Tech

Roku unveiled a new kids and family content section in its Roku Channel Monday, making it easier for young viewers to find movies and shows they’d like to watch, and assuring their parents that the little ones won’t be exposed to inappropriate content or ads. The new kids section offers access to 7000 free and

Disney will begin its international roll-out of Disney Plus on the same day – Nov. 12 – that the direct-to-consumer service launches in the U.S., with a push into Canada and the Netherlands, followed a week later by Australia and New Zealand. In addition, Disney’s Direct-to-Consumer and International group announced Monday that it had reached

Ad-supported video service Xumo is expanding its reach with the addition of apps for Comcast Xfinity set-top boxes as well as Android TV-powered smart TVs and streaming devices. With those additions, Xumo is now available on over 30 different devices in the U.S., with Xumo senior vice president of product Chris Hall telling Variety that

UFC matches will return to FX  – but not on a permanent basis. ESPN has been showing preliminary bouts to UFC pay-per-view events for the last while on ESPN and ESPN2, and then showing the main card on its ESPN+ subscription video service. In September, the early lineup will air on FX, which the UFC

Google’s skunkworks lab Area 120 has been quietly testing an events-centric crowdfunding service for YouTubers, Variety has learned. Called Fundo, the service allows creators to invite their fans to virtual meet & greet sessions and other paid online events. A Google spokesperson confirmed the testing in a statement provided to Variety: “One of the many

After more than two years in the works, “Telling Lies” — the investigative thriller from acclaimed game creator Sam Barlow — is ready to take the stage. The game, produced with and released by Annapurna Interactive, will be available next Friday, Aug. 23, via Steam and Apple’s Mac and iOS app stores. “Telling Lies” will

Management at The Ringer voluntarily recognized the Writers Guild of America East as the union representative of employees at the sports and pop-culture media brand, founded by Bill Simmons. According to the WGA East, a strong majority of the 90 employees at Bill Simmons Media Group, the publisher of The Ringer — 66 in all

YouTube is pushing back against overzealous copyright policing by music companies. Starting in mid-September, the video giant will forbid copyright holders from making manual claims to commandeer revenue generated by YouTube videos that include very short music clips (e.g., five seconds of a song) or “unintentional” music (like music from passing cars). “One concerning trend

August 15, 2019 3:11PM PT iHeartRadio has teamed up with Amazon to promote Chelsea Handler’s podcast “Life Will Be The Death Of Me.” Beginning this Thursday, users of Amazon’s Echo smart speaker and other devices with Alexa built-in can opt to get their mornings started with Handler cracking jokes and exchanging banter with the smart

Activision Blizzard tapped David Messinger, a former 15-plus-year veteran of CAA, as its first corporate-wide chief marketing officer. Messinger, based in Santa Monica, reports to Coddy Johnson, Activision Blizzard’s president and COO. It’s the first time the video-game company has appointed a CMO who will oversee the global marketing operations across all of Activision Blizzard

Ashley Flowers, creator and host of “Crime Junkie” — currently the No. 1 true-crime podcast — has been accused of using material in her show from multiple sources without credit. In a statement sent to Variety, Flowers said in part, “we recently made the decision to pull down several episodes from our main feed when their

Media center app maker Plex introduced a new app for Windows and Mac OS Thursday that comes with some significant changes to its support for desktop PCs. Most notably, Plex is phasing out support for Home Theater PC (HTPC) setups. Plex’s new desptop app also replaces the company’s dedicated Windows Store app, and introduces a

Podcast publisher Wondery has produced versions of hit show “Dr. Death” in seven languages — angling to bring the horrifying true story to new global audiences. Wondery is releasing episodes of the show, one of the most highly acclaimed podcasts of 2018, into neutral Spanish, Castilian Spanish, German, French, Mandarin, Portuguese and Korean. The L.A.-based

Ben Kaufman is stepping down as BuzzFeed’s chief marketing officer after less than a year, moving into an advisory role at the company with the planned expansion of Kaufman’s Camp retail stores. Starting in January 2020, Kaufman will shift into an “active advisory role” at BuzzFeed, as Camp continues to expand and “require more of

Spotify is planning to market a more expensive version of its music service in Scandinavia in an effort to see whether it can raise prices in other territories, a report in Bloomberg claims, citing people familiar with the matter. A source has confirmed the news to Variety. The streaming giant will raise the price of

