Month: July 2019

Robert Mueller, the special counsel who spent two years digging into Russian interference in the 2016 election, gave testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, saying that President Donald Trump had not been exonerated by his report. “Did you totally exonerate the president?” asked Jerrold Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the committee. “No,” Mueller
0 Comments
Facebook, under a 20-year settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over privacy violations, will pay a record-breaking $5 billion fine and submit to new oversight by the commission. The settlement promises to strengthen the obligations Facebook has to provide transparency to the FTC about its business practices — with requirements that are over and above
0 Comments
AT&T chief Randall Stephenson told investors Wednesday that the HBO Max streaming service set to launch next spring will eventually include live sports and news programming. Stephenson talked up his enthusiasm for WarnerMedia’s nascent direct-to-consumer platform during the telco giant’s second-quarter earnings conference call with Wall Street analysts. “You should assume that ultimately HBO Max
0 Comments
DURBAN–The 10th edition of the Durban FilmMart, the industry program of the Durban Intl. Film Festival, was perhaps its biggest yet, and the popularity of new strands such as the Durban Does Docs forum and the Engage @ DFM diversity program highlighted how the market continues to grow from strength to strength. “We wanted to ensure
0 Comments
July 24, 2019 3:17AM PT Streaming giant Netflix revealed its long-awaited mobile-only subscription plan for India on Wednesday. The plan, which will be available imminently, will cost INR199 ($2.88) per month and will be available on one mobile or tablet screen, per user, in standard definition. While downloads will be supported, casting to televisions will
0 Comments
When I was growing up, we learned that the moral cornerstone of the First Amendment — the very essence of it — is that it’s about protecting the speech you don’t like. If the Nazis aren’t allowed to march in Skokie (a major test case in the 1970s), then a treacherous principle gets laid down: that
0 Comments
Asia-based streaming firm Iflix has completed its latest funding round by bringing in major institutional investor Fidelity. The company says it is now looking towards an IPO. Iflix, which has operations across 12 Asian countries, said that the funding cycle brought in “well in excess of $50 million,” but provided few new details. Other participants
0 Comments
Rachel Mason grew up believing that her parents ran a small bookstore in Los Angeles. She wasn’t entirely mistaken, although the naive young woman — then an artsy teen, now a documentary filmmaker — never imagined that, as her mother Karen bluntly tells her on camera, “at one point, we were probably the biggest distributor
0 Comments
The 2019 Television Critics Association summer press tour kicked off on Tuesday with presentations from DC Universe, A+E Networks, and Nat Geo. DC Universe, the DC-branded streaming service, brought their adult animated series based on “Harley Quinn,” while A+E brought along a range of projects from across their portfolio. It was also announced that A+E
0 Comments
Woodstock’s stalled-before-it-started 50th anniversary celebration has taken over much of the news cycle this summer, but some of us haven’t forgotten the disaster that was Woodstock ’99, which kicked off its main stage 20 years ago today. The planned 30th anniversary of the most famous music festival in history started with good intentions, but quickly
0 Comments
The WGA West has unveiled the slate of candidates for officer posts and board seats in the election that reflects the divisions among members over the guild’s handling of the campaign to reform its rules governing talent agents. Scribes Phyllis Nagy (“Carol”) and William Schmidt (“Yellowstone”) are set to challenge David Goodman for the president’s
0 Comments
July 23, 2019 4:29PM PT Freshman military drama “The Code” is officially done at CBS. The news comes just one day after the show’s season finale, which will now serve as the show’s series finale. “Thank you to all you wonderful people who watched [‘The Code’],” series star Dana Delany wrote on Twitter. “Last night
0 Comments