Spotify hopes to change the podcast-advertising game — which has been largely stuck in the static past. The streaming music and audio company announced the launch of Streaming Ad Insertion (SAI), a new proprietary podcast ad system that will let advertisers buy targeted spots that are inserted into podcasts when they’re streamed to listeners. With
Exclusive TMZ.com Rae Sremmurd‘s stepfather — who helped raised them since they were young — is dead after a shooting in Mississippi, and police have one of their brothers in custody. Tupelo PD says officers were dispatched Monday night to a home where officers found a man who’d died on the scene from at least
Play video content @adamglyn “Vanderpump Rules” star Jax Taylor knows full well what he’s saying about the new cast isn’t nice, but he’s saying it anyway … on the heels of attacking a fellow veteran on the show too. Jax and his wife, costar Brittany Cartwright, were out Tuesday night in NYC and said except
Netflix may have stumbled at the Golden Globes with just two wins, but the streamer isn’t slowing down its awards campaigning anytime soon. On the film side, Netflix is going full throttle in its attempt to earn honors for “The Irishman” and “Marriage Story” along the way to eventual wins at the Oscars. “It’s still
Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Aerosmith and Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani are the first slate of performers to be announced for the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, taking place Sunday, Jan. 26 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The show will be hosted by Alicia Keys and will be broadcast on CBS starting at 8 p.m.
Billie Eilish, Lil Nas X, Ariana Grande, and more have been named as the nominees for the 2020 iHeartRadio Music Awards. Eilish and Lil Nas X earned nods for Song of the Year for their songs “bad guy” and “Old Town Road,” respectively. Other nominees in the category include Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, Jonas
January 8, 2020 6:05AM PT Republic Records has promoted Tyler Arnold to executive vice president of A&R, label EVP Rob Stevenson announced today. He will continue to be based at the label’s New York City headquarters. According to the announcement, Arnold will continue to spearhead A&R for artists across genres, securing new talent and working with existing the roster.
A sprawling and diverse amount of fictional and real life LGBTQ narratives are represented in the nominees for the 31st annual GLAAD Media Awards, announced by the legacy watchdog group on Wednesday. A total of 176 nominations were awarded in categories from outstanding wide release movie, to newspaper article, to kids and family programming —
In a move that should surprise no one, Billie Eilish has been announced as a performer at the 2020 Grammy Awards, the singer announced in the dead of night on Twitter. She is nominated for six awards atround her debut full-length album, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?,” including Best New Artist;
Change has come to the multiplex. In 2019, “Captain Marvel,” “Little Women,” “Us,” and “Frozen 2” helped usher in a banner year for female protagonists. Women made unprecedented gains as the stars in the top grossing films with the percentage of female leads rising from 31% to 40%, according to a new study by the
Pepsi will soon be the soft drink of choice for Regal Entertainment, Variety has learned. The move is a blow to the Coca-Cola Company, which has long maintained a vice-like grip on the exhibition industry, supplying its products to most of the major chains, such as AMC and Cinemark. With the Regal pact, Pepsi will
January 8, 2020 4:01AM PT TV broadcaster Tegna is partnering with First Draft, a non profit that trains journalists and academics to identify false information online to work with editorial staffers in its 49 local newsrooms, part of an effort to bolster the quality of reporting it provides its various audiences. “As we head into
Restored footage of an infamous Tokyo University debate between controversial Japanese poet and novelist Yukio Mishima and university students is the centerpiece of a documentary “Mishima: The Last Debate” by Keisuke Toyoshima, which will be released theatrically in Japan in March. Mishima, real name Hiraoka Kimitake, is known equally as one of Japan’s most important
Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir continued her winning streak, claiming top honors for both her “Joker” and “Chernobyl” scores at Tuesday night’s inaugural awards of the Society of Composers & Lyricists at Los Angeles’ Skirball Cultural Center. Her music for “Joker” was named outstanding original score for a studio film and her score for HBO’s “Chernobyl”
With media and entertainment sectors continuing to be whipped by winds of digital disruption, many industry execs believe they need to change the ways they’ve done business — or see their companies perish. About 50% of M&E executives said their company cannot rely on traditional business models to survive the shifting landscapes, according to a
