The NFL and DirecTV have signed a four year, $4 billion contract extension. The new deal will have DirecTV paying $1 billion a year, an increase of roughly $300 million a year for the exclusive right to package the NFL Sunday Ticket, which gives subscribers access to every NFL game on Sundays.
Hulu experienced a 33% increase in traffic in February. comScore now ranks the NBCU-Fox joint venture as the number four streaming video site on the web, while Nielsen reports that it is now the number two largest streaming video site on the web for the month of February. Hulu's growth can be attributed to hosting quality, timely content, as well as a widely scene Super Bowl commercial.
Time Warner has purchased 31% of Ronald Lauder's CME, a popular network of European channels. The deal will find TW and CME teaming to launch new theme channels, as well as distributing Warner Bros. content on CME channels. Ronald Lauder believes the deal "will accelerate CME's future development and take it to levels I could only dream of 15 years ago."
Redlasso is back after signing a deal with Fox. Under the deal, Redlasso will be able to host clips as long as ten minutes from Fox's 27 stations. Redlasso, unlike other streaming video services, focused on repurposing television content for Blogs and social media, allowing bloggers to edit, clip and embed video from various television shows.
Sprint is looking to rent high-speed wireless space to the manufacturer's of consumer goods. Currently the struggling wireless provider handles book downloads for Amazon's Kindle, and is looking into delivering wireless service to the likes of Garmin, Eastman Kodak and SanDisk. A likely deal would have Sprint renting portions of its network to manufacturers and collecting fees on the amount of data consumed.
Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net.