As part of its five-year initiative to take advantage of public cloud services, Verizon has about 80 applications in production or near-production on containers, Kubernetes and other cloud-native platforms. Verizon's Nanda Kumar says the carrier is looking at running containers and Kubernetes on bare-metal environments for apps requiring more resource support, and on virtual machines to improve scalability.
The Department of Justice is asking the radio business for feedback as it scrutinizes approximately 1,300 consent decrees, including how BMI and Ascap music is licensed to broadcasters. Some legislators on Capitol Hill are concerned that any changes would harm the progress made by the Music Modernization Act, which became law in October.
Nielsen Holdings is reportedly scheduled to meet in January with private equity firms, including the partnership of Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman, as well as Bain Capital, as it explores going private. If the company does go private, it will be among the biggest leveraged buyouts in recent times, since Nielsen's enterprise value is almost $18 billion.
Actress Eliza Dushku won a $9.5 million lawsuit against CBS in 2017 after she said she was written out of CBS series "Bull" for reporting inappropriate behavior from star Michael Weatherly. The settlement was confidential and was only revealed during the recent investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against former CEO Leslie Moonves.
Curtis LeGeyt, executive vice president of government relations for the National Association of Broadcasters, said that experts in tower construction and maintenance believe that, given the weather and staffing challenges they face, the Federal Communications Commission's 2020 completion timeline is unrealistic. They suggest extending the timeline to 2023 and adding more personnel and gear or, if the 2020 deadline is a must, running stations from backup facilities, though broadcasters may nix that idea due to coverage loss.
Nielsen Media reports that Fox News was the highest-rated cable news network in prime time for 2018, raking in an average of 2.5 million people watching its programs. MSNBC came in second, with 1.8 million, up 12% from last year to hit a record for the network.
New blind dating comedy series "Dating #NoFilter" will premiere on E! on Jan. 21. All3Media America will produce 20 half-hour episodes; they are scheduled to air at 10:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
Comcast is rolling out the xFi feature on Xfinity; the feature will automatically import the customer-provided names of devices as they connect. The new feature will also simplify functions such as screen time monitoring and new device connection.
Nielsen's recent audience report shows that media consumption is highest in the 50-to-64 demographic, at more than 11 hours per day on average, while respondents who are between 18 and 34 years old reported an average of eight hours a day. Digital media use is more common among the younger crowd, while older viewers tend to stick to radio or traditional TV.
AT&T has expanded its AT&T Fiber product to 12 additional markets, including three in Texas and three in Florida. The telecom's fiber-to-the-premises offering now reaches more than 10 million locations in 84 metro areas, with 3 million of those having come this year.