg (March 22). The main arguments were that PPF is too big - “significant financial and organizational resources” - and would be bigger, noting Nova TV’s market share, even though PPF had no other holdings in Bulgaria and no media holdings. (See more about media in Bulgaria here)
Sources quoted by capital.bg said the CPC strongly suggested a local partner and “recommended” Kiril Domuschiev, who additionally owns the Ludogorets football club. Mr. Kellner declined. Shortly thereafter (July 2018), the CPC declined to approve the deal, which the European Commission had already approved. MTG and PPF Group officially cancelled their purchase and sale agreement in January. A month later an agreement was reached with Advance Media Group. In parallel, PPF Group acquired southeast Europe assets of telecom Tenenor.
“We look forward to close (the deal) as soon as possible,” said MTG chief executive Jørgen Madsen Lindemann, in a statement. (See MTG statement here) At the closing, expected in April, MTG will have exited all central and eastern European broadcast assets. The Bulgarian assets include seven television channels, several web platforms and radio channel Nova Radio News.
Announcing a strategic review this week, the board of Central European Media Enterprises (CME) telegraphed the inevitable. As the statement said, the board is “reviewing the various strategic alternatives available.” All options are on the table. There is no timetable for the review or any decisions. And the company “does not intend to provide updates or additional comments unless it determines that further disclosure is appropriate or necessary.” CME is publicly traded (NASDAQ/Prague) but principally owned by WarnerMedia,formerly Time Warner, a subsidiary of big telecom AT&T. A 75% stake in CME was owned by Time Warner, which became WarnerMedia. The legally required statement was shared with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). (See more about media mergers and acquisitions here)
CME owns television operations in the Czech Republic (Nova), Bulgaria (bTV), Slovakia (TV Markiza), Romania (Pro TV) and Slovenia (POP TV). Most are now market leaders. Since Time Warner effectively took control of CME in 2014, the primary mission of co-chief executives Michael Del Nin and Christoph Mainusch has been operational efficiency and debt control. The company attempted to exit Slovenian broadcaster POP TV in 2017 but that fell to local regulatory issues and the exit was exited this past January. Croatian TV assets (Nova TV) were sold in 2018. (See more about Central European Media Enterprises here)
After the acquisition by AT&T of Time Warner closed, creating WarnerMedia, nobody doubted chief executive Randall Stephenson planned a bit of reorganizing. Several top Time Warner executives departed. The Turner brand built by Time Warner subsidiary Turner Broadcasting (CNN) founder Ted Turner will disappear. (See more about WarnerMedia here)
Head of Time Warner’s international operations Gerhard Zeiler, known in Europe as a former, well-regarded RTL Group chief executive and director-general of Austrian public broadcaster ORF, was part of the executive shuffle. He is now WarnerMedia’s chief revenue officer. “This is an exciting challenge,” he said, quoted by Deadline (March 9), “and I am looking forward to working under the new WarnerMedia operation model.”
Technology companies have managed to suck the air out of many conversations. Thankfully, those conversations were trivial to begin with. It’s the post-modern world and everything is trivial. Almost.
Great big and astoundingly well-known manufacturer and seller of brand-leading consumer electronics devices - Apple - is taking yet a bigger leap into subscription services. And, why not? Apple sits on US$245 billion in cash, which grows about 3% a quarter. That is, according to a snarky Gizmodo article (January 29), a bit more than a third of the bloated US defense budget. Or, maybe, 12 fully outfitted aircraft carriers.
So, Apple is jumping into streaming TV with a subscription video on demand (SVoD) service: Apple TV Plus. “The curtain,” said Variety (March 25), has been “pulled.” The offering, according to several sources, will be a hybrid of a few commissioned feature and series productions plus 3rd party providers; perhaps HBO and Showtime, Netflix declined. Apple retains a third of the US$9.99 monthly subscription fee, slightly higher than Netflix. (See more about streaming media here)
SVoD services seem to pop-up somewhere in the world about once a month. Netflix is the brand leader, everybody else chasing. Some have huge piles of money, though nowhere near Apple’s. Some have considerable production and/or distribution experience. Apple has neither.
What Apple has - in addition to money - is consumer product branding expertise. It also has access to every iPhone on the planet. Last year Apple sold 218 million iPhones, about the same as 2017. By November 2018, 2.2 billion iPhones have been sold. This is a huge sales platform.
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