Facebook created a system that allowed children to spend tens of millions of dollars through their parents’ credit cards and Paypal accounts on games and other goods without their parents’ knowledge and, despite concerns raised by game developers and solutions suggested by internal analysts, did nothing to fix the issue, according to a trove of
Tech
January 25, 2019 8:21AM PT Food Network has struck a deal with Rachael Ray to revive “30 Minute Meals” as a linear series augmented with extensive digital content. “30 Minute Meals” was a staple of Food Network from November 2001 through February 2012. The how-to cooking show helped establish Ray as a culinary TV star.
January 24, 2019 9:32PM 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 with “Alita: Battle Angel.” Ads placed for the sci-fi thriller had an estimated media value of $6.88 million through Sunday for 366
Service of Microsoft’s Bing search engine appears to have been restored in mainland China Friday after a blackout that prompted users to fear it had been blocked by Chinese censors. “We can confirm that Bing was inaccessible in China, but service is now restored,” a Microsoft spokesman told Variety, without further elaboration. Chinese users had
January 24, 2019 10:00AM PT Smart speaker maker Sonos is getting ready to add headphones to its product line-up, according to a new Bloomberg report. However, the product is still in its early stages, and may not debut until next year. A Sonos spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The product under
UPDATED: In June of last year, Variety spoke with multiple prominent artists who were owed thousands of dollars by the artist-to-fan marketplace PledgeMusic. The company’s CEO and another executive who chose to remain anonymous attributed many of the problems to an unexpected change in the company’s payment fulfillment system, restated their commitment to the company
Netflix is streaming directly on TVs in select Hilton rooms, but for now only a few U.S. guests will be able to take advantage of the feature. Hilton is offering access to Netflix service in about 1,800 of its “Connected Rooms” in the United States — just 0.2% of the hotel chain’s 895,000-room global footprint. In
Thought Sundance was just about film premieres? Think again. An increasing number of tech companies are using Sundance to pitch their latest tools to the motion picture industry. Case in point: Cloud storage provider Dropbox is debuting new time-based commenting features for video files at the festival, and Google and Sony are open sourcing a
Sports journalists Hannah Storm and Andrea Kremer will return to Amazon Prime Video to call “” games for the 2019 NFL season. It will be the third year Amazon is streaming the “TNF” package worldwide. For the 2019 season, “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video again will comprise 11 games total, available to more than
Time and Verizon’s immersive entertainment studio Ryot have teamed up to produce a virtual reality (VR) experience about Martin Luther King jr. and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, one of the seminal moments of the civil rights movement. The experience, titled “The March,” will be shown in museums across the country next
Noah Schnapp of “Stranger Things” fame has joined the voice cast of “Wolves in the Walls,” an animated VR series based on Neil Gaiman’s children’s book by the same title. Schnapp will be voicing the brother of Lucy, the main character of “Wolves,” in the second chapter of the series, which is scheduled to premiere
Adam Carolla is set to keep kvetching on PodcastOne’s network for at least another five years. The podcaster-comedian has extended his exclusive deal with PodcastOne through 2023, covering joint production, distribution, marketing and sales for his entire collection of podcasts. Carolla currently produces more than 15 hours of original podcast programming weekly for PodcastOne, anchored by
Market intelligence company SuperData released its latest extended reality (XR) findings on Thursday. It believes Oculus will sell 1.3 million units of its anticipated Quest headset this year, and annual XR revenue will reach $11.5 billion. The Oculus Quest is a standalone VR headset that doesn’t require a PC or mobile phone to operate. It
Microsoft’s Bing search engine appears to have been blocked in China. The move leaves the world’s largest population of Internet users without access to any well-known foreign search engines. Bing was only allowed to operate in China because it chose to comply with the stringent demands of Chinese censors, who run one of the most
BuzzFeed is slashing its workforce by 15% in a move to boost the internet-media company’s profitability and “focus on content that is working,” according to a memo from CEO Jonah Peretti sent to staffers Wednesday. The cuts will be made next week, according to Peretti’s memo. BuzzFeed has about 1,450 employees worldwide, so around 218
