Tech

Emmy Award-winning director Adam Bernstein (“30 Rock,” “Fargo,” “Better Call Saul”) is set to helm new Prime Video Italy original “Costiera,” an English-language action drama set on Italy’s iconic Amalfi Coast. The high-end show is being co-produced by Amazon Studios and Luca Bernabei for Lux Vide, the prominent Italian company behind financial thriller “Devils” that

Struggling media company Vice Media Group, said on Monday it had filed for Chapter 11 protection to facilitate its sale. The company said in a court filing that it listed both assets and liabilities in the range of $500 million to $1 billion, according to the Reuters news service. The statement also said that the

It may have turned out to be an unconventional job interview: NBCUniversal ad chief Linda Yaccarino hosted a discussion with Elon Musk about Twitter’s content policies and approach to working with marketers at an industry conference one month before Musk announced that he’d hired her as the social network’s CEO. The April 18 keynote conversation

Elon Musk officially announced Linda Yaccarino, formerly NBCUniversal’s top sales exec, will take the helm as Twitter’s new CEO. “I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!” Musk tweeted Friday. “@LindaYaccwill focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology. Looking forward to working with

NBCUniversal is swinging its suite of free NBC and Telemundo 24-hour local news channels in major markets to Amazon’s Fire TV. Under the deal, U.S.-based customers with Fire TV and Amazon Echo Show devices can now access local breaking news coverage and original content on the free, ad-supported TV (FAST) channels of NBCU’s 15 NBC-

TikTok has partnered with musicians Jonas Brothers, Miguel and Niall Horan to launch #NewMusic, a global music discovery hub. #NewMusic is set up as a a dedicated space for artists around the world to showcase their new songs, and where fans can discover their next favorite track. The hub will showcase new music content from

Elon Musk claims he’s hired someone to replace him as CEO of Twitter. But for now, the tech tycoon isn’t revealing who that is. “Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter,” the mega-billionaire tweeted Thursday. “She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair &

Listen up! While podcast advertising revenue remains relatively small, it’s growing quickly — and the sector is poised for a strong double-digit gain this year, despite economic headwinds. In 2023, U.S. podcast ad revenue is expected to total $2.28 billion, up 43% year over year, according to new research conducted by PwC for the Internet

Hasbro’s Entertainment One (eOne) is rolling the D&D dice — betting that Dungeons & Dragons fans will flock to a new free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channel dedicated to the fantasy franchise it’s prepping for a summer launch. The Dungeons & Dragons Adventures FAST channel is expected to be available on “a number” of platforms

Shares of Disney slipped as much as 9% in trading Thursday after the media conglomerate reported earnings for the first three months of 2023. Disney’s earnings report showed progress on the cost-cutting front — with streaming losses narrowing for the quarter — but analysts cited a weak advertising outlook and uncertainty over when its streaming

The governance of artificial intelligence (AI) is the subject of an ongoing debate in the U.K. with the government introducing a white paper proposing regulation in the sector in March this year. The U.K. parliament’s science, innovation and technology committee is conducting a series of hearings into the subject and providing evidence on Wednesday were

Disney is pulling Hulu tighter into the Mouse House. On Disney’s earnings call Wednesday, CEO Bob Iger said the company will soon launch a “one-app experience” in the U.S. that incorporates Hulu content into Disney+. The new combined offering will launch by the end of 2023. “While we will continue to offer Disney+, Hulu and

Heather Brooke Armstrong, the writer known as “Dooce” who gained popularity in the early days of blogging, died Tuesday. She was 47. Her family announced her death in an Instagram post on Wednesday. Her boyfriend, Pete Ashdown, told the Associated Press she died by suicide. “She had a relapse recently and that’s what really spiraled

At a time when the creative community is aligned on the picket lines in their disenchantment with the entertainment industry, there’s an innovative new outfit blazing a new path to creating and distributing content. Led by veterans of Disney, Warner Bros. and DreamWorks, Toonstar bills itself as a “Web3 story studio” capable of developing, producing

BuzzFeed’s revenue was down substantially in the first three months of 2023, dropping 27% in the period — and the company projected sales would be off as much as 29% for Q2. Given the decline, last month BuzzFeed announced it was shuttering its unprofitable BuzzFeed News division and laying off about 180 people across the

“The Mandalorian” star Rosario Dawson and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” star Tony Revolori are set as the co-leads in the upcoming western animated series “Ghosts of Ruin.” Per the show’s logline, “In the near-future tech dystopia of San Francisco, ‘Ghosts of Ruin’ is a genre-bending animated series where virtual reality has evolved into Neural Reality,

Management and representation firm Range Media Partners tapped digital media veteran Nathan Brown to lead a new division focused on launching new businesses for the company, its clients and partners. Brown, who has been named partner at Range Media, will lead the formation of Range Digital Ventures, which will include an in-house branded content studio.

