NBC News is considering whether its venerable “Today” morning show might also serve as an all-day streaming-video outlet. In a memo issued Monday, NBC News Digital staffers were told that the company plans to explore streaming opportunities for “Today” and intends to shift some employees assigned to video “to focus on preparing for a streaming
The Prague International Film Festival is the latest industry event to be canceled in the wake of the global coronavirus outbreak. Organizers confirmed Tuesday that the event, also known as Febiofest, is canceled until further notice and will aim to be rescheduled later in the year. The cancellation follows a ban by the Czech Ministry
On Tuesday, an appeal by Amazon, Google, Pandora and Spotify that seeks to overturn the Copyright Royalty Board’s 2018 decision to raise by 44% the royalties paid to songwriters by streaming services will come before the U.S. Court of Appeals. Attorneys for Amazon and Spotify will make their cases Tuesday (the four companies filed their
First Stage Studios, led by Sean Connery’s son Jason and BAFTA-winning producer Bob Last, has won a Screen Scotland tender to run a large-scale film and TV studio space in Edinburgh. Screen Scotland plans to invest £1 million ($1.3 million) towards the initial set up, refurbishment and running costs of the studio space in Port
Does anyone still watch televised beauty pageants? Some must do: The likes of Miss America and Miss World presumably aren’t being broadcast to a global audience of ghosts, whatever their declining presence in the popular imagination. Yet for years now, the pageant industry has felt like a dead woman walking and waving, steadily losing TV
“Star Wars” actor John Boyega is partnering with Netflix through his UpperRoom Productions shingle to develop non-English language films centered on West and East Africa. The company said on Tuesday that the indie production house founded by the British-Nigerian thesp “will develop film projects based on stories, cast, characters, crew, literary properties, mythology, screenplays and/or
March 9, 2020 9:34PM PT A disturbing trip into the dystopian psyche of animator Mariusz Wilczynski, making his feature debut with this black-and-white niche oddity. An utterly bizarre, frequently grotesque, occasionally obscene singularity, Polish artist Mariusz Wilczynski’s abrasive animation “Kill It and Leave This Town” exists so far outside the realm of the expected, the
A rather pedestrian presentation of a potentially fascinating story, Vanessa Lapa’s “Speer Goes to Hollywood” expands on a little-known footnote to the Hydra-headed history of the post-war fates of top Nazi lieutenants. It is based on the 1972 recordings of conversations between Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect, friend and wartime munitions minister, and screenwriter Andrew Birkin
South by Southwest laid off at least 50 employees, or a third of its year-round staff, Monday as the festival faces losses in the tens of millions after the cancellation of this year’s festival. Said the festival in a statement: “Due to the City of Austin’s unprecedented and unexpected cancellation of the SXSW 2020 events
Multiple sources tell Variety that both weekends of the Coachella Festival as well as the Stagecoach Music Festival that follows have been postponed due to concerns over the coronavirus outbreak. Goldenvoice is informing agents currently and deducing who is available on consecutive weekends in October — starting with Oct. 9. Organizers have yet to release
Breaking News Getty Harvey Weinstein is asking the judge who will sentence him Wednesday for mercy … a 5 year prison sentence. Weinstein’s lawyers filed legal docs late Monday, laying out personal matters they want the judge to consider in handing down the sentence. For starters, the lawyers honed in on the Ronan Farrow‘s New
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched the first part of “The Bachelor” Season 24 finale. Pilot Peter Weber has nearly landed. After months of ups and downs, his season is culminating in a two-night live finale, where he was left to choose between Hannah Ann Sluss and Madison Prewett. After a
Harvey Weinstein’s defense team asked a judge on Monday to sentence him to five years in prison, the statutory minimum for two counts of rape and sexual assault. In a seven-page sentencing memo, the defense recounted Weinstein’s charitable contributions and his support for social causes. They also argued that Weinstein has already received a harsh
Miami’s annual dance music conference, WMC (Winter Music Conference), has decided to officially cancel their event, according to organizers. “Due to the Florida Governor’s declaration of a public health emergency and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention’s Interim Guidance for COVID-19, the 35th edition of Winter Music Conference, originally scheduled for March 16 –
March 9, 2020 6:20PM PT The 2020 ASCAP Experience conference — formerly known as the ASCAP “I Create Music” Expo — has been cancelled due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. “For the past 15 years, ASCAP’s annual conference has brought together music creators from all over the world to network, collaborate and
