Crisis? What crisis? Investors were undeterred by Facebook’s latest privacy mishaps, and sent the company’s share price up around 11% in after-hours trading following news of a substantial earnings beat. Facebook generated revenue of $16.9 billion during the holiday quarter, compared to close to $13 billion during the same time a year ago. Net income
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Warner Bros. is turning to popular game-show app HQ Trivia to promote “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” with a special event next week that will see regular host Scott Rogowsky appear as a live, animated Lego character, Variety has learned. On Wednesday, Feb. 6, at 9 p.m. ET, HQ Trivia will broadcast live
Netflix is offering a mix of classics and new titles to watch from the comforts of your home. Starting in February, subscribers can laugh with a few “American Pie” movies, enjoy a scare with the “Jaws” franchise, and sing along to “Hairspray.” Several original shows and movies are debuting in February as well, including Dan Gilroy’s
January 30, 2019 10:58AM PT WME has signed gamer and YouTube creator Seán McLoughlin, better known as Jacksepticeye to his millions of fans, for representation in all areas. The 28-year-old Irish gaming YouTuber runs one of the top 50 most-subscribed channels on the service, with currently more than 21 million YouTube subscribers. Best known for his
January 30, 2019 10:09AM PT Playcrafting, a New York-based network with over 30,000 game developers, is teaming up with audio company Bose to invest in other creators across the U.S., it announced on Wednesday. Via the year-long collaboration, game developers will create 20 exclusive titles for the new Bose AR platform, a pair of sunglasses
When Natasha Lyonne, Leslye Headland and Amy Poehler put their heads together to come up with a show unlike any other, they knew they wanted it to be both funny and unafraid to tackle traumatic experiences that most comedies would avoid at all costs. “We were always interested in themes that weren’t necessarily comedic on
Apple escalated its simmering conflict with Facebook Wednesday, revoking access to its enterprise developer certification program and in turn preventing Facebook employees from running company-internal apps on their iPhones. The move comes after news broke that Facebook was using the program to distribute a questionable market research app to thousands of users. Techcrunch reported Tuesday
Viacom Digital Studios is expanding its talent and development team with two new hires: Heather Johns, formerly with Kevin Hart/Lionsgate’s Laugh Out Loud, and RJ Larese, who hails from Popsugar. Johns, named VP of talent and development for pop culture, music and lifestyle overseeing talent discovery, talent development, booking, and talent relations for MTV and
Patrick Drahi’s Altice France, the French branch of the telecom company, has entered exclusive discussions to acquire a majority stake in Molotov, the French media start-up co-launched by Cannes Film Festival president Pierre Lescure and Jean-Louis Blanc, the founder of Allocine. If approved by France’s anti-trust board, the deal will allow Molotov, a disruptive, digital
January 30, 2019 8:09AM PT An Arizona 14-year-old stumbled upon Apple’s FaceTime bug earlier this month and tried to warn the company, but contacting it proved difficult, according to NBC News. Grant Thompson was trying to set up a group chat with some fellow “Fortnite” players when he discovered the FaceTime app was forcing other
Movie studios often use the Super Bowl to drop trailers for their coming blockbusters. Since last year, a rival source of video entertainment has been doing the same. Amazon Prime Video will return to the Super Bowl this year, dropping a 60-second trailer in the third quarter for “Hanna,” a new drama centered on a
Tubi says viewing on its free, ad-supported video-on-demand service is surging — and it’s planning to spend more than $100 million this year licensing library TV shows and movies to keep the flywheel spinning. In 2018, Tubi claims its ad revenue grew more than 180%, with fourth-quarter 2018 advertising revenue larger than all of 2017
January 29, 2019 9:47PM PT While Netflix is barred from entering mainland China as a video platform operator, the streaming giant is expanding its roster of Chinese-language original content. Production is now under way in Malaysia on “The Ghost Bride.” The six-part series is adapted from a novel of the same title created by Choo
January 29, 2019 9:09PM PT In this week’s edition of the Variety Movie Commercial Tracker, powered by the TV advertising attention analytics company iSpot.tv, Twentieth Century Fox claims the top spot in spending for the second week in a row with “Alita: Battle Angel.” Ads placed for the sci-fi thriller had an estimated media value
Pandora Media’s stockholders approved Sirius XM’s proposed takeover, and with the deal set to close shortly Roger Lynch will be out as Pandora’s CEO. Lynch will exit once the deal officially closes, the company announced after the shareholder vote Tuesday. Sirius XM CEO Jim Meyer will lead the combined company, which brings together Pandora’s music
For years, continuous growth has been a given for Apple investors. On Tuesday, that success story came to a screeching halt: The iPhone maker generated billions less in revenue during the quarter ending on Dec. 29 than it did during the same time in 2017. The sole culprit for this decline was the company’s iPhone
Dish Network is turning to patent litigation in its fight with Univision, as the companies’ distribution standoff continues with no end in sight after a nearly seven-month blackout. Dish — well known in the pay-TV biz for its litigious and hardball negotiating tactics — filed a federal lawsuit against Univision on Jan. 25. The suit
January 29, 2019 9:45AM PT Apple has turned off group Facetime calls for all of its users following the discovery of a serious security flaw in the voice and video chatting service. The company plans to roll out a proper software fix for the issue later this week. Apple took the unusual step to remotely
Netflix has picked up rights to “Delhi Crime,” a seven part India-set series, directed by Canada’s Richie Mehta. The fact-based police procedural was launched at the Sundance festival this week in the Indie Episodic section. Production of the show was by Golden Karavan and Ivanhoe Pictures. It will air on Netflix from March 22, 2019.
Asian streaming video platform Hooq is to be hosted within the Grab tech and services app in South East Asia, following a deal between the two companies. The deal is designed to accelerate the growth of both companies beyond their core businesses. Grab was established in 2012 as a ride hailing service in Singapore. In
January 28, 2019 5:15PM PT A critical security flaw in Apple’s Facetime voice and video chat software makes it possible to spy on users without their knowledge. The bug, which has been confirmed by Apple, allows Facetime users to listen to an iPhone’s microphone simply by calling the device even if the phone’s owner doesn’t
January 28, 2019 4:28PM PT BuzzFeed will pay laid-off staffers for their accrued paid time off after all: CEO Jonah Peretti told staff in a company-wide email Monday afternoon that BuzzFeed was going to add changes to its separation agreement to account for PTO time for all U.S.-based staffers affected by the layoffs. JUST IN
January 28, 2019 2:24PM PT Snapchat’s corporate parent Snap Inc. has appointed Lara Sweet as its new interim chief financial officer. The appointment comes two weeks after current CFO Tim Stone announced his upcoming departure from the company. Stone will stay on in his role until February 5, the day Snap is scheduled to deliver
Hong Kong-based virtual reality (VR) startup Sandbox VR has raised a $68 million Series A round of funding from Andreesen Horowitz, Floodgate Ventures, Stanford University, Triplepoint Capital, CRCM and Alibaba. The company wants to use the new cash infusion to launch new VR centers in New York, Tokyo and elsewhere. Sandbox currently operates VR centers
BuzzFeed chief exec Jonah Peretti is being criticized by current and former employees over the company’s decision to not pay laid-off staffers (except for those in California) for their paid time-off days, in the wake of BuzzFeed slashing 15% of its workforce. In an open letter posted Saturday on Medium addressed to BuzzFeed’s senior managers, a group
Taking a page out of Amazon’s playbook, Roku is launching premium subscriptions on the Roku Channel starting Monday — promising to be another valuable revenue stream for the streaming-video platform company. As part of a launch promo, Roku users who sign up for Showtime, Starz or Epix before March 31, 2019, will be eligible to
John Mayer’s guitar chops have made him a household name, but it’s hardly his only talent. Following stints in comedy and Twitter infamy, Mayer launched his own talk show last year, not on television, but on Instagram via the app’s live video feature. “Current Mood with John Mayer,” a delightful 45-minute program in which Mayer regales
“Traveling While Black,” a new virtual reality documentary from Academy Award-winning director Roger Ross Williams, debuted at the Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier program Friday. The film, which draws a line from segregationist policies of the 1950s to modern-day police violence, was also released on the Oculus Go and Oculus Rift headsets, as well as
January 25, 2019 10:17AM PT New details trickled out about the layoffs across BuzzFeed’s news division Friday, and the picture hasn’t been pretty: The publication’s entire national news desk has been laid off, as has almost the entire national security team, according to a source close to the company as well as tweets from affected
January 25, 2019 9:21AM PT YouTube wants to make sure it doesn’t recommend 9/11 conspiracy theories to unsuspecting viewers anymore: The Google-owned video service is tweaking its recommendation algorithms to stop recommending “borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways,” it said in a blog post Friday. Some of the videos affected