Kevin Durant is taking his seat in “The Boardroom,” an ESPN+ original series delving into the sports biz with a rotating roster of athletes, tech moguls and sports execs. The six-episode series comes from Thirty Five Ventures, the company owned by Durant and business partner Rich Kleiman. The first two launch Monday on ESPN+, Disney’s
Tech
Facebook is stepping up efforts to lure creators from all corners of the world to its Watch platform, dangling not only the promise of connecting with communities but making serious money from their content through ads. As part of wooing content creators to Facebook Watch — as the social giant continues to play catch-up to YouTube
Cinemark and Spaces, the VR startup that spun out of Dreamworks 3 years ago, opened one of the Bay Area’s first location-based virtual reality (VR) experiences in San Jose, Calif. this weekend. “Terminator Salvation: Fight for the Future” allows up to 4 players to enter the world of the “Terminator” franchise, and fight as rebels
February 8, 2019 12:21PM PT The studio has contributed its OpenColorIO tool to the Academy Software Foundation Sony Pictures Imageworks has contributed a software tool used to create movies like “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” “Hotel Transylvania 3,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” to the open source community. OpenColorIO, a tool
When the San Diego Fleet face off against the San Antonio Commanders this coming Saturday, the two teams won’t just kick off the first season of the Alliance of American Football (AAF). The game, as well as the face-off between the Atlanta Legends and the Orlando Apollos, is also supposed to be the beginning of
February 7, 2019 3:25PM PT Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos alleged Thursday that The National Enquirer tried to blackmail him, with the publication allegedly threatening to publish nude photos of Bezos if the Amazon CEO didn’t drop an investigation over leaked text messages that ultimately ended his marriage. Bezos made the explosive claims in a blog
February 7, 2019 2:26PM PT Turner Sports and its Bleacher Report digital unit are going Vegas, baby. WarnerMedia’s Turner Sports inked a pact with Caesars Entertainment to develop sports gambling content. Under the agreement, Bleacher Report will establish a studio inside the sports book at the Caesars Palace Las Vegas hotel and casino. The new
During a time in which competing for children’s attention is tougher than ever, National Geographic Kids is looking to expand its reach with a multi-platform approach that includes a deeper dive into fictional content and digital video offerings. Brand-new middle-grade book (plus multimedia) series “Zeus the Mighty” launches this fall, National Geographic Kids and Family content
February 7, 2019 12:00PM PT Netflix is bringing smart downloads to its iOS app: The streaming service’s iPhone and iPad apps will now automatically download the next episode of a show when users have finished watching a downloaded episode. “The faster our members can get to the next episode of their favorite stories, the better,”
PodcastOne has a new CEO: Peter Morris, a media and entertainment exec who’s worked at Funny Or Die, Barstool Sports and Imax. In the new role, which Morris starts Thursday (Feb. 7), he will manage all day-to-day operations at the podcast network. He joins the management team led by founder and executive chairman Norm Pattiz
February 7, 2019 8:43AM PT Instagram is trying to get more people to watch longer-form video on IGTV: Starting Thursday, the app is adding IGTV previews that will appear in users’ primary feeds. Now, when users scroll through their Instagram feed, they’ll see when there’s a new video from someone they follow and will be
Disney, YouTube, Hulu and Vice Media are returning for the ninth annual Digital Content NewFronts marketing event series in New York City this spring, which keeps the one-week format adopted last year. Interactive Advertising Bureau, the trade group that runs the NewFronts, announced the NYC lineup, which will run Monday, April 29, to Friday, May 3.