Pearl Jam has postponed their North American tour, which was scheduled to kick off March 18 in Toronto, due to the coronavirus. The band made the announcement on Monday. “We’ve been hit hard and have witnessed firsthand how quickly these disastrous situations can escalate,” singer Eddie Vedder wrote, acknowledging the recent outbreak at a Seattle
“Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” will not tape in front of live audiences in the near term, a person familiar with the situation tells Variety, as the continued spread of coronavirus poses a risk to guests as well as immunocompromised “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek, who last year was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Both
Neil Young has written a letter on his website saying that, while he had been on the verge of putting tickets on sale for a long-awaited tour with his band Crazy Horse, he has put any announcements on hold due to uncertainty about the spread of the coronavirus, citing concerns for “our older audience” as
Rapper Daniel Hernandez, known professionally as Tekashi 6ix9ine, will complete his prison sentence on August 2. Lance Lazzaro, Hernandez’s attorney, confirmed the date. The 23-year-old rapper was arrested in Nov. 2018 for his involvement with the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods. In January the rapper made a plea deal — in which he admitted that he’d hired someone
Quibi has canceled its red carpet launch event “out of an abundance of caution” amid the growing threat of the spread of coronavirus, or COVID-19. The celebration was set for April 5, just a day before the much-anticipated mobile streaming service, led by Jeffrey Katzenberg and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, goes live on April
What defines a Disney Plus original? With the upcoming “Love, Victor” (née “Love, Simon”) moving from the nascent streaming platform to its older sister service, Hulu, and “Lizzie McGuire” regressing to development mode, what constitutes “family friendly” — a key component of Disney Plus’ overall proposition — has become a recurring a question mark. The
FILM FESTIVALS Social network-educational site Stage 32 will offer SXSW filmmakers a showcase for their projects beginning in April. The site made the announcement on Monday, three days after the film festival was canceled due to concerns about the coronavirus epidemic. Filmmakers and content creators accepted into SXSW 2020 are welcome to submit their pics
SAG-AFTRA has suspended all in-person union meetings to help stop the spread of coronavirus. The union announced the move on Monday as part of “social-distancing tactics to help reduce the possibility of potential exposure or transmission through travel and attendance at face-to-face meetings.” The initiative was announced in an email sent to the 160,000 SAG-AFTRA
The German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), one of Germany’s most prestigious film schools, has sacked its British director, Ben Gibson, following an incident during the Berlin Film Festival in which he exposed his backside to a female student during a heated argument. The academy’s board of trustees on Friday voted to dismiss Gibson,
All three spots at the top of the Rolling Stone albums chart belonged to new albums this week, with Lil Baby’s chart-topper followed by Bad Bunny and, in a surprising third-place finish, a James Taylor album of standards. The singles chart was once again led by Roddy Ricch’s “The Box,” with Lil Baby and Gunna’s
After working together on the Netflix docuseries “The Keepers,” editors Kate Amend, Rejh Cabrera and Mark Harrison established a creative shorthand that came in handy when collaborating again on another docuseries: Apple TV Plus’ “Visible: Out on Television.” “We had constant conversations as a team to make sure whatever we were working on tied in
March 9, 2020 3:32PM PT In today’s TV news roundup, Quibi released a trailer for LeBron James’ documentary series “I Promise” and Pete Buttigieg announced he will guest host “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on March 12. FIRST LOOKS Quibi released the trailer of LeBron James‘ documentary series “I Promise.” The series tells the story of James’
March 9, 2020 3:51PM PT Ted Koppel isn’t returning to “Nightline,” but the programming concept that elevated him and the show to wider renown is making a comeback. “Nightline” got its start on ABC in 1980 as a late-night news program that spent its full half-hour length analyzing a single topic, based on months of
Earl Pomerantz, an Emmy-winning television writer who worked on numerous sitcoms over the years, died Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 75. The announcement was made by Pomerantz’s friend, TV writer Ken Levine, on Levine’s personal blog. Over the course of his career, Pomerantz wrote scripts for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart
Quibi — less than a month away from the commercial launch of its mobile-subscription service — is trying to get rid of patent claims from a company that is asserting the Jeffrey Katzenberg-led startup stole its technology. In a lawsuit Monday (March 9), Quibi asked a federal court for a ruling that its technology does