DirecTV, Disney strike new carriage agreement

Signals return in time for Emmys and MNF After thirteen days, The Walt Disney Co. and DirecTV settled their beef with a new tentative carriage agreement, restoring Disney’s sixteen channels to the service, including ABC and ESPN. The settlement also returns those channels – including all ABC affiliates nationwide, to DirecTV Stream and U-Verse. The signals returned Saturday morning just […]

Cable TV back? Disney, Warner Bros. announce bundling plan

Includes Hulu and but no word on if new sports streaming service is included In a move for their streaming services to become more economical for subscribers, The Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. Discovery announced Wednesday a plan to bundle their streaming services. Both plan to launch the bundle this summer with ad-supported and commercial-free tiers being offered. Notably […]

The Media Notepad: Cubs-Reds Field Of Dreams game a base hit for Fox

  Also: NBC 5 makes a new hire while a Baltimore TV reporter gets fired. The second edition of The Field Of Dreams game didn’t have the theatrics of last year’s contest, but still drew a healthy amount of eyeballs. The game featured two teams who were already out of playoff contention this season: The 44-64 Chicago Cubs and the […]

“Dancing With The Stars” heads to Disney Plus

Move of longtime ABC competition show is due to the return of Monday Night Football  In an announcement that raised eyebrows, Disney announced Friday the move of Dancing With The Stars from broadcast network ABC to its streaming service, Disney Plus.  The move means the long-running series – airing on ABC since 2005, will now have season 31 and 32 […]

A Marvel superhero move – former Netflix dramas shift to Disney +

Former Netlix shows heads to Disney Plus Jessica Jones and Luke Cage have a new home – just not in the place a lot of people expected.  As reported here last week, Marvel’s six series on Netflix – Daredevil, The Defenders, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Punisher were leaving the service on February 28 as rights to […]

Rewinding 2019 in media

  Disney Plus made the biggest splash of the year 2019 saw the end of several institutions, big media battles, and disappointing sports teams. Let’s start with the huge changes in big media, as Disney closed on its purchase of the 20th Century Fox film studio and Viacom reuniting with CBS again with a new name (ViacomCBS) as the race […]

The Media Notepad: Marquee’s future getting on Dish looks very bleak

Also: Big 3 add overnight news repeats; Fox renews three daytime shows; Disney + signs ten million users; two prime-shows pink-slipped We have an update on the latest with the Cubs’ new Marquee Network and Dish…and I’m guessing those negotiations aren’t going well. In an interview with the Tribune’s Eric Zorn (a rather pointed opinion piece urging Dish not to […]

Introducing Disney +

The Walt Disney Company unveils its weapon to win the streaming wars (Editor’s Note: This post was updated on November 12, the day Disney + was released.) At Disney Investor Day at Walt Disney Studios in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank came the new everyone was waiting for. The long-awaited Disney answer to Netflix was finally unveiled Thursday afternoon: […]