Tech

As consumers turn apathetic toward information collecting online — and Washington cracks down on foreign-owned apps like TikTok — the urgency of data privacy and protection seems increasingly unavoidable in daily life. “Technically Optimistic,” a podcast from Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, seeks to address that in ways that don’t make the average listener’s eyes

Internet-TV provider Fubo dropped all Warner Bros. Discovery networks from its lineup, alleging that the media company was seeking “above-market rates” and refused to license Turner Sports networks separately. In a statement Tuesday, Fubo said it attempted to renew its Discovery content agreement with WBD for networks including Discovery, HGTV, Food Network and TLC. The

Amazon raked in $11.82 billion in advertising revenue for the first quarter of 2024, topping analyst expectations, fueled by the ecommerce giant’s move to serve ads by default in Prime Video in multiple markets. Advertising sales for the quarter were up 24% year over year and marked a new Q1 record. The ad revenue beat

Oprah Winfrey is off the board of WeightWatchers — but she’s continuing to work with the company as part of her efforts to change the cultural conversation about weight. Winfrey will host “Making The Shift: A New Way to Think About Weight,” a three-hour event on Thursday, May 9, from 6-9 p.m. ET that will

NBCUniversal is looking to wring more money out of Peacock subscribers, with the streamer set to raise prices this summer — one year after its last fee hike — going into effect for new customers ahead of the 2024 Olympics. Beginning in mid-July, the price for Peacock Premium (with ads) will increase by $2 to

Watch Latin American Music Awards Anthony Wood, founder, chairman and CEO of Roku, had a pay package worth just over $20.2 million in 2023, while Roku’s media boss, Charlie Collier, received $6.8 million in salary. Wood’s compensation last year included salary of $1.2 million, stock awards worth $7.57 million and stock option awards ​valued at

Watch Latin American Music Awards Director Chou Tung-Yen’s bathhouse cruising experience “Traversing the Mist,” a dreamlike odyssey awash in fear and flesh, took the top honors at Paris’ NewImages Festival on Friday, claiming the festival’s Grand Jury Prize to the tune of $6,424. Produced by Taipei’s Very Theatre and Very Mainstream Studio, the NewImages-winning project

Watch Latin American Music Awards ByteDance said a report that it’s mulling the sale of a majority stake in TikTok‘s American business — after the U.S. adopted a law forcing it to divest its ownership position or face a ban of the app — is “untrue.” The Chinese internet giant was responding to a report

YouTube keeps eating up more share of the advertising pie: The Google-owned video giant posted $8.1 billion in ad sales for the first quarter of 2024, its highest Q1 total to date. The figure for YouTube ad sales, up 21% year over year, was announced as part of parent company Alphabet’s Q1 earnings. Wall Street

Satire site The Onion has a new owner: a company called “Global Tetrahedron,” which apparently is a real thing. G/O Media, a private-equity backed firm that has owned The Onion since 2019, sold the site to a new Chicago-based firm called Global Tetrahedron, which is “made up of four digital media veterans with a profound

It’s déjà vu all over again for net neutrality. On Thursday, the Democratic-majority FCC voted along party lines to adopt an order that would largely restore the agency’s net neutrality rules from a decade ago. The move reignites the long-running political battle over internet regulation, and cable and telecom operators are expected to file a

The 2024 Tribeca Festival has revealed its lineup of events and selections for audio storytelling and games. The audio storytelling program takes place June 9-13, and the games lineup is from June 12-16. The audio storytelling program includes the 10th anniversary of Vox Media’s true crime podcast “Criminal” with special guest Melissa McCarthy; Stitcher Studios’ “Vibe Check” with Lena Waithe;

Listen up, Potterheads: J.K. Rowling’s seven original Harry Potter books are getting a massive new audiobook series. Amazon’s Audible and Pottermore Publishing, the global digital publisher of Rowling’s Wizarding World, will co-produce a brand-new audiobook series for the original seven Harry Potter stories. The new audiobooks are scheduled to premiere in late 2025, with each

Matt Friend, known for his red-carpet celebrity interactions and spot-on impressions of Donald Trump, Howard Stern and Mitch McConnell, is bringing his bite-sized comedy to a longform podcast. “Friend in High Places” will launch later this spring on Bill Maher‘s Club Random Studios network, joining a roster that includes Maher, Billy Corgan, Fred Durst, Sage