You could be using the world’s greatest headphones, but if the quality of the sound going into them is mediocre, there’s only so much lipstick you can put on that pig. Audiophiles — or even people who just like their music to sound better than the usual trebly phone-into-earbuds situation — have had a tough

A group of LGBTQ+ creators has sued YouTube and its parent company Google, alleging that the video platform was regularly restricting their abilities to make money with their videos based on their sexual orientation. The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California Tuesday and first reported by the Washington Post Wednesday morning, seeks

August 14, 2019 6:58AM PT Disney has hired Luke Bradley-Jones to run its Disney Plus streaming service when it launches in Europe and Africa. Bradley-Jones will join Disney from Comcast-owned Sky, where he was chief marketing officer. As SVP, direct-to-consumer, and general manager Disney Plus in Europe and Africa, Bradley-Jones will be based in London.

August 13, 2019 9:07PM 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, Universal Pictures claims the top spot in spending with “Good Boys.” Ads placed for the comedy had an estimated media value of $4.26 million through Sunday for 941 national

Two households alike in dignity, once star-crossed Viacom and CBS are now set to enter yet another union, this one perhaps less brief than their last. Their imminent integration as ViacomCBS raises a number of questions to be answered in the coming days – that of synergies, executive leadership and overarching strategy. With CBS and

August 13, 2019 2:34PM PT Twitter is exploring ways for its users to follow interests on its platform, executives announced Tuesday. To achieve this, the company will curate tweets around a number of popular topics that users can then follow. The goal of the new feature was to make it as easy to follow an

Device makers like Apple, Sony and Roku  got some significant reprieve from the Trump administration Tuesday: The U.S. Trade Representative announced that it would delay tariffs on a wide range of consumer electronics products imported from China until December 15. Certain other products will be permanently exempt from the new round of tariffs due to

Dave “El Presidente” Portnoy, founder of media company Barstool Sports, says he really hates unions. Now he’s made explicit threats to fire employees who engage in union-organizing activity — which, even if Portnoy is “joking,” has drawn scrutiny of what would represent violations of federal labor laws. Portnoy, who sold majority control of Barstool to

August 13, 2019 10:02AM PT Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell is leaving Facebook 7 years after launching the first Oculus Rift headset with a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. Mitchell announced the move on Reddit Tuesday, calling it “bittersweet news.” Mitchell said that he would take some time off to spend with his family. And while he committed

Snap is doubling down on trying to make its Snapchat-enabled Spectacles camera sunglasses a high-end social-media status symbol. On Tuesday, the company announced Spectacles 3, the third generation of its wearable cameras designed for snapping video and photos in 3D format and seamlessly upload them to Snapchat. The latest models include two HD cameras to

August 13, 2019 7:00AM PT Location-based virtual reality (VR) startup Nomadic is getting ready for an international expansion: The company will open its first VR center outside of the States in South Korea later this month. The new location, housed in the CGV Gangbyeon multiplex in Seoul, is being opened in partnership with theater chain

Muzooka will provide artist assets including photos, videos, bios for the iHeartRadio Music Charts, powered by Mediabase, iHeartMedia announced today. Muzooka.com will allow artists and their representatives to update asset in real time and across multiple platforms.The platform also automates live setlist reporting to performing rights organizations, facilitating proper payments to songwriters when their work

Singularity 6, the start-up founded by ex-Riot Games developers that’s aiming to create a community-oriented game where players “can feel like they are valued and belong,” closed $16.5 million in Series A financing. The funding round was led by venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from seed investor London Venture Partners (LVP), which previously put

August 12, 2019 3:58PM PT Shira Knishkowy, a veteran of Matador Records, will be joining Spotify at the end of this month as communications manager, the company confirmed today. She will remain based in New York and report to Spotify’s Head of Content B2B Communications Chris Macowski. Her last day at Matador will be Aug.

Verizon announced a deal to sell Tumblr — the blogging site Yahoo acquired for $1.1 billion six years ago — to Automattic, the company that owns and operates online-publishing site WordPress.com. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it’s surely nowhere near what Yahoo originally paid. Automattic will bring about 200 Tumblr employees on-board