Amazon has amassed a bigger crowd of gridiron fans so far in its second season streaming the NFL’s “.” The seven “Thursday Night Football” games streamed so far for the 2018 season on Prime Video and Twitch (weeks 4-10) drew a combined 14.7 million total viewers in over 200 countries and territories, including all 50
Tech
Sonos share prices rose sharply Thursday after the close of markets on better-than-expected earnings news: Investors sent the company’s stock up nearly 20 percent in after-hours trading after Sonos revealed that it nearly broke even in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended on September 30, and surpassed $1 billion in revenue for its fiscal full
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed during a press call on Thursday that he wasn’t aware of the company’s relationship with Defenders, a Washington D.C.-based consulting and PR company that was doing crisis PR work on behalf of Facebook in response to Russia’s disinformation campaign. “I learned about this relationship when I read this New York
Universal Music Group posted solid earnings in the third quarter of this year, with revenue up 13.5% from the same period in 2017, but attention focused on parent company Vivendi’s impending sale of up to 50% of the unit. Before Vivendi’s earnings report discussed UMG’s earnings, it reported that it has chosen “about” 15 banks
Tender Claws, the Los Angeles-based studio behind the popular VR game “Virtual Virtual Reality,” released a new augmented reality (AR) mobile game for Android phones Thursday. “Tendar,” as the game is being called, puts players in charge of an AR guppy that is part Tamagochi, part sentient AI. The object of the game is to
November 15, 2018 9:00AM PT Sean Cohan is departing as A+E Networks’ top international and digital executive to join Brent Montgomery’s Wheelhouse Entertainment as president. Cohan will be tasked with spearheading business development, distribution and brand-building for the content and branding company Montgomery launched in January after exiting as CEO of ITV America. He’ll work
Magic Leap on Thursday detailed a new Independent Creator Program that will give out grants of $20,000 to $500,000 to approved independent developers in exchange for them creating content for the augmented reality headset. The developers will retain full control of the project, code, IP and all earnings from their creations, the company said. “This is
November 15, 2018 7:32AM PT Netflix has greenlit “The One,” a sci-fi series set in a very near future in which a DNA test can match people with their perfect partner. Based on the eponymous John Marrs novel, the 10-part series will be produced by U.K.-based drama shingle Urban Myth Films and launch globally on
November 15, 2018 7:28AM PT Facebook has a semi-official ban on employees using Apple’s iPhones — allegedly because of Mark Zuckerberg’s ire at Apple CEO Tim Cook. According to the New York Times’ damning report on Facebook’s tactics targeting company critics and stonewalling on dealing with multiple scandals, Zuckerberg ordered his management team to use
SiliconDust, best known as the maker of its HDHomeRun connected TV tuners, is getting ready to pitch itself as a one-shop-stop for would-be cord cutters. The company publicly launched its Sling TV-like internet TV service Thursday, and complete with a 2-week free trial for new subscribers. Consumers who haven’t used the service before also get 2
Comcast is bringing Tubi’s free, ad-supported service with almost 10,000 movies and TV show titles to its Xfinity X1 customers nationwide. Starting Friday (Nov. 15), X1 customers will begin to have access to the Tubi app directly from the X1 set-top box, with a full U.S. rollout over the next few weeks. Tubi becomes the
Facebook is pursuing a PR strategy of insisting that it acted in good faith in responding to scandals over misuse of its platform and data-privacy gaffes, denying some of the assertions in a sweeping New York Times investigation. Facebook early Thursday issued a response to a the Times’ Nov. 14 report into the social giant’s
CANCUN, Mexico — Raul Berdones, president of Spain’s Grupo Secuoya, Netflix’s exclusive production services partner at its European Production Hub in Madrid, plans to create a Madrid Content City. The plan would build – literally – on Grupo Secuoya’s 22,000 square-meter Ciudad de la Tele, the site of Netflix’s European Production Hub, but expand to
A consulting firm hired by Facebook to deal with the outfall over Russian propaganda on its platform resorted to linking critics of the social media giant to George Soros, the New York Times reported Wednesday as part of a massive expose on Facebook’s crisis response. The consulting firm in question, D.C.-based Definers, specializes in crisis
Snap has been getting hammered in the stock market, and it just lost its head of content, Nick Bell. But the company is still pushing on its original-content strategy for Snapchat, as it looks to boost ad revenue from its user base of 186 million daily users. Snapchat’s newest short-form original: “My Ex-BFF Court,” a spoof
