Cult comedy “Arrested Development” has been revived by Netflix and fans of the show are waiting with bated breath for the first new season in seven years. As the streaming video giant turned production company gets ready to release 15 brand new episodes that will make up the show’s fourth season, Netflix has released the first trailer for the revived series. BGR sister site Deadline published the trailer on Sunday on its YouTube channel, and the full video can be watched below. More →
Netflix spent around $100 million to produce the first two seasons of House of Cards, the original drama that stars Kevin Spacey as a comically oily United States congressman. But while this may sound like a big investment for the hugely popular content distributor, analysis from The Atlantic Wire shows that it may just be a drop in the bucket in the bigger scheme of things. According to The Atlantic Wire’s calculations, Netflix has already earned its $100 million back “by adding more than 2 million U.S. subscribers this quarter and another 1 million elsewhere in the world,” thus giving Netflix a strong incentive to produce more original content going forward. Netflix posted impressive earnings on Monday and announced that its subscriber base in the United States had risen to over 29 million, thus giving it more American subscribers than HBO.
Sorry, Pandora — you won’t be able to escape Apple’s (AAPL) iRadio after all. CNET reports that Apple is close to signing a deal with two major record labels that would pay the labels half the per-song royalties that they receive from Pandora but would also add sweeteners to the deal that would give the labels added revenues. Among other things, CNET says that Apple will provide “a quick way for consumers to buy a song they hear, potentially boosting download sales from iTunes” and also give the record labels ”a revenue share of new audio ads Apple is planning to add to the free service.” Given that the service will be centered around iTunes and available on all iOS devices, it seems that the labels are willing to take less in per-song royalties in exchange for potentially much wider exposure than what they get from Pandora.
Various reports over the past few years have suggested that Facebook (FB) is developing its own smartphone, but nothing has materialized yet. Instead, Facebook continues to expand its mobile products across various mobile platforms, and we expect the company to further its efforts today. According to earlier reports, Facebook will unveil new “Facebook Home” Android software that features deep integration with several Facebook services. The software is expected to be available across a number of Android smartphones, and rumors suggest it will be showcased on the upcoming “HTC First” smartphone rather than an own-brand “Facebook Phone.” All will be revealed momentarily though, and our live coverage of Facebook’s press conference follows below.
Netflix (NFLX) just got an intriguing competitor this week now that Verizon (VZ) has brought its Redbox Instant video streaming service out of beta and has made it available to the general public. Redbox Instant, which is available to everyone regardless of whether they’re a Verizon customer, is initially offering a range of 7,500 “streaming and transactional movie titles” for $8 a month. The service works on Macs, PCs and the Xbox 360, which entered into a deal with Verizon earlier this year to become “the exclusive gaming and entertainment console launch partner for Redbox Instant.” Verizon is currently offering a free one-month trial for the new streaming service.
Apple (AAPL) didn’t get to be the world’s most valuable tech company by paying other companies premiums for their products and services. The New York Post reports that Apple has once again taken its hard-bargaining approach to the recording industry, as unnamed sources claim that the company wants to pay record labels just $0.06 per every 100 songs users stream over its yet-to-be-announced music-streaming service. To get some perspective on just how cheap this is, consider that Pandora pays double this rate at $0.12 per 100 songs and that Spotify pays around $0.35 per 100 songs. Of course, neither of those companies has the enormous clout of Apple, which the Post’s sources acknowledge “could tap a whole new revenue stream for them” with its own music service. All the same, it would be surprising if the record companies in the end agreed to accept half of what the current lowest payer on the market is offering.
Nokia (NOK) on Tuesday began ramping up its efforts to compete with both Spotify and iTunes by announcing a new Nokia Music+ service that Lumia smartphone owners can subscribe to for $3.99 per month. Music+, which is an enhanced version of the free Nokia Music service the company launched last year, removes the free service’s limits on how many specialized mixes users can download and effectively lets Lumia users have as much offline music on their smartphones as they want. The new subscription service also significantly boosts the sound quality of music and Nokia claims that it “allows you to download music at six times the existing quality” and lets you “set rules to only download high quality when you’re on WiFi.” Nokia says the new service will roll out over the next few weeks.
There’s no doubt that the Xbox 360 is one of the best things Microsoft (MSFT) has going for itself right now — not only has the popular console sold 76 million units, but it’s rapidly moved beyond the gaming sphere to become a well-rounded entertainment center thanks to popular content streaming apps for Netflix (NFLX) and Hulu. Per Engadget, Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Business senior vice president Yusuf Mehdi told the D: Dive Into Media conference on Tuesday that Microsoft really doesn’t see the Xbox as a mere gaming console anymore and now views it as a comprehensive “entertainment console.” And what’s more, Mehdi said that this gives Microsoft a big long-run advantage over Sony’s (SNE) rival PlayStation console since it “isn’t as good of an entertainment console” as the Xbox. It will be very interesting to see how much Microsoft plays up the “entertainment console” aspect when it launches its Xbox 720 later this year and if the company plans to add any features to the device to improve its appeal as a living room hub.
Yes, it seems that Steve Jobs knew what he was doing when he decided to launch the iTunes store all those years ago. Apple (AAPL) announced on Wednesday that it has now sold more than 25 billion songs over iTunes, an astonishing figure for the online store that has changed how people buy and listen to music. For the record, the 25 billionth song downloaded was something called “Monkey Drums” (Goksel Vancin Remix) by Chase Buch, which was downloaded by a German man named Phillip Lüpke. To celebrate his remarkable achievement of downloading a song, Apple is giving Lüpke an iTunes gift card worth €10,000.
Research In Motion (RIMM) is largely responsible for shaping the modern smartphone, but the company rested on its laurels and sat still while the rest of the industry underwent a major shift. The result is the debacle RIM faces today. The future of the company now rests squarely on RIM’s next-generation BlackBerry 10 platform, and the world will now get its first official glimpse at the two new smartphones that mark the start of RIM’s comeback attempt. We already know plenty about the BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry X10 smartphones thanks to a series of leaks, but today we’ll hear all the key details surrounding these two phones straight from the horse’s mouth. We should also find out preliminary launch details during today’s event, as well as with some details about RIM’s sales and marketing strategies. Our live coverage of RIM’s BlackBerry 10 unveiling follows below.
Christmas is a time of peace on Earth, good will toward men, and Kim Dotcom. New Zealand’s 3 News reports that the Megaupload founder will make his stage debut in Auckland this week when he plays the role of “Santa Dotcom” in a satirical Christmas play called “MegaChristmas.” Dotcom, who will be joined by New Zealand Labour Party politician Jacinda Ardern and soap opera stars Kimberley Crossman and Mick Innes, apparently takes some shots at his many adversaries in the play, including New Zealand prime minister John Key. More →
Score this as an enormous win for Netflix (NFLX). The content distribution company on Tuesday announced that it had signed a multiyear deal with Disney (DIS) to deliver major Disney theatrical releases to users’ living rooms in the first pay TV window. In a joint press release, the companies said that starting with Disney’s “2016 theatrically released feature films, new Disney, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Studios and Disneynature titles will be made available for Netflix members to watch instantly in the pay TV window on multiple platforms, including television, tablets, computers and mobile phones.”
UPDATE: According to The Next Web, the deal gives Netflix “the ability to show those titles as soon as they’re available for anyone to watch in the first pay window, not just those with video on demand.” The companies’ full press release is posted below.
