Tech

How big of a liability vs. an asset will Joe Rogan prove to be for Spotify? A new survey sheds some light on which way the wind might blow given the spate of #DeleteSpotify and #CancelSpotify hashtags that blew up on social media in recent days — although similar past customer backlashes have resulted in

The con man investigated in Netflix’s new documentary “The Tinder Swindler” has been banned from the dating app. Shimon Hayut allegedly met women on Tinder before swindling them for millions of dollars after catfishing them into believing his name was “Simon Leviev” and that he was the son of Israeli diamond tycoon Lev Leviev. “We

In today’s podcast roundup, Cate Blanchett is launching a podcast about the climate-change crisis with Audible; Marvel and SiriusXM explore the origins of “Black Panther’s” T’Challa; Julie Bowen and Chad Sanders team up for “Quitters”; Snoop Dogg joins Shondaland Audio’s drama “#Matter”; and more. GREENLIGHTS Audible, Amazon’s premium audio storytelling arm, has commissioned two seasons

Amazon’s costs for video and music content last year hit $13 billion, up around 18%, representing a slowdown from its spending binge in 2020. The ecommerce giant disclosed total video and music expense for 2021 in its annual SEC filing Friday. That total is compared with $11 billion the year prior, which was up roughly

Chuck D has been shouting “Fight the Power” for more than 30 years. As Public Enemy’s de facto leader, the rapper/ orator has witnessed hip-hop in all of its phases and iterations since his early teens. Along the way, he’s evolved into a living encyclopedia of music and sports. A self-described “old hippie” at heart,

Snap shares rocketed up more than 50% in after-hours trading after the company beat Wall Street financial forecasts — posting its first-ever net profit and netting more Snapchat users than expected. The company reported an average of 319 million daily active users for the fourth quarter of 2021, a gain of 13 million over 306

Amazon significantly beat fourth-quarter 2021 earnings estimates but missed on revenue, reporting Thursday a profit gain of almost $12 billion thanks to its investment in electric car company Rivian. The tech giant’s stock closed Thursday at $2,776.91 per share, with it climbing more than 18% in after-hours trading. The regular U.S. stock markets will reopen

Amazon is hiking the price of Prime memberships in the U.S., with the annual fee jumping from $119 to $139 — its first increase in nearly three years. In addition, the monthly fee for Prime is rising from $12.99 to $14.99. Amazon last raised the price of Prime in 2018. For new Prime members, the

Spotify’s staff was up in arms about the company and co-founder/CEO Daniel Ek’s defense of Joe Rogan in a town hall meeting Wednesday that followed its middling quarterly report and subsequent stock drop, according to a report in the Verge that cites a leaked audio recording of the meeting. In Ek’s 15-minute speech, he positioned

Dave Portnoy, founder and president of Barstool Sports, said he is suing business publication Insider over articles alleging he engaged in “violent and humiliating” sexual encounters with several women and that he took videos of them during sex without their consent. Portnoy, in a post Wednesday on Barstool Sports, said he is also suing Julia

Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak’s R&B duo Silk Sonic are skating their way into Epic Games’ “Fortnite” battle-royale game. In partnership with Atlantic Records, Epic is bringing Silk Sonic into “Fortnite” with ’70s-inspired outfits, a new radio station and a player tournament. Bruno Mars, in a statement, said: “When ‘Fortnite’ asked me if I wanted

Shares of Meta Platforms, the social giant formerly known as Facebook, cratered 25% at the start of trading Thursday as investors reacted to its forecast of a Q1 ad slowdown and the emergence of TikTok as a fast-growing rival. With the stock drop, Meta’s market cap shed over $220 billion in value overnight — which

Spotify’s Daniel Ek addressed questions from investors and reporters in a Q&A session following the release of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings, which showed an increase of 8 million paying subscribers but middling financial results — but reflected a period before the firestorm of controversy around Neil Young and other musicians’ requests to remove their music

Spotify posted middling results for the fourth quarter of 2021 — a period that does not include the recent controversy over Neil Young and other musicians removing their music from the streaming giant, which is the world’s largest paid music-subscription service. Premium subscribers grew to 180 million — up 8 million from the 172 million

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, forecast slower growth in the first quarter of 2022, citing “headwinds to both impression and price growth” in its ad business, sending the stock into a nosedive. In addition, CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s high-stakes gambit to turn Facebook into a “metaverse” company — burning billions of dollars — led to a rare

