Tech

Former BBC scripted content portfolio director Liam Keelan has joined the Mouse House. The London-based exec will take on the newly created regional role of VP of original productions for television, where he is to oversee content for both channels and fledgling streaming service Disney+ in Europe and Africa. Leading a team of development and

Roku turned in top-line sales of $411.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2019, up 49% and beating Wall Street forecasts, which was driven by a 71% pop in advertising and services revenue. The streaming media player and platform company said it added a record 4.6 million incremental active accounts in Q4, to end 2019

Netflix is hoping to convert fans of “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” into subscribers — if they’re not already — by letting anyone stream the YA rom-com movie for free for a limited time. The original 2018 movie is free to watch (no Netflix subscription required) now through March 9 in the U.S.

February 12, 2020 9:34PM PT In this week’s edition of the Variety Movie Commercial Tracker, powered by the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company iSpot.tv, Paramount Pictures claims the top spot in spending with “Sonic the Hedgehog.” Ads placed for the video game film adaptation had an estimated media value of $4.27 million through

Now more than ever, the broadcast networks are feeling the need to change up their typical pilot season strategy.  With existing streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus and Amazon and new competitors like HBO Max and Peacock developing shows year-round, the broadcasters are slowly but surely shifting their plans to include more off-cycle pickups. 

In a sign that Amazon is enmeshing itself even further into the entertainment industry, Jeff Bezos is adding one of Hollywood’s own to his inner circle. Mike Hopkins, Sony Pictures Television’s chairman of the past two and a half years, is decamping from the studio to become senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon

Spotify disclosed that it will pay upwards of $196 million for The Ringer, the podcast and media company founded by Bill Simmons. The streaming music and audio company said it entered into a deal to acquire Bill Simmons Media Group for between €130 million and €180 million in cash (approximately $141 million to $196 million

MADRID — The Mobile World Congress, Europe’s largest telecom conference scheduled to take place Feb. 24-27, has been cancelled after more than a dozen participating companies announced they would not be sending delegates for fear of the spread of coronavirus. By Wednesday afternoon, more than a dozen companies had already pulled out, including Amazon, Nokia,

Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka is set as the subject of a Netflix documentary series. The series will cover Osaka’s pivotal year, from the US Open in August last year, on tour as Osaka plays in each of this year’s Grand Slam tournaments, and prepares for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Netflix did not disclose a

WhatsApp now has more than 2 billion users globally, according to Facebook — and the company says it “will not compromise” on the messaging app’s end-to-end encryption, despite warnings from law enforcement officials. WhatsApp, which Facebook acquired for $19 billion in 2014, uses strong crypto to keep information sent over the service private, “helping protect

Wondery, the podcast industry’s largest independent publisher, is bringing back hit true-crime show “Dr. Death” for a second season in the fall of 2020. Season 2 of “Dr. Death,” hosted by journalist Laura Beil, will feature two new cases of doctors betraying their oath — leading to fatal outcomes for their patients. The sophomore season

February 12, 2020 6:55AM PT Spotify today launched its Songwriter Pages, which it describes as “a new way for fans, collaborators and industry partners to dive deeper into the creators behind their favorite songs.” Among other features, the program allows fans to click on songwriters’ names in the credits and see the songs on the platform

Amid the run-up to the 2020 U.S. election, Reuters announced a deal with Facebook under which the giant social-networking corporation will pay the global news service to fact-check information, images and video on Facebook and Instagram. Reuters has formed a four-person fact-checking team that will work to verify content posted on Facebook and Instagram —

Condé Nast Entertainment is upping its TV and film ambitions, announcing the formation of multiple “studios” dedicated to its major publishing brands. The New York-based media and publishing company is launching studios initially for five magazine titles: The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Wired and GQ. With the move, CNE plans to hire a studio

Palomar, the Italian TV and film production company behind “Inspector Montalbano” and “The Name of The Rose,” is launching a unit dedicated to documentaries to be headed by Andrea Romeo, founder and chief of Italy’s Biografilm Festival. Palomar Doc, which will become operational in March, will be developing and producing docs and doc series by

