Tech

The New York Post is the latest to climb aboard the podcast bandwagon — with plans to launch its first podcast, built around its well-known Page Six celebrity news and gossip franchise. Slated to launch this fall, “Sources Say: A Page Six Podcast” will be a weekly show hosted by Page Six editors Maggie Coughlan

August 12, 2019 10:49AM PT Thought VR was just for gamers? Think again: Fans of Dan Carlin’s “Hardcore History” podcast can now explore the drama of World War I in a historic immersive reality experience narrated by the podcaster. “War Remains,” which has been produced by MWM Immersive with development by Flight School Studio and

Smart speaker maker Sonos is getting ready to release its first-ever portable product with Bluetooth connectivity, according to multiple leaks. The speaker was first tipped in a FCC filing late last week, and Zatz Not Funny was able to unearth an image of the device (pictured above) as well. The company has a press event

Holographic display startup Light Field Lab has raised a $28 million Series A round of funding led by Bosch Venture Capital and Taiwania Capital. The San Jose-based startup wants to use the new cash infusion to build holographic displays, and eventually produce TVs that can recreate 3D holograms. The company, which came out of stealth

In another management change at Vice Media, the company appointed Cliff Gulibert to a newly created position of executive producer of Vice Digital’s video team overseeing all video production. Gulibert previously was director of video for Munchies, Vice’s food channel, joining the company less than a year ago from Vox Media. He reports to Katie

Since 1941, the two largest U.S. performing rights organizations, ASCAP and BMI, have been operating under separate consent decrees that govern how music is licensed by the two PROs (although not their competitors, SESAC and Global Music Rights). The consent decrees were designed to protect competition but nearly all involved parties agree that they have

HiStudios, a new podcasting content venture spun out of the Chinese-backed podcast platform Himalaya, is getting ready to open a physical production studio in Los Angeles next month. The company is looking to make a mark with sports and influencer podcasts, and is favoring an open distribution strategy over paywalled exclusives. HiStudios started as the

Amazon contract manufacturer Foxconn has been accused of recruiting over 1500 underage interns from local vocational schools to work on Amazon’s Echo smart speaker. These interns were forced to work overtime and night shifts, which is against local laws, and were being paid less than regular workers. The accusations were made this week in a

Sony Music Entertainment’s new podcast venture with Adam Davidson and Laura Mayer — named Three Uncanny Four Productions — has made several key hires and plans to debut its first shows in 2020. Variety first reported on Sony Music’s deal with podcast vets Davidson, who serves as CEO of Three Uncanny Four, and Mayer, who

August 8, 2019 2:45PM PT On Thursday Apple Music brought its free analytics tool, Apple Music for Artists, out of beta and officially into the world. The product, available to verified musicians and their reps, is available on desktop or iOS devices and uses Apple Music streaming data to give artists a picture of their global

Google says it’s making it much easier to find — and listen to — podcasts. The internet giant is now surfacing podcast episodes in search results based on an analysis of the topics in a given show, and will let users play back the podcast right from the results page. All told, according to Google,

Down may not be the new up after all: Activision Blizzard celebrated its Q2 2019 earnings as a success story Thursday, with CEO Bobby Kotick saying: “Our second quarter results exceeded our prior outlook for both revenue and earnings per share.” But while the results were considerably better than the company’s previous outlook for the

Glow Technologies, a startup whose platform lets podcast creators set up payment options for fans to fund their shows, has raised $2.3 million in seed financing from backers including venture-capital firm Greycroft, rap artist Nas and Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo investment company. Greycroft led the round with participation from WndrCo, Norwest Venture Partners, PSL Ventures, and

Marketing veteran Gayle Fuguitt is leaving as Foursquare’s chief of customer insight and innovation and will form her own consulting firm. Her departure comes after Foursquare in May 2019 announced a $150 million round of funding and the acquisition of Placed, a location-based ad attribution platform, from Snap. For over the past two years, Fuguitt

Facebook is dipping its toes into the subscription VOD waters — as an aggregator and reseller. The social giant is launching what it’s describing as a small-scale test to sell subscription VOD services directly to users. Initially, the Facebook video subscriptions will be available for four services: BBC and ITV’s BritBox, CollegeHumor’s Dropout, MotorTrend App

