Business of Media
Netflix scraps ad-free ‘basic’ streaming plan in Canada
Netflix has quietly removed its $9.99 “basic” subscription option from its pricing plans for new or reconnecting customers in Canada as it continues to refine its overall product mix and pricing worldwide, reports The Hollywood Reporter’s Etan Vlessing.
“The Basic plan is no longer available for new or rejoining members. If you are currently on the Basic plan, you can remain on this plan until you change plans or cancel your account,” Netflix said on its Canadian plans and pricing support page.
A spokesperson for Netflix Canada declined direct comment on the phasing out of the basic ad-free subscriber plan north of the border. And there’s no indication that the end of the basic ad-free streaming package in Canada will in time spread elsewhere.
But Netflix execs have signaled — most recently as they dropped plan prices in around 100 international markets — that the streamer would be flexible on pricing to ensure the company’s service remains accessible to various types of consumers while management looks to optimize returns.
And revenue growth appears to be the goal in Canada. North of the U.S. border, scrapping the Netflix basic plan, which only allowed the use of one screen per household at a time, leaves new subscribers to either choose the standard with ads tier, which costs $5.99 a month, or pay far more for the standard plan, costing $16.49 per month and allowing up to two screens in concurrent use.
Feel Chris Hemsworth’s sweat: has Netflix made the strangest billboard ever?
For some time now, the movie industry has been desperate to locate the next big technological surge, the one leap forward that will bring in audiences like it was the good old days. For a while it looked like this would be 3D, but the resurgence soon fizzled out. Other advances, like Cineworld’s Screen X and 4DX, are hampered by the dual facts that they cost too much money and make it impossible to snooze through the boring bits, reports The Guardian’s Stuart Heritage.
So congratulations to Netflix, whose tireless research and development department has finally landed on the Big New Thing. The thing that will singlehandedly fling the medium decades into the future. You want it. You need it. That’s right: the future of cinema is a billboard that can convincingly secrete bodily fluids.
The billboard in question has been designed to promote the new Chris Hemsworth vehicle Extraction 2. Now, many of you will have already watched Extraction 2 – according to Netflix, it was viewed by more than 40 million people in its first three days alone – so you will already know whether it is good or not. But those of us who have not yet sampled the film’s numerous delights might need something to push us over the edge. And that something is a poster of Chris Hemsworth’s sweating face that will literally drip actual sweat on to us.
Group Black in talks to buy Sports Illustrated publisher
Group Black is in talks to buy a majority stake in the publisher of Sports Illustrated, according to people familiar with the matter, its latest attempt to expand the ad inventory it can sell to marketers interested in Black-owned media, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Alexandra Bruell and Jessica Toonkel.
The discussions with the Arena Group are part of a continuing effort by Group Black to forge fresh deals that allow the Black-owned media company to sell its advertising space. Arena owns more than 50 publications including Men’s Journal, Parade Media and TheStreet, and has a 100-year license from Authentic Brands Group to publish Sports Illustrated.
Several marketers have committed to spending a certain portion of their advertising budgets with Black- and minority-owned media companies in recent years, but have said they struggle to find ad space that fits the bill. Group Black has tried to address that issue by accumulating ad inventory that it can sell to marketers to fulfill those goals.
Discussions between Group Black and the Arena Group are ongoing, and a deal may not materialize, the people said. Representatives for Group Black didn’t respond to requests for comment, and an Arena Group spokeswoman declined to comment.
News Brands
First look inside Channel Seven’s new Sydney studios at Eveleigh
Anchor Mark Ferguson is cutting the ribbon on Channel Seven’s new home at Media City in Eveleigh, after 19 years of broadcasting from Martin Place in the heart of Sydney’s CBD, reports News Corp’s Mikaela Wilkes.
Ferguson, sports anchor Mel McLaughlin and weather presenter Angie Asimus gave The Daily Telegraph an exclusive first-look tour of the brand new studios ahead of their maiden broadcast on Monday night.
“I’m feeling good, it’s a big day. I have a few butterflies,” Ferguson said.
