Tech

Pluto TV, the ViacomCBS-owned free streaming service, will be available on Hisense TV sets through a pact with Hisense’s Vidaa International subsidiary. Under the multiyear global deal, Hisense’s Vidaa-enabled TVs in the U.S., Europe and Latin America will provide Pluto TV’s 250-plus live curated and branded partner channels. In addition, all new Hisense TVs sold

WWE shares plummeted for the second time in a week after the company reported earnings that missed Wall Street’s expectations for total revenue. The company also disclosed a decline in live ticket sales to its events and a big drop in subscribers to its WWE Network subscription streaming service. WWE also said it was considering

Disney Plus roared out of the gate, signing up 28.6 million subscribers less than three months after its debut. And despite Disney Plus’ smaller content lineup, about half of Americans said they think the Mouse House service is just as good as category leader Netflix, according to a new survey by consumer-research firm Piplsay. Asked

February 6, 2020 7:45AM PT Pearl Jam will play its smallest show in New York in nearly 14 years when it visits the historic Apollo Theatre in Harlem on March 26, the day before its 11th studio album “Gigaton” will be released on the group’s Monkeywrench label through Republic Records. The event will be broadcast

Twitter reached the $1 billion sales mark in the fourth quarter of 2019 — a company record — and netted more daily active users than Wall Street expected, but higher costs led to a miss on profits. Revenue in Q4 reached $1.01 billion, up 11% and topping analyst forecasts, which reflected “steady progress on revenue

Chinese short video app Bilibili has launched a series of music events for people forced to stay at home in China due to the spread of novel coronavirus. The company has teamed up with the annual Strawberry Music Festival to create the Stay at Home Strawberry concert series, working around the theme of “Hi, I’m

A team from Area 120, Google’s workshop for experimental projects, today announced the launch of DEMAND for the live music industry during the annual Pollstar Live conference. Developed by tech industry veteran Parag Vaish and rock drummer turned entrepreneur Nick Turner, DEMAND unveils detailed data, enabling the live music industry to better identify key markets, optimal pricing

IMDb TV, the Amazon-owned free streaming service, has signed a deal with Disney to license full seasons of 21 older TV shows — including “Lost,” “Desperate Housewives,” “My So-Called Life,” “Ally McBeal” and “Malcolm in the Middle.” Under the pact with the Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International group, IMDb TV currently offers every episode of “Desperate

“Justin Bieber: Seasons” has broken a record for YouTube: The docuseries’ first episode scored as the most-viewed premiere in its first week of all the platform’s originals to date. Episode 1 of “Seasons” had 32.65 million views in the first week after its Jan. 27 debut, according to YouTube. That beat out YouTube’s original comedy

Spotify announced a deal to acquire The Ringer, a sports, entertainment and pop-culture media company founded by Bill Simmons, as part of the streaming company’s podcast expansion. Terms of the pact were not disclosed. The Ringer, founded by ESPN alum Simmons in 2016, features more than 30 podcasts from Simmons and the startup’s staffers as

Spotify reported its best-ever net adds for Premium subscribers and topped guidance for total monthly active users for the fourth quarter of 2019, as the audio-streamer said it plans to double down on podcasting in 2020. Total monthly active users worldwide were 271 million as of the end of the year, up 31% and beating

The Disney Plus streaming service is to be launched in India from the next month, piggybacking on the Hotstar platform that Disney acquired from Fox. Operations in India will include two tiers of service and be launched on March 29. That is earlier than Disney had previously indicated, but coincides with the start of the

February 4, 2020 8:20PM PT In this week’s edition of the Variety Movie Commercial Tracker, powered by the TV advertising attention analytics company iSpot.tv, the ranking is (no surprise) entirely made up of movie ads that ran during Super Bowl LIV, with MGM claiming the top spot in spending with the new James Bond film

Snap said Snapchat gained a net 8 million new daily active users in the fourth quarter of 2019 — its biggest sequential growth in two years — but revenue was lighter than Wall Street expected, sending the stock down in after-hours trading. The social media and messaging app stood at 218 million daily active users,

Apple Music subscribers will get the first crack at Genius’ original show “Verified,” which features artists explaining the lyrics and meaning behind their biggest songs. Under the deal, Apple Music will co-produce and exclusively premiere “Verified” episodes each weekday. Genius will post the episodes, co-branded with Apple Music, to its YouTube channel within 24 hours.

