Tech

Times Internet’s MX TakaTak and ShareChat’s Moj revealed a strategic merger to create India’s largest short-form video platform — a country where TikTok is still banned. The combined MX TakaTak-Moj platform will have 100 million creators, more than 300 million monthly active users (MAU), and nearly 250 billion monthly video views. Times Internet, the digital

Amazon Music and Amazon Live will unveil an in-depth conversation between Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder and Bruce Springsteen centered around Vedder’s new solo album, “Earthling,” which will be released tomorrow by Seattle Surf/Republic. Directed by longtime Springsteen collaborator Thom Zimny, the interview premieres tomorrow at 2 p.m. ET and will be exclusive to Amazon for

The Super Bowl is the biggest U.S. TV broadcast of the year — and this coming Sunday, NBCUniversal hopes that the NFL championship game gets a massive streaming turnout, too. Super Bowl LVI, pitting the Los Angeles Rams against the Cincinnati Bengals, kicks off at 3:30 p.m. PT on Sunday, Feb. 13. NBC will telecast

Jacksepticeye, the hugely popular YouTube gaming creator, will debut his biographical documentary “How Did We Get Here?” as a ticketed, livestreaming event exclusively on the Moment House platform. Tickets to the film, premiering worldwide Feb. 28 on Moment House, will cost $12-$17 each. Produced by Real Good Touring, it will also be released on traditional

Netflix released its second annual inclusion report, touting gains in representation among women and Black employees in 2021 — while acknowledging it’s continuing efforts to increase diversity. Last year, women grew to more than half of Netflix’s global workforce, hitting 51.7% in 2021 compared with 48.7% in 2020. Among its leadership ranks (directors and above),

Twitter netted 6 million new daily active users in the fourth quarter of 2021, a bit lighter than analyst forecasts, and beat Wall Street estimates on the bottom line. Revenue was in line with expectations, as the social network reported only “modest” impact from Apple’s iOS privacy changes. Twitter shares opened down 3.6% Thursday before

How will Neil Young fare as a streaming presence now that he’s taken his music off Spotify, the service that accounted for close to half of his streaming revenue prior to his initiating a break amid the ongoing Joe Rogan? The long-term effect on consumption for Young’s songs remains to be seen or felt, and

Disney Plus powered to a strong year-end finish, with the media giant’s flagship streaming business blowing past expectations to hit almost 130 million users. At the end of 2021, Disney Plus had 129.8 million paying customers worldwide, gaining 11.8 million for the quarter ended Jan. 1, 2022. Analysts on average had forecast net adds of

Nathan Drake himself will be the voice of the audio book for Sony’s upcoming “Uncharted” movie. Nolan North, who voiced Drake in the massively popular PlayStation video game series, will narrate the official novelization of the film, Variety can exclusively report. North, a prolific voice and TV actor, will provide the voice for every character

Brightcove Inc. has named former ViacomCBS exec Marc DeBevoise chief executive officer and board director of the software company and video platform. Previously chief digital officer of ViacomCBS and CEO and president of CBS Interactive, DeBevoise will begin his tenure as Brightcove CEO on March 28. He is succeeding Brightcove chief Jeff Ray, who announced

Embattled podcaster Joe Rogan said he isn’t planning to exit his Spotify deal to bring his popular — and controversial — show to Rumble, a video platform startup catering to right-wing personalities. Rogan, in a stand-up performance Tuesday in Austin, Texas, told the crowd he would not be moving “The Joe Rogan Experience” to Rumble,

James Murdoch and Uday Shankar have formed Bodhi Tree, an investment platform financially supported by the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) designed to invest in media and consumer technology opportunities in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on India. Murdoch set up Lupa Systems as a private holding company in 2019 following his departure as CEO

Dotdash Meredith is ending the monthly print publications for Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, EatingWell, Health, Parents and People en Español, Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil Vogel said in a Wednesday memo to staff, obtained by Variety. The publications will go digital-only effective today, and the transition is expected to terminate roughly 200 positions on the print side,

Moonbug Entertainment is expanding its kid-vid footprint by snapping up Little Angel, a popular producer of YouTube videos and songs for preschoolers. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. The acquisition is Moonbug’s first since it was bought in a $3 billion deal by Candle Media, the next-generation media roll-up venture headed by former Disney execs

Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated remake of “West Side Story” is coming to Disney Plus and HBO Max next month. The movie will debut on Disney Plus in the U.S. and most international markets on March 2, 2022, when it also will be streaming on HBO Max (in the U.S. only). It will launch in Taiwan on

