Development Alert: Dora Renewed For Season 2 On Nick Jr. And Paramount+

Paramount+ has renewed the animated preschool series Dora for a second season. The iconic Latina heroine returned this month in the CG-animated revival series produced by Nickelodeon Animation. 

Dora, based on the original series Dora the Explorer, follows everyone’s favorite bilingual explorer, Dora (Diana Zermeño), and her best monkey friend, Boots (Asher Colton Spence) as they embark on epic adventures in a fantastical rainforest. Guided by trustworthy Map (Anairis Quiñones), Dora and her friends must work together to overcome many obstacles while being challenged by the sneakiest fox, Swiper (Marc Weiner). Kathleen Herles, the original voice of Dora the Explorer, voices Mami.

“Kids and family programming is consistently one of the most popular genres on Paramount+ and we’re thrilled that our audience has already embraced Dora,” said Jeff Grossman, Executive Vice President, Programming, Paramount+. “It’s an incredible opportunity to introduce this beloved character and iconic franchise to a whole new generation.” 

Dora is currently available to stream exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, Latin America, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and also on Nick Jr. internationally.

Dora is produced by Nickelodeon Animation in Burbank, California, and created by Chris Gifford and Valerie Walsh Valdes. Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh Valdes and Rich Magallanes serve as executive producers. Henry Lenardin-Madden serves as co-executive producer, and Alejandro Bien-Willner serves as story editor. Marielle Kaar is Nickelodeon’s Executive in Charge of Production for the series. Dora the Explorer was created by Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh Valdes and Eric Weiner.

“Our audiences have embraced the new Dora series with open arms, and it’s incredible how she continues to capture the imaginations of preschoolers around the world with her extraordinary rainforest adventures,“ said Ramsey Naito, President, Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation. “We can’t wait for kids to discover all of the new fantastical places and colorful characters in the second season while learning and playing along with their good friend Dora.”

The Canal+/MultiChoice Effect: Sony Reportedly In Talks To Join Bid With Apollo To Acquire Paramount Global

Even as Paramount Global continues to hold exclusive talks with David Ellison’s Skydance and Gerry Cardinale’s Redbird Capital, another potential buyer group is considering its own moves.

It has been confirmed that executives at Sony Corp., including Sony Pictures chief Tony Vinciquerra, have been in touch with Apollo Global Management about making a joint bid for the entertainment company.

Apollo had previously made a $26 billion offer for Paramount, inclusive of equity and debt, though it was reportedly dismissed. But partnering with Sony would likely eliminate any cash or financing concerns.

The New York Times first reported the Sony talks, adding that no offer has been made, given that the exclusive negotiating window is still in place. The Times reported that one structure under consideration would see Sony and Apollo effectively take Paramount private, with Sony owning a majority of the company, with Apollo operating as a minority owner..

The actual structure of the deal is not clear, though the Paramount film and TV studios would likely fit in nicely with Sony’s own studios. It would raise questions about both Paramount+, given Sony’s decision to avoid entering the streaming wars, as well as Paramount’s linear TV assets, including CBS. There are federal regulations restricting foreign ownership of U.S. broadcast stations, and as a Japanese company Sony could face scrutiny under such rules.

Meanwhile, the talks between Skydance and Paramount continue, with a source saying that the Ellison-led company has articulated a plan to deliver operating efficiencies, and to leverage the executive teams at both Skydance and Redbird (including former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell), to help turn Paramount around. Paramount would remain a public company under the Skydance deal.

Some investors have complained about the decision not to pursue the Apollo deal, given the all-cash offer.

Shares in Paramount rose in after-hours trading, after reports about the talks were published.

Development Alert: Netflix Will Stop Reporting Subscriber Numbers By 2025

Netflix will no longer report subscriber numbers — which has been a key metric for streaming services for years — beginning with the first quarter of 2025.

The company made the announcement in releasing its first-quarter 2024 earnings Thursday. Netflix handily topped expectations for subscribers net adds, gaining 9.33 million in the period, to reach nearly 270 million globally. It also beat Wall Street expectations on the top and bottom lines.

Despite the Q1 earnings beat, Netflix shares dropped more than 3% in after-hours trading Thursday, possibly as investors reacted negatively to the news that the streamer will stop reporting quarterly sub totals.

In its Q1 letter to shareholders, Netflix said that engagement — time spent with the service — is its “best proxy for customer satisfaction.” As such, it will no longer report quarterly membership numbers or average revenue per member (which it dubs “ARM”), as of Q1 2025. Netflix said it will announce “major subscriber milestones as we cross them” but will cease disclosing quarterly subscriber numbers.

Netflix continues to see solid subscriber gains in markets around the world; for example, it netted 2.53 million new customers in the U.S. and Canada in Q1. But eventually those sub numbers will start to plateau, and the company wants to reorient investors toward time-spent-viewing metrics where it has more potential upside in the years ahead.

Co-CEO Greg Peters said on the earnings call that Netflix’s number of subscribers has been a decreasingly relevant measure for the health of the company’s business. He cited, as an example, Netflix’s paid-sharing initiative, which gives primary account holders the option to add an “extra member” for an incremental monthly fee (and those “extra members” are not counted as separate subscribers). Meanwhile, with Netflix’s advertising plan, higher engagement is tied to higher revenue per member, as opposed to the fixed per-sub revenue on the plans with no ads.

“As we’ve noted in previous letters, we’re focused on revenue and operating margin as our primary financial metrics — and engagement (i.e. time spent) as our best proxy for customer satisfaction. In our early days, when we had little revenue or profit, membership growth was a strong indicator of our future potential,” Netflix said in the letter. “But now we’re generating very substantial profit and free cash flow (FCF). We are also developing new revenue streams like advertising and our extra member feature, so memberships are just one component of our growth.”

The company continued, “In addition, as we’ve evolved our pricing and plans from a single to multiple tiers with different price points depending on the country, each incremental paid membership has a very different business impact. It’s why we stopped providing quarterly paid membership guidance in 2023 and, starting next year with our Q1’25 earnings, we will stop reporting quarterly membership numbers and ARM.”

According to Netflix, it will continue to provide a breakout of revenue by region each quarter and the foreign-exchange impact “to complement our financials.” Going forward, the company will add guidance for annual revenue in addition to what it already provides: annual operating margin and free cash flow forecast and forecasts for quarterly revenue, operating income, net income and earnings per share.

Last December, the company released its first “Netflix Engagement Report,” inclusive of more than 18,000 titles and nearly 100 billion hours viewed between January-June 2023, representing 99% of all viewing during that period. In the report, Netflix divulged streaming performance metrics for licensed content. It plans to release the data twice per year — mainly to highlight the massive engagement across a wide range of content on its service.

“Success in streaming starts with engagement,” Netflix said in the shareholder letter in discussing the decision to stop reporting subscriber numbers. “When people watch more, they stick around longer (retention), recommend Netflix more often (acquisition) and place a higher value on our service. It’s why we’ve been providing progressively more information on engagement, starting with our Top 10 weekly and most popular lists and more recently our biannual report into viewing on Netflix (which covers ~99% of all video watch time on our service). This is more information than any of our competitors provide, and we expect to provide even more over time.”

CNN Is Planning To Move Away From Linear TV And Put Its News Content On Streaming Platforms

CNN’s new boss said the network faces an “existential crisis” because of cord cutting — and that he plans to eventually pivot away from cable TV toward a subscription-based streaming model similar to YouTube and TikTok.

“There are plenty of things we have to fix at CNN,” Mark Thompson, the former New York Times and BBC executive who was hired by Warner Bros. Discovery to dig CNN out of its third-place slump in the cable news race, told Financial Times.

He also hinted that more cost-cutting measures are in the offing, saying that there are “likely to be significant opportunities for de-duplication of parallel organizations and structures and activities.”

“I think we can and should be looking for ways of doing what we do both better, but also doing it less expensively,” Thompson said.

The ex-BBC director general has a tall task — turning around CNN that has struggled to keep up in the ratings with Fox News and MSNBC.

Thompson said he was looking at distributing CNN content through smartphones and other devices in a shift to mostly digital — mimicking his tenure as head of The New York Times Company.

“The idea that there might be digital subscription is a serious possibility,” Thompson told FT when asked about his plans for CNN.

While no final decision has been made, “I think it’s quite likely that we’ll end up there,” he said.

Thompson did not specify what form the digital subscription service would take, though he ruled out it would be similar to CNN’s ill-fated CNN+ — the streaming news venture that was shut down less than a month after it launched.

CNN+, the brainchild of former CNN boss Jeff Zucker, was axed as part of a cost-cutting measure just weeks after the news channel was inherited by the newly merged entity Warner Bros. Discovery.

Thompson was hired last year to replace Zucker’s successor, Chris Licht, whose disastrous 13-month tenure as head of the network ended after an unflattering magazine profile portrayed him as thin-skinned and envious of his predecessor’s popularity.

Warner Bros. Discovery has $44 billion in debt that it needs to reduce — leading to speculation that CEO David Zaslav may look to sell CNN.

Thompson pushed back on the idea that he was abandoning TV altogether.

“Do we want to get more competitive in cable TV and by strengthening our schedules? Yes, we do,” he said.

“But the rate at which people have been and probably will continue to cut the cord and not look at cable TV at all is a far, far greater strategic threat than the finer points of competition between individual cable channels.”

During his eight-year tenure as president and CEO of the New York Times Company, Thompson expedited the publication’s transition to a digital, subscription-based news outlet that has been the main driver of revenue since.

Thompson, who left The New York Times Company in 2020, is credited with helping the Times attract millions of digital subscribers worldwide.

The lone bright spot for CNN is its website, which draws some 160 million unique users each month.

Thompson said that one possibility is to have CNN users register so that the network can then sell information about its audience to advertisers.

“We need an entirely new digital strategy,” he told FT.

“I don’t think any broadcaster has cracked the code on how to be yourself in terms of digital products.”

Credits: New York Post

Disney Might Be Looking To Bundle Disney+ With Other Streaming Services, Could This Be The Possible Outcome For European And African Markets?

After Netflix debuted, numerous companies wanted the piece of the pie with Disney+ despite being a late entrant managed to be one of the leading streaming services globally in its short span. It prompted the launch of Max, Paramount+ and Peacock. 

With the high levels of streamers, the whole thing just crashed as consumers weren't willingly to pay for these many streaming services. All of which were eyeing worldwide domination, come in short as streaming had proved to be most challenging in these markets.

It had led NBCUniversal and Paramount Global to rollout a joint streaming service through the Sky Group division in parts of Europe. As existing rivals such as Disney+, Netflix and Prime Video had been gaining the upper hand.

Although, Disney+ is the most successful late entry to the streaming market. Unlike the latter to have further consolidated their offering the streamer is not accessible in parts of Europe and Africa leading consumers to miss out on various content. 

Disney Channel to date has been treated as a promotional channel to the streamer. After launching at least one film from the streaming service on a monthly basis alongside animated series such as Monsters At Work and Chip'n'Dale: Park Life.

This has been the one of the few options consumers had in browsing some of the content not available in the region. 

In an interview with CNBC, Disney's CEO Bob Iger was asked whether they do see bundling as a option for the streamer. He assured consumers of that possibility although no definitive timeframe was given or how it would impact the existing Disney+ standalone service.

In 2021, WWE signed a content deal with NBCUniversal's Peacock which would see the WWE Network fold under the streamer. Now the question here is if Disney were looking to follow in a similar pursuit could it lead to the closure of the streamer. 

Disney had been reviewing their international business and limiting Disney+ local presence. Considering some countries have strict bylaws on local content a lucrative deal matching that of WWE Network would be one way to get away from those regulations. 

PlayKids TV FAST Channel Launches In U.K. & Ireland

PlayKids TV is distributed in the U.K. and Ireland through Netgem’s ISP partners such as TalkTalk TV, Community Fibre TV and BetterTV. The FAST channel offers families educational entertainment with curated videos organized around key moments of the day, including morning routines, afternoon play and bedtime.

The scheduling of the channel allows kids to ease into the day with cozy stories and original songs such as “Let’s Get Ready,” which helps youngsters get ready in the morning. In the afternoon, children will find content on PlayKids TV based on themes such as arts and crafts, playing together nicely and songs about animals. In the evening, little ones can enjoy winding down stories and bedtime songs.

Talking Tom & Friends, Earth to Luna and The Hive are among the offerings.

Ben Pugh, head of partnerships at Sandbox Group, said: “With over ten years in the children’s media business, we know how to engage kids best throughout the day and that entertainment alone isn’t enough. So, our focus is on providing fun educational videos for families that children love and parents can feel good about. We’re excited to be able to offer quality, curated learning content for free for families via Netgem TV’s FAST service.”

Mathieu Ghariani, director of commercial operations at Netgem, said: “We are thrilled to include PlayKids TV among our 130 FAST channels, which are distributed as part of our service in the U.K. through TalkTalk TV and numerous other operators. Netgem’s recent announcement regarding the expansion of our FAST service into new territories, dubbed FAST Lane, underscores our commitment to providing Telecom Operators with an exceptional experience while maximizing revenue for both operators and content owners. The addition of exclusive and reputable children’s content such as Playkids TV to our service exemplifies our dedication to a robust content strategy aimed at delivering a ‘Telco grade’ experience to our valued clients.”