Tech

NBC’s “Today” has long been part of many an American morning ritual. Starting today, however, fans of the program can truly interact with a full version of it at almost any time they want. NBC News is launching its venerable A.M. franchise in podcast form, meaning that people who may want to know what it

Not only does Isaac Hayes III possess a deep voice that is strikingly like that of his father — the legendary R&B musician, songwriter, producer, entrepreneur and voice of Chef on “South Park” — but he takes after him in numerous other ways as well. As Ike Dirty, he’s produced tracks for Lil Scrappy, Redman

Bob the Drag and Peppermint Queen have announced the lineup for the second annual “Black Queer Town Hall.” Performers and advocates slated to appear are Big Freedia, TS Madison, Mila Jam, Monet X Change, Be Steadwell, Wolf Hudson, Miss Major, Shea Diamond, Tourmaline, Yves Dropper and Queen Jean. Peppermint and Bob the Drag Queen will

Great Wolf Resorts’ new division Great Wolf Entertainment is under way on its first animated production, “The Great Wolf Pack.” The hospitality brand has recruited a group of animation veterans to bring its familiar characters to branded entertainment properties. Chris Bailey (“Garfield: The Movie”) will direct “The Great Wolf Pack,” with Julia Pistor (“The SpongeBob

Amazon has snapped up Art19, which provides tools to podcast creators and publishers for hosting, ad serving, audience targeting and measurement, as the ecommerce colossus continues to build out its podcasting footprint. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Amazon’s acquisition of Art19 comes after it bought podcast network Wondery in a deal reportedly valued

LiveXLive, the multimedia platform and PodcastOne owner, is launching a new pop culture competition series featuring some of the biggest stars on social media. Titled “Self Made KO,” the new series will kick off this fall with a boxing event featuring a card of women from the digital space, music, sports, tech and fashion. The

Is it a pretty sure bet that the proposed WarnerMedia–Discovery combo will become a global streaming power — and successfully manage the transition from legacy media businesses? Or is the merger a risky play by two big companies that could go south? Wall Street analysts are divided on the prospects for the deal, which is

Since 2016, Neuchatel has offered three conference cycles, mostly-but-not-entirely oriented towards professional audiences. Collected under the NIFFF Extended banner, the “Storyworlds” and “New Worlds of Fantasy” cycles focus on the writing and development processes, while “Imaging the Future” looks at new media and technology. Running July 5-6, the latter cycle will feature seven panels spotlighting

In a move with big implications for digital advertising, Google is pushing back its plan to kill off third-party cookies — which many advertisers use to track ads — in its Chrome web browser until starting in mid-2023. Originally, Google had planned to phase out cookies in Chrome by early 2022, as part of an

YouTube is launching four originals timed for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games, hoping to get in on the action for the global sporting event of the summer. The nonfiction programming from the Google-owned video giant features American gymnast Gabby Douglas, who was the 2012 Olympic all-around champion, and The Try Guys — Keith Habersberger,

BuzzFeed is going public in a deal with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), which will give the digital media company an implied valuation of $1.5 billion once the pact closes, the company announced. BuzzFeed will become a publicly traded company through a merger with 890 Fifth Avenue Partners, a SPAC that holds $288 million

Lauren Jarvis, formerly Spotify’s head of content partnerships for North America, has joined subscription book club startup Literati as chief business officer. At Spotify, Jarvis managed the audio streamer’s catalog of more than 2 million podcasts. She also oversaw Spotify’s major exclusive deals like “The Joe Rogan Experience” and Dax Shepherd’s “Armchair Expert.” Before joining

Amazon’s two-day 2021 Prime Day event yielded about $6.8 billion in revenue, although nearly half of that came from third-party merchants, according to Morgan Stanley estimates. Amazon, as is its usual custom, is not disclosing dollar sales figures for Prime Day, which ran over a 48-hour period June 21-22. The ecommerce giant said Prime Day

Wattpad, a top user-contributed fiction app, is combining its TV, film and books division with the studio operations of digital comics platform Webtoon. The combo comes a month after South Korea-based Naver, Webtoon’s owner, closed the $600 million acquisition of Wattpad. Naver said it will fund the newly merged Wattpad Webtoon Studios with a commitment

John McAfee, the creator of the antivirus software company bearing his name, was found dead in his prison cell near Barcelona, Spain, according to multiple outlets. He was 75. According to the Associated Press, authorities are investigating the cause of death. His lawyer, however, told Reuters that McAfee died by suicide. A statement from the regional Catalan government

