Tech

Prominent Arab journalist Nakhle Elhage, who ran the Al Arabiya news network for 16 years, is launching a digital startup called Blinx to produce news and short form storytelling content targeting Gen Z and millennials in the Middle East and beyond. Headquartered in a high-tech Dubai Media City studio, Blinx is being dubbed as the

Earlier this year, Ari Emanuel, the legendary agent who is the CEO of Endeavor, led the company’s small investment in Twitter just a few months after it was acquired by his friend and mega-billionaire Elon Musk, Variety confirmed. The size of Endeavor’s investment stake in Twitter could not be learned, but a source familiar with

TikTok is opening up a new monetization spigot for creators on the popular short-form video app. The Chinese-owned app announced Series, a new way for creators to sell their stories as premium content. With the Series feature, available initially only to select creators, users can post Collections of premium content behind a paywall that viewers

Claire Silver, an artist who collaborates with artificial intelligence, has signed for representation with WME.  The prolific Silver is known as an early adopter in the crypto and NFT space. Her current medium is post-photography, or the manipulation of data to enhance digital images. In addition to signing with the Hollywood power agency, her work will be presented at

UPDATED, 1:06 p.m. ET: Twitter was again experiencing widespread technical issues, returning an odd error message to users who tried to click on links in tweets to third-party websites for nearly an hour Monday. “Your current API plan does not include access to this endpoint, please see https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api for more information,” the error message read

AMC Networks’ Sentai Filmworks unit reached an agreement with Japan’s Mainichi Broadcasting System (MBS) that provides exclusive rights for AMC’s anime-focused HIDIVE streaming service to distribute part of MBS’s future programming lineup in all global markets outside of Asia. The pact is Sentai’s biggest-ever deal for anime content, according to the company. The output deal

CNET, the tech news and reviews site owned by digital media and marketing company Red Ventures, has joined the parade of media-industry layoffs. The site on Thursday axed 10% of its workforce, or about a dozen staff members, according to a report by the Verge (which is a CNET competitor) citing an anonymous employee. A

Ozy Media has closed its doors after Carlos Watson, the digital media and entertainment company’s founder and CEO, was arrested and indicted on federal fraud charges. ⁦‪”In light of its current operational and legal challenges, the Ozy board has determined that it’s in the best interests of its stakeholders to suspend operations immediately,” the company

Elon Musk-owned Twitter, seeking to reassure users and advertisers that it’s taking a hard-line stand against violent speech, released an update to its policies that more explicitly bans certain types of threats. According to the updated policy, released Feb. 28, Twitter users “may not wish, hope, or express desire for harm. This includes (but is

Nick Panella has been named the leader of a new podcast and audio group at Agency for the Performing Arts, Variety can report exclusively.  Panella joins the company from Workhouse Media, where he worked extensively with names like Shonda Rhimes, Ellen DeGeneres, “Modern Family” co-creator Chris Lloyd and Oprah Winfrey.  Announced by APA’s head of

Audible announced that Grammy-winning artists Sara Bareilles and Kelly Rowland have signed on to judge “Breakthrough,” billed as the first singing competition series launch exclusively as a podcast. Bareilles and Rowland will mentor and guide the performances as well as the artistic development of five artists through a season of musical challenges. The series is

Corporate synergy! Crunchyroll, the global anime streaming service owned by Sony, is now just a button press away for owners of Sony’s 2023 Bravia lineup of HDTVs. Crunchyroll, which has more than 10 million paid subscribers, provides more than 18,000 hours of anime content comprising more than 44,000 episodes and feature films. In addition to

Italy’s 2,500 dubbing industry workers are on a protracted strike demanding higher wages, less frenzied work conditions, and protection against digital dubbing devices, which they claim threaten their jobs. The country’s unions representing Italian voice actors and dubbing directors have been on the war path since Feb. 21. On Tuesday they announced the strike will

TikTok, in an effort to show it’s being a good internet citizen, introduced new features to cap the time kids spend on the video app. In the next few weeks, every TikTok account belonging to a user under the age of 18 will automatically be set to a 60-minute daily screen time limit. If the

Neal Mohan posted his first open letter to creators as YouTube’s new boss, coming after CEO Susan Wojcicki stepped down last month. Mohan, previously the video platform’s chief product officer, detailed new features and tools coming in 2023 and beyond. “Creators and artists are the heart of YouTube, and I’ll continue to put them first,”