Jeff Bezos, through a court filing by his lawyers, has hit back at allegations by his girlfriend’s brother that the Amazon founder and CEO defamed him. On Jan. 31, Michael Sanchez, the brother of Bezos’ girlfriend Lauren Sanchez, filed a lawsuit alleging that Bezos and his security chief, Gavin de Becker, falsely spread information that

Call it “America’s Next Top Gamer.” Quibi pacted with top esports team FaZe Clan for a reality-competition show — giving one lucky Quibi subscriber the chance to join the roster. Here’s how it will work: Quibi will let viewers of “FaZe Up” (working title) submit videos showing off their gaming skills and making the case

Yahoo Entertainment is launching “Reality Star Showdown,” a party-game show from Ellen DeGeneres’ digital media company, in which viewers play along in guessing games with reality-TV contestants. The series is hosted by “The Ellen Show” producers Andy Zenor and Tracy Gold. In a bid to boost engagement, “Reality Star Showdown” uses Yahoo’s interactive quiz tool

People magazine is joining celebrity-texting service — a bid to reach readers directly with updates, news alerts and other content in a new way. The Meredith-owned personality and pop-culture title is the first media partner for Community, a startup whose backers include Salesforce.com and Ashton Kutcher. People mag will kick off its pact with Community

ViacomCBS Networks International, the international arm of ViacomCBS, has announced that its free, ad-supported streaming service Pluto TV will launch in Latin America at the end of March, with the service expected to reach Brazil by the end of the year. The platform will offer programming in Spanish and Portuguese, and it will be available

YouTube Music and YouTube Premium together have more than 20 million paying subscribers, and YouTube TV — Google’s over-the-top subscription TV service — has more than 2 million subscribers in the U.S. That’s according to Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google, who shared the details on the company’s Q4 earnings call Monday. It’s the

Facebook announced that Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox, has been appointed to the company’s board. Houston founded Dropbox in 2007 with Arash Ferdowsi. The company’s storage service is used today by over 600 million people worldwide, including 14 million paying subscribers. Houston graduated from MIT in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical

Google’s parent company Alphabet is shedding more light on YouTube, breaking out advertising revenue for the video platform for the first time. In addition, Alphabet is reporting sales for Google Search and Google Cloud. The internet company released the new info in reporting results for the fourth quarter and full-year 2019. YouTube had $15.15 billion

February 3, 2020 6:05AM PT YouTube ranked the most-viewed Super Bowl LIV spots on the video service on Feb. 2, which for many are the real draw of the NFL’s championship game — with Amazon, Facebook and Jeep coming out on top. Viewership of Super Bowl LIV ads on YouTube during the game were up

Here’s how to watch Super Bowl LIV even if you don’t have a pay-TV subscription — or even a television. The broadcast and live-streaming access to the NFL title game pitting the San Francisco 49ers against the Kansas City Chiefs will also include the halftime show featuring Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. On TV In the

Byte — the newly reborn 6-second video app from one of Vine’s co-founders — has been downloaded at least 1.3 million times worldwide in its first week of public availability, according to research firm Sensor Tower. Byte’s relatively fast shot out of the gate since bowing in a beta test on Jan. 24 shows the

January 31, 2020 2:12PM PT Hulu CEO Randy Freer is set to depart as the head of the streaming service. The move comes as Disney, which now controls all of Hulu after acquiring 21st Century Fox and buying out Comcast, looks to more closely integrate the streamer with its Direct-to-Consumer & International division under Kevin

Geoffrey Zakarian, a chef and restaurateur who is regular on Food Network, has set a podcast pact with iHeartMedia. Zakarian’s Corner Table Entertainment banner will produce a podcast featuring Zakarian interviewing “best in class” notables from various sectors with a focus on the elements of success. Zakarian plans to record the first batch of episodes

Roku, less than three days before Super Bowl LIV is set to air on Fox, has removed all Fox Corp. channels from the Roku Channel Store — a move the broadcaster called a “poorly timed negotiating ploy.” In a tweet Thursday, Roku said that its distribution deal with Fox Corp. was set to expire on

Jackie Schimmel, a writer, producer, television personality and host of “The Bitch Bible,” has signed with CAA. “The Bitch Bible,” which presents a raw, unfiltered and funny look at millennial struggles, pop culture and social faux-pas, exists as both a blog and a hit podcast on the Dear Media podcast network. She has also leveraged