Amazon has snapped up North American rights to an Emily Blunt-fronted western from the BBC, Variety has learned. The streaming giant is understood to have boarded “The English,” which has attached the “Quiet Place” actor as its lead. The multi-part series is produced by “Doctor Foster” firm Drama Republic, whose credits include BBC Two and

Samsung Electronics, in its ongoing battle to introduce category-defining products against Apple, took the wraps off the Galaxy Z Flip, which features “foldable” glass — able handle up to 200,000 folds over its lifetime, according to the company. The breakthrough folding capability of the Galaxy Z Flip comes with a premium price tag: It will

As part of its antitrust probe into large technology firms, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it ordered five companies — Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (parent company of Google), Facebook and Microsoft — to furnish detailed information about acquisitions they were not previously required to report to U.S. antitrust regulators. The FTC said it issued the

Live streaming service Caffeine.TV has announced an exclusive multi-year partnership with Drake. Infamous for his own rap feuds, the Canadian artist will first produce a series of rap battles along with a range of additional live content, all of which will premiere on the rapper’s new Caffeine channel. Produced in partnership with Urban Rap League

Streaming video has boomed over the past few years — but it still represents just around one-fifth of all time Americans spend in front of their TVs, according to a new report from Nielsen. In the fourth quarter of 2019, about 19% of the time spent watching TV by consumers who have internet-connected TV devices

Tubi says it’s continuing to gain momentum, drawing more viewers to its free-streaming service — and driving up more overall viewing time. In December 2019, according to the company, its monthly active user base grew to 25 million (up from 20 million six months earlier) while total viewing time hit over 163 million hours watched,

Kid-focused digital media company Pocket.watch — in its first international expansion — has tapped former Disney executive Danny Spronz to oversee business operations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Spronz, based out of Pocket.watch’s new London office, serves as managing director EMEA, responsible for all business operations, advertising sales, consumer products licensing and content

Verizon has earmarked $5 million in production budgets for female-led entertainment projects — with the twin goals of burnishing its brand and encouraging filmmakers to tap into the capabilities of its 5G wireless network. The telco’s Future Fund will support emerging female talent behind the camera, focused on up-and-coming creators. The purpose is to create

SiriusXM Holdings has invested $75 million in SoundCloud, the open audio platform beloved by musicians that has struggled to find a place in a the streaming-service hierarchy. SoundCloud will use this additional investment to accelerate its product development and enhance the services that fuel its global community of creators and listeners, according to the announcement.

Sony Pictures Television Chairman Mike Hopkins is departing his post at the industry’s largest independent TV studio to oversee Amazon’s video entertainment operations, including Amazon Studios and Prime Video, effective Feb. 24. Current Amazon Studios head Jen Salke will report to Hopkins, who will report directly to Amazon chairman and CEO Jeff Bezos. Amazon’s senior

Over the past year, 95 million people in the U.S. used a major streaming service, 68 million were self-paying, 25 million had access through a family plan, 13 million were on a free trial, and nearly 11 million were “mooching,” or sharing a log-in that was not from an authorized family plan. Among paid subscribers

Liberty Global, the European cable operator conglomerate headed by chairman John Malone, announced a multiyear deal extension with Netflix covering its European footprint. The renewed distribution agreement will run for three years. Under the pact, Liberty Global’s will continue to offer 11 million TV customers across six countries in Europe (under the Virgin Media, Telenet

Subscription streamer Starz Play Arabia has partnered with Fremantle to exclusively carry its high-end shows “Baghdad Central,” “The Luminaries,” and “Dublin Murders” across 20 countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, as the Starz-branded OTT service continues to ramp up operations in the region. The deal provides Starz Play Arabia with the bulk

UPDATED: Twitter on Friday afternoon suffered technical problems that prevented users from posting tweets to the service for about an hour. “Tweeting is broken. We’re working on fixing it,” Patrick Traughber, a Twitter product manager, tweeted at 4:30 p.m. ET. The post was subsequently deleted. At 5:07 p.m., Twitter’s support account on the service said

Netflix disclosed that its total energy consumption in 2019 was 451,000 megawatt-hours — enough to power around 40,000 average American homes for a full year. The streamer revealed energy-usage figures its inaugural Environmental Social Governance (ESG) report, in which it also disclosed which content it has pulled from the service in specific countries following government