Comedian Nigel Ng will never forget his family’s reaction to the video that made him go viral in July. In it, Ng, dressed in a bright orange polo shirt and playing a character character named “Uncle Roger,” reacts to BBC Food presenter Hersha Patel making egg fried rice and committing what he deems cardinal sins
Tech
The first trillion is the hardest. Apple, after two solid quarters beating Wall Street estimates, has now hit an unprecedented milestone: It’s the first U.S. company with a market cap of $2 trillion. The largely symbolic mark comes just over two years after Apple was the first American corporation to reach a market cap of
Sports journos Michael Smith and Michael Holley are co-hosting Peacock’s first original sports talk show, a three-hour weekday show set to debut next month on NBCUniversal’s recently launched streaming service. “Brother From Another” with Smith, a former ESPN “SportsCenter” anchor, and Holley, host and columnist for NBC Sports Boston, will stream live from 3-6 p.m.
ViacomCBS wants to offload CNET, the tech news and reviews division of CBS Interactive, and the media conglomerate is in talks to sell it for $500 million, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Per the report, ViacomCBS has held talks with Red Ventures, a marketing company that says it owns a “portfolio of technologies,
Amazon — in another signal that it has big sports ambitions for Prime Video — grabbed local-market streaming rights for games played one of its hometown teams: Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders FC. Under the three-year deal with the soccer team, Prime Video will become the sole digital streaming destination for all non-nationally televised Sounders
Within two months, TikTok’s U.S. business likely will be under the wing of a new owner — after Donald Trump’s move to force China’s ByteDance to divest the popular video app over what he says are national-security concerns. Amid that backdrop of uncertainty, TikTok is carrying on in business-as-usual fashion: Starting this week in the
Model, actor and activist Naomi Campbell is teaming up with Studio71 to grow and diversify her digital content portfolio. Under the partnership, Studio71 will help Campbell to curate and amplify her content with regard to ad sales, channel optimization, and brand partnerships across various platforms including YouTube, where she has 440,000 subscribers, and Facebook, where
When HBO Max debuted in late May, it made a surprise announcement: The eight original “Harry Potter” films — among the biggest-ever movie franchises — were on the brand-new streamer on day one. But then: Expelliarmus! It turns out WarnerMedia had carved out only a 90-day window on HBO Max for the J.K. Rowling boy-wizard
Could TikTok end up in the clutches of Silicon Valley billionaire Larry Ellison? Software giant Oracle is in discussions with ByteDance to acquire popular social-video app TikTok, according to multiple reports. The Chinese internet company faces a looming mid-November deadline to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets under a Trump administration national-security directive. Oracle is mulling an
Filmination, an online marketplace for Japanese content, is expanding and relaunching. The object is to smooth and speed up the often-cumbersome process of dealing with Japanese rights holders. Pitched as the first of its kind in Japan, the revamped site allows rights holders to present their wares and rights buyers to select films and TV series.
Epic Games’ fight with Apple over the App Store’s 30% fees has gotten uglier, with the “Fornite” maker alleging it needs a federal court’s intervention to prevent the tech giant from taking retaliatory action and “crushing” it. Epic, whose most popular title is “Fortnite,” said on Monday that inApple threatened to revoke its developer accounts
Entertainment marketing and production company Dolphin Entertainment has bought Be Social, a digital influencer marketing firm. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. As part of Dolphin, Be Social and its 20-employee team will continue to operate under its own name out of the existing L.A. office, with founder Ali Grant (pictured above) remaining as CEO.
