FuboTV, one of the players duking it out in the competitive internet pay-TV arena, is dropping into the free streaming-video market with a network it wants to distribute as widely as possible — off its own platform. On Thursday, the company is soft-launching the Fubo Sports Network: a live, free-to-consumer TV network for U.S. sports
Tech
BTS, the biggest K-pop group in the world, now has the biggest app in the world. “BTS World,” a mobile simulation game that lets fans virtually become the South Korean pop stars’ manager, quickly rose to the top of Apple’s App Store charts in multiple countries just hours after its release on Wednesday, June 26.
Ever since the “Game of Thrones” finale, industry insiders have been wondering: Will HBO be able to hold onto its subscribers without its biggest show? It’s still too early to draw a definitive conclusion about the fate of the network in this post-“Thrones” era, but new data suggests that most subscribers are sticking with the
June 26, 2019 9:58AM PT Andrew Georgiou has been appointed president of Discovery-owned Eurosport. The sports channels and streaming service has been without a chief since Peter Hutton left for Facebook. Georgiou assumes a wider role than Hutton, running Eurosport as well as overseeing sports rights and marketing across Discovery. It has been moving aggressively
June 26, 2019 9:35AM PT STX Entertainment is best known for movies like “The Upside” and “Ugly Dolls,” but it also has a division dedicated to creating virtual-reality movies like the recent action short “The Limit.” STXsurreal is working on over a dozen films in a variety of genres, according to its founders, Rick Rey
Major Lazer & Anitta’s new track “Make It Hot” has all the makings of a summer hit — including a version that plays well on the go: Alongside the official video, artist manager services company Mtheory released a version on Wednesday that was cut for vertical viewing on Instagram and TikTok. “With the way fans
June 26, 2019 8:27AM PT Condé Nast Entertainment hired Kathryn Friedrich, a YouTube and Google alum who most recently headed Verizon’s RYOT Studio, to the newly created role of EVP, operations and general manager. Friedrich started in the new gig this week, reporting to Condé Nast Entertainment president Oren Katzeff, who joined the company last
June 26, 2019 7:22AM PT The NRA will shut down production of new content for its streaming-video NRATV outlet, The New York Times reports. The report said the gun-rights lobbying organization may continue to run older content on the broadband outlet, but it will no longer feature Dana Loesch and other regular hosts in live
Advertisers are tracking you across the web to build profiles and personalize ads. Firefox maker Mozilla now wants to help consumers bury their tracks, and throw off advertisers, with a fun little hack. The non-profit browser maker launched a new website called Track This Wednesday that opens 100 browser tabs to confuse ad trackers. Visitors
Shawn Strickland, a veteran of Verizon and Complex Media, has joined Tony DiSanto’s Allyance Media Group as president. In the role, Strickland is heading up business operations and spearheading partnerships for the multiformat media and production company. DiSanto and financier Matthew Bruderman formed Allyance Media Group last year. The New York-based company encompasses DIGA Studios,
June 25, 2019 10:46PM PT Netflix unveiled its lineup of original programming from Japan. It includes major local and international names. Among the most highly anticipated entries is “Ai-naki Mori de Sakebe” (literal translation: Shout in the Loveless Forest), a three-part series inspired by a real multiple murder case set to stream this summer. The
Andy Signore, the creator of Screen Junkies’ “Honest Trailers,” has settled a lawsuit against Defy Media challenging his firing for alleged sexual misconduct. Signore was one of the first figures to lose his job in the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein harassment revelations in October 2017. Defy Media, which then owned Screen Junkies, terminated him
When mobile game developer Kiwi first released Joyride, the app looked familiar: Similar to wildly popular HQ Trivia, Joyride offered players the ability to win quiz shows in live broadcasts. The key difference: Joyride’s app wasn’t home to just one trivia show, but multiple shows around topics like music, dating, fandom, and yes, trivia, all
Desmond Amofah, a YouTube gaming vlogger known online as “Etika,” was found dead by New York police on Tuesday after he was reported missing last week. He was 29. Amofah posted YouTube videos and live-streams focused on Nintendo games and other titles. A body later confirmed to be Amofah’s was found in the East River on
Quibi keeps shelling out cash for content: Jeffrey Katzenberg’s richly funded startup has ordered a short-form murder-mystery comedy written by and starring former “Saturday Night Live” writers Paula Pell and John Lutz, and executive produced by Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video alongside Seth Meyers and Mike Shoemaker. In “Mapleworth Murders,” Pell (pictured above) is Abigail Mapleworth,
