“Stonewall Outloud” is an important documentary from the people who brought you “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” The documentary takes us back to New York 1969 when the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn, a haven for the LGBTQ community. That fateful night on June 28, 1969, was when the patrons fought back, standing their ground for their
Tech
Disney Plus has been going gangbusters two weeks after its debut, notwithstanding the technical issues at launch. But the strong interest in the Mouse House’s new streaming service, at this point, isn’t derailing the momentum of Netflix or other services like Amazon Prime Video or HBO, according to new data. From Nov. 12-24, the Disney
November 26, 2019 9:32AM PT Google wants to sweeten the deal for prospective Chromebook buyers with a Disney Plus promotion: Anyone who activates a new Chromebook between 11/25/2019 and 1/31/2020 can get Disney Plus for free for 3 months. The offer is only available for new subscribers, so anyone who already signed up for Disney
November 26, 2019 9:15AM PT Impala, the European trade collective that represents both independent labels and publishers, announced today that it is “gearing up” to oppose Tencent’s buyout of a 10% stake of Universal Music Group, with an option to add a further 10%. The organization is also concerned about “who might buy the additional UMG
British television presenter Rick Edwards attempts to levitate in the trailer for “The Edge of Science,” a new YouTube Original that is the first by BBC Studios for the platform. In the special, Edwards and his team embark on stunts and carry out experiments to try to explain levitation, speaking to scientists, inventors and experts
November 26, 2019 8:35AM PT Disney Plus now lets you pick up where you left off watching a TV show or movie — a table-stakes feature for any streaming service that was notably absent when it debuted two weeks ago. The feature is now available on Disney Plus after the “Continue Watching” feature began rolling
Getting its world premiere in Frontlight, Tonje Hessen Schei’s gripping AI doc “iHuman” drew an audience of more than 700 to a 10 a.m. Sunday screening at the incongruously old-school Pathé Tuschinski cinema. Many had their curiosity piqued by the film’s timely subject matter—the erosion of privacy in the age of new media, and the
An Indonesian remake of South Korea’s 2017 TV series “Tunnel” will be one of the first pieces of original content for Goplay, a recently launched video streaming service backed by Indonesia’s tech giant Gojek. “We just finished production yesterday, and we are in the process of the next phase: post-production,” Tanya Yuson, chief of creative
November 25, 2019 9:39PM PT Shares in e-commerce giant Alibaba surged by more than 5% in early Tuesday trading on the Hong Kong Stock Market. It was the first day that Alibaba stock could be traded in the Asian financial capital following a secondary listing and share sale that raised about $12 billion. After reaching
November 25, 2019 11:36AM PT “Deadpool” star Ryan Reynolds has taken on a new gig as part owner — and pitchman — for low-cost mobile carrier Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile, whose prepaid plans start as low as $15 per month for 3 gigabytes of wireless data, announced that Reynolds purchased an ownership stake in the
November 25, 2019 10:17AM PT Images of the adorable Baby Yoda character from Disney Plus’ “The Mandalorian” Star Wars series are back on Giphy — after the GIF-sharing site briefly pulled them down over a mix-up about copyrights. “Last week, there was some confusion around certain content uploaded to Giphy and we temporarily removed these
November 25, 2019 8:25AM PT The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear the appeal of Adnan Syed, the Maryland man convicted in 2000 for the murder of his girlfriend whose case was spotlighted by the groundbreaking “Serial” podcast. “Serial” launched in 2014 as a spinoff of NPR’s “This American Life” and became an
Online commerce company eBay has landed a buyer for StubHub, announcing a pact to sell the unit to Viagogo for $4.05 billion in cash — bringing together the world’s two biggest ticket-resale providers. The deal comes after eBay in March 2019 announced that it was exploring a potential sale of StubHub at the urging of activist
November 25, 2019 6:00AM PT Starz has launched its direct-to-consumer StarzPlay streaming app in Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico and the U.K. and plans to roll it out in another 20 territories in 2020. StarzPlay has a pipeline of originals on its SVOD service from the Starz U.S. cable channel, including “The Spanish Princess” and “Dublin
November 25, 2019 3:07AM PT In the second such pact announced within a week, global streaming giant, Netflix has unveiled a multi-year program supply deal with Korean producer JTBC Content Hub. JTBC and Netflix will co-develop and showcase JTBC’s prime-time TV drama globally as well as optimizing what will be presented to the world among
November 25, 2019 3:00AM PT Digital reading subscription service Scribd has raised a $58 million round of funding led by Spectrum Equity. The new funding round brings the total amount of money raised by Scribd to $106 million. Scribd launched in 2007 as a hosting service for digital documents, and has since evolved into a
Kay Madati, Twitter’s global VP, head of content partnerships, is departing the social network after two years in the job. Madati announced in a series of tweets Sunday that his last day at Twitter will be Dec. 13. “I have made the difficult and personal decision to move on from this extraordinary and wonderful company,”
India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is conducting discussions with streaming video platforms available in the country. It has requested them to exercise self restraint in terms of content. “The old frameworks which were there for print and film or TV should not be applied. There needs to be a different treatment,” said Atul Kumar
YouTube starting this month is requiring all creators, regardless of location and whether or not they produce content intended for children, to designate whether their videos are made for kids. And many YouTubers are concerned that the new rules will hurt their monetization — or even expose them to fines if their content is mislabeled.