The first step is admitting you have a problem: About 39% of U.S. consumers confess that they believe they’re using their smartphones excessively, according to a new study. On average, American consumers now check their smartphones an average of 52 times each day, according to the U.S. edition of the 2018 Global Mobile Consumer Survey
November 14, 2018 10:34AM PT Chinese consumer electronics giant Huawei is working on its own augmented reality (AR) glasses, the company’s consumer group CEO Richard Yu revealed in an interview with CNBC. A release of the hardware could come within the next one or two years, Yu said. Little is known about the hardware that Huawei
Mitu is still alive and kicking: The Hispanic digital-media company has brought back co-founder Roy Burstin as CEO and has received an infusion of $10 million in new capital. Burstin’s return to L.A.-based Mitu comes following the layoff of around 30% of its employees in July, as the company shut down its longer-form, premium productions and
November 14, 2018 8:17AM PT Fans of J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World can look forward to an immersive new augmented-reality game coming sometime in 2019, co-developed by Niantic, the company behind AR hit “Pokémon Go.” In “Harry Potter: Wizards Unite,” players will be able to explore real-world surroundings to unravel a global mystery, cast spells, and
November 14, 2018 7:15AM PT Shares of Snap, parent company of Snapchat, fell as much as 4.8% in trading Wednesday after the company said the Justice Department and the SEC are investigating whether it misled investors leading up to its initial public offering last year. On Tuesday, Snap said it had been subpoenaed by the
Amazon started to ship its Fire TV Recast digital video recorder (DVR) Wednesday, which is courting cord cutters with its ability to record over-the-air broadcast programming from networks like ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox without any monthly fee. A test over roughly a week revealed that the device works well as is, but that content
November 14, 2018 5:00AM PT TV network execs have long complained that Nielsen’s TV ratings undercount audiences because the measurement firm doesn’t always account for consumers watching shows on digital apps. Now, internet viewing on Comcast’s Xfinity Stream app and website will be integrated into Nielsen’s official linear TV ratings, under an expanded pact between
Tencent, China’s giant new media conglomerate, which has been battered by problems in its games division, unveiled third quarter results showing a 19% increase in non_GAAP net profits of $2.97 billion, on revenue up 24% to $11.7 billion. Expressed on a GAAP basis, which the company prefers, net profits were up 30% at $3.4 billion (RMB23.4
Disney entered into a deal with mobile-games studio Jam City to develop titles based on Pixar and Walt Disney Animation franchises — including one tied to next year’s “Frozen” sequel — and is offloading its games studio group in Glendale, Calif., to Jam City. Under the mulityear deal, Disney is selling “Emjoi Blitz,” a popular
November 14, 2018 2:20AM PT “The Late, Late Show With James Corden” is set to air in China. CBS Studios International has struck a deal with Chinese streaming giant iQIYI that covers current shows and makes past episodes available on demand. Chinese regulators’ attitude towards foreign content has ebbed and flowed, though growing political control
Chiwetel Ejiofor’s directorial debut, “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” has landed at Netflix. The streaming giant has the British star’s film globally with the exception of China, where it does not have a service, Japan, and the U.K., where the free-TV rights are with the BBC. Based on the bestselling book by William Kamkwamba
China’s Internet watchdog has scrubbed the country’s already highly censored web of nearly 10,000 social media accounts in the past three weeks. It is the ruling Communist Party’s latest move to clamp down on freedom of expression. The cleanup began Oct. 20, the Cyberspace Administration of China said in a statement posted late Monday to its
Lily Singh, the popular YouTube comedian and vlogger known online as “Superwoman,” is taking a hiatus from posting on YouTube, citing a need to restore her mental health and creative energy. Singh, who has 14.5 million subscribers on YouTube, revealed her decision to take a break in a video Monday. She said she didn’t know
As expected, today Spotify announced that it has launches its service in 13 new markets in the Middle East and North Africa, bringing the service to 78 markets in total. The new markets are United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories and Egypt. Spotify is launching
Remember the Tupac hologram? Light Field Lab co-founder and CEO Jon Karafin sure does. The posthumous concert appearance of the slain rapper at the 2012 Coachella Music Festival has been haunting Karafin every day — because he has to keep explaining to people that it wasn’t, in fact, a real hologram. “That’s just projected glass,”