Business

Neymar's FlareFlow deal turns his licensed identity into a 16-title AI-assisted microdrama franchise timed to the FIFA Men’s World Cup. COL Group's testing whether celebrity likeness can become scalable content inventory, using Neymar’s reach to bring sports audiences into microdrama…

OnlyFans is becoming a recurring shorthand in scripted TV for the broader creator economy, where individuals build audience relationships and turn attention into recurring revenue. Streaming trained consumers to pay monthly for content, and creator platforms have extended that behavior…

Kirby explains why video podcasts are becoming retention infrastructure for streaming as companies chase cheaper ways to drive habit, ad inventory, and creator-led loyalty. The format can pull recurring weekly hours into owned ad systems, but streamers risk killing the…

Fox's acquiring Roku in a $22 billion deal that gives it control of Roku’s home screen, streaming OS, ad platform, The Roku Channel, and a direct relationship with more than 100 million streaming households. The deal moves Fox from owning…

Streaming’s real battle has always been control over the systems that turn attention into leverage, not a winner-take-all race for subscribers. YouTube, Warner Music, Hasbro, Apple, Netflix, Paramount Skydance, advertisers, and regulators are all moving around different control points, from…

Paramount won DOJ approval for its proposed $111 billion Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition, giving management momentum around its September 30 closing target. The harder work now shifts to Europe, the UK, and possible state AG litigation, where delays could raise…

Basics of Streaming explains how CTV ad fraud turns fake impressions, spoofed devices, app impersonation, and weak SSAI workflows into premium-priced inventory. Fraud prevention’s become a core monetization issue because advertisers need verified supply, cleaner paths, and trusted measurement before…

From the Archives revisits Netflix's $1 million Netflix Prize competition, which challenged researchers to improve its recommendation algorithm and helped accelerate breakthroughs in machine learning and personalization. The contest reinforced a principle that still shapes streaming today: helping users discover…

Hasbro’s Sixth Wall positions character behavior as a new licensing category, giving partners access to governed AI versions of IP like Optimus Prime, Megatron, Cobra Commander, Mr. Potato Head, and Clue characters. The bigger play is that Hasbro’s not just…

YouTube’s rolling out invite-only in-app messaging for users 18+, letting viewers share and react to videos, Shorts, and livestreams without leaving the app. The move helps YouTube turn sharing into a retention loop by keeping the video, conversation, notification, and…