Tech

Big tech companies continue to prosper in the time of COVID. Facebook, Alphabet (Google’s parent) and Amazon each reported solid growth for the third quarter of 2020 — results that reflect how people worldwide have upped their usage of internet giants’ services during the pandemic. The trio each posted revenue and earnings that topped Wall

Here comes another price hike for Netflix customers in the U.S.: The streaming giant will hike the price of the Standard two-stream HD plan, its most popular package, by about 8% — going from $12.99 per month to $13.99. In addition, Netflix’s Premium tier (with four streams) is going up by $2, from $15.99 monthly

UPDATED: Eko is seeking a payout of at least $96.5 million from Quibi — which is shutting down after founder Jeffrey Katzenberg acknowledged the mobile-video startup isn’t viable — for allegedly infringing Eko’s intellectual property. As part of its bid to get paid, interactive-video firm Eko on Wednesday filed an ex parte application asking a

Spotify continued to grow subscribers and content in the third quarter of 2020 but came up short on sales and earnings, driving its stock down in early trading on Thursday. CEO and cofounder Daniel Ek also hinted at a price increase during the call, but cited the ongoing global pandemic as a reason why that

Soumya Sriraman, after stepping down as president and CEO of streaming service BritBox, is joining tech giant Amazon as head of its U.S. Prime Video Channels business. Earlier this month, it was announced that Sriraman would leave BritBox, a joint venture of BBC Studios and ITV, at the end of October. Amazon’s hire of Srirman

Seven additional counts of sexual assault were filed on Wednesday against former adult film star Ron Jeremy, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced in a statement. The seven counts — which include three counts of forcible rape, two counts of forcible oral copulation, one count of sexual battery by restraint and one count

Alex Jones, the alt-right conspiracy theorist who has been kicked off major internet platforms, was a guest on the latest episode of Joe Rogan’s popular podcast — and during the rambling three-hour-plus show, Jones spouted a variety of misinformation, including claiming that masks aren’t effective at preventing COVID infection; denying climate-change science; spreading false anti-vaccine

Spoken Giants is a new royalty administration agency that claims to be the first of its kind for copyright holders of spoken-word works including comedians, podcasters, speeches, lectures and the like. Founded by former BMI executive Jim King and 800 Pound Gorilla Records co-founders Ryan Bitzer and Damion Greiman, according to the announcement Spoken Giants represents hundreds of members, including Lewis Black, Dan

Better late than never: Disney Plus just added the ability for subscribers to share links to specific titles — like its hit series “The Mandalorian” — with friends and family members on social media and via messaging apps. To share a piece of content, Disney Plus subscribers must tap the new “Share” button found on

TV giant Vizio is folding Inscape, its data and analytics subsidiary, into its TV platform business — a move designed to boost Vizio’s connected-TV ad business and its streaming-app experiences for consumers. With the reorganization, Inscape will continue to power “select measurement and advertising use cases,” but the engineering and technology teams will now be

For many people, the 2020 presidential election isn’t a game. At least one company thinks it could be. After giving users of a mobile-gaming app a chance to win $50,000 if they chose the right outcomes of six different elements of the recent presidential debate between President Trump and Joe Biden, Fox Bet is offering

European media conglomerate RTL Group has sold its entire stake in BroadbandTV, the digital media and tech company, for $120 million. RTL’s sale of its holding comes as BBTV launched an initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and under which BBTV founder and CEO Shahrzad Rafati (pictured above) has become the controlling stakeholder.

Scopely continues to attract buckets of bucks for its free-to-play mobile games business. And after banking $340 million in fresh capital, the company is renewing the hunt for new acquisitions to continue its growth trajectory. With the new funding, L.A.-based Scopely now has a $3.3 billion post-money valuation, nearly doubling the valuation in just under

The Creative Coalition debuted a new public service announcement zooming in on the untold stories of obesity and its ties to COVID-19. The new announcement unpacks that obesity is the greatest risk factor for developing a severe case of coronavirus for people under the age of 60, according to the PSA. “We’re using our voices

Amazon’s Audible audiobook unit wants to become a full-fledged podcast network: It announced that it has added about 100,000 podcast shows — comprising some 3 million episodes — to the service, available free to members and non-members alike. The free podcasts now available on Audible include “Pod Save America,” “You’re Wrong About,” “This American Life,”

