The Hearst Corp. said Monday it is buying half of prolific reality television producer Mark Burnett’s company and folding it into a joint venture.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Burnett is the executive behind “Survivor,” “The Apprentice” and “Shark Tank” and has produced more than 1,100 hours of television programming. Hearst has ownership stakes in cable networks heavy in nonfiction content, like A&E, History, Lifetime and ESPN.
Nonfiction programming has quickly become a staple at these networks and others, like Bravo and the Discovery family of networks, said Scott Sassa, president of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication. Burnett has a proven ability to make popular shows that are advertiser-friendly, he said.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to be in partnership with Mark,” Sassa said. “There was nobody else that we looked at.”
Burnett said it was key that Hearst will allow him to sell programming to non-Hearst companies. The deal doesn’t affect long-running shows like “Survivor,” either.
The deal will allow him to expand into other areas and build complementary businesses around his programming, he said.
“I’m ready for the second act of my career,” he said.
The arrangement falls in line with a trend toward consolidation of media companies and content producers, said Paul Kagan, CEO of analysts PK World Media.
“If you are a distributor of programming, it would be great to own content, and vice versa,” he said.
Sassa said he believed that the development of nonfiction programming is a trend still on an upswing.
“‘Survivor’ was like ‘I Love Lucy’ for nonfiction,” Sassa said. “We haven’t seen ‘The Brady Bunch’ yet. We haven’t seen ‘Seinfeld.’ We haven’t seen ‘Modern Family.'”
A decade ago, Sassa was a top executive at NBC at a time it was criticized for being suspicious of reality television, while CBS was profiting from “Survivor” and ABC from “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More