The 57-year-old anchor signed off for the final time from Martin Place on Sunday night, drawing the curtains on two decades of news.
“It was a little bit sad saying goodbye last night. “I’ve been absolutely privileged to host out of there for almost 10 years now from the main 6 o’clock desk and have many, many memories in that studio. Some of them aren’t that fond; of very big, tough events.”
See Also: Mark Ferguson and Seven News Sydney team broadcasting from new home today
Television
Report: 10 not proceeding with Dreamchaser project
A report emerged on the weekend that 10 had “pulled the pin” on a planned commission from Dreamchaser, the company founded by Hugh Marks and Carl Fennessy, reports TV Tonight.
The Daily Telegraph suggested a crew had been hired for the unnamed new relationship reality series.
A 10 spokesperson told TV Tonight, “We have never commissioned anything from Dreamchaser. We hope to one day as they are a great production company.”
It isn’t clear if the project may find another immediate home.
Dreamchaser declined to comment.
Fox News unveils its Tucker Carlson replacement as it looks to stop the bleeding
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News said that network veteran Jesse Watters would fill the key prime-time slot left vacant by the exit of top-rated host Tucker Carlson, reports Nine Publishing’s Akash Sriram.
Carlson left the network in April, less than a week after parent company Fox Corp settled a $US787.5 million ($1.18 billion) defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems, in which the anchor played a starring role.
Watters will move to the 8pm slot, starting July 17, with his opinion program Jesse Watters Primetime, which was launched last year as a 7pm show, Fox News said.
Fox added that Watters’ show had more than 2.6 million viewers this year, of which 270,000 were from the key 25-54 age group, and was the highest rated in the 7 pm category in cable news history.
Carlson’s talk show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, was the highest-rated cable news program among the same demographic on the most-watched US cable news network.
Watters joined the network in 2002 as a production assistant and went on to interview former President Donald Trump and entrepreneur Mark Cuban on his weekend show Watters’ World, which started in 2017.
The reality TV formats that will never die
There are two distinct and radically divergent trends currently discernible on TV. One, driven primarily by the streamers and cable networks, displays a hunger for the new, and particularly buzz-worthy, boundary-breaking productions such as The Idol, reports Nine Publishing’s Debi Enker.
The other, preferred by the “heritage” networks, seeks comfort in the familiar, in tried-and-true formats that continue to woo viewers, year in, year out, sometimes over decades. The latter strategy is basically that if something’s worked before it might again, and it’s evident in two recent returns, Dancing With the Stars on Seven and Location, Location, Location on 10.
The dance contest (Sundays, 7pm) has again buffed its shiny floor and emerged to offer the same basic elements that it’s been happily waltzing along with for 20 years: colour and movement, sequins and sparkles, tears and tangoes. Cosy, family friendly viewing programmed here to brighten up Sunday nights in winter.
Meanwhile the property-hunt show, which has relocated from Foxtel, aims to help sate the appetite of a nation that can’t seem to get enough of real-estate and renovation programs. It moves into a nicely warmed Friday night zone (7.30pm) that’s been a home to programs such as Seven’s Better Homes and Gardens, the ABC’s evergreen Gardening Australia and 10’s The Living Room, which the network says is “taking a break” this year.
Sports Media
Nathan Brown tight-lipped on commentary box confrontation
Nathan Brown is staying quiet about who it was that confronted him in the Triple M commentary box last weekend over his watchdog segment, Media-Ocre, on the Sunday Footy Show, reports News Corp’s Jackie Epstein.
Time On asked and had no luck, and Tony Jones quizzed him about it on Sunday but he was still refusing to divulge a name.
He said on Triple M: “You’ve got to take it for what it is, it’s tongue in cheek.
“Somebody came into the Triple M box on Sunday and may have questioned why I would put him, or her, in Media-Ocre.
“We’re all in the media, everyone makes mistakes and sometimes you just like to pick on those mistakes like we do in the Triple M box. Now I don’t think other stations and media outlets enjoy the mistakes as much as we do. Unfortunately it’s the first one that’s cut up rough.”