Month: July 2011

Patents Very amusing timing to Rovi’s patent infringement suit filed against Hulu today in federal district court in Delaware. The litigation concerns the old Gemstar-TV Guide patents on electronic program guides, which have been the source of countless legal actions by Rovi in the past. There are two ways to read today’s move. Either Rovi believes Read More …

Bandwidth For those who can bear to look, the debt ceiling bill being humped through the Senate this weekend by majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) could turn out to be critical to the long-term prospects of the mobile video delivery business. In an effort to find every possible dollar of deficit reduction without actually cutting federal Read More …

Online Video With Fox’s announcement yesterday that it will put new episodes of current-season shows behind an authentication wall I think we can fairly assume the sale of Hulu is now off, assuming it was ever really on. Whatever valuation a prospective buyer might have assigned to Hulu a week ago just went down significantly. Most Read More …

Retail Walmart’s integration of Vudu into Walmart.com could help propel the online movie service the retailer bought 18 months ago into the first ranks of digital VOD providers, alongside Apple’s iTunes, Microsoft’s Xbox Live and Amazon VOD. Walmart’s web site gets over 5 million visits a day from shoppers, giving Vudu a high-profile platform on which Read More …

Legislation We’ll have more on Netflix’s Q2 earnings report shortly, but one odd item bears flagging because, unless you’ve been around the video business for long time, you might not get the reference. According to CEO Reed Hastings’ shareholder letter, Netflix plans to introduce its long-planned Facebook integration shortly, probably before its next earnings announcement. But Read More …