After a series of leaks about its latest flagship smartphone, Samsung Electronics officially unveiled the Galaxy Note 10 line with two different screen sizes — and as expected, the new devices eliminate the traditional headphone jack, following Apple’s same move with the iPhone three years ago. Samsung’s move to kill the headphone jack on the

Sonos ended its most recent quarter with much narrower losses than Wall Street had anticipated, with solid revenue growth across its core product categories, and some added revenue from its new cooperation with Ikea. In its fiscal third quarter, which ended on June 29, Sonos generated revenue of $260.2 million compared to $208.4 million during

Roku is now being used by 30.5 million households every month, and those users are a big reason the company grew revenues in its most recent quarter faster than Wall Street anticipated. In the quarter ending June 30, Roku generated $250.1 million in revenue, compared to $156.8 million during the same quarter a year ago,

August 7, 2019 11:55AM PT Amazon Music today announced that it has hired Adam Block as Global Head of Music Catalog, a new position. Block, who for many years was president of Sony’s Legacy Recordings, will report to the Ryan Redington, director of Amazon Music. According to the announcement, Block will drive the catalog music strategy for

Agency and media conglomerate Endeavor has hired Guy Schory, a former eBay and PayPal executive, as its first chief digital officer. Schory will head up Endeavor’s digital efforts across product management, marketing, data platforms, advertising and commerce. He also will lead Endeavor’s digital direct-to-consumer and business-to-business operations, including Endeavor Streaming, the video-streaming distribution unit formed

Let Fox News Channel focus on conservative viewers and MSNBC lean toward a liberal audience. That leaves a big middle ground for CBSN to pursue, according to Christy Tanner, executive VP and GM at CBS News Digital. CBS Corp.’s five-year-old streaming-only news network is happy to let its linear competitors indulge in partisan talking points

In another podcast land-grab, radio broadcast giant Entercom Communications has inked deals to acquire podcast companies Cadence13 and Pineapple Street Media. Entercom announced the acquisition of podcast producer Pineapple Street Media and an agreement to buy full control of Cadence13, a New York-based podcast studio and distribution company, after acquiring a 45% stake for $9.7

It’s no secret that record companies haven’t historically been very good at consumer marketing. True, many once supported direct-to-consumer (DTC) or direct-to-fan (DTF) initiatives in which they sold albums and CDs directly to music buyers, but those sales rarely amounted to a significant revenue stream. The labels had little interest in upsetting the retail distributors

August 7, 2019 4:00AM PT Cable operator Altice wants to take on Sonos and other smart speaker makers with a Hi-Fi product of its own: Altice announced a new speaker called Altice Amplify Wednesday that combines audio technology developed by luxury smart speaker maker Devialet with Alexa-powered voice control. Altice customers will get Amplify for

Indian streamer Alt Balaji has notched more than 20 million paid subscribers as of the end of the first quarter of 2019, building a customer base by keeping prices low and courting viewers outside the big cities. While the top five metropolitan areas account for 55% of India’s OTT users, Tier 1 cities account for

Almost half of all U.K. homes now take one of the major subscription streaming services, with Netflix at the front of the pack, according to a new report by British media regulator Ofcom. The U.S. behemoth extended its lead in Britain by posting the largest subscriber gains in the first quarter of 2019, up 26%

Disney disclosed Tuesday that it will offer a streaming bundle of Disney Plus, ESPN Plus and the advertising-supported version of Hulu for $12.99 a month. The bundle of Disney direct-to-consumer properties will be available for purchase on Nov. 12, the day that the ambitious Disney Plus service is set to bow in the U.S. Disney

AMC-backed virtual reality (VR) startup Dreamscape is opening a new outpost in the NorthPark Center mall in Dallas, Tx. The location-based VR center is scheduled to open on August 15, with tickets going on sale Tuesday afternoon. The Dallas location will be Dreamscape’s second VR center, and it will once again be opened in partnership

Netflix has for years touted its algorithm-driven TV and movie recommendations. Now HBO is taking a subtle swipe at the streaming rival and other services that push computer-generated content suggestions with the launch of “Recommended by Humans.” HBO’s new marketing site is stocked with paid fan testimonials for around 50 shows, movies and documentaries that

These are heady days for young performers and the adults who represent them: Streaming services are ratcheting up demand for youth programming even higher than it has already been under the peak TV era. In-demand actors are using their growing clout to secure producing credits before they get a driver’s license: Mckenna Grace joined “Black-ish”