Tech

Netflix reported its second-quarter 2022 earnings Tuesday, revealing it lost 970,000 subscribers during the three-month period that included the launch of the first part of “Stranger Things” Season 4. While that’s obviously a hit to the overall tally for the industry’s leading subscription streaming platform, it’s a far smaller hit than the loss Netflix forecast

Netflix is angling to win over a new bloc of value-conscious consumers — and help turn around its declining subscriber numbers — with a new ad-supported streaming package set to debut in early 2023. The company, in announcing Q2 earnings, said it’s targeting the launch of the ad-supported plan “around the early part of 2023.”

Netflix disclosed that it took a $70 million charge for severance costs in the second quarter, as the company adjusts its operating model for slower top-line growth. Netflix made several rounds of layoffs in the second quarter. On June 23, the company said it laid off 300 employees, as first reported by Variety. That came after

“Resident Evil” injected Twitter with new life following its July 14 debut, topping Variety’s Trending TV chart for the week of July 11 to 17. The Netflix series knocked “Stranger Things” from the No. 1 spot after six collective weeks there, as the show earned more than 682,000 engagements from ravenous viewers. The series has

Netflix is continuing to beef up its mobile games slate: On Tuesday, the company is launching award-winning turn-based strategy game “Into the Breach” from Subset Games. With the addition of “Into the Breach,” Netflix’s mobile games count now stands at 24 titles. The games are available to subscribers of its core video-streaming service for no

The Delaware Court of Chancery ruled in Twitter’s favor Tuesday in the social network’s legal fight with Elon Musk, setting an October 2022 trial date for the company’s case against the billionaire. Twitter last week filed suit against Musk, seeking to force the mega-billionaire complete his $44 billion buyout agreement. That came after Musk on

Eddie Murphy is set to star in and produce “Candy Cane Lane,” a new holiday comedy for Prime Video. Reginald Hudlin will direct the film, produced by Amazon Studios, Imagine Entertainment and Eddie Murphy Production, from a spec script written by Kelly Younger and inspired by Younger’s childhood holiday experiences. Murphy is on board as

OnlyFans is the next stop for British reality TV stars Chloe Sims and sisters Demi and Frankie after their exit from ITVBe’s “The Only Way Is Essex.” The London-based social media platform announced that it signed a multiyear content deal with the Sims siblings, under which they’re developing a realty series for OFTV, OnlyFans’ free

YouTube already soaks up billions of hours of the world’s attention. Now the video giant also wants to hoover up a bigger piece of consumers’ online purchases. Looking to grease the ecommerce wheels, the platform is introducing new tools within YouTube Studio’s Shopping tab so that creators can more easily manage how their products are

Rupert Everett and Malcom McDowell have joined the cast of Amazon heist series “Everybody Loves Diamonds,” which is being produced as an original in Italy, where the streamer on Tuesday also revealed a slew of unscripted local shows. Amazon’s previously announced high-end show follows a group of thieves led by Sicilian mastermind Leonardo Notarbartolo —

Netflix is trying a new way to get paid by password-borrowing freeloaders. The company is rolling out an option in five Latin American countries under which customers can enable access from an additional home legitimately, for an extra monthly fee. Starting next month, Netflix will launch an “add a home” feature in Argentina, the Dominican

Joe Rogan’s recent offhand remark to podcast guest Tom Segura that “Maybe you should just go shoot the homeless people” in Los Angeles has left several of the city’s unhoused advocates stunned and disheartened. In the July 14 episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” the host’s discussion with comedian Segura moved to the topic of

Twitter trolls have engaged in “rampant abuse and widespread targeted harassment” of women on the social network who have voiced support for Amber Heard, according to a research firm that had previously been hired by lawyers representing Heard in her defamation court case with Johnny Depp. The firm, Bot Sentinel, analyzed 14,292 tweets that included

For many Prime Video users, this will be like a breath of fresh air: Amazon is launching a significant overhaul to the streaming service’s interface, with a modern look and feel, dynamic visuals, a new live TV hub, improved search and more. The upgrade, which will begin rolling out this week, is the streaming service’s

Sony is cutting the price of Crunchyroll, its premium anime subscription service, in 95 countries and territories, including in India, the U.K. and Brazil. Notably, the price of Crunchyroll is not changing in the U.S., where the service is priced starting at $7.99/month and the popular Mega Fan tier costs $9.99/month. The cost of the

