Top News
* Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman, President and CEO Warren Buffett confirmed that his company had discussions with Uber Technologies Inc., but said certain details about the discussions in a recent report were incorrect, CNBC reports. His comments were in response to a Bloomberg report that Berkshire offered to make a $3 billion investment in the ride-hailing company earlier in 2018.
* A grand jury indicted Harvey Weinstein on charges of rape and a criminal sexual act, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement. Vance said the matter will now be pursued in court, with the investigation remaining active and ongoing.
* AT&T Inc. CFO John Stephens provided several updates on company matters, starting with the proposed acquisition of Time Warner Inc. Speaking at a conference, Stephens said the company expects a June 12 ruling in the AT&T/Time Warner antitrust case, with AT&T ready to close if it gets a favorable ruling. Stephens also discussed AT&T's other priorities for this year, including expanding its video offerings and growing the subscriber base of its DIRECTV, U-verse and DIRECTV NOW services.
* Univision Communications Inc. confirmed the appointment of former Media General Inc. chief Vincent Sadusky as CEO of the company, effective June 1. Sadusky will succeed Randy Falco, who will remain an adviser to the company until the end of 2018, the company said.
Technology
* Uber is in talks with Alphabet Inc.'s autonomous driving unit Waymo about a partnership, Reuters reports, citing Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Speaking at a conference, Khosrowshahi said the companies are discussing using Waymo's technology on Uber's ride-hailing app. Uber's CEO told the audience that its relationship with Waymo was "getting better" since Uber agreed to pay Waymo $245 million in shares to settle a trade-secrets legal dispute earlier this year.
* The NotPetya and WannaCry cyberattacks, which struck companies and institutions across geographies in May and June of 2017, resulted in losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The scale of attacks has also spiked for lower-profile cyber incidents for which Beazley PLC has received claims, said Brett Anderson, breach response service manager for Beazley.
* Apple Inc. recruited nearly 24 people for a secret hardware engineering lab in Oregon, The Oregonian reports, citing postings, social media profiles and an individual familiar with the recruiting efforts.
Internet & OTT
* Hulu LLC has crossed 800,000 live TV subscribers, the company's CEO Randy Freer said at a tech conference. Also, Freer said Hulu's active subscribers spent about 100 hours on the service in April, Multichannel News reports.
* Verizon Communications Inc.'s Oath Inc. unit hired former NFL executive Natalie Ravitz as chief communications officer and chief storyteller. Ravitz previously served the NFL as senior vice president of communications, the company said.
* Danish original series "The Rain" will return to Netflix Inc.'s streaming service for a second season in 2019. The series will go back into production later this year, the company said.
* Apple placed a straight-to-series order for a show about acclaimed 19th century poet Emily Dickinson, Variety reports. The half-hour series, starring Hailee Steinfeld, will be a comedic look into Dickinson's world.
The day ahead
Early morning futures indicators pointed to a lower opening for the U.S. market.
In Asia, the Hang Seng was up 1.37% to 30,468.56, while the Nikkei 225 rose 0.41% to 22,109.22.
In Europe, around midday, the FTSE 100 rose 0.13% to 7,699.53, and the Euronext 100 gained 0.27% to 1,056.77.
On the macro front
The jobless claims report, the Bureau of Economic Analysis' personal income and outlays report, the Chicago PMI, the pending home sales index, the EIA natural gas report, the EIA petroleum status report, the fed balance sheet and the money supply report are due out today.
Featured news
The Daily Dose Europe: EC reapproves Liberty Global, Ziggo deal; Mediapro bags Ligue 1 soccer rights: The European Commission reapproved Liberty Global PLC's acquisition of Dutch cable operator Ziggo NV, while Spanish broadcaster MediaPro has outbid Vivendi SA unit Canal Plus SA for the 2020-2024 audiovisual rights to France's Ligue 1 soccer league.
The Daily Dose Asia-Pacific: RCom exits insolvency proceedings; New Zealand warns Apple over consumer rights: India's National Company Law Appellate Tribunal stayed insolvency proceedings against Reliance Communications Ltd. and its subsidiaries, while New Zealand issued a warning to Apple that it likely has breached the country's Fair Trading Act.
Tech Time: South Korea plans 9 trillion won tech boost; Tianjin invests in AI: South Korea seeks to invest 9 trillion South Korean won over the next five years in industries involving drones and artificial intelligence, while China's Tianjin municipality unveiled plans to invest 100 billion yuan in AI technology.
Telefónica inks Netflix tie-up for LatAm; Viacom unit bags LatAm deals: In this monthly Latin American video spotlight feature, S&P Global Market Intelligence provides a roundup of news related to over-the-top, video-on-demand and other video initiatives in different Latin American markets.
M&A Replay: Asia-Pacific: SoftBank selling Flipkart stake; China approves Toshiba unit sale: SoftBank Group Corp. agreed to sell its entire 21% stake in Flipkart Online Services Pvt. Ltd. to Walmart Inc., while Toshiba Corp. obtained all necessary approvals for the sale of its memory chip unit to a Bain Capital LP-led consortium.
Featured research
Broadcast Investor: Public trading multiples: Highs and lows for broadcast stocks in May: Radio stocks were up 1.4% while TV stocks declined 1.3% on average month-to-date as of May 29, with multiple broadcasters hitting 52-week highs and lows in the month.
Multichannel Trends: Q1'18 residential broadband and video subscribers in MediaCensus: MediaCensus' first-quarter 2018 residential broadband and multichannel video subscriber data at the ZIP code, county, DMA® and state level and by operator is now available.
Technology: Nintendo Switch drives game console sales to new levels: The success of Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s Nintendo Switch will drive global shipments of game consoles to about 52 million in 2018, while new consoles from Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. also continue to gain momentum.
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