Joe Rogan weighed in again on the controversy over his repeated use of the N-word on his podcast — and Spotify’s removal of dozens of past episodes because of his “racially insensitive language” — and this time played the victim card. Last Friday, Spotify pulled 70 episodes “The Joe Rogan Experience” from its platform, dating

Artist-producer duo The Chainsmokers are on deck to headline the NFL TikTok Tailgate, streaming live on the app ahead of Super Bowl LVI. It’s the second year the NFL has partnered with TikTok to host the official Super Bowl pregame celebration, after Miley Cyrus led the festivities last year. The one-hour show will stream live

TikTok is taking new steps to protect the LGBTQ community and women from harassment and hate speech. The widely used short-form video app, which has more than 1 billion monthly users, on Tuesday announced updates to its Community Guidelines to expressly prohibit misgendering, deadnaming and misogyny, as well as ban any content that supports or

Neil Young has urged Spotify employees to quit the company in the wake of the fallout involving Joe Rogan, which has spiraled from the podcaster’s use of his platform to air Covid-19 misinformation to his earlier, frequent use of a racial slur on his show. Young is now targeting Spotify CEO Daniel Ek as the

Venture capitalist and right-wing booster Peter Thiel, after 17 years on the board of Facebook — now Meta Platforms — will step down as director of the internet giant. Thiel joined Meta’s board in April 2005, after he had invested $500,000 in the then-fledgling Facebook startup. Thiel is leaving Meta in order to “focus on

Meta has hired the Foo Fighters to rock the metaverse. The social media giant (formerly known as Facebook) will host a free, livestreamed concert performed by Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters on Sunday, Feb. 13, immediately after the end of the Super Bowl. In addition to streaming on Facebook and Instagram, Meta will present the performance

Pandora, the digital music platform owned by SiriusXM, is ripping off comedians by streaming their recordings without properly licensing the works — and has been doing so for years, according to a series of new lawsuits. On Monday, L.A. law firm King & Ballow filed copyright-infringement lawsuits against Pandora on behalf of five comedians or

After spending last week in second place, HBO’s “Euphoria” reclaimed the top spot on Variety’s Trending TV chart for the week of Jan. 31 – Feb. 6. With 650,000 engagements, the series had twice as much interaction as last week’s top entry, “All of Us Are Dead.” HBO also confirmed the show’s Season 3 renewal

Kevin Hart and Charlamagne Tha God have teamed up for a slate of originals for Audible, Amazon’s premium audio division. The duo have set five new projects from their newly created audio production banner SBH Productions, coming to Audible in 2022 under their previously announced multiyear development, production and audio-licensing deal. Award-winning audio producer Nicole

Consolidation in the video ad-tech space continues apace: Innovid, a provider of connected-TV advertising delivery and measurement, announced plans to buy media-attribution firm TVSquared for $160 million. TVSquared tracks response to TV and digital video advertising to try to determine the effectiveness of marketing spend. The Edinburgh, Scotland-based company’s clients and partners include NBCUniversal, Roku,

Dwayne Johnson is walking back his support of Joe Rogan. After the controversial podcast host apologized and said he was not trying to promote COVID misinformation on his podcast, Johnson took to Instagram to praise Rogan’s “perfectly articulated” response and to tell Rogan that he was looking forward to coming on his podcast. Then, several

Get ready for a taste of “Saturday Night Live” on Super Bowl Sunday. Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost, the “Avengers” star and “Weekend Update” anchor, famously got married after meeting at “SNL.” Now they are set to appear in their first project together: a Super Bowl commercial for Amazon’s Alexa. “There’s something nice about the

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, under fire from critics inside and outside the company over its partnership with Joe Rogan, said in a memo to employees that was “deeply sorry” for how the controversy over the podcast host has affected them. But after the company’s removal of 70 past episodes “The Joe Rogan Experience” amid Rogan’s

Netflix has been in the original programming business for a whole decade now, as Feb. 6, 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of the premiere of “Lilyhammer” on the streaming service. On Sunday, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos released an essay commemorating the anniversary and reflecting on the company’s roots in content for international audiences. “Looking back,

With its Joe Rogan deal in a white-hot spotlight, Spotify has pulled an additional 70 episodes of the popular podcaster’s show from the platform. The 70 episodes removed Friday were originally recorded between 2009 and 2018 — before the COVID-19 pandemic. A controversy over coronavirus misinformation on Rogan’s podcast has boiled over in the last