James Patterson’s “Murder in Bermuda” audio original for Audible stars Mary-Louise Parker as a lawyer working for her family’s criminal enterprise who finds herself caught up in a spate of unsolved murders on the Caribbean island. “Murder in Bermuda,” Patterson’s sixth audio project with Audible, stars Parker alongside Ronald Peet and Kimberley Aria Peterson. It’s

Coulda, woulda, shoulda? Ten years ago, Yahoo was looking for a “transformative” acquisition, former CEO Marissa Mayer said in a recent interview with Tech Brew. Among the targets the internet company was looking at: Netflix and Hulu. Yahoo ended up buying blogging site Tumblr for $1.1 billion in 2013 — which, to put it mildly, did

Struggling media company Vice Media Group is gearing up to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection — and then sell itself to some of its backers for about $400 million, according to a new report. The Brooklyn-based company post-bankruptcy arrangement to sell to investors including Fortress Investment Group and Soros Fund Management would value it

Apple’s revenue declined again in the March 2023 quarter, marking its second consecutive quarterly drop in sales. But the tech giant topped Wall Street forecasts, with its services business hitting a new record for revenue and iPhone sales showing unexpected strength. The company reported revenue of $94.8 billion, down 3%, and net income of $24.2

Grogu, better known to his legion of fans as Baby Yoda from Disney+’s “The Mandalorian,” has infiltrated the Googleplex. Type “Grogu” or “Baby Yoda” into the Google Search bar — and the diminutive creature appears in the lower right-hand section of the screen. When you click or tap on Grogu, he commences to use The

With major cost-saving initiatives in effect at Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix, Amazon, Paramount and more mega media companies and economic uncertainty on Wall Street, the content spend free-for-all is definitely over. Today, the focus is turning to scalable franchises that work for in a multiplatform media world where Hollywood will get the biggest bang

After record-breaking growth in 2021, U.S. internet ad revenue slowed last year — but continued to show double-digit growth. That’s according to the 2022 annual ad revenue report from the Internet Advertising Bureau trade group, conducted by PwC. Between 2021-22, U.S. internet advertising revenue grew 10.8% year-over-year to a total of $209.7 billion, compared with

Snap took the wraps off new advertising initiatives at its 2023 NewFronts presentation for marketers in New York — including revealing a new test of sponsored links in My AI, which can deliver ads based on a user’s conversation with the chatbot. The company, which averaged 383 million daily active users in Q1, last month

It’s all Conan — all the time. Samsung Electronics America and Conan O’Brien announced a partnership that will bring highlights of his original Emmy Award-winning show “Conan” exclusively to Samsung TV Plus, the consumer electronics giant’s free, ad-supported TV service, starting next month. Conan O’Brien TV — the comedian and host’s first FAST channel —

It’s not just you: Thousands of Twitter users on Monday reported problems with the web version of Elon Musk’s social media service — as it was spontaneously logging people out. The source of the error was unknown as press time. According to uptime-monitoring service Downdetector, user problem reports began to spike at around 3:30 p.m.

Sound Ventures, the venture-capital firm co-founded by Ashton Kutcher and music manager Guy Oseary, is looking to back “category-defining” artificial intelligence businesses. The VC firm announced that it has closed Sound Ventures AI Fund, oversubscribed at nearly $240 million. The fund seeks to invest in AI businesses at the foundation model layer. Currently, the fund’s

Patrick Harris, after nearly 12 years at Meta and Facebook, has joined Snap as senior VP of partnerships, leading both ad-agency and partnership teams at the company. Harris, who most recently served as Meta’s VP of global channels, is based in New York and reports to COO Jerry Hunter, who previously was Snap’s SVP of

Elon Musk announced Saturday that Twitter will allow media publishers to charge users on a per-article basis in the near future. The new feature will let media publishers allow users to acquire access to articles for a one-time fee, as opposed to purchasing a full subscription. “Rolling out next month, this platform will allow media