Social-media powerhouse Meta punched in huge sales growth for the first quarter of 2024, as Mark Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” job cuts last year paid off with net income more than doubling. The company, parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, reported Q1 revenue of $36.46 billion, up 27%, and net income soared 117% to $12.37

Will Hollywood ever get on the blockchain? The question of whether entertainment industry dealmakers will ever embrace cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies as a solution to the age-old problem of Hollywood accounting is discussed by two experts in the crypto realm on the latest episode of Variety podcast “Strictly Business.” Tarun Chitra, founder and CEO of

Paris-based XR distributor Diversion Cinema will partner with the Cannes Film Festival to oversee this year’s inaugural Immersive Competition. A specialist in location-based exhibition, Diversion will handle technical duties for the 14 immersive experiences spread across the competitive and non-competitive sections. Running concurrent to the film event, Cannes’ immersive showcase will spread out across 700

UTA‘s talent firm Digital Brand Architects has signed 12 culinary influencers with large followings across TikTok and more social media platforms, including “Next Level Chef” contestant Jordan Farnum, Food Network’s “The Grill Dads” Mark Anderson and Ryan Fey, and twins Ana and Lexie Learmann. Additional food-focused TikTok and YouTube creators signed by DBA in this

In many ways, “Letters From Drancy” has hewed a prestigious if unremarkable path. The VR doc premiered at last year’s Venice Immersive before additional festival slots at the BFI London Film Festival, South by Southwest and now the NewImages Festival in Paris. In other ways the title is all too uncommon – as it was

The winners of the 2024 Webby Awards, recognizing the best of the internet, have been announced. Among the honorees: Variety‘s “Actors on Actors” — the awards-season franchise featuring conversations between two Hollywood stars — which won the People’s Voice Webby Award in the entertainment category for video series and channels. The 28th Webby Awards are

Spotify reeled in fewer new users overall than it expected in the first quarter of 2024, but the audio-streaming giant touted “record strength” in profitability. Total monthly active users (free and paid) grew 19% year over year to 615 million, a gain of 13 million from the previous quarter — which missed its guidance by

Aaron LaBerge, president and CTO of Disney Entertainment and ESPN, will leave the company this summer after a cumulative total of more than 20 years, after which he will join casino and sports-betting operator Penn Entertainment as chief technology officer. In a note to Disney staff Monday, LaBerge said he made a personal decision to

The three founders of Watcher Entertainment apologized to fans for their announcement that they were exiting YouTube and would put their new shows exclusively on their own subscription-streaming service. In response to a torrent of negative comments, Watcher’s Steven Lim, Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej said they were revising the plan — and will now

Eva Evans, a TikTok star known for her videos about living in New York City and the creator of the web series “Club Rat,” has died. She was 29. Evans’ sister, Lila Joy, announced the news in an Instagram post on Sunday. The cause of death has not been disclosed. “Yesterday my family received news

Watcher Entertainment has drawn millions of fans for their unscripted and comedic videos on YouTube — and now the studio’s three creators have drawn the ire of a significant number of them. On Friday, Watcher, formed in 2019 by former BuzzFeed hosts Steven Lim, Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej, announced that going forward, full seasons

A media consultant sued Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, alleging he is owed “at least several million dollars” for work he did related to the company’s $370 million acquisition in 2022 of Redbox, the DVD kiosk and streaming company. Keith Knee, described in his legal complaint as an advisory and consulting services professional in

Netflix made a surprise announcement in reporting its (very good) first quarter results this week: The streaming TV powerhouse will stop reporting quarterly subscriber figures starting in 2025. In response, Netflix shares have taken a hit: The stock is down 8.7% Friday on the news, as investors fret that the lack of visibility into the

UPDATED: After building its business on YouTube and generating more than 400 million views on the platform, Watcher Entertainment will now offer full series of its original unscripted content — including “Ghost Files,” “Mystery Files” and “Puppet History” — exclusively on its new, subscription-based streaming service. Watcher was formed by former BuzzFeed creators Steven Lim,

Taylor Swift is promoting “The Tortured Poets Department” on TikTok in a huge way under a special deal with the app — while other artists on her label, Universal Music Group, remain locked out of TikTok in a licensing dispute. After Swift dropped her latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department” at midnight — followed by

Spotify’s premium plans combining music and audiobooks will mean a lower mechanical royalty rate for songwriters on those plans, the company has confirmed, although it claims that earnings for creators will continue to rise. “Spotify is on track to pay publishers and societies more in 2024 than in 2023. As our industry partners are aware, changes