NBC Gets Serious About Digital + Poker Central Goes all in on Original Content + Facebook Pushes Deeper in Original Content + More....

Daily news updates on the video business and must-know headlines. [View this email in your browser]( Daily Headlines: [NBC News Gets Serious About Digital, Launches New Video Unit Left Field]( NBC News has launched a new digital video unit it has titled Left Field. However, this latest move by the broadcast news group isn’t anything out of left field. In fact, the move...[Read More]( [Poker Central Goes All In On Original Content, Partners with Believe Entertainment For New Series]( Poker Central, the self-titled ultimate destination for poker fans, is betting its money on original content. Believe Entertainment Group (BE) has partnered with company to create and produce a...[Read More]( [Andrew Saunders Joins Tastemade as Its New Head of Global Brand Strategy]( Former VP of content innovation and creative at NBCUniversal, Andrew Saunders, has found a new home as head of global brand strategy at Tastemade....[Read More]( Brief News - Highlights + Must-Know Snippets This section of headlines is for newsletter subscribers only - brief, to the point, and not needing the deeper industry analysis you'll find on VideoInk's homepage. iQIYI Picks Up Stephen Chow's 'Mermaid' Shanghai New Culture Media has acquired TV adaptation rights to fantasy film “The Mermaid” and licensed them for a record fee to online platform iQIYI. The company pre-sold the rights to the series to iQIYI for $60.8 million. Released on Feb. 8, 2016 and directed by Stephen Chow, “The Mermaid” is China's highest-grossing film of all time. Verizon Closes Yahoo Deal for $4.5 Billion, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Resigns Verizon has completed its acquisition of the operating business of Yahoo for $4.48 billion. The new deal coupled with AOL creates a reach of more than 1 billion consumers. The merged AOL-Yahoo organization will be called Oath, comprising more than 50 media and technology brands. As is expected, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer will be leaving the company. Facebook Continues its Push Into Original Content with with Reality Series 'Last State Standing' Facebook has given a greenlight to “Last State Standing,” a reality competition series from “American Ninja Warrior” producer A. Smith and Co. The show will feature one contestant from each of the 50 states who will compete in a series of games for a $500,000 grand prize. 'Game of Thrones' Live After Show is Heading to Twitter Twitter has closed a deal with Bill Simmons’ The Ringer digital-media venture to live-stream a “Game of Thrones” after-show on the social-media service. The aftershow, which is being called “Talk the Thrones,” will be available on Twitter at @ringer and on the publication’s Periscope feed. YouTube and ASCAP Ink Multi-Year Data-Sharing Deal ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and YouTube have signed a multi-year agreement for U.S. public performance rights and data collaboration. Effective immediately, the goal of the agreement is “to ensure that ASCAP members get paid more fairly and accurately for the use of their music on YouTube,” according to a press release. Nokia and Technicolor Team Up in Virtual Reality Nokia and Technicolor have announced a virtual reality partnership centered on the Nokia OZO+ virtual reality camera and content creation tools, which reside at the Technicolor Experience Center (TEC) in Culver City, CA. The aim of the two companies is to help advance the content creation side of the emerging VR business. NPR Launches App on Apple TV [NPR]( [has announced]( the launch of its NPR One app on the latest-generation Apple TV. The new app gives users a new way to access news, podcasts and live streams from the public broadcast network. Since launching the app three years ago, NPR has added podcasts and live streams from local NPR stations, and brought the app to additional platforms, including Chromecast, Fire TV, Amazon Echo and Google Home. Send Us Your Digital Release Dates! Premiering your series on go90? Facebook? YouTube? All of the above? We're tracking all digital releases and will be including this on our site and in our newsletter. Submitting takes 5 seconds -- [do so here](. Premieres [Oh, Hello on Broadway]( Logline: Two delusional geriatrics reveal curious pasts, share a love of tuna and welcome a surprise guest in this filming of the popular comedy show. Production Co:[Radical Media]( Network: [Netflix]( US Premiere: June 13, 2017 [CounterPunch]( Logline: Discipline, sweat, heartbreak and triumph are all on full display in director Jay Bulger’s look into the world of boxing Network: [Netflix]( Premiere: June 16, 2017 [Loch Ness]( Logline: In a community nourished and sustained by myth and bordered by untamed nature, the search for a serial killer becomes a matter of life and death for local detective Annie Redford. Within the tightly knit town, a sense of horror begins to dawn as the villagers realize that there is more than one kind of monster in their midst. Network: [Acorn TV]( Premiere: June 19, 2017 [Snatchers]( Logline: a horror comedy about high schooler Sara, who wakes up pregnant…with an alien baby. Now she’ll have to team up with her ex-best friend Hayley to fight the extraterrestrial threat and save the world. Production Co: [Stage13]( Network: [go90]( Premiere: June 22, 2017 Data Bank Looking regionally, the emerging Asia/Pacific (20.8%) and Middle East and North Africa (17.4%) are forecast to record the highest growth in end-user spending on consumer video media services in 2017. -[Gartner Study]( Analysis suggests that pay-TV services will be the largest spending segment and is on pace to represent 90% of the total market, or $282 billion, at the end of 2017. [-]( Study]( Transactional VOD revenues — derived mainly from the likes of Amazon, Google or Apple — are forecast to total $13.6 billion, up 15% compared with 2016. [-]( Study]( Gartner expects that the availability of premium-priced 4K content will increase end-user spending on TVOD content in mature regions, from $160 million in 2017 to $400 million by 2020. It adds that in emerging regions, increased competition in the TVOD marketplace from unmanaged providers and increased threats of piracy will put negative pressure on TVOD prices. Gartner projects that end-user spending on TVOD services in emerging markets will decrease gradually each year, starting in 2017, by about $60 million to almost $445 million by 2020. [-]( Study]( [Facebook]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Twitter]( [Google Plus]( [Google Plus]( [Instagram]( [Instagram]( [LinkedIn]( [LinkedIn]( Copyright © 2016 VideoInk Inc, All rights reserved. You're on this list because you've either subscribed via VideoInk or because you're on our VI-P list. 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