David Bloom Archives - Media Play News

The rise of YouTube as a global force in the connected living room took another big step this week when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences signed over exclusive global TV rights to the Alphabet-owned company for four years starting in 2029.

This means the Oscars, which averaged a still-very-impressive 19.7 million viewers on ABC back on March 2, will be available in the U.S. only via virtual pay-TV service YouTube TV and internationally via free-to-use, ad-supported YouTube.

What does this mean for streaming? For broadcast? For viewers? Next TMT’s David Bloom and Daniel Frankel ponder the possibilities here in the second installment in a series of thought-provoking video podcasts brought to you by Media Play News on MPN’s YouTube channel and, soon, audio podcasts on Spotify and other top platforms.

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Media Play News is pleased to announce a partnership with Next TMT co-founders Daniel Frankel and David Bloom, who will star in a new series of thought-provoking video podcasts available exclusively on our YouTube channel and, soon, audio podcasts on Spotify and other top platforms.

Their first podcast addresses the hot issue of the day: the proposed sale of Warner Bros. Discovery, or at least the studio and streaming part of the huge media conglomerate, to Netflix.

WBD’s board of directors on Dec. 17 advised its shareholders to reject a $108.4 billion hostile takeover bid from Paramount Skydance and approve the deal with Netflix, which the board has already approved. That deal values the venerable Hollywood media company at $82.7 billion sans its linear cable networks.

Media Play News has been tracking this story closely, and in their debut on the Media Play News YouTube channel, Frankel and Bloom try to make sense of what just unfolded … and predict what happens next.

With not just David Zaslav turning on him, but also seemingly President Trump, will Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison regroup and re-approach WBD investors with another, even bigger hostile bid?

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Sign up for the free NextTMT.com newsletter to get the latest news and analysis on what’s happening in technology, media and telecom.