Kanopy suffered a blow with the decision by New York City’s three public library systems — collectively the biggest library system in the U.S., with some 210 branches across the Big Apple — to drop the free movie-streaming service, citing high costs. As of July 1, the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn and
Cameo, a service that works with celebrities to sell personalized video greetings to fans, has raised a $50 million Series B round of funding led by Kleiner Perkins. The Chernin Group, Spark Ventures, Bain Capital and Lightspeeed Venture Partners participated in the funding as well. Cameo wants to use the cash infusion to grow both
Topic, First Look Media’s entertainment studio and digital destination for original content, hired veteran producer Gena Konstantinakos as VP, development and video programming. Konstantinakos hails from Vice Media’s Viceland cable channel, where she was executive producer, development and current series. At Topic, she reports to Ryan Chanatry, general manager of Topic. Konstantinakos is tasked with
Apple, trying to show that it doesn’t force app providers to pay a “tax” to be included in the App Store, filed a response to Spotify’s antitrust complaint with the European Commission — revealing that Apple collects a 15% fee for just 680,000 of Spotify’s more than 100 million premium subscribers. According to Apple, the
Google’s YouTube tapped Martin Kon, who has worked as a tech, media, and telecoms consultant for more than two decades, as VP of strategy. Kon, based at YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, Calif., reports to chief business officer Robert Kyncl. Kon will work with YouTube senior execs to help formulate the long-term vision of the
Smart speaker maker Sonos has sued Lenbrook Industries, the company behind the audio brand Bluesound, for patent infringement. It’s the second such lawsuit from Sonos against a competitor, which has also been using its patents to gain concessions from the makers of voice assistants. In the lawsuit filed late last week in a California court,
June 24, 2019 8:30AM PT Ad-supported video service Tubi broke its own audience records in May: Tubi, which positions itself as a free alternative to Netflix, surpassed 20 million monthly active users last month, the company said Monday. The service’s users viewed more than 94 million hours of programming in May, according to Tubi, which
First Media, the media company focused on millennial women audiences whose brands include BabyFirst TV, announced two new members of its executive team as it eyes expansion in 2019. Chris Athanassopoulos, previously Twentieth Century Fox’s VP finance for worldwide TV distribution, has joined First Media as its chief finance officer. (First Media’s previous CFO, Karl
Beats by Dr. Dre, Apple’s audio-products subsidiary, announced Chris Thorne — whose past gigs have included stints at EA and Jessica Alba’s The Honest Co. — as its chief marketing officer. Thorne takes on the CMO role after the departure earlier this year of Jason White, formerly Beats’ EVP and global head of marketing, who
Viacom’s BET Networks has teamed with Tyler Perry to create a subscription streaming service that combines the prolific auteur’s library of movies and TV shows with BET’s programming vault. The service dubbed BET Plus will bow in the fall with a handful of original series and productions and a deep library offering that will be
Love Nature has greenlit “Stormborn,” a wildlife series about animals living in the wildlands of countries on the edge of the North Atlantic. The three-parter will bow on Love Nature’s 4K linear channel and streaming service and then play on Arte in France and Germany, BBC Scotland and Smithsonian Channel. Love Nature is the natural
June 24, 2019 1:00AM PT John Farrar, whose credits include “The Imposter,” has joined U.K. producer and digital content specialist Barcroft Studios. The company has also upped two senior staffers, with Alex Morris elevated to chief creative officer and Caspar Norman to chief operating officer. The new recruit joins Barcroft from Nerd TV, the U.K.
Art-house streaming platform, Mubi is to launch in South East Asia. The service kicks off with operation in Malaysia, and has plans to quickly scale up in another half dozen territories in the fast-developing region. Mubi will retain its highly curated approach of offering one new film title per day and retaining each for just
June 21, 2019 11:54AM PT When calculating the new, higher rates determined by the U.S Copyright Royalty Board — which Spotify, Amazon, Google and SiriusXM/Pandora have appealed — Spotify has determined that it overpaid publishers in 2018 and would like a refund. “According to the new CRB regulations, we overpaid most publishers in 2018,” a
June 21, 2019 10:37AM PT Niantic’s new location-based augmented reality game “Harry Potter: Wizards Unite” is off to a solid start — but it doesn’t seem to have quite the same momentum as “Pokemon Go” did when it launched 3 years ago. That’s according to initial estimates from app analytics specialist Sensor Tower. “Harry Potter: