For us, late Spring signals approaching deadlines and graduation, but in entertainment – it's upfront season!

On Wednesday, regulators dealt a potentially fatal blow to Microsoft’s hopes to acquire Activision Blizzard, the video game company behind Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and the Candy Crush Saga, to name a few. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) blocked the deal, citing concerns about anticompetitiveness in the cloud gaming sector. Microsoft will have a chance to appeal. 

As streaming takes the industry by storm, it almost feels as if you’re in a whole new world when your eyes are glued to your screen. Well now, you really could be. As media convergence within the industry is amplified by development in both content and strategy, a new player enters the arena. Streaming in the metaverse, a new collaborative endeavor between NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Meta’s VR division, introduces a fusion of entertainment experiences with unique value offerings that the industry has yet to see.

If you’re keeping up with entertainment news you’ve surely heard about the looming WGA strike. But here at STEBA, we want to give you all the facts, all the context, and none of the superfluous detail so that you can explain it to your friends like a pro.

While Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse certainly shocked the tech start-ups and venture capital firms, it also sent ripples of panic through the entertainment industry. This isn't just a matter of losing money, it's a matter of losing drama!

The only thing that seems to be dropping in the streaming world is content… and lots of it at that. As the industry grows across global markets, companies are continuously looking for new ways to innovate their content, distribution, and pricing models. But as competition becomes fiercer, how do you know where to start? Netflix seems to have the answer in evolving their localization strategy. 

Movie studios put a lot of faith in superstar directors, writers, and producers when taking a risk with original films. The heated bidding war for previously-unknown “Barbarian” filmmaker Zach Cregger’s forthcoming projects prompts us to question this strategy.

For decades, media conglomerates have relied on Nielsen – the market leader in audience measurement, data and analytics – to determine how many people tuned into Saturday Night Live or The Office. Yet as the television landscape has changed, network executives are joining forces to depend less on Nielsen’s antiquated systems.

Netflix may have put the brakes on a password-sharing crackdown for now, but this doesn’t mean the streamer doesn’t need to increase revenue. The streaming era has given audiences massive content libraries at heavily discounted prices, and with tight competition between industryplayers, Netflix is not the only one desperately seeking cash.