Netflix to invest $2.5 billion in South Korean content

SEOUL — Netflix will invest $2.5 billion in South Korean content over the next four years, the streaming giant's CEO Ted Sarandos announced after meeting with the country's President Yoon Suk Yeol in Washington.

South Korea has cemented its status as a global cultural powerhouse in recent years, thanks in part to the explosive success of the Oscar-winning film "Parasite" and the hit Netflix series "Squid Game".

"Netflix is delighted to confirm that we will invest USD 2.5 billion in Korea including the creation of Korean series, films, and unscripted shows over the next four years," Sarandos said in a statement given to AFP Tuesday.

"This investment plan is twice the total amount Netflix has invested in the Korean market since we started our service in Korea in 2016."

Sarandos said that Netflix had "great confidence" that South Korea's creative industry would continue to tell great stories, pointing to the recent success of global hits such as "The Glory" and the reality show "Physical 100".

"It is incredible that the love towards Korean shows has led to a wider interest in Korea, thanks to the Korean creators' compelling stories. Their stories are now at the heart of the global cultural zeitgeist," he added.

Over the last few years, South Korean content has taken the world by storm, with over 60 percent of Netflix viewers watching a show from the East Asian country in 2022, company data showed.

Netflix, which spent more than 1 trillion won ($750 million) developing Korean content from 2015 to 2021, had previously said it would be expanding its South Korean show output, without giving details of spending plans.

Yoon, who arrived in Washington Monday for a six-day state visit, hailed what he described as a "very meaningful" meeting with Sarandos, according to a transcript shared with AFP by the president's office.

Yoon said the new investment "will be a great opportunity for the Korean content industry, creators, and Netflix. We sincerely welcome Netflix's exceptional investment decision."

Yoon's is set to meet US President Joe Biden Wednesday, with his visit coming as the allies move to bulk up military cooperation over North Korea's expanding nuclear threats.

Pyongyang has conducted another record-breaking string of sanctions-defying launches this year, including test-firing North Korea's first solid-fuel ballistic missile this month -- a key technical breakthrough for its military.

In response, Yoon has pulled South Korea closer to long-standing ally Washington, and the trip has a packed schedule including the summit with Biden, where the pair will celebrate 70 years of ties.

Yoon was also accompanied by more than 120 South Korean business leaders, including Samsung chairman Lee Jae-yong, and the visit could address their concerns over Biden's Inflation Reduction Act.

Analysts have said that the trip going well is particularly important for Yoon, who is eager to boost his low domestic approval ratings especially in the realm of foreign policy.

Agence France-Presse

AT&T to merge WarnerMedia with Discovery: reports

WASHINGTON - US telecommunications giant AT&T could announce as soon as Monday a merger between its WarnerMedia unit -- which owns CNN and HBO -- and Discovery media, media reports said.

The new entity is expected to be owned by AT&T and Discovery, according to a CNBC report, but no details were immediately released. 

Bloomberg, citing people with knowledge of the matter, reported a deal "could be announced announced as soon as this week."

Contacted by AFP, neither AT&T, WarnerMedia, or Discovery had responded on Sunday evening.

The transaction could create a giant able to compete with Netflix and Disney+, which have seen their number of subscribers surge during the pandemic. 

A slowdown in the growth of the Disney empire's streaming platform between January and March, however, made investors fret and caused the group's shares to plunge last week. 

AT&T bought Time Warner in 2018 for $80 billion, then renamed it WarnerMedia, which owns HBO, Warner Bros. studios and cable channels such as CNN. 

Discovery has channels in 220 countries, according to its website. 

WarnerMedia had net sales of $30.4 billion in 2020, and Discovery -- which owns Eurosport -- of $10.7 billion.

Agence France-Presse

Netflix subscriber growth slows after pandemic boom, shares fall 11%

Netflix Inc fell short of Wall Street's projections for new customers in the first quarter, the company said on Tuesday, sending shares down 11%.

Roughly 3.98 million people signed up for Netflix from January through March, below the 6.25 million average projection of analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.

Netflix forecast just 1 million new streaming customers in the second quarter. Analysts had expected a forecast of nearly 4.8 million.

Shares of Netflix, the world's largest streaming service, sunk 11% in after-hours trading to $489.28.

A year ago, Netflix added a staggering 15.8 million customers as the pandemic forced people around the world to stay home. The company said on Tuesday that the pandemic had brought in a record number of customers in 2020 but also hindered production of new programming.

"These dynamics are also contributing to a lighter content slate in the first half of 2021, and hence, we believe slower membership growth," the company said in its quarterly letter to shareholders.

Rival media companies have declared streaming their priority and are spending billions to compete with Netflix. Walt Disney Co's Disney+ crossed 100 million subscribers in March.

Netflix said it did not believe competition changed materially in the quarter or impacted its new sign-ups "as the over-forecast was across all of our regions."

