Tech

Reddit, the popular internet discussion “community of communities,” filed a registration statement Thursday for its long-awaited initial public offering. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. Reddit intends to list its Class A common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under

Netflix says its ad-supported plan includes “the vast majority” of TV shows and movies available on the standard no-ads tiers — but more than a year after the streamer introduced the cheaper option, several popular titles remain unavailable to customers with the ad plan. Most recently, Netflix customers noticed that Eli Roth’s horror film “Thanksgiving”

After critics slammed Google‘s “woke” generative AI system, the company halted the ability of its Gemini generative AI tool to create images of people to fix what it acknowledged were “inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions.” Google’s Gemini, formerly known as Bard, began offering text-to-image generative features this month. The problem appeared to be

Paris Hilton‘s 11:11 Media appointed Rachel Webber, former chief brand officer of Playboy, to the newly created role of chief commercial and brand officer. Webber reports to Bruce Gersh, 11:11 Media president and COO, who co-founded the media and consumer lifestyle company with Hilton in 2021. Webber, together with Gersh, will lead the operational and

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. You no longer have to be a “Shark Tank” contestant to receive insider business expertise from Mark Cuban. The billionaire entrepreneur and investor will now teach a class on business and entrepreneurship on MasterClass.

BuzzFeed has sold Complex — the youth-culture media company it bought three years ago — and will pink-slip another 16% of BuzzFeed’s remaining staffers in a restructuring designed to get back on financial track. BuzzFeed announced Wednesday that it closed the sale of Complex to ecommerce platform Ntwrk in a $108.6 million all-cash deal. L.A.-based

Bobbi Althoff feels misunderstood.  That’s why when we talk on the phone about the second season of “The Really Good” podcast, which has so far featured interviews with Bobby Lee, Michael Cera and Wiz Khalifa. She’s eager to clear the air. She’s not a “nepo baby” or “industry plant.” She doesn’t hate everyone she interviews. And,

Freevee isn’t going away, Amazon says. With Amazon’s Prime Video launch of ads by default last month, rumors and speculation have heated up that the tech giant would no longer have a strategic need for Freevee — its free, ad-supported streaming service that is separate from Prime Video. A Feb. 21 report by Adweek, citing

Candle Media’s Moonbug Entertainment hired Courtney Holt, a former Spotify and Disney exec, as the kid-content company’s first global head of music and strategic audio initiatives. In the new role, Holt will oversee Moonbug’s music label and lead strategic partner alliances and deals with “established and emerging artists,” the company said. Holt also will be

Game on! Apple launched a free standalone app for sports fans, Apple Sports, which is engineered to fire scores and stats to your iPhone as quickly as possible. The business case? The app also is designed to drive viewership to the Apple TV app to watch live sports — including all Major League Soccer matches,

What’s a theater influencer and how do you become one? On the latest episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety’s theater podcast, Kristin Hopkins and Ashley Hufford, two influencers with strong social media presences on Instagram and TikTok, explained how they did it. Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below: The first thing to know: They both have day jobs.

Actor and director Jack Huston is adding “podcast producer” to his resume. Huston will executive produce “Time Capsule: The Silver Chain,” a new podcast out Feb. 29 unveiling the intriguing story behind a secret swingers society founded in puritanical 1970s Minnesota.  As the trailer tells it, an envelope arrived at the Minn. Historical Society in the 1990s

Pinterest is readying the launch of its first-ever streaming show, cooking and lifestyle series “Deliciously Entertaining” — aimed at whetting the appetite of users to engage with the image-sharing social platform. “Deliciously Entertaining” is one of Pinterest’s biggest original productions to date, developed and produced in partnership with media company Tastemade. The 10-episode series premieres

Young the Giant frontman Sameer Gadhia has teamed with SiriusXM to launch the new podcast “Point of Origin,” which is “dedicated to amplifying voices of color from around the world while challenging the homogenous narrative in alternative and indie rock music.” Brittany Howard, former singer of Alabama Shakes, will appear as the podcast’s first guest

Vizio is getting snapped up by Walmart in a deal worth $2.3 billion, as the U.S.’s biggest retailer looks to expand into connected-TV advertising. The companies announced Tuesday (Feb. 20) that they have entered into an agreement for Walmart to acquire Vizio, a leading seller of value-priced TV sets and connected TV ads in the

