*By Michael Teich*
Walmart's reported plans to launch a streaming video service may prove futile, said The Information reporter Jessica Toonkel. After all, the retailer, she told Cheddar on Wednesday, is late to the game.
"Netflix and Amazon have been doing this for a while," Toonkel said. "This is a really hard business to get into."
Toonkel broke news this week that Walmart may develop a subscription-based video service to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. The retailer is considering a price point below $8 per month and may also include an ad-supported free service.
What's the likelihood that Walmart will actually enter the streaming business? That depends on its willingness to spend billions of dollars, Toonkel explained. But after generating $17 billion in cash last year, the company potentially has enough ammo to match Netflix's aggressive spending budget, pegged at $8 billion for 2018.
But it's not just a matter of cash flow, Toonkel said. "They have a lot of money, clearly, but they also have investors that might not be as patient as investors in Netflix."
Walmart's last attempt to enter video content faltered ー in 2010 the retailer acquired Vudu, a video-on-demand service that currently offers a combined 100,000 movie titles and television series. But analytics firm comScore reported that users spent only 18,000 hours on the platform in May, just 2 percent of the total hours spent on Netflix and 6 percent of hours spent watching Amazon in the same period.
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/walmart-could-launch-video-streaming-platform)
The New York Stock Exchange’s famously hectic trading floor was dead quiet this morning as it opened for the first time in its history without traders.
Streaming video companies like YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon have all agreed to reduce the quality of their streaming videos in Europe in order to reduce the strain on Internet bandwidth during the coronavirus pandemic.
GM and Tesla are among the top U.S. automakers that are looking to potentially switch over stalled auto production into the manufacturing of badly needed medical ventilators amid the coronavirus crisis.
Square received conditional approval from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) late Wednesday to launch an independent bank focused on providing loans to small businesses – at a time when they’ll surely need them most.
The bank will continue to pay branch employees for their regularly scheduled hours even if they are affected by reduced hours, branch closures, or asked to stay home, the letter said. It is also giving branch employees two additional paid vacation days.
Square is making a supportive gesture to business customers going through financial pain due to the effects of social distancing in the time of COVID-19.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, March 18, 2020.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, March 17, 2020.
The Small Business Grants Program, revealed in a blog post on Tuesday morning, was created to keep workers working, help with rent costs, connect with more customers, cover operational costs. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Lisa Callahan, the vice president of programs, told Cheddar about the Orion spacecraft set to aid the NASA Artemis project achieve its goals of returning to the moon and using it as a jumping-off point for a manned Mars mission.
