Wow. I went to ATX TV for the first few seasons and loved it. Super interested to see it go back to its roots but also hope the founders got a huge payout.
With the loss of Polygon (and also Giant Bomb), games journalism (the good stuff that was criticized in such bad faith, radicalizing so many folks during gamergate) feels like it has never been worse off. I've been chatting with friends and it sort of feels like we're down to a handful of reliable indie sites (e.g., RPGamer) and podcasts. Sad day for journalism in general, but this very specific area that often feels like it should garner more eyeballs and definitely needs a lot of reporting is in full freefall.
Roku's acquisition of Frndly TV is interesting. Will it help the company's subscription revenue? Maybe. But it probably has more to do with Roku expanding the amount of available ad inventory it can sell to marketers, especially those who want to run spots against entertainment, lifestyle and knowledge content from Nielsen-rated networks like Hallmark, A&E, Lifetime, History Channel and MeTV. Roku doesn't really want to be in the pay TV business, but the company figures $100 million is a relatively low amount to pay to attract ad buyers alike, some of which might prefer running spots against traditional TV networks instead of FAST offerings.
And, if the gamble doesn't pay off, well, it's only out one-ninth of its Q1 '25 platform revenue, and it doesn't have to pay the other $75 mil.
Wow. I went to ATX TV for the first few seasons and loved it. Super interested to see it go back to its roots but also hope the founders got a huge payout.
With the loss of Polygon (and also Giant Bomb), games journalism (the good stuff that was criticized in such bad faith, radicalizing so many folks during gamergate) feels like it has never been worse off. I've been chatting with friends and it sort of feels like we're down to a handful of reliable indie sites (e.g., RPGamer) and podcasts. Sad day for journalism in general, but this very specific area that often feels like it should garner more eyeballs and definitely needs a lot of reporting is in full freefall.
Roku's acquisition of Frndly TV is interesting. Will it help the company's subscription revenue? Maybe. But it probably has more to do with Roku expanding the amount of available ad inventory it can sell to marketers, especially those who want to run spots against entertainment, lifestyle and knowledge content from Nielsen-rated networks like Hallmark, A&E, Lifetime, History Channel and MeTV. Roku doesn't really want to be in the pay TV business, but the company figures $100 million is a relatively low amount to pay to attract ad buyers alike, some of which might prefer running spots against traditional TV networks instead of FAST offerings.
And, if the gamble doesn't pay off, well, it's only out one-ninth of its Q1 '25 platform revenue, and it doesn't have to pay the other $75 mil.