Apple is officially in the bundling game: Starting Monday, Apple TV Plus subscribers can add ViacomCBS’s CBS All Access and Showtime streaming services together for a deep discount — 52% off compared with the services purchased separately. Apple TV Plus is advertising it as a “two-for-one” deal. If you are a customer of Apple TV
In a new, brief stand-up set, comedian Katt Williams slams President Trump’s coronavirus response and urges people to vote and show support for Black Lives Matter. In a partnership with the clothing brand Supreme, Williams delivered his set to a non-existent audience on an empty stage. He also showed off a new, rainbow-colored hairstyle in
Ryan Reynolds has a message for partying Canadian teens who aren’t practicing social distancing: Don’t kill anyone, especially not his mom. John Horgan, the Premier of British Columbia, Canada, asked B.C. natives Reynolds and Seth Rogen to help spread the message to teenagers that partying is not safe for them or those around them during
In a bizarre sequence of events, TikTok star Addison Rae on Friday said her account had been hacked — and then was temporarily disabled — before being restored a few hours later. An unknown hacker (or hackers) took over Rae’s TikTok handle, which has 55.5 million followers, changing the account name to “joeandzak1” and updating
Chinese tech firm ByteDance, the owner of social media app TikTok, censored content critical of China’s government on its news aggregation app BaBe in Indonesia from 2018 to mid-2020, according to a new report from Reuters citing six people with direct knowledge of the issue. Local Indonesian moderators for the Baca Berita (BaBe) app were
Can “Fortnite” maker Epic Games single-handedly bust up the longstanding 30% app “tax” levied by Apple and Google — fees Epic calls “exorbitant” and the result of “unlawful monopoly”? Not everyone believes the odds are in Epic’s favor. In a highly orchestrated campaign Thursday, Epic Games set the bait for the legal — and public
When the COVID pandemic hit, superstar Will Smith launched a Snapchat show about his life under quarantine, “Will From Home.” His wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, also talked about her quarantine life on her Facebook Watch show, “Red Table Talk.” But their staff at Westbrook Inc. reported to work. Last week, 10 staffers tested positive for
W Magazine, the high-end fashion publication formerly owned by Condé Nast, has a new ownership group — led by supermodel/ influencer/ entrepreneur Karlie Kloss. On Friday, W Magazine Editor-in-Chief Sara Moonves (daughter of ousted CBS chief Leslie Moonves) announced that she assembled a group of investors led by Kloss to acquire the brand as part
With multiple wildfires afflicting California and other states, The Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) has activated a fund to support firefighters, first responders and communities affected by the devastation. The foundation helps bring important causes to the awareness of entertainment industry workers, supporting campaigns that provide aid for issues affecting millions around the world. The Fire
In the five months since the coronavirus sent everyone fleeing to shelter in place, it’s become apparent that live concerts as we knew them won’t return until 2021 at best, and possibly even later. What’s followed is an accelerated phase of scrappy reinvention that’s touched almost every sector of the music industry. First, we were
It turns out that Epic Games’ announcement that it was doing an end-around with “Fortnite” to bypass Apple’s App Store 30% “tax” was a gambit to prompt legal action. Earlier Thursday, Epic announced a 20% discount for “Fortnite” players who purchase the game’s virtual currency directly from the company, instead of from Apple or Google.
That was fast: Apple, just hours after Epic Games announced a new direct-payment option for “Fortnite” to bypass the Apple App Store 30% “tax” on in-app purchases, has removed the game from its app store. In a statement, Apple said, “Today, Epic Games took the unfortunate step of violating the App Store guidelines that are
Epic Games is trying to skirt the 30% revenue cut taken by Apple’s App Store and Google Play — announcing a 20% discount to “Fortnite” players who purchase the game’s virtual currency directly from Epic, instead of from Apple or Google. “If Apple or Google lower their fees on payments in the future, Epic will
Apple is angling to drive up services revenue through a bundling strategy tying together different subscription services at a discount, which could debut as soon as October alongside new iPhones and the launch of iOS 14, Bloomberg reports. Apple declined to comment on the report. Per Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources, the tech giant is expected
Redbox has beefed up its push into free live-streaming video, part of its ongoing strategy to further diversify the business beyond its trademark brick-red DVD vending machines and digital on-demand sales. First launched in February, Redbox’s ad-supported Free Live TV service has added Tastemade’s food, travel, and home and design streaming network along with Altice
Australian Pay-TV leader Foxtel has announced a management reshuffle that breaks down the separations between its traditional channels and the newer streaming services. Unveiled in an internal memorandum, the reshuffle notably broadens the role of Amanda Laing as chief commercial and content officer. Her role extends across entertainment and sports. Peter Campbell is moving from Fox
WarnerMedia is looking to offload Crunchyroll, its anime subscription-streaming service — with an asking price of at least $1 billion — as parent company AT&T seeks to pay down debt — sources tell Variety. One of the potential buyers is Sony Pictures Entertainment, which operates the competing Funimation service. WarnerMedia’s move to sell Crunchyroll was
With the political conventions set to unfold next week, and the presidential race beginning the homestretch to November, coverage of the road to the election will intensify for news outlets of all kinds. Add Snapchat to the mix. Though the app is better known as a social tool for its young-skewing audience, the range of