The phrase “water-cooler TV show” may have already sounded old fashioned long before workers began fleeing their offices in the early days of the pandemic, but the meaning of the term remains alive and well with countless fans discussing, debating, arguing about and bonding over their favorite shows online. Rather than gathering around the break

When Neil Young pulled his music from Spotify over the audio streamer’s continued support of Joe Rogan, whom he accused of spreading “misinformation and lies” about COVID via his podcast interviews, there were some nasty “who cares?” tweets directed at the folk-rock icon. But the haters should care that this deadly pandemic has been raging

A wave of zombies is about to descend on the still-frothy world of NFT hype. For its long-running flagship drama “The Walking Dead,” AMC Networks is taking a big swing at the ongoing mania for nonfungible tokens — with a multiyear NFT strategy aimed at keeping the undead franchise alive long after the show leaves

Dwayne Johnson commended Joe Rogan on Instagram (via Newsweek) after the controversial podcast host issued a statement on his spread of COVID misinformation. Johnson even told Rogan that he “looks forward” to coming on the podcast one day and “breaking out the tequila with you.” The controversy over Rogan’s podcast resulted in artists such as

YouTube’s advertising business continued to power forward in the fourth quarter of 2021, delivering solid growth and surpassing Netflix’s global revenue for the period. The internet video giant generated $8.63 billion in ad revenue for Q4, an increase of 25.4% year over year, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) reported. Note that doesn’t include revenue from the

MNTN, the connected-TV advertising company that owns Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort creative agency, announced a $119 million in Series D financing. The round, which closed in the fourth quarter of 2021, was co-led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock and Fidelity, which collectively invested approximately $110 million. MNTN (pronounced “mountain”) was founded in 2009

The popular YouTube Originals series “Super Sema,” starring and executive produced by Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, has appointed UTA as its North American licensing and publishing agency. UTA will work alongside global toy licensee Just Play to focus on retail initiatives and key partnerships in publishing, apparel, home and accessories for the program, which is

The New York Times has purchased Wordle, the daily word game that has recently taken the internet by storm. The publication announced the acquisition in a press release on Monday, writing: “As The Times looks to entertain more solvers with puzzles every day — especially during these anxious times — we’re thrilled to announce that

The debut of Netflix’s latest South Korean drama, “All of Us Are Dead,” on Friday led to a massive upswing in user engagement on Twitter over the weekend, landing the series at the top of Variety’s Trending TV chart for the week of Jan. 24 – 30. There, it usurped HBO’s “Euphoria” in the No.

Sony Interactive Entertainment announced a deal to acquire Bungie, the developer behind game franchises including “Halo” and “Destiny,” for $3.6 billion. The deal will give the Sony games division access to Bungie’s “world-class approach to live game services and technology expertise,” Sony said. Bungie will continue to operate independently as a subsidiary of Sony Interactive

Alec Baldwin and his company El Dorado Pictures are teaming on true-crime podcast “Art Fraud,” in a co-production with iHeartRadio and Cavalry Media. Baldwin narrates the eight-episode series, which chronicles the fall of The Knoedler, among the oldest and most-revered art galleries in New York City. The producers promise never-before-heard interviews with the mastermind behind

Vice Distribution, the media brand’s commercial arm, has secured a new content partnership with leading Nordic streamer Viaplay. Under the pact, Viaplay will feature 210 hours of Vice programming on its service in the Nordic and Baltic regions, with titles spanning true crime, investigative documentary, entertainment, sport and lifestyle. The partnership with Viaplay — which

Netflix and Spotify shares popped Monday after Citi analysts upgraded both stocks to buy ratings, saying the market is undervaluing their longer-term upside. Shares of both companies climbed in early trading Monday, with Netflix up nearly 8.9% and Spotify up 12% as of 12:10 p.m. ET. In the previous 30 days, Netflix shares had slumped

OneOf has formed a preferred partnership with Warner Music Group that will see the company create exclusive NFTs for a range of artists across WMG’s catalog of music. A Green Web3 company, OneOf’s NFT platform creates NFTs that are significantly times more energy efficient than its competitors and are specifically designed with the music community

“Suits,” the hit U.S. TV show created by Aaron Korsh, is getting a high-end Arabic adaptation that will play on prominent West Asia satellite pay-TV and streaming service Orbit Showtime Network (OSN) and Egyptian broadcaster UMS. NBCUniversal Formats, a division of Universal Studio Group, has teamed up with Cairo-based media production company TVision and OSN,