Almost a year after NBCUniversal launched Peacock nationwide, the streaming service is finally coming to Amazon’s Fire TV set-tops and Fire tablets. Under an agreement between NBCU and Amazon, Peacock will launch on the Amazon devices in the U.S. starting Thursday, June 24. In addition, the two companies reached a distribution agreement for NBCU’s 15

LeVar Burton, actor, director and famed host of “Reading Rainbow,” has launched an online course sharing his approach to storytelling — and how to effectively connect with other people. Burton’s internet course, “The Power of Storytelling,” is available on MasterClass, as part of the site’s $180 annual membership. Comprising 13 individual video lessons, the class

Critical Role gave fans a first look at the character art for upcoming Amazon original animated series “The Legend of Vox Machina,” created by Emmy-winning artist, animator and designer Phil Bourassa. CR is producing “The Legend of Vox Machina,” based on the popular role-playing collective’s first campaign. In 2019 Amazon Prime Video ordered a total

Electronic Arts will buy Warner Bros. Games’ Playdemic mobile games studio — developer of popular title “Golf Clash” — for $1.4 billion in cash, the companies announced. AT&T said the remaining Warner Bros. Games portfolio will become part of the recently announced WarnerMedia-Discovery merged entity after that deal closes, expected in mid-2022. Founded in 2010,

BlockFilm, a Canada-based financing platform, is bringing private investors and content creators together via a safe financing online platform using digital security tokens, the company announced today. Digital security tokens using blockchains to connect private investors with content creators are something fairly new that has been used in real estate, for example, says Pauline Couture,

Jemele Hill expanded her exclusive Spotify podcast pact to form her own podcast network: The Unbothered Network, which aims to elevate the voices and stories of Black women. The name is based on Hill’s Spotify-exclusive podcast “Jemele Hill Is Unbothered,” which the audio-streaming platform has renewed for a third season. Hill, a provocative culture critic,

Now “Stranger Things” fans can travel back to the ’80s and explore the neon-gilded Starcourt Mall in an exclusive virtual experience on Roblox. Roblox on Tuesday announced the launch of the “Stranger Things” experience, which it said will serve as a “persistent space” for fans year to stay connected to the show year-round. The virtual

Twitter is opening applications for creators to test out the first features that will let them earn money on the platform — and it’s promising to give them a very generous split. On Tuesday, the social network began accepting separate applications for Super Follows (which let creators sell subscriptions with special perks) and Ticketed Spaces

Univision says it’s driving full bore into the subscription-streaming sector: The Spanish-language media and broadcast giant plans to launch a paid over-the-top service in 2022 in the U.S. and Latin America alongside an expanded free, ad-supported package. The company’s subscription VOD service, announced Monday, will be anchored by the content library and intellectual property of

Pharrell Williams, H.E.R., Opal Lee and other individuals transforming the entertainment industry discussed the importance of diversity, inclusion and elevating underrepresented voices in Variety’s Changemakers Summit, which ran virtually from June 17-18. The summit kicked off with a keynote conversation featuring H.E.R., whose song “Fight for You” from Shaka King’s “Judas and the Black Messiah” won

Michelle Lee, Allure’s top editor for the last five and a half years, is joining the Netflix marketing team in a newly created editorial and publishing role. Lee announced her jump to Netflix, where she will be global VP of editorial and publishing, in an Instagram post Monday; Netflix confirmed her hire. She will lead

David Katz, executive VP of digital at Fox Sports, will leave the Fox Corp. division this fall after three years. Katz is departing to “return to my entrepreneurial roots,” he wrote in a memo to Fox Sports staff Monday (read the full memo below). He also will serve as non-executive chairman of ThePostGame, the digital

TikTok is now letting users share info and services through third-party partners — which also gives the short-form video app another revenue stream. The app company, owned by Chinese internet giant ByteDance, on Monday announced TikTok Jump, a program that lets developers create mini-programs and services for TikTok users to link to from their videos.

Michelle Edgar is joining LiveXLive Media as head of strategic partnerships where she will work on artist and label relations in addition to liaising with consumer brands and creating partnership opportunities. LiveXLive is a global platform for livestream and on-demand audio, video, and podcast/vodcast content in music, comedy and pop culture. It owns PodcastOne and

Social-media stars Charli and Dixie D’Amelio are introducing “Squeaky and Roy,” cartoon characters based on Dixie’s pink teddy bear and his penguin bestie, in their latest media offshoot. The main character is Squeaky, based on Dixie’s longtime favorite stuffed animal of the same name, which she lost in an airport when she was little. The