Tag Archives: investment

Music streaming pioneer SoundCloud raises $75M from Pandora owner SiriusXM

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SoundCloud, the music streaming company that has been described as the “YouTube of audio” because of its profusion of user-generated content, has some big, strategic investment news today. The company has raised $75 million in funding from satellite radio giant SiriusXM, owner of streaming giant Pandora, which has an ad partnership with SoundCloud. – Ingrid Lunden, TechCrunch » https://tcrn.ch/31JQre0

YouTube to invest $100M in kids’ content that showcases character strengths, like compassion and curiosity

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The planned $100 million investment, which will be distributed over the next three years, is meant to help set the tone for the sort of children’s video content YouTube wants to see more of on its video-sharing platform. Today, a number of creators in the kids’ space are gaining views for things like toy unboxings, pranks and family vlogs. For example, Ryan Kaji of “Ryan’s World” and “Ryan ToysReview” was YouTube’s highest-paid star of 2019, pulling in a massive $26 million. – Sarah Perez, TechCrunch » https://ift.tt/2twLTuR [photo: Google/YouTube Kids]

IAC to take on cable, satellite operators with video streaming service

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photo: Bloomberg, The Street

Barry Diller‘s IAC/Interactive, a collection of Internet companies that includes dating site Match.com and the Daily Beast news site, on May 2 acquired VHX, whose technology provides back-end services for content owners offering video via subscription. IAC is combining VHX with Vimeo, its own service for content creators to show videos to a streaming audience that IAC estimates at 280 million users. – Ronald Grover, TheStreet

Moody’s: broadband helps US cable to compensate subscriber losses

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photo: Broadband TV News

The industry continues to raise prices for broadband services, driving average revenue per unit higher. Demand is being largely driven by video consumption, which requires more and faster bandwidth, positioning cable companies to further monetize their high-speed distribution system. At the center of this transformation is streaming content “over-the-top” to deliver video-on-demand services which is growing quickly, according to the report Pricing, Broadband Demand Ease Pressure from TV Subscriber Losses. – Broadband TV News

Wall Street Turns Off TV: How to Fix the Stock Slide

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photo: The Hollywood Reporter

The skinny bundle is a phenomenon born of the fact that U.S. households have been paying for an average of 194 channels while only watching 17 of them, according to Nielsen. As for cord-cutting, MoffettNathanson says the number of households that have dropped pay TV (coupled with new households that never bothered to subscribe) has grown to 2 million. The pay TV sector was shrinking at an annual rate of 0.1 percent a year ago, though this year it has shot up to 0.7 percent. And several analysts are encouraging conglomerates to hedge bets with investments in digital media. Viacom has kicked the tires on the likes of Funny or Die, CollegeHumor and The Onion, while Comcast is considering stakes in Vice Media, BuzzFeed and others. – Paul Bond, The Hollywood Reporter

Comcast-owned NBC buys part of Vox Media and its stable of news sites

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logo: Ars Technica

NBCUniversal today announced that it is making a $200 million equity investment in Vox Media, which operates technology news sites The Verge and Re/code. Vox Media brands also include the video game news and review site Polygon. Other Vox brands are SB Nation, Eater, Racked, Curbed, and Vox.com. – Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica

NBCUniversal Poised to Make Big Investments in BuzzFeed and Vox Media

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photo: Asa Mathat, Re/Code

Sources say Comcast’s TV and film unit has a “handshake” agreement with BuzzFeed, which raised $50 million last year at a $850 million valuation. […] BuzzFeed, which had previously considered selling to Disney, did more than $100 million in revenue last year. People familiar with the company say its internal projections called for revenue of $250 million this year, spurred in part by “native ads” created by its fast-growing video unit. – Kara Swisher & Peter Kafka, Re/code
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