Twitter beat Wall Street financial expectations for fourth-quarter 2018, but the company’s stock fell on a weak Q1 revenue outlook — and after Twitter said it’s going to stop reporting monthly user counts, in favor of “monetizable” daily active users. The social network’s Q4 revenue totaled $909 million, up 24% year-over-year, with video ads again
February 6, 2019 1:57PM PT Music executive and entrepreneur Troy Carter has signed with UTA in all areas. The agency will assist Carter in developing “innovative ventures in verticals including film, TV and theater,” according to a Feb. 6 announcement. Carter most recently served as global head of creator services at Spotify. He also advises the Prince
Group Nine Media, the Discovery-back digital media publisher, says it has a slate of over 50 original shows premiering in 2019. But it won’t be showcasing them at the Digital Content NewFronts marketing confabs this year. Instead, Group Nine will take the show on the road with a series of presentations across the U.S. showcasing
Smart-speaker maker Sonos had a very good holiday quarter: The company booked revenues of $496 million during its fiscal first quarter of 2019, which ended on Dec. 29. The company also had the most profitable quarter in its history, bringing in $61.7 million of net income, or earnings per share of $0.55. Both number surpassed
CAA has bought a piece of serenity: The agency participated in the $88 million Series B round of investment in Calm, a fast-growing meditation app. The funding brings Calm to $116 million raised to date and values the company at $1 billion — making it a “unicorn” in Silicon Valley parlance. The funding round was
Dawn Ostroff’s inbox is going to get flooded with over-the-transom pitches from podcast content and tech companies hoping to become part of Spotify’s new $500 million podcasting push. Spotify signaled that it’s a major buyer in the podcast biz, announcing all-cash deals Wednesday to buy Gimlet Media and Anchor. All told, Spotify said it expects to
Adult publisher Badoink wants to make it easier for people to consume porn in virtual reality (VR): The company has started to sell Oculus Go VR headsets pre-loaded with adult content with a program it calls “Porn in a Box” (website not safe for work). The X-rated Oculus Go headsets sell for $300, which is
San Francisco-based podcasting startup Himalaya Media has raised $100 million in funding to establish itself as a new force in the podcast distribution space. The company has launched apps for Android and iOS, and is getting ready to roll out a series of exclusive shows. Himalaya’s main investor is Ximalaya, China’s biggest spoken word audio
Charlie Wachtel and David Rabinowitz, co-writers of Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman,” have teamed with studio Gunpowder & Sky to develop “Madness,” a drama series about the world of college basketball. “Madness” follows the corrupt inner workings of a prestigious college basketball program through the eyes of its new assistant coach, and the repercussions the team faces
Community fan-culture platform Fandom has hired Perkins Miller, a longtime digital-media and technology exec who most recently led StubHub’s Americas operations, as CEO. He assumes the role at Fandom from interim CEO Andrew Doyle, director at TPG Capital. Miller will be based out of Fandom’s San Francisco headquarters beginning Feb. 11. Fandom’s corporate name is Wikia
Spotify is best known as a music-streaming service — but it’s placing a big new bet on building a podcasting empire. On Wednesday, Spotify announced deals to acquire Gimlet Media, the podcast producer whose shows include “Homecoming,” “StartUp” and “Reply All,” and Anchor, which offers tools for podcast creation, publishing, and monetization. Terms of the
February 5, 2019 1:17PM PT Snapchat still isn’t growing, but investors didn’t care much about that Tuesday: Snap’s share price rose 18% in after-hours trading after Snapchat’s corporate parent reported much better-than-expected earnings for the holiday quarter. Snap generated revenue of $389.8 million in Q4 of 2018, compared with $285.7 million during the same quarter
UTA has acquired the talent representation firm Digital Brand Architects as it expands in the arena of working with digital media stars and influencers. DBA has been co-owned by Irving Azoff’s Azoff Company since 2013. The acquisition also brings to UTA the company’s stake in Digital Brand Products, a merchandising arm that develops licensed products
According to Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, her preteen kids were dismayed with the video giant’s YouTube Rewind 2018 mashup compilation — which is the most-disliked video in the site’s history. “[O]ne record we definitely didn’t set out to break was the most-disliked video on the internet,” Wojcicki wrote a blog post, part of her
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg vowed Monday to spend more than $3.7 billion on safety and security on the company’s platform this year. Zuckerberg made the commitment in a post to his Facebook profile that celebrated the company’s 15 year anniversary. In the post, Zuckerberg wrote: “This year we plan to spend more on safety and
February 5, 2019 7:18AM PT Facebook has finally added the ability for Messenger users to delete messages in a chat — something the social media giant had already selectively done for CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s old texts. Last year, TechCrunch reported that some of Zuckerberg’s older Messenger texts had quietly vanished from the recipients’ inboxes. In
February 5, 2019 6:52AM PT Hulu has renewed teen thriller “Light As a Feather” from Viacom’s Awesomeness for a 16-episode second season. Creator R. Lee Fleming Jr. will return as showrunner, writer and executive producer. Liana Liberato, Haley Ramm and Brianne Tju will reprise their roles. In “Light As a Feather,” an innocent game of
Léa Seydoux, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Jane Birkin are set to narrate Eliza McNitt’s science-themed VR series “Spheres,” which is executive produced by Darren Aronofsky. The English version of “Spheres,” an interactive journey inspired by the iconic “Pale Blue Dot” image of planet Earth, was narrated by Jessica Chastain, Patti Smith and Millie Bobby Brown. An