It was a busy week in media, but the Telecompaper Global Media stock index nonetheless closed week 43 nearly unchanged (+0.1%). There was one big winner (NENT Group) and one big loser (Twitter). ProSieben attracted a new large shareholder, Walt Disney closed a major distribution agreement with Verizon and the NENT group teamed up with Telenor. Year-to-date, Snap still leads our index with a more than 150 percent gain. ComScore did well last week (+7.7%), but is still 86 percent below its closing price at the end of 2018.
Broadcast
ProSieben (+5.7% for the week) had a new major shareholder last week, the Czech Media Invest group, that built up a 4 percent stake. In Spain, Atresmedia (+4.3%) published its Q3 results and press reports stated that its production joint venture with Telefonica would launch in 2020. The unlisted Banijay acquired prodco Endemol Shine for USD 2.2 billion, turning it into the world's largest production company in which Vivendi (-2.1%) will hold a 33 percent stake. Moody's warned for lower TV advertising revenues in the broadcast segment. In the broader advertising segment, Interpublic (+5.8%) and WPP (+6.4%) put their Q3 reports out, and so did Comcast (+0.2%).
Internet
In the internet segment, Snap's (3.3%) Q3 results were generally welcomed positively, but not Twitter's (-22%). Naspers (-9.0%) made a hostile bid for delivery company Just Eat, starting a bidding war with Takeaway.com. Facebook's (+1.1%) Libra project met with resistance at the US House Financial Services Committee, upon which the company stated that it wouldn't launch its cryptocurreny without consent from the relevant US regulatory bodies. Further, Facebook launched its Facebook News feature to a limited set of users in the US, with content from a long list of media properties.
OTT/video
In the OTT segment, Netflix (+0.6%) once again raised USD 2 billion on the bond market. The NENT Group (+26%) decided to merge its Viasat service with Telenor's Canal Digital (satellite pay TV) into a 50/50 joint venture. NENT also reported on its Q3 results. Sony (-1.2%), according to reports, launched a review of its PlayStation Vue business, which could lead to the sale of the OTT service.
Discovery extended its list of international partnerships with a deal with Polish telco Cyfrowy Polsat. The companies will create a Polish OTT service. Discovery further launched the Dplay service to the UK and Ireland.
Walt Disney struck a distribution deal with Verizon for its upcoming Disney+ service, effectively giving the service free for 12 months to some Verizon's subscribers (those with an unlimited mobile data plan, or new subscribers for its FTTH and 5G offerings). With this, Disney mirrors Apple, Comcast and AT&T, who will all give their upcoming OTT services for free to a section of their subscriber bases.
Spotify also ran a promotion, giving a Google Home Mini speaker to its premium subscribers in the US.