Lilly Singh lampooned Disney Plus’ disclaimer that certain older movies include “outdated cultural depictions” on her NBC show. The YouTube and late-night TV comedian took issue with Disney’s euphemistic phrasing — pointing out that the warning is really about the “racist” tropes in decades-old movies that were made for kids. Disney Plus includes “a bunch
Calling social media “the greatest propaganda machine in history,” and the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube “high-tech robber barons,” comedian Sacha Baron Cohen used a speech given to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) this week to call for much more stringent regulation of internet companies. “By now, it’s pretty clear they cannot be trusted to
YouTube star and comedian Liza Koshy will preside over a dance-competition reality series coming to Quibi — a kind of mashup of “So You Think You Can Dance” and “Wipeout.” In “Floored,” two opposing teams of skilled dancers will try their best to perform a routine while the dance floor itself actually lifts, tilts, drops,
Instagram this month began a test to hide “likes” for U.S. users, and last week the social platform announced that it will be rolling out the change everywhere in the world. The move ticked off some big influencers, including Nicki Minaj, who said on Twitter that she’s going to stop posting to Instagram because of
The Video Game Entertainment and News Network (VENN) is staffing up ahead of its 2020 launch: VENN has hired former Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) and Discovery Networks executive Neal Kirsch as its new COO & CFO, the company is scheduled to announce Thursday. Kirsch served until late 2016 as the COO & CFO of Oprah’s
Spotify has set plans for its first-ever music awards — with the winners based entirely on user-generated data. “Your plays, patterns, and habits will help determine the award categories, finalists, and winners for the Spotify Awards by providing a true reflection of what fans are listening to,” the company said in announcing the program Friday.
Stressed-out YouTube creators anxious that their channels will take a traffic hit if they take a mental-health break shouldn’t worry, according to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki: She says a data analysis showed that, on average, YouTubers get even more views when they return after a hiatus. In a Nov. 21 open letter to creators, Wojcicki
Apple has disabled the ability for customers to comment on and rate products on its online store — and the tech giant pulled down all the reviews and ratings that were previously left on the site. It’s not clear why Apple made the decision to kill off user reviews in its ecommerce storefronts. Some observers
YouTube wants to help creators who use profanity — or otherwise produce videos that are deemed “advertiser unfriendly” — to make more money: The video giant has launched of a test program to identify marketers who are “interested in edgier content,” according to CEO Susan Wojcicki. One of the first categories of advertisers YouTube has
November 21, 2019 9:23AM PT Google wants to make it easier to buy movie tickets on the web: The search giant has teamed up with Fandango, MovieTickets.com, AMC, MJR Theaters and others to streamline ticket buying across their sites. To do this, Google is making use of its Assistant, which automatically pops up when Android
Director Harmony Korine donned a pair of Snap’s high-end Spectacles 3 camera-enabled glasses to make an experimental short film — transforming Miami into a psychedelic swirl of colors, music and characters. It’s a proof-of-concept project: Snap enlisted the filmmaker to create the 10-minute short, called “Duck Duck,” to showcase the new Spectacles 3 hardware, which