Tag Archives: technology

Twitter Wins Right To Stream NFL’s Worst Football Games

Twitter ( TWTR ) will live-stream Thursday Night Football, confirmed NFL Comissioner Roger Goodell in a Tuesday morning post on — where else — Twitter. This fall Thursday Night Football will be streamed live @twitter so fans will see more of this. https://t.co/s6tbr9FjvY — Roger Goodell (@nflcommish) April 5, 2016 The news unofficially sprung up early Tuesday, with Bloomberg reporting that Verizon Communications ( VZ ), Yahoo ( YHOO ) and Amazon ( AMZN ) were also in the bidding for the NFL streaming rights. Facebook ( FB ) pulled its bid last week, said the media outlet, citing a person familiar with the matter. Terms of the transaction are unknown. But according to an official release , Twitter will offer a free live-stream of 10 Thursday Night Football games “broadcast by NBC and CBS, which will also be simulcast on NFL Network, securing the league’s “Tri-Cast” distribution model of broadcast (NBC/CBS), cable (NFL Network), and digital (Twitter).” “Twitter is where live events unfold and is the right partner for the NFL as we take the latest step in serving fans around the world live NFL football,” said Goodell in the prepared statement. Re/Code reported that Twitter will pay less than $10 million for all 10 games. Thursday night football games often are criticized for being low quality. Players have less time to recover, while coaches have less time to develop strategies. Twitter rose to 17.83 shortly after the open, but closed down 4 cents to 7.05 on the stock market today . The stock has been trading below its 50-day level for the better part of five months, though shares retook support at the key level on Monday. Facebook fell 0.3%, Amazon 1.2%, Verizon 0.6% and Yahoo 1.65% as the general market retreated.

Comcast Dabbles In Internet, Media While Big M&A Waits

Comcast ’s ( CMCSA ) investment in Groupon — through a company headed by its former CFO — continues the cable TV firm’s move into Internet, software and media assets. Comcast continues to steer away from major M&A, though, following last year’s demise of the proposed Time Warner Cable ( TWC ) acquisition. Atairos, an investment firm formed by former Comcast CFO Michael Angelakis and funded mainly by the cable TV firm, said on Monday that it would invest $250 million in struggling Groupon ( GRPN ). Angelakis will join Groupon’s board. Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group ( BABA ) earlier this year invested in Groupon. While Comcast’s chief financial officer, Angelakis engineered the cable TV firm’s two-part purchase of media giant NBCUniversal from General Electric ( GE ). In November, Comcast brought in new M&A expertise. Comcast named Robert Eatroff, formerly Morgan Stanley ’s ( MS ) head of mergers and acquisitions for the Americas, as its new executive VP of global corporate development and strategy. Comcast has signaled interest in making acquisitions overseas. Speculation that Comcast could buy a wireless phone company, such as T-Mobile US ( TMUS ), has cooled, though the cable TV firm has filed as a potential bidder in a government auction of airwaves. Comcast continues to active in media investments. Comcast’s Fandango, an online movie ticket seller, earlier this year acquired movie websites Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes from Time Warner’s Warner Bros. Fandango also bought online video retailer M-Go. In 2015, NBCUniversal invested $250 million in website BuzzFeed. Comcast also invested in digital publisher Vox Media and Visible World. Image provided by Shutterstock .

Mobile Drives Continued Rise Of Programmatic Digital Display Ads

Mobile is driving programmatic advertising growth, with mobile accounting for more than two-thirds of all programmatic digital display-ad spending this year, says eMarketer in a report on Tuesday. Facebook ( FB ), Alphabet ( GOOGL )‘s Google-owned YouTube, LinkedIn ( LNKD ) and others are helping to drive the trend. Ad sales conducted by machines rather than ad salespeople — so-called programmatic ads — take less time to execute and cost advertisers less, which accounts for their popularity with advertisers though it tends to lower revenue for online-ad platforms. U.S. programmatic digital display-ad spending is projected to rise to $27.4 billion in 2017, up 24%, said eMarketer. But that growth rate is declining from a projected 39% this year and 53% in 2015, the research group said. This year, however, mobile programmatic spending will reach $15.45 billion in the U.S., representing 69% of all programmatic digital display-ad spending. That’s up from 60% in 2015 and 46% in 2014. For programmatic mobile video ads, 2017 is expected to mark a tipping point as mobile surpasses desktop for the first time. By 2017, programmatic mobile video ad spending will reach $3.89 billion, representing just over half of total programmatic ad spending in the U.S. But on desktop, programmatic video-ad spending will reach $3.73 billion next year, falling to 49% of total programmatic digital display-ad spending in the U.S., said eMarketer. Last year, professional social networking site LinkedIn ( LNKD ) reported that its move toward programmatic ad sales had dragged down its revenue growth. Rapid adoption of programmatic ads last year also hit crowdsourced online-review site Yelp ( YELP ) and Web portal Yahoo ( YHOO ). Yahoo, however, points to the long-term potential of such ads and has invested in them heavily, including through its $640 million purchase of BrightRoll, a leading provider of programmatic video ads, in 2014. Yahoo has implemented broad cuts throughout company as it strives to spark growth and mulls selling part of the company, and in January it let go at least five managers who were working on Brightroll , according to the Wall Street Journal. Last month, in a letter charging the current board of Yahoo with failing to deliver results for its shareholders, activist investor Starboard Value announced that it wants to sweep out all of the ailing Web company’s nine directors and replace them with its own slate during Yahoo’s 2016 shareholder meeting. Yahoo stock was down nearly 2% in afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 36. Facebook stock was flat, while shares of Alphabet, Yelp and LinkedIn were down a fraction. Image provided by Shutterstock .