Despite what Netflix’s success may lead you to believe, the road to riches in streaming isn’t all about subscriptions. As the shift to digital causes the audience for linear TV to shrink, companies in the media space are increasingly looking to generate revenue via advertising-based video on demand (AVOD) services. • NBCUniversal announced last week
Verizon is cutting 7% of the employees in its media group, or around 800 staffers in the division that combined AOL and Yahoo. “This week, we will make changes that will impact around 7% of our global workforce across the organization, as well as certain brands and products,” Verizon Media Group CEO Guru Gowrappan wrote in
Video-news startup Cheddar is launching its live-streaming news networks on Sony’s PlayStation Vue, making it the first content provider to span all over-the-top subscription services in the U.S. The company, founded in 2016, operates two networks — the newly rebranded Cheddar Business, positioned as a CNBC-style financial and business network for millennials, and Cheddar News,
Discovery hired Avi Saxena, former VP of technology for Amazon Marketplace, as chief technology officer of direct-to-consumer. Saxena reports to the guy who was his boss at Amazon: Peter Faricy, who was appointed CEO of Discovery’s Global Direct-to-Consumer division in August 2018 and who headed up the Amazon Marketplace third-party seller business. In the newly created
January 23, 2019 10:06AM PT Comcast-backed virtual reality startup Spaces is getting ready to open its second California location in San Jose next month: The company has teamed up with Cinemark to open a new VR center at the Century 20 Oakridge and XD theatre in San Jose on February 8. The new Cinemark Spaces center
Sean Hannity sometimes tells younger colleagues at Fox News Channel that he is “the bridge between two generations of Fox” because he has been part of its primetime lineup since 1996. Now he may serve a similar purpose for a third. Fox News will next week bring Hannity to the world of video-streaming, launching “Hannity
Sony Crackle has secured exclusive streaming rights to Ubisoft’s esports documentary “To Win it All: The Road to The Six Invitational,” following three pro players of “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege” shooter as they head to the title’s biggest tournament of the year. The free streaming network is slated to bow the documentary Friday, Jan.
Hulu wants to drive more customers to its ad-supported streaming package — lowering the official price from $7.99 to $5.99 per month — while it’s trying to turn a profit on the live-TV bundle with a price hike. Starting next month, Hulu With Live TV will increase by $5 per month, rising from $39.99 to
Whistle, a sports and entertainment internet media company, acquired New Form, a digital entertainment studio whose owners included Discovery, ITV, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. The value of the deal wasn’t disclosed. Under the pact, New Form’s owners are making a cash investment in return for equity stakes in Whistle. Founded in 2014, New Form
January 23, 2019 6:00AM PT Membership services platform Patreon now has more than 3 million patrons who pay to support any of its over 100,000 creators every month, the company announced Wednesday. It’s also on track to pay more than $0.5 billion to creators this year. Patreon’s business is growing at a healthy rate. Payouts
Soon, virtually anyone in the U.S. will be able to subscribe to YouTube TV, Google’s $40 monthly over-the-top internet television service aimed at cord-cutters. First launched in five cities in April 2016, YouTube TV has been available in the top 100 markets in the U.S., covering around 85% of households, for about a year. Starting
MIAMI — BTF Media, producer of breakout series “Hasta Que te Conocí” and “El Secreto de Selena,” is teaming with Vince Gerardis, a co-executive producer with George Martin on “Game of Thrones,” on a six-project co-production alliance. Spearheaded at BTF Media by founder-partner Ricardo Coeto, the agreement takes in the development and co-production of the
Viacom has acquired Los Angeles-based video streaming service Pluto TV for $340 million in cash, both companies confirmed Tuesday. “Today marks an important step forward in Viacom’s evolution, as we work to move both our company and the industry forward,” said Viacom CEO Bob Bakish in a statement. “Pluto TV’s unique and market-leading product, combined
A U.S. court has OK’d the bankruptcy plan of iHeartMedia, the biggest radio broadcaster in the U.S., which will shave down its crushing debt load and separate iHeartMedia from Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings. The company said chairman and CEO Bob Pittman and Rich Bressler, president, COO and CFO, have extended their contracts by four years.
January 22, 2019 11:00AM PT Netflix is tapping into Instagram Stories for some word-of-mouth promotion: The streaming video service rolled out a new Instagram integration Tuesday that allows iOS users to share their favorite movies and TV shows via Stories. To do so, users simply select the title of their choice within the Netflix iOS