Month: January 2011

Streaming Video In their letter to shareholders included with their Q4 earnings announcement, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and (new) CFO David Wells confirm something I noted back in December: The FCC’s recent net neutrality ruling did not offer as much protection to Netflix and other online video distributors as it may have appeared. While the Read More …

Earnings That squealing sound you hear is the sound of Netflix bears caught in a short squeeze by the company’s stellar Q4 results, posted after market close Wednesday. With earnings up 52 percent over last fourth quarter and total subscribers cresting 20 million for the first time, shares of Netflix rose by more than $17 Read More …

Online Video The FCC added a bit of an unexpected twist to its conditioned approval of Comcast’s bid to take control of NBC Universal announced Tuesday. According to the FCC press release, the order approving the deal will stipulate that NBC must give up all  involvement in the management of Hulu, the joint venture among Read More …

Consumer Spending From the New York Times: Probably the best thing about last week’s dreary annual summary of home entertainment revenue from the Digital Entertainment Group, an industrywide consortium of technology and entertainment companies, is that the numbers weren’t adjusted for inflation. That made the six-year tumble in cumulative spending on DVDs and other forms of Read More …

Lobbying You never know how much to read into a hire after a job has been hanging out there for a while, but it strikes me as potentially significant that the MPAA has hired a telecom guy as its new chief technology policy officer. After several months of being shopped around, the job went to Read More …