Ted Sarandos, who has helped to upend the way audiences receive and consume entertainment as Netflix’s chief content officer, will be honored with the Milestone Award at the 31st annual Producers Guild Awards on Jan. 18. Game-changers including Steven Spielberg, Sherry Lansing, Robert Iger, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Ron Meyer have previously received the recognition, and
Tech
In an era when consumers feel more empowered to avoid TV commercials, NBCUniversal is the latest media company to try to get them to bring ads back into their TV lives. One of the key selling points of big streaming-video services like Netflix and Disney Plus is that subscribers don’t have to endure the commercial
The Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) home-video retailing trade group has changed its name to OTT.X, The Over The Top Exchange. The new name reflects the org’s broader scope and community to adapt to the evolution of the home-entertainment ecosystem, according to Mark Fisher, president and CEO of OTT.X. The group’s new website is at ottx.org.
UFC has upped its investment in original content for Facebook — where it has more than 26 million global followers — to try to convert more mixed martial arts fans into premium pay-per-view buyers. Under the one-year deal between UFC and Facebook, the MMA promoter is producing three original shows for Facebook Watch. All of
In the big unveiling Thursday on the “Saturday Night Live” stage at 30 Rock, NBCUniversal leaders described Peacock as a 21st century iteration of a broadcast network. For sure, the Comcast answer to the streaming wars is taking a broadcasters’ approach to programming and distributing the service that Comcast hopes might eventually represent the next
Peacock will unfold its tail feathers this spring for Comcast customers — and will launch widely across the U.S. this summer. The streaming service from Comcast and NBCUniversal will be available April 15 in an early version for Comcast’s Xfinity TV and broadband-only customers. It will debut nationally July 15, including a free, ad-supported version
Universal Music Japan announced today that Ichiro Tamaki has been named as Corporate Executive responsible for Digital Strategy, data analytics and platform partnerships, effective February 15. According to the announcement, as a core member of Universal Music Japan’s executive team, he will oversee the Data & Analytics and Platform Partnerships teams, and will be responsible
As it heads toward its centenary in 2022, the world’s most famous public broadcaster is either making itself fighting-fit for the digital age or in danger of losing an entire generation of viewers, depending on your take — and in the U.K., everyone has a take on the BBC. More than 90% of Brits connect
Netflix is keeping its foot pressed firmly on the gas pedal in the streaming-video road race. The streamer will invest around $17.3 billion this year in content on a cash basis, according to a new forecast by Wall Street firm BMO Capital Markets. That’s up from around $15.3 billion in 2019. And Netflix is not
Netflix India has announced three new original feature films, and the cast for its previously announced film “Freedom.” As revealed by Variety in December, the latest from prolific auteur Anurag Kashyap (“Gangs of Wasseypur”) will be “Choked,” where a bank cashier’s life changes when she finds an almost unlimited source of money in her kitchen.
Universal and Warner Bros. — facing the continued deterioration of physical disc sales — want to pool their DVD distribution businesses under a major new deal. The studios announced that Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment entered into a pact to form a new joint venture to distribute DVDs in North America
iHeartMedia today announced a “new organizational structure” and “technology transformation” as it modernizes the company, and as often happens during such moves, layoffs are taking place. According to Country Aircheck and All Access, there have been multiple layoffs in the country and other sectors of the largest radio network in the U.S., including top roles
Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus launched within the same month in late 2019, but they’re getting very different receptions in the marketplace. That’s according to new data from a survey conducted in December 2019 by YouGov in partnership with Variety Intelligence Platform (VIP). The survey was conducted online among 1,182 U.S. adults. Of surveyed
UPDATED: Spotify and Warner Music announced early Tuesday morning that they have signed a global deal that ends the unusually bitter and public licensing dispute that flared up last year. Terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed. Reps did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment on that matter. “Spotify and Warner Chappell
Consumer spending on home entertainment rose 8.4% to a record $25.2 billion in 2019, spurred by the at-home sector’s biggest growth engine — digital, according to DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group. Subscription streaming, digital movie sales and digital movie rentals over the internet all generated significantly more money than they did in 2018, DEG says.
