Aaron LaBerge, who helped oversee Disney‘s expansion into streaming during two stints totaling 20 years, is exiting the company. On July 1, the exec will become Chief Technology Officer at Penn Entertainment, holding the same title he did at the end of his Disney run. Penn is largely known for its gaming operation. In 2023, the company teamed with ESPN and rebranded its sports book as ESPN Bet. As Disney’s CTO, LaBerge oversaw a number of product rollouts, including the integration of Hulu into Disney+ and ...

Paramount Global shares jumped 13% Friday as investors cheered news that Sony Pictures Entertainment is talking with Apollo Global Management about joining Apollo’s bid for Paramount. The beleaguered stock ended the day at $12.44 after registering more than twice its normal trading volume. Shares reached their highest point since February, offering fresh evidence that many investors appear to be gravitating toward the Apollo/Sony scenario, largely for structural reasons. Importantly, even if the two entiti ...

Remember those rumors, oh, eight years ago about how Sony was a target for acquisition? No more. Still, don’t say merger yet. Deadline has confirmed that Sony Picture Entertainment CEO Tony Vinciquerra has been in talks with Apollo Global Management about making a go for Paramount. This despite Skydance/Redbird Capital being in exclusive talks with Paramount Global‘s majority shareholder National Amusements to take control of the studio. The Apollo and Sony deal is reportedly an all-cash one for outstand ...

Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters says internal viewership data from before and after the implementation of paid password sharing shows the new policy has not turned off viewers, as some had initially predicted it would. The company on Thursday reported a year-over-year jump of 9.3 million subscribers in the first quarter, in part due to the password policy that has put a price on sharing login credentials. The move has been a 180 from the free sharing ethos in the company’s start-up phase that eventually became ...

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos saw a 2023 compensation package valued at $49.8 million, down a hair from the year before but with one big change — he took more in option awards than in cash after the streamer changed its pay policies. Sarandos had a $3 million base salary last year, up from $20 million the year before. Option awards worth $28.3 million compared with $28.5 million. In 2023, he was also awarded a non-equity incentive plan compensation — like a cash bonus — for $16.5 million, according to the co ...

Netflix said today it will stop reporting quarterly starting in 2025, a huge change for the giant streamer whose stock tends to get buffeted up or down (mostly up lately) by those numbers. In a letter to shareholders along with first-quarter earnings, the company said it’s now focused on other metrics and that memberships “are just one component of our growth.” “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 spe ...

Netflix added 9.3 million subscribers in the quarter ended March 31, reaching 269.6 million worldwide, and outperformed expectations in other key areas in its latest strong financial report. Revenue and earnings per share both handily exceeded Wall Street forecasts at $9.37 billion and $5.28, respectively. The top line was up 15% from the same quarter in 2023, while EPS came in at nearly double the year-ago period’s $2.88. In its quarterly letter to shareholders, Netflix said it planned to stop reporting s ...

Wonya Lucas, a veteran TV exec who held the post of CEO for Hallmark Media and TV One, has been appointed to Comcast‘s board of directors. Lucas will serve as an independent director, the media company said in an SEC filing. She has not yet been appointed to serve as a member of any board committee. The Walt Disney Co.’s recent proxy battle and Paramount Global’s pending efforts to swing a complicated M&A transaction have put the issue of board composition under a brighter spotlight than usual. For Comcast ...

The Walt Disney Co. has released the official vote totals from its April 3 annual shareholder meeting, the event that featured the culmination of a proxy fight waged by Nelson Peltz. The effort by Peltz’s Trian Fund Management to secure two seats on the company’s board of directors was vanquished by Chairman and CEO Bob Iger after campaigns costing each side tens of millions of dollars. Disney’s full slate of 12 board nominees ultimately got approved by shareholders and the meeting featured little of the d ...

Activist investor Nelson Peltz, reflecting on his losing proxy battle with Disney, says he will “watch and wait” to see if the company will keep its promises. If not, he told CNBC in an interview Thursday, “you’ll see me again.” Asked by host Jim Cramer if reports were true that his firm, Trian Fund Management, had made $300 million on its Disney investment, Peltz called that figure “dramatically wrong.” When Cramer wondered if the gains were actually in the $1 billion range, Peltz replied, “that sounds mo ...