Tag archive: Viacom

Announced earlier today, the joint venture of Warner Bros. and CBS Corporation has entered into a five year licensing agreement with media streaming company Hulu. The CW network will be featuring episodes of new shows like Sarah Michelle Gellar's Ringer as well as legacy CW shows like Supernatural. While Netflix announced a similar partnership earlier this year, Hulu gets immediate streaming access to new episodes while Netflix has to… Read More

Media giant Viacom has filed suit against cable operator Cablevision over the company's application that enables its cable subscribers to stream Viacom television programming to their iPads. Cablevision launched its Optimum iPad app back in April, and enables Cablevision subscribers to receive Viacom channels like NTV, Comedy Central, VHI, and Nickelodeon to tap into the same content via their iPads. Viacom contends Cablevision's… Read More

Cable operator Time Warner and Viacom Inc. have agreed to put their lawsuits against each other on hold while they try to reach an agreement over what programming Time Warner can offer to its cable subscribers via an iPad application, according to a court filing. The companies originally sued each other back in April over Time Warner offering its cable subscribers access to Viacom programming on an iPad app. Viacom—along with Discovery and News… Read More

Media behemoths Time Warner Cable and Viacom Inc have filed lawsuits against each other over an iPad app that allows users to stream live TV, the Associated Press reports. The companies have asked a New York judge to decide whether Time Warner has the right to distribute channels on its cable network via the Apple tablet, rather than through a traditional TV set, without negotiating additional deals with the cable networks. Time Warner was… Read More

Hulu and Viacom announced this week a broad partnership that has returned “The Daily Show” and “Colbert Report” to Hulu.com. In addition, many other shows from Viacom-owned networks, including Comedy Central, MTV, BET, VH1, Spike TV, and TV Land, will be available to Hulu Plus pay subscribers. Classy programs like “Jersey Shore,” “Teen Mom 2″ and the ever-hilarious “Tosh.0″ can be… Read More

Facebook is set to end its year on a high note. A recent study from securities firm Nyppex found that the social networking site’s value jumped 56 percent in the last six months or so, and is now worth more than giants like eBay and Yahoo. Social startups in general have been experiencing success this year, and the likes of Twitter and Groupon (which we found out was worth $2 billion) have all seen climbing numbers. Still, none of these sites… Read More

Media conglomerate Viacom—owner of MTV and many other things—has sold off video game maker Harmonix to investment firm Columbus Nova for an undisclosed amount. Viacom has been looking to divest itself of the game maker for some time, noting that Viacom just doesn't have expertise in the video game business. And Harmonix's sale to Columbus Nova reflects that: rights for the Rock Band and Dance Central franchises will be… Read More

Google continues to face difficulties in getting old media to play along with its Internet TV effort. Major broadcast networks Fox, CBS, ABC, and NBC have all blocked their Web content from being streamed through a Google TV device. And now, big time media conglomerate Viacom has also joined the embargo, stopping the flow of its Web-hosted content to Google TV devices. Viacom's move has potential to impact a broad swath of Google TV users… Read More

Media titan Viacom is getting out of the video game business: as part of its third quarter financial results, the company announced that it plans to sell Harmonix, developers of the Rock Band video game franchise, among other titles. Despite the initial success of Rock Band, Viacom head Philippe Dauman indicated the company intends to get out of the video game business altogether. “The console game business requires an expertise and… Read More

Bad news for Google TV users – that loophole you (hopefully) were utilizing to watch standard programming has now been closed. CrunchGear reports that Fancast has been blocked by Google TV, eliminating access to NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, and basically anything else not owned by Viacom. Add to the mix a ban blocking Google TV from using Hulu and the product’s worth is rapidly decreasing. The various networks seem determined to deny any access to… Read More

YouTube's actions spoke louder than its founders' words when it came down to deciding whether the Internet's most watched video site illegally exploited copyrighted clips owned by media company Viacom Inc. That was the rationale driving a pivotal ruling in a high-stakes legal battle pitting Viacom against YouTube and its deep-pocketed owner, Internet search leader Google Inc. U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton in New York sided… Read More

A proxy battle between Hollywood and Silicon Valley is beginning to take shape in the courts. In one corner, Viacom- the media conglomerate that owns Paramount, MTV films, and over 30 television channels. Standing behind them are Hollywood heavyweights Warner Bros., NBC Universal, Disney, the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America. In the opposite corner, weighing in as the most viewed website on the planet, Google! Google’s… Read More

Subscription music service Rhapsody has finally completed the process of spinning loose of its dual corporate parents, RealNetworks and Viacom. As part of the celebration, Rhapsody has rolled out a new logo…but potential customers are probably more interested in Rhapsody's new pricing: $10 per month for Rhapsody Premiere, an all-you-can-handle music streaming to PCs, home audio systems, or (single) mobile device that can handle… Read More

Back in 2007, media giant Viacom filed a $1 billion copyright infringment suit against YouTube and parent company Google, claiming more than 160,000 clips of copyrighted content from Viacom properties—things like The Daily Show—were distributed without permission via YouTube, and those clips were viewed over 1.5 billion times, all the while generating revenue for Google and YouTube. Now, previously confidential filings in the case… Read More

Despite long-term success on the Web’s most popular digital distribution platform for television, the Daily Show and the Colbert Report will both be flickering off Hulu for good next week. Hulu announced on Tuesday that Viacom had cut its rights to air the shows in a post on the Hulu blog. “After a series of discussions with the team at Comedy Central… we ultimately were unable to secure the rights to extend these shows for a much longer period… Read More