When Netflix reports second-quarter results Tuesday, the key barometer for Wall Street will be whether the streamer will overdeliver on already low expectations — or, like the Indiana town that’s the centerpiece of “Stranger Things,” it will get sucked deeper into a pit of despair. Netflix projected a net loss of 2 million streaming subscribers

The Kate Bush renaissance, fueled by Netflix’s “Stranger Things 4,” continues to flourish: The official video for the artist’s synth-pop classic “Running Up That Hill” has just surpassed 100 million views on YouTube. Since the premiere of “Stranger Things 4,” views of Bush’s music video for “Running Up That Hill” have more than doubled on

Veteran security exec Roland Cloutier is stepping down after two and half years as TikTok’s global chief security officer. According to TikTok, the change is part of a restructuring in how the app provider, owned by China’s ByteDance, manages data of U.S.-based users — amid heightened scrutiny from some U.S. lawmakers. “Part of our evolving

Elon Musk is a freewheeling, shoot-from-the-lip kind of Twitter user who is famously fond of memes. But now Musk’s snarky and derogatory tweets aimed at Twitter have been dragged into court. The company, which is suing to force the mega-billionaire complete his $44 billion buyout, alleges that Musk has on multiple occasions violated a provision

Oppa! This Friday, July 15, marks the 10th anniversary of Psy’s “Gangnam Style” music video release — and the Korean artist’s combo of stylish quirkiness, trademark dance moves, synth hooks and satirical edge made it the first viral video to top 1 billion views on YouTube. Less than six months after its release, “Gangnam Style”

Is it illegal to work out naked? Chris Meloni, of “Law and Order” fame, would say no. At least, that’s according to his recent Peloton ad, which features the 61-year-old actor baring it all in a series of fitness positions. “Apparently, some people think the way I work out is strange,” Meloni says at the

Nadine Zylstra, most recently YouTube’s global head of original programming, is joining Pinterest in the newly created role of global head of programming and originals. Zylstra reports to chief content officer Malik Ducard, formerly VP of content partnerships at YouTube, who joined Pinterest last fall. Zylstra stepped into the role leading YouTube Originals in February

UPDATED: Twitter’s website and apps were down Thursday morning in an apparent widespread outage, according to user reports across the U.S. The social network appeared to resolve the problems after about an hour. According to monitoring site Downdetector, user reports of problems at Twitter began to spike just after 8 a.m. ET., with more than

TikTok is giving users of the popular app more controls over the kinds of videos they see in their feed — including flagging videos with “mature or complex themes” intended for viewers 18 and older. TikTok’s Community Guidelines detail categories of content that is banned by the platform, including nudity, pornography and sexually explicit content.

In today’s podcast news roundup, Finneas fronts the first season of the artist-led “Song Stories” podcast from iHeartRadio; sports journalist Tom Rinaldi tells the story of MLB star Lyman Wesley Bostock Jr. in an upcoming Fox Sports series; production firm SALT hires Luminary’s Kenzi Wilbur and Spotify’s Robert Adler; and more. DATES Grammy-winning music producer

As many industries consider Web3 and how to engage with it, ticketing seems to be one application almost destined to evolve through the technology. Counterfeit ticket sales and ticketing platforms earning more than performing artists are just a couple of the issues plaguing an industry primed for reinvention. Traditional ticketing systems are also not interoperable,

Gaming giant Nintendo said it will provide the same benefits to employees in domestic partnerships with a same-sex partner as those in opposite-sex unions — even though Japan outlaws gay marriage. “We want to create a work environment that supports and empowers each and every one of our unique employees,” Nintendo Japan said in a

Advocacy group GLAAD issued new data finding that five major social media platforms — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube — each fail to provide adequate policies to protect LGBTQ users’ safety, privacy and expression. GLAAD’s second annual Social Media Safety Index, released Wednesday, introduced a new Platform Scorecard analyzing LGBTQ user safety across the

NBC News is launching a new documentary about the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trial on digital channels Wednesday, Variety has learned exclusively. Titled “A Marriage on Trial: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard and Truth in the Age of Social Media,” the doc will debut at 10:30 p.m. ET on the NBC News Now platform and

As promised, Twitter sued Elon Musk, swinging a legal cudgel at the tech mogul in hopes of making him comply with his original $44 billion offer for the company. The 241-page lawsuit was filed Tuesday in the Delaware Court of Chancery, which specializes in hearing business disputes, including M&A battles, that involve corporations incorporated in