T-Mobile took the wraps off its new suite of TVision pay-TV streaming services aimed at cord-cutters — which promise more flexible options for buying over-the-top television. The wireless carrier is providing three separate TVision programming tiers: TVision Live (up to three streams per account), which centers on live sports, news and local TV; TVision Vibe

Just a few weeks before its planned Nov. 19 launch, developer CD Projekt Red has again pushed back its highly anticipated “Cyberpunk 2077” 21 days to Dec. 10. In an announcement on the “Cyberpunk 2077” Twitter page, director Adam Badowski and CD Projekt co-founder and joint CEO Marcin Iwinski cited the struggles of preparing the

T-Mobile is taking an aggressive new swing at the U.S. pay-TV sector, threatening to further roil the market’s dynamics: The carrier announced a new suite of TVision internet packages, available nationwide, that start at just $10 per month. With the new over-the-top TV play, T-Mobile wants to attract cord-cutters — and also poach existing cable

Whitney Houston’s Grammy-winning smash “I Will Always Love You” is the fourth song from the ’90s — and the first solo track from the decade — to join YouTube’s billion-views club. Originally written and recorded by Dolly Parton in 1973, the song was recorded and released by Houston in 1992. The Houston version of “I

Tencent Music Entertainment Group, the leading online music entertainment platform in China, and Merlin, the global digital rights agency for the world’s independent labels, have renewed their multi-year licensing and cooperation agreement. According to the announcement, as part of the renewal, TME and Merlin will “deepen their longstanding strategic partnership, explore ways to drive the

The next generation of consoles is almost here. Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and the lower-priced Series S both hit the market on Nov. 10 (two days before its competition, Sony’s PlayStation 5, debuts), and the hardware giant is taking a very different approach to this newest round of hardware than in past generations. Microsoft has

UPDATED: Twitch, the rapidly growing livestreaming platform, and its owner Amazon received a blistering letter on Thursday signed by multiple major U.S. music organizations including the RIAA, the Recording Academy, the National Music Publishers Association, the Music Managers Forum, the American Association of Independent Music, SAG-AFTRA and more than a dozen others over its lack

Lee Kun-hee, the chairman of Samsung Electronics who transformed the company into the world’s largest producer of smartphones, memory chips and televisions, has died. He was 78. Samsung announced in a statement that Lee died on Sunday, though an exact cause was not given. A heart attack that Lee suffered in 2014 had kept him

Here comes a new big-data approach trying to crack the age-old problem of understanding what a TV show or movie is really about. Entertainment-analytics startup Vody is coming out of stealth after more than two years of development and testing. Co-founders and co-CEOs Stephanie Horbaczewski and Jeremy Houghton, who both were previously top execs at

It could be quite a fire sale after Quibi’s nearly $2 billion flameout: The Jeffrey Katzenberg-founded company has tapped LionTree to manage the process of selling Quibi’s assets, following its decision to shut down. A rep for LionTree confirmed that the firm has been enlisted by Quibi in an advisory capacity to evaluate in-bound inquiries

Prominent media technologists discussed how the pandemic has altered their content flow as distribution platforms for digital entertainment see increased viewership. Presented by Western Digital, Variety hosted the Innovators in Media Technology Management, a panel with leading executives as part of the Variety Streaming Room series. The conversation, moderated by Variety’s New York digital editor

Tencent Pictures this week stepped out alongside fellow Tencent subsidiaries New Classics Media and China Literature (aka Yuewen Media) to present for the first time a joint, collaborative film and TV production strategy. Tencent Pictures and Hong Kong-listed e-book platform China Literature were both established in 2015. Production firm New Classics Media was established in

Quibi, a day after announcing it will shut down less than seven months after launching, told customers Thursday that it expects to shut off the streaming service “on or about” Dec. 1. The company, led by founder and ex-movie mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman, also said it doesn’t know what will happen to

PlayStation 5, Sony’s next-generation console, will have a batch of entertainment apps when it ships next month — and a dedicated remote control. Set to ship starting Nov. 12, the PS5’s initial lineup will include apps for Apple TV, Disney Plus, Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, Hulu, Amazon’s Twitch, and WarnerMedia’s Crunchyroll anime service. Services absent from

Hulu is dropping Sinclair Broadcast Group’s portfolio of Fox Sports-branded and other regional sports networks from its live-TV packages, effective Friday. As of Oct. 23, 2020, Hulu “will no longer have the rights to distribute certain Regional Sports Networks (RSNs) that are currently included with your Hulu + Live TV plan” provided by Sinclair, the