Tech

Facing heightened competition in ad-supported streaming video, ViacomCBS-owned Pluto TV has launched a new branding campaign — its biggest to date — with plans to spend $30 million on the effort in 2020. Pluto TV, a central plank in ViacomCBS’s overall streaming strategy, last year grew active monthly users 75% to 22.4 million in the

Owners of older models of Apple’s iPhones would receive $25-$500 per device under an agreement the tech giant entered into to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging the company defrauded customers after slowing down the performance of the devices without telling them. Apple will pay a minimum of $310 million and a maximum of $500 million

The rise of global streamers in Europe, new opportunities for third-party producers and improvements in off-screen parity were among the hot topics at Variety and the European Film Market’s TV Summit, which took place as part of the Berlinale Series Market & Conference. The 20-plus speakers at the Feb. 26 event at Berlin’s Zoo Palast

Public.com, an early-stage company whose founders say they want to democratize stock investing, has brought some notable Hollywood, media and sports figures on board as part owners. The New York-based startup, founded in 2017, announced a $15 million Series B round of funding. The round was co-led by venture-capital firms Accel and Greycroft, with participation

YouTube TV customers for now still have access to Fox Sports-branded regional sports networks and YES Network, after Google agreed to a temporary contract extension with Sinclair Broadcast Group while the two sides try to hammer out a new distribution deal. YouTube TV’s carriage deal for the Fox RSNs and YES had been set to

The annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) scheduled for next month in San Francisco has been cancelled after multiple companies said they were sitting it out over fears of the coronavirus outbreak. However, GDC organizers said they planned to hold an event later this summer. GDC was set to run March 16-20 at the Moscone Center

Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos and a team of high-level executives have spent the week crisscrossing the African continent, wooing local creators and touting plans to thrust the continent center-stage as the streaming giant’s first African original series, “Queen Sono,” drops worldwide on Friday. Sarandos took the mic at a splashy event in Lagos

Netflix is adding a robust line-up of popular programs to its slate in March. In addition to rom-coms like Matthew Mcconaughey’s “Ghosts of Girlfriend’s Past,” “He’s Just Not That Into You” and “Always a Bridesmaid,” the streamer is also adding a few classics like “Goodfellas” and “The Shawshank Redemption” starring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins.

Amid fears over a global economic slowdown from the widening coronavirus outbreak, companies like Netflix that provide in-home services are best positioned to withstand the storm or even see upside from the crisis, according to industry analysts. Netflix “is an obvious beneficiary if consumers stay home due to coronavirus (COVID-19 virus) concerns, and this has

YouTube TV, Google’s internet pay-TV service, said it will drop the Fox regional sports networks and the YES Network from customer lineups this Saturday, Feb. 29 — citing an impasse in negotiations with Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns the RSNs. “We purchase rights from Sinclair to distribute content to you,” the YouTube TV account said

Daisy Ridley (“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”) and Cécile de France (“The New Pope”) have narrated “Dawn of Art,” a VR experience executive produced by Atlas V for Google Arts & Culture and the Chauvet Cave, one of the world’s most famous prehistoric rock art sites. Launched Thursday on the platform Stream VR, the

The worldwide coronavirus pandemic has prompted Facebook to cancel this year’s F8 developers conference. The F8 2020 was scheduled for May 5-6 at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, Calif. The social giant had held the conference every year since 2007, and last year’s F8 drew more than 5,000 attendees, according to the company.

Lisa Holme, a Hulu veteran who had been leading its international expansion strategy, has joined Discovery in a newly created role to oversee content and commercial strategy for the company’s direct-to-consumer streaming group. Discovery named Holme to the newly created role of group senior VP, content and commercial strategy, in Discovery’s direct-to-consumer group. She is

For years, the halo around premium cablers such as HBO and Showtime has been integral to their branding. Their parent companies in a past life — Time Warner and CBS, respectively — seemed to be content with the tens of millions of subscribers each had accumulated. But now, shepherded by new corporate owners — AT&T’s

February 26, 2020 2:50PM PT Netflix’s burgeoning consumer products group has a new boss: Josh Simon, who is leaving Nike to join the streaming giant. Simon, who’s also a Disney and Color Force alum, has been named VP of consumer products for Netflix. Based in L.A., he will start at the company the week of

