NETFLIX SHARES ZOOM ON EARNINGS REPORT

Netflix shares soared 22 percent on the Nasdaq today (Thursday) to $116.01 after the company reported stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings of $41 million on a whopping 43-percent increase in revenue of $876 million. The company, which was beleaguered by subscriber losses and analysts’ downgrades after it substantially raised fees for its combined streaming and DVD-by-mail service, [...]

DISH MAY LAUNCH NETFLIX-LIKE STREAMING SERVICE

Taking to heart the old adage, If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, the DISH satellite company is planning to launch an online video streaming service to rival Netflix’s, CEO Joseph Clayton has told Bloomberg News. The service would presumably be an extension of the one Blockbuster already offers. (DISH acquired Blockbuster in a bankruptcy [...]

RIO KNOCKED OFF TOP OF SALES CHART, FLIES TO RENTALS

Lionsgate’s Madea’s Big Happy Family has knocked off Rio from the top of the national home video sales chart after four weeks. The Nielsen VideoScan First Alert chart placed season 3 of the TV series Sons of Anarchy in second place on the sales chart, ahead of Rio, which fell to No. 3. The chart [...]

JOBS UNVEILS ICLOUD — VIDEO ABSENT

Apple chief Steve Jobs on Monday unveiled the iCloud, a storage system that allows users to store music, photos, applications, documents and just about everything else they would normally keep on their computers or mobile devices in a so-called online digital locker instead. Users will then be able to access all content on any of [...]

OBAMA: BIN LADEN PHOTOS WILL NOT BE SEEN ON TV

President Obama has told 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft that he will not release photos of Osama bin Laden’s body. A clip from the interview scheduled to air on the magazine show on Sunday was broadcast Wednesday night on the CBS Evening News. In it the president said, “It is important for us to make [...]

STEWART, COLBERT MAY RETURN TO HULU

Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report may soon be restored on Hulu, the video website owned by News Corp. (Fox), General Electric (NBC Universal), Disney (ABC), and Providence Equity Partners, the New York Times reported today (Monday). Comedy Central, which is owned by Viacom, a company that has taken a tough stance [...]

BUBLÉ VIDEO GOES VIRAL WITH CELEBRITY SPOOF

A video spoofing Hollywood celebrity by Canadian crooner Michael Bublé has quickly gone viral on YouTube, drawing more than 100,000 views since Monday. In the video promoting his latest single, “Hollywood,” Bublé gives some uncanny impressions of an assortment of celebrities, ranging from Justin Bieber to Keith Richards, to Tom Cruise, to James Dean (and [...]

NETFLIX’S CANADIAN PROMO EXPOSED AS A SHAM

A promotional event in Toronto for the launch of Netflix’s Canadian service on Wednesday backfired when it turned out that many people in the crowd being interviewed by reporters were actually paid extras. The Toronto Globe & Mail learned that the extras had received printed instructions to “play types, for example, mothers, film buffs, tech [...]

BLOCKBUSTER COPIES NETFLIX’S PROTOCOL IN CANADA

The Canadian subsidiary of Blockbuster on Tuesday announced that it is rolling out a $9.99-a-month “Favorites Pass” subscription plan that will allow users to rent an unlimited number of DVDs — one at a time each month. “If you rent and return 15 movies in one month, each would cost just over 50 cents per [...]

HULU LOSES 45 PERCENT OF ITS VIEWERS

Hulu, the video site owned by Disney/ABC, NBC Universal, and Fox and long regarded as the No. 2 video site behind YouTube, is actually no where near as popular as it was believed to be, the Los Angeles Times reported today (Tuesday). Previous estimates of the number of viewers accessing the website plunged 45 percent [...]

Next Page »