January 7, 2020 10:14PM PT In this week’s edition of the Variety Movie Commercial Tracker, powered by the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company iSpot.tv, Universal Pictures claims the top spot in spending with “1917.” Ads placed for the drama had an estimated media value of $10.41 million through Sunday for 692 national ad
January 7, 2020 10:00PM PT Kristen Stewart battles an alien of the deep in a waterlogged thriller that can’t come up with one original variation on the movies it’s ripping off. Before technology took over the movies, a cruddy sci-fi action thriller often looked just as bad as it played. No longer. “Underwater,” a deep-sea
Former Sony Pictures Television executives Andy Kaplan and George Chien have cut a deal with Sony to acquire three entertainment networks that serve Southeast Asia and South Korea. Kaplan and Chien have launched KC Global Media to operate the Sony channels, which include the AXN-branded channels in the region, the anime-focused Animax and South Korea’s
Sergio Mendes is set to perform after the world premiere of “Sergio Mendes: In the Key of Joy” at the Santa Barbara Film Festival on Jan. 18. The Grammy award-winning Brazilian musician will perform three songs and participate in a Q&A at the Lobero Theater with director John Scheinfeld. “Sergio Mendes: In the Key of
January 7, 2020 6:28PM PT Gamechanger has hired veteran producer Effie T. Brown (“Dear White People”) as its new chief executive officer. Launched in 2013, Gamechanger became the first film financing fund built for and managed by women. Brown will oversee the fund’s expansion to include projects by people of color, LGBTQ+ and people with
Over the weekend, Dexter Fletcher’s “Rocketman” received a surge on the Oscar buzz meter. Elton John, whose life the film is based on, won a Golden Globe for “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” beating out Beyonce (for “The Lion King”) and Taylor Swift (for “Cats”). Taron Egerton, who portrays John, also won, besting favorites Eddie
Worldwide k-pop phenomenon BTS has announced the release of the follow-up to “Map of the Soul: Persona,” “Map of the Soul: 7.” The extended play will hit streaming services on Feb. 21, 10 months after “Persona.” The release was announced via BTS’ global fan community, BTS Weverse. BTS’ last three albums — “Love Yourself: Tear,”
Fox Entertainment is in very early stages of development of a newly acquired piece of intellectual property — The Texanist, a column at Texas Monthly magazine. The column will be adapted as a comedy in conjunction with the publication, Fox Entertainment president Michael Thorn told Variety at the Television Critics Assn. winter press tour, calling
New Fox, not quite so new anymore, has now spent a full quarter sailing along as its own ship following the Disney-Fox merger that brought 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets under Disney’s umbrella and left a leaner entity in its wake. As part of its efforts to be nimbler and more appealing to talent, the
Just 24 hours after Ellen DeGeneres first aired her “The Masked Singer” spoof segment, “The Masked Dancer,” on her eponymous daytime talk show, Fox’s head of alternative entertainment and specials Rob Wade started making phone calls. “The day after it aired [on ‘Ellen’] was the day I phoned up that production company — January of
Over the past century, sonic branding in advertising has taken on many forms, from the early days of radio jingles to the more recent use of mnemonic devices often heard at the end of commercials from companies like Intel, State Farm and AT&T to the occasional hit single backed by a big brand (Justin Timberlake’s
Sam Mendes’ “1917,” a war epic that unspools to look like one continuous shot, was a surprise winner at the Golden Globes Sunday night, taking home trophies for best motion picture drama and best director for Mendes. That could prove to be a welcome injection of publicity as Universal expands the film to more than 3,000
Fox kicked off the 2020 Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena on Tuesday, announcing some new projects while showcasing some of their midseason fare. The network made several announcements to kick off the day, including a holiday special from the “Robot Chicken” team and signing a new deal with Mara Brock Akil. Read
On Tuesday, veteran Hollywood producer Amy Pascal became only the fifth woman in the history of the Producers Guild Awards to earn a solo nomination for the guild’s top prize — the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures. Even more fitting is that Pascal, the former Sony Pictures head who
Politicians and celebrities including Jennifer Lopez, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ava DuVernay took to social media on Tuesday to encourage support for Puerto Rico following a 6.4-magnitude earthquake. “Waking up to hear the news of the earthquakes in Puerto Rico is breaking my heart,” “Hustlers” star Lopez tweeted. “Please join me in praying for the safety