The Watch List Goes Up In Smoke

Welcome to our weekly Watch List. A mashup of news and media-related developments that bear watching for how they’ll affect life and culture as we know it. If we find something not yet on your radar screen, all the better.

Here’s what’s up.

Well, That Didn’t Take Long…

Cablevision’s fledgling wi-fi mobile service, Freewheel, has come to a screeching halt under the Altice banner.

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Next up for the company: Saving dough by losing some of those pesky channels customers have come to expect as part of their cable packages.

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WALK Shuts Down Its News

WALK Radio has shuttered its news department, which leaves the 20th largest radio market in the country — that’d be Long Island — reliant solely on its college stations to create and report local news.

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Despite having about 18 commercial radio stations (excluding Sag Harbor’s small signal), Long Island’s lack of radio news departments means what you’re hearing on the radio is the same news you’ll be reading elsewhere.

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Cannabis Earns Its Papers

Last week, Microsoft became the first major company to partner with a cannabis tech company to track marijuana plants from seed to sale where medical or recreational use of pot is legal.

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Now MedMen, an LA-based company, has launched a $100 million private equity fund to finance what it considers strategic investments in the legal marijuana industry, which is expected to grow 25 percent this year.

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ON June 29, 2016