Top News:
Netflix and WBD say Netflix revised its WBD offer to an all-cash deal for $27.75/share, with the same $82.7B value; its original bid had $59B in debt financing — Netflix and WBD announced Tuesday that they amended their definitive agreement for Netflix's proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. assets …
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Greg Peters says Netflix plans to bring new content types like video podcasts to its vertical video feed, and plans to roll out a new mobile UI later in 2026 — The streamer plans to add video podcasts into its mobile feed and upgrade its mobile user interface.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Deadline, Deadline, @js@podcastindex.social and The Verge
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Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos outlines increasing competition for customers' attention from YouTube, Instagram, linear networks that also do streaming, and more — “TV is not what we grew up on. TV is now just about everything," the Netflix co-CEO says, outlining the threat from traditional studios …
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Media Play News
Netflix's ad revenue hit $1.5B in 2025, up by more than 2.5x vs. 2024, and viewing hours grew 2% YoY in H2, driven by a 9% rise in viewing of branded originals
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Business Insider, Adweek, Wall Street Journal, Variety, Yahoo Finance, Axios, The Verge, Bloomberg, The Information, Benzinga, @xpangler and Associated Press, more at Techmeme »
Netflix reports Q4 revenue up 18% YoY to $12B vs. $11.97B est., 325M paid subs, 2025 revenue up 16% to $45.2B, plans to increase content spend by 10% in 2026
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TV Tech, Los Angeles Times, The Hill, Advanced Television, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, The Wrap, TheDesk.net, Channel NewsAsia, Dow Jones Newswires, The Movie Blog, Watcher Guru, Front Office Sports, Yahoo Finance, Associated Press, Lucas Shaw on LinkedIn, The Hollywood Reporter, Coinpaper, CNBC, Netflix Inc., Cord Cutters News, Proactiveinvestors UK, Media Play News and Morningstar, more at Techmeme »
Filings: WBD projects CNN will generate $1.8B in revenue and $600M in adjusted EBITDA for FY 2026; docs show CNN had revenue of $2.2B in 2021 and $1.8B in 2023 — Warner Bros. Discovery is revealing financial details in connection with its planned spinout of Discovery Global.
Discussion:
Deadline, @kbandersen, The Wrap, @pkafka, @benmullin, Cord Cutters News, @kurtandersen.bsky.social, Bloomberg and Variety
Beehiiv expects to nearly double its annual revenue to $50M in 2026; it has 40K+ MAUs, including 15K paying subscribers; 1 in 7 new writers come from Substack — Beehiiv expects to nearly double annual revenue to $50 million this year as the newsletter startup challenges larger rival Substack …
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@denk_tweets, @loudmouthjulia and WebProNews, more at Techmeme »
Penske Media names Leila Cobo and Jason Lipshutz as co-chief content officers of Billboard, overseeing editorial content and newsroom operations — The pair will share oversight of Billboard's editorial content and newsroom operations. … Leila Cobo and Jason Lipshutz have been promoted …
Discussion:
Talking Biz News, The Wrap, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter
Alan's Universe creator Alan Chikin Chow, whose YouTube channel has 99M subscribers, is working on a Netflix show, joining other major YouTubers at the streamer — He is working with Hybe America, the U.S. arm of the Korean entertainment company responsible for BTS, on the untitled project.
Discussion:
The Wrap, Forbes, Tubefilter, The Movie Blog, Variety, What's on Netflix and The Hollywood Reporter
The US House Armed Services Committee formally asks the Defense Department how it plans to safeguard Stars and Stripes' congressionally required independence — A little followup on the Pentagon's move to “refocus” Stars and Stripes: The House Armed Services Committee has sent a bipartisan query to the Defense Department asking how it plans to safeguard the publication's congressionally required independence, among other questions.
Discussion:
Stars & Stripes, NPR and Business Insider
Nielsen: Christmas Day 2025 set a record for US streaming usage with 55.1B minutes, or 54% of all TV viewing for the day, beating Christmas 2024 by 3.9B minutes — The month of December also marked another all-time high for streaming usage. — With three streaming-exclusive NFL games …
A jury has found Edo, a TV ad measurement company, liable for breach of contract and says Edo must pay $18.3M in damages to rival iSpot; Edo plans to appeal — EDO, an advertising technology firm co-founded by actor and filmmaker Edward Norton, has been found liable for breach of contract by a federal jury.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, AdExchanger and Adweek
Adobe pledges ~$10M in grants and product donations in 2026 to support filmmakers, including funding creators directly for the first time — The software company is launching new partnerships with organizations including Dimoldenberg's Dimz Inc. Academy and Rideback RISE.
Discussion:
Brycie Jones on LinkedIn and @davelee.me
Netflix adds a real-time voting feature for its Star Search reboot, available on mobile, smart TVs, and streaming devices, but not on a browser — Netflix today is launching a new feature that will allow users to interact with live content through voting. The streaming company said the option …