HBO is no longer giving away free next-day looks to the popular “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” comedy talk show. With the Season 11 premiere of the show on Feb. 18, HBO has ceased sharing the main feature and other segments from “Last Week Tonight” on the show’s YouTube channel the following day. The

Adieu, Vudu. The Vudu name is being put out to pasture, 20 years after it was founded as a pioneering digital movie service. Vudu, which is part of NBCUniversal‘s Fandango movie ticketing and entertainment division, will be renamed “Fandango at Home” in the coming weeks. Vudu first launched its service with an internet set-top box

Could Paramount+ and NBCUniversal’s Peacock join forces to take on the streaming sector’s bigger guns? Maybe — but while Paramount Global and Comcast, NBCU’s parent, recently discussed the possibility of uniting the services in some kind of a partnership or joint venture, there’s no imminent deal expected. Talks between Comcast and Paramount Global were first

Noggin, Nickelodeon’s interactive learning platform for preschool-age kids, is shutting down after almost 10 years, Variety has confirmed. Noggin is a casualty of Paramount Global’s companywide layoffs this week, which resulted in about 800 staffers being let go. The entire team that ran Noggin was laid off, as first reported by trade publication Kisdscreen. Noggin

Roku revenue came in above Wall Street forecasts for the fourth quarter of 2023 — and it touted new milestones of more than 80 million active accounts globally as of the end of last year and more than 100 billion hours streamed in 2023. But shares of the streaming platform and connected-TV ad provider fell

In another heavy round of job cuts in the media biz, half of the editorial team of digital news outlet NowThis has been laid off, according to the union representing the staffers. According to WGA East, 26 of the 50 NowThis members repped by the union were laid off Thursday. An FAQ provided to NowThis

Carolyn Giardina, award-winning journalist and author, has joined Variety and Variety VIP+ as Senior Entertainment Technology & Crafts Editor as Variety expands its coverage of the fast-evolving production technology landscape as well as the Artisans sector. Giardina has devoted her career to covering the art and science of entertainment and brings to her new role

Stephen King refuses to call Twitter by the new name Elon Musk picked for the social network, X. In a reply to the legendary horror writer, Musk attempted to make an anti-trans joke — accusing King of “deadnaming” the platform. King on Wednesday wrote, “According to the New York Times, terrorists may be paying for

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1” star Indira Varma and “Homeland’s” Raza Jaffrey are set to co-host a new espionage podcast for Wondery. “The Spy Who” will explore the secret lives of covert operatives and recount true tales of derring-do and jaw-dropping escapades. “Each season goes deep into the real-life story of a special

After more than a year away from the mic, Dr. Brené Brown is bringing back her two podcasts — “Unlocking Us” and “Dare to Lead” — under a new partnership with Vox Media. Brown, a renowned researcher, author and speaker whose work explores emotional facets of the human experience, on Wednesday announced a deal to

Mark Zuckerberg‘s Meta has burned through billions developing virtual-reality products — without any payback foreseeable on the near-term horizon. So he has a vested interest in touting Meta’s Quest 3 mixed-reality headset as superior to its major new rival: Apple’s Vision Pro, described as a “spatial computing” platform. Zuckerberg turned tech-gadget reviewer in a video

At least one Amazon Prime member is furious over the ecommerce company’s move to start playing ads in Prime Video programming — unless customers pay an extra monthly fee. A lawsuit seeking class-action status accused Amazon of false advertising and deceptive practices because Prime Video now serves commercials by default. “For years, people purchased and

Mandy Moore stars in a new Audible podcast series as Sue Brewer, the unsung hero of the outlaw country music movement whose home became the epicenter of the scene in 1960s Nashville. Moore — singer, songwriter, producer and actor (“This Is Us”) — leads the cast of “The Boar’s Nest: Sue Brewer and the Birth

Retail giant Walmart is in talks to acquire Vizio, which sells a popular line of value-priced smart TVs that include an ad-supported free streaming service, in a deal worth more than $2 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. The deal, if completed, could make Walmart a significant player in the connected-TV advertising business, competing with

Meghan Markle is back in the podcast game — with a new partner. Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, inked a partnership with podcast network Lemonada Media. That comes after Spotify‘s exclusive podcast deal with Prince Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Productions ended in mid-2023 with the couple having had delivered just one show — the Markle-hosted interview series