Khaby Lame, the Senegalese-born Italian social media personality who is the world’s most followed content creator on TikTok, has joined “Italia’s Got Talent” as a juror. Lame is a former former factory worker in Italy who after being laid off from his job in March 2020 launched a TikTok channel in which he performed absurdly comic

Vinnie Hacker, a 20-year-old TikTok star who appeared in Netflix docu-series “Hype House,” has signed for representation with CAA. Hacker is a “Gen Z powerhouse,” per CAA, with more than 25 million followers across platforms including more than 15 million on TikTok and 5.7 million on Instagram. Building on his popularity on social media, he

Jellysmack is diving into free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) in partnership with Roku, with two new channels stocked with curated series from Jellysmack creator partners including LaurDIY, Brad Mondo and Stephanie Soo. Under the pact, the Roku Channel has launched Jellysmack’s first FAST linear channels, Hello Inspo (lifestyle) and Mysteria (true crime), on the services

With Nancy Dubuc’s departure from Vice Media Group last week, the company named longtime execs Bruce Dixon and Hozefa Lokhandwala as co-CEOs, effective immediately. Lokhandwala (above right) has been chief strategy officer at Brooklyn-based Vice Media since October 2018, and Dixon (above left) has been CFO at VMG since 2021 and was previously CFO of

Nicole Lapin has built her career as an author and journalist by being a keen-eyed observer of business and financial trends for CNN, CNBC and Bloomberg News. This year, she’s following her instinct that there is a major opportunity to build a podcast network devoted to financial literacy and investment guidance for mainstream listeners. Lapin,

Scott Adams’ racist rant has resulted in the “Dilbert” cartoonist losing his deal with syndication partner Andrews McMeel Universal. In a statement late Sunday, Andrews McMeel said it was “severing our relationship” with Adams, which the company originally struck in 2011, including “all areas of our business with Adams and the ‘Dilbert’ comic strip.” “As

UPDATED: Netflix’s presentation of the 29th Screen Actors Guild Awards show garnered more than 1.1 million views on Sunday for the livestream on YouTube, and 1.5 million overall in the first 12 hours across YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The YouTube total comprises views tallied for the 2023 SAG Awards’ main feed and the audio descriptive feed.

Scott Adams’ long-running “Dilbert” comic strip has been pulled by multiple newspapers after the cartoonist called Black Americans a “hate group” and urged white people to “get the fuck away” from Black people in a YouTube video. On Friday, in response to Adams’ comments, Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer announced that “Dilbert” will no longer be

HBO Max’s Scene in Black has launched the new digital series “The Recipe with Ghetto Gastro,” an interview-style social franchise that blends the rich, cultural history of food — and its potential to create community — with the network’s talent and programming. The new series debuts as part of Scene in Black’s celebration of Black

Carlos Watson, CEO of digital media and entertainment company Ozy Media, was arrested Thursday in New York ahead of his arraignment on charges of federal securities fraud and wire fraud. The Justice Department’s indictment charges Ozy Media and Watson with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with a

After initial testing over the last few months, YouTube is rolling out access to multi-language audio tracks to more creators worldwide — and it has enlisted massively popular YouTuber MrBeast to tout the new feature’s benefits. The multi-language audio feature lets creators add dubbing to new and existing videos, helping them expand their global reach

Spanish-language media giant TelevisaUnivision saw a 22% jump in pro-forma revenue for the fourth quarter in 2022, boosted by its 2022 FIFA World Cup coverage and midterm political ad spending. The company also for the first time reported audience figures for its ViX streaming service, touting more than 25 million monthly active users on the

NPR will lay off 10% of its workers, or at least 100 employees, as the public radio broadcaster has been pinched by a slowdown in advertising and sponsorship revenue particularly for its lineup of podcasts. Final decisions about which jobs will be cut are expected to be made by March 20, in consultation with unions

Documentary filmmaker and producer Ben Cotner has joined celebrity-driven online learning platform MasterClass as vice president of creative, leading the company’s creative and development teams. Cotner reports to chief content officer Len Amato, the former HBO exec who joined MasterClass a year ago. Cotner joined indie studio A24 in 2019 as head of documentaries where

Media and publishing company Future plc, which owns a stable of 250 special-interest magazines and sites, has hired digital media veteran Jon Steinberg as CEO. Steinberg will take over for Zillah Byng-Thorne, who announced her plans to step down as the U.K.-based company’s CEO last September after nine years. Steinberg will join Future on April