Dr. Brené Brown, a renowned researcher, author and speaker whose work explores emotional facets of the human experience, is launching a weekly podcast that kicks off at South by Southwest. Brown’s “Unlocking Us,” produced in partnership with podcast company Cadence13, is scheduled to launch at 2020 SXSW in March, where she’s slated to have on-stage
The impact of high-definition audio has been top of mind lately for Alicia Keys, who teased new music and talked about her experience with the technology during a panel overseen by Amazon Music at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on Wednesday (January 8) in Las Vegas. The 15-time Grammy winner was joined on the panel
Even a new league comes with history. That’s one of the takeaways from the first episode of “The Campaign,” which follows the Chicago Huntsmen in the lead-up to Activision Blizzard’s new franchised Call of Duty League. Variety is debuting the first episode exclusively, which details some of the narrative that follows the Huntsmen (based in
Verizon Media, the telco’s division that houses Yahoo, AOL, HuffPost and other digital brands, tapped veteran tech exec Rathi Murthy to lead its global technology strategy as CTO. Murthy most recently served as Gap Inc.’s chief technology officer overseeing a team of 2,500 employees across the retailers portfolio of brands. Prior to that, she held
Imperative Entertainment’s podcast division and “Broken Harts” creator Justine Harman are teaming up on “The Baron of Botox,” a new 10-part weekly series about the late “dermatologist to the stars,” Dr. Fredric Brandt. The series charts Brandt’s rise, following him from his small dermatology practice in Miami to being Madonna’s personal skincare consultant and the
ESPN’s next potential superstar hasn’t thrown fancy passes on the field, and isn’t known for his prowess on the court, at the rink, in the ring or even on the track. Omar Raja’s game is figuring out how to get sports fans chatting about, liking and passing along the video clips he makes of top
Verizon — feeling the pain of customer cancellations over high pay-TV prices — is killing off bundles and contracts for its Fios line of TV, broadband and phone services. Instead, it’s introducing “Mix & Match on Fios,” a new pricing plan under which it is selling pay-TV, internet and phone as standalone products. For Verizon,
LAS VEGAS — The steady rise in listenership for high-end podcasts is opening up a host of opportunities for creatives in the comedy arena, director-producer Paul Feig and internet star Lele Pons told CES attendees on Wednesday. Feig, the multihyphenate behind “Bridesmaids” and other hits, invoked the era of great radio dramas thriving as theater
LAS VEGAS — The flood of streaming services that have entered the pay TV marketplace in the past decade have been viewed as signs of the apocalypse for the traditional MVPDs. But in practice, the track record to date shows that most subscribers to streaming services also continue to pay for regular MVPD services. That’s
LAS VEGAS — Maverick investor Mark Cuban sees the development of AI technology as a national priority that is on a par with the urgency to invest in the space program in the 1950s and ’60s. Speaking at Variety’s annual Entertainment Summit at CES, Cuban offered his views on the imperative of AI for the
Content partnerships are essential to the growth and success of Twitter, and the company has accelerated its work to make the service safer and easier to use, according to Matt Derella, global VP of revenue and content partnerships. Derella, in a wide-ranging headliner conversation at the Variety Entertainment Summit at CES in Las Vegas on
When Rob McElhenney was initially approached by Ubisoft about writing a series set in the video game industry, he was reluctant: He didn’t see a way into that world. But when the company invited him to tour its Montreal headquarters, he figured there was nothing to lose. Once there, he found the inspiration he needed. “I met a creative director” for one of Ubisoft’s games, McElhenney
Merlin, the global digital-rights agency for the independent label sector, today announced the appointment of Jeremy Sirota as the organization’s new CEO. Sirota, who joins Merlin from Facebook’s music team, will be based in both New York and London. He succeeds Charles Caldas, who served as Merlin’s CEO since the agency’s founding in 2007. According
LAS VEGAS — Here comes Quibi. Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman revved up the public launch campaign Wednesday morning at the CES conference for the streaming service billed as the first platform for original short-form content designed to be viewed on smartphones and other mobile devices. The pair talked up plans to launch with some
January 8, 2020 9:24AM PT Oscar and Emmy Award-winning director Alex Gibney is partnering with Luminary on a new podcast, “Lies We Tell.” The show, which will launch in March, “contemplates the mysteries of deception and all of its manifestations.” It will be produced by Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions. “Lies We Tell” will follow Gibney and