During the quarter, Netflix lost one of its most popular titles when workplace comedy "The Office" moved to Comcast Corp streaming service Peacock.

Netflix also raised its monthly rates in Britain, Germany, Argentina and Japan during the quarter.

Excluding items, the company earned $3.75 per share, beating analyst estimates of $2.97 per share.

Revenue rose to $7.16 billion from $5.77 billion during the quarter, edging past estimates of $7.13 billion.

Net income rose to $1.71 billion, or $3.75 per share, from $709 million, or $1.57 per share, a year earlier. (Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Lisa Shumaker)

-reuters

HBO Max streaming service said to launch in May

AT&T said on Tuesday that its HBO Max streaming service would launch in May for $15 a month, joining a crowded field.

The company said HBO Max would become the “workhorse” for its video business as cord-cutting of traditional TV expands. It hopes to migrate people who pay for HBO in different ways today to the new platform.


The service grew out of AT&T’s $81-billion purchase of Time Warner, which AT&T overhauled and rechristened WarnerMedia.

HBO Max will challenge Netflix alongside Disney, Comcast and Apple. It would be the most expensive of the new services that had announced prices, which could make it challenging to expand its customer base.

It is also the same price as HBO Now, the current HBO streaming service for people who don’t get the cable channel.

Some existing subscribers to HBO’s cable channel or HBO Now will get free access to HBO Max, AT&T said.

The company said it would launch a version of HBO Max with ads in 2021, a new twist for a brand known for being ad-free. The company wants to reach 50 million subscribers in the United States by 2025, and 75 to 90 million worldwide. It expects HBO Max to be profitable starting in 2023. —AP

Amazon, Google agree to allow each other’s streaming apps

WASHINGTON — Amazon and Google announced Thursday they had agreed to allow each other’s streaming media applications to work on their platforms, ending a spat over video between the tech giants.

The companies said in a statement that the official YouTube apps will be available on Amazon’s Fire TV in the coming months, allowing users of the Amazon platform to access the music videos, movies, shows and other content from the Google-owned service.

The agreement also enables Amazon Prime members streaming to Chromecast or using Android TV devices to access Amazon’s video content.

The deal appears to end a spat between the two tech giants that made it difficult or impossible for users of one of the video services to use the platform to access the other’s.

“We are excited to work with Amazon to launch the official YouTube apps on Fire TV devices worldwide,” said Heather Rivera, head of product partnerships at YouTube.

“Bringing our flagship YouTube experience to Amazon Fire TV gives our users even more ways to watch the videos and creators they love.”


Andrew Bennett, head of business development for Prime Video, aid the agreement would “give our customers convenient access to the shows and movies they love… customers will have even more ways to stream what they want, whenever they want, no matter where they are.”

Amazon and Google are in fierce competition over streaming, but their spat had sparked concerns of anti-competitive conduct by locking out an important rival.


The joint statement said Fire TV users will be able to sign in to their existing YouTube account and access their full library of content.

Chromecast users will meanwhile have similar access to the Prime Video catalog.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Winamp 6 for mobile to launch in 2019

Winamp, the MP3 player of the late 1990s, will get a new version and aggregation features in 2019.

Possibly one of the most recognizable icons of the late 1990s’ computing era, Winamp became the go-to program for playing MP3 from a personal computer. The music player became a constant in the ever changing and growing PC platform and reached a user base of 60 million by 2001.


Because of its reputation and loyal community of users, Radionomy, the company that bought Winamp in 2014, continued development of the music player and confirmed an all-new version 6 mobile app to come out in 2019, reports TechCrunch


Winamp 6 will work as a neutral one-player-for-all where users can listen to their personal music collection while also plugging in to streaming services like Audible, Google Music library, Podcasts and Spotify playlists.

“What I see today is you have to jump from one player to another player or aggregator if you want to listen to a radio station, to a podcast player if you want to listen to a podcast — this, to me, is not the final experience,” said Radionomy CEO Alexandre Saboundjian.

Originally developed by the company Nullsoft, development continued for the desktop version of Winamp until it reached Winamp 5.5 in 2007. After this, updates stopped until Winamp 5.666 came out in 2013 and was billed as the last update from Nullsoft/AOL.

Meanwhile, a mobile version of Winamp came out in 2010 for Android. A year later, Winamp for Mac OS called Winamp for Mac Sync Beta was released.

On Sept. 16, 2018, a Winamp 5.8 version was leaked online. The leaked beta version bore the build date of Oct. 26, 2016. An official version is expected to come out by Oct. 18 which won’t be much different from the leaked beta version. It will still have all the fixes to allow the app to function properly in Windows 10.

Until Winamp 6 comes out in 2019 with its promised features, loyal fans may check on the website’s trademark Llama periodically for updates. Alfred Bayle/JB

source: technology.inquirer.net