We all knew the end was coming. Bob Iger had promised, time and again, that the end was coming. But the rather abrupt announcement Tuesday afternoon that he would relinquish his longtime role as CEO of the Walt Disney Co. — and that theme parks head Bob Chapek would succeed him at the top of

FandangoNow, the on-demand transactional movie and TV service from NBCUniversal-owned Fandango, is now available on Amazon Fire TV devices and Fire TV Edition Smart TVs. The expansion to Amazon’s TV hardware platform comes as Fandango vies to get a bigger slice of the digital-entertainment pie — competing with Amazon Video, as well as Apple, Google

Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch has outlined the local originals strategy for Starzplay, revealing that a slate of shows are being planned out of the Middle East and India as the business looks to complement its U.S. and English-language pipeline of content. Speaking at the Berlinale Series Market and Conference on Wednesday, the executive told Variety that the

Minute Media is poised to hunt for more acquisition targets in sports and entertainment digital media after raising a fresh round of $40 million in venture-capital funding. The New York-based company in January acquired sports property FanSided (which had been part of Time Inc.’s Sports Illustrated group) from Meredith Corp. for a reported $15 million.

Global streaming giant, Netflix is partnering with six different Japanese creators in order to expand its slate of originals anime content. Among the deals are ones with Clamp, the female manga collective that was responsible for the “Cardcaptor Sakura” franchise. Another is with Mari Yamazaki, whose “Thermae Romae” manga was turned into two hit live-action

Netflix has realized that its newly launched daily top 10 lists of popular TV shows and movies may be perplexing subscribers about its similar-sounding “Popular on Netflix” and “Trending Now” recommendation features. Now the streamer is considering changing the names of those to clear up confusion with the top 10 rankings, Variety has learned. On

Netflix and other streaming giants might be setting the pace for a global TV landscape upended by video-on-demand technology, but European players are shaking up domestic markets by ramping up investment in original production, forging unlikely partnerships, and looking to beat Netflix at its own game by finding innovative ways to personalize the VOD viewing

ABC News has recruited veteran TV producer David Hatcher as executive producer to oversee the morning news programming block for the ABC News Live streaming network. Hatcher most recently spent a year at BuzzFeed, where he was executive producer of morning news show “AM2DM” on Twitter. For ABC News Live, Hatcher will be responsible for

Netflix is taking top 10 lists of its most popular streaming content to members across the globe. Starting Monday (Feb. 24), Netflix said, it is rolling out a new row in its interface that will show the overall top 10 titles in a subscriber’s country, as well as the top 10 most popular series and

Disney, looking to lock in Disney Plus customers in the U.K. and European markets prior to its official launch next month, is offering 14%-17% discounts on the streaming service — if users sign up for a one-year plan. Leading up to the March 24 debut of Disney Plus in the U.K., Ireland, France, Germany, Italy,

Digital-media company Whistle recruited Alex Dundas, most recently with ITV Entertainment, as executive VP and head of unscripted premium originals. Based in Whistle’s L.A. office, Dundas will oversee development and packaging of new unscripted shows from Whistle and also will support sales to TV network and streaming partners. He reports to Dominic Ianno, EVP of

Screen Australia, the country’s federal support body, says the screen entertainment industry needs to come up with new business models in response to changes in audience behavior and the disruptive impact on content financing that has come from streaming. Public support bodies must change their relationships with the industry too, Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason

A feature documentary on Norwegian “Take On Me” singers A-ha will receive a worldwide release this November. “A-ha: The Movie,” distributed internationally by Esther van Messel’s First Hand Films, will be broadcast in theaters around the world on Nov. 26, with Germany’s Salzgeber releasing the film locally and First Hand Films handling the release in

Critical Role, together with Amazon Studios and animation studio Titmouse, announced the writing team for Kickstarter-funded animated fantasy series “The Legend of Vox Machina.” The show, based on storylines in Critical Role’s long-running role-playing game series, follows a band of seven antiheroes on their first campaign — a quest to save the realm from forces

Comcast’s NBCUniversal is looking to add some Vudu into its streaming-video mix. The media conglomerate is in talks to buy Vudu, the Walmart-owned entertainment rental, download and free-streaming service, sources confirm to Variety. It’s unclear what the terms of the pact would be or the timing. News of NBCU’s interest in Vudu was first reported