Amazon Q1 Earnings Top Wall Street Expectations, Tech Giant Swings to $3.2 Billion Profit Amid Layoffs

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Amazon Games is taking another shot at Middle-earth. The ecommerce giant announced a deal with Middle-earth Enterprises for Amazon Games to develop and publish a new massively multiplayer online (MMO) game based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic “The Lord of the Rings.” The upcoming game, as yet untitled, will be “an open-world MMO adventure in a persistent world set in Middle-earth, featuring the beloved stories of ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ literary trilogy,” according to Amazon. The game is in early stages of production, with development led by Amazon Games Orange County, the studio behind Amazon Games’ open-world MMO game “New World.” Amazon Games will publish the game globally for PC and consoles, but it did not announce an expected launch date.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor NBCUniversal is swinging its suite of free NBC and Telemundo 24-hour local news channels in major markets to Amazon’s Fire TV. Under the deal, U.S.-based customers with Fire TV and Amazon Echo Show devices can now access local breaking news coverage and original content on the free, ad-supported TV (FAST) channels of NBCU’s 15 NBC- and Telemundo-owned stations in top markets The agreement builds on NBCU’s existing deals to distribute Peacock on Fire TV, as well as Today All Day and Dateline 24/7 FAST channels. In addition, NBCU network apps including NBC, Bravo, E!, Oxygen, Syfy, USA, Universal Kids, MSNBC, NBC News, CNBC, NBC Sports and Telemundo are available on Fire TV.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Listen up! While podcast advertising revenue remains relatively small, it’s growing quickly — and the sector is poised for a strong double-digit gain this year, despite economic headwinds. In 2023, U.S. podcast ad revenue is expected to total $2.28 billion, up 43% year over year, according to new research conducted by PwC for the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB). Last year, the segment increased 26%, to hit $1.8 billion, per the study. By 2025, podcast advertising revenue in the U.S. is projected to reach about $4 billion. Overall, podcasting continues to be one of the fastest-growing digital channels, growing two times faster than digital advertising overall — although for 2022 it remained less than 1% of the total pie (which PwC pegged at $209.7 billion).

Disney is the DJIA’s worst performer today with shares down over 8% after reporting fiscal second quarter earnings that were mixed and a bit messy as the company and industry reset.

were expecting Disney to report earnings of $0.88 per share on revenue of $21.7 billion. Disney shares closed Wednesday at $101.13 per share, down 1% today and 13.7% YTD.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent In April 2018, Netflix announced that Spanish heist thriller “Money Heist” (“La Casa de Papel”) had become the U.S. streaming service’s most-watched non-English series ever. With a Spanish series crowned as the first foreign-language blockbuster at the company that has transformed entertainment worldwide, Spain’s expansion — long nurtured by hits such as “The Red Band Society,” “Grand Hotel” and “Locked Up” — well and truly lifted off. