- Viacom is in talks to buy NBCUniversal’s Awesomeness to bolster its digital catalog (The Hollywood Reporter)
- A team of UK scientists think they have found a formula for box-office success (The Guardian)
- Cord-cutting set to grow by 33 million in the US this year (Variety)
- Facebook’s user growth has hit a wall, with its smallest increase since 2011 (Recode)
- Turns out partnering with SVODs isn’t stopping pay-TV providers from losing customers (Recode)
- Netflix is launching its first European production hub—in Madrid (Variety)
- Hulu is closing its California office and moving more than half of its staff to Seattle (TechCrunch)
- Why the iPhone may never take off in markets like India (The Verge)
- Google parentco Alphabet is spending upwards of US$1 billion a year on its “Other Bets” category (The Verge)
- Facebook is heading to space with a new satellite for better internet access (WIRED)
- Long live the basement-dwelling nerd: Dungeons & Dragons is having its best year ever (CNBC)
- The voice tricks that keep YouTube audiences engaged (The Atlantic)
- How LEGO has capitalized on voice tech to drive sales and engagement (Digiday)
- Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is looking to expand into advertising and more media sectors (Variety)
- Comic books just don’t sell like they used to, so publishers are turning to streamers to keep the art form alive (New York Times)
- Disney is preparing to debut its first VR short in August (TechCrunch)
- After a decade of kids lying about their age on social media, Facebook and Instagram are being forced to get involved (CNET)
- How Reddit is reviving the old-school chat room for the youngest generation (WIRED)
- Disney is bringing back Clone Wars for a 12-episode series on its upcoming streamer (The Verge)
- WhatsApp is curbing fake news by limiting users’ ability to forward messages (Recode)
- 68% of film reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes are men—which is drastically hurting female-led features (Variety)
- How Fancy Nancy’s creator took the character from the page to the small screen (Mercury News)
- Comcast has dropped out of the bidding war for Fox (Variety)
- Can you hear that? Netflix is teaming up with SiriusXM to launch a comedy radio channel (CNET)
- …And in a move to boost its numbers, the streaming giant has redesigned its TV interface (TechCrunch)
- How to empower kids while rates of anxiety are rising (NPR)
- With controversy and dissatisfied fans brewing, could the Star Wars franchise be in trouble? (Seeking Alpha)
- Walmart reportedly plans to launch a low-cost streaming service to compete with Netflix and Amazon (CNBC)
- Google has been fined a record US$5 billion by the EU for antitrust violations (The Verge)
- Schools now have access to facial recognition, but is that going to do more harm than good? (WIRED)
- Shrinking TV seasons, mass consolidation and more—all of the reasons why Hollywood is stressed right now (The Hollywood Reporter)
- Netflix falls short of Q2 subscriber growth estimate by more than 500,000 in the US (Variety)
- Comcast reportedly won’t try to top Disney’s bid for Fox after driving it up to US$71.3 billion (CNET)
- Amazon chief Jeff Bezos is now the richest man in modern history (Bloomberg)
- Daniel Tiger creator on what makes great children’s TV (The Atlantic)
- Sony’s Hotel Transylvania 3 tops global box office with US$100-million opening (Variety)
- The FCC is giving stakeholders three months to weigh in on its proposed changes to children’s television (Broadcasting Cable)
- Happy Prime Day! Amazon has cornered nearly 50% of the US e-commerce market (eMarketer)
- …And the company is predicted to bring in US$3.4 billion in sales during today’s event (CNN Money)
- Netflix, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel came out on top in the children’s categories of the 2018 Emmy nominations (Vulture)
- The US Justice Department is appealing the AT&T-Time Warner merger one month after the deal close (Bloomberg)
- Build-A-Bear forced to shut down its Pay Your Age Day promo, citing crowd control issues (Toronto Star)
- How toymaker Baby Einstein is targeting millennial parents with snackable videos (Ad Age)
- Surprisingly, Minecraft is actually convincing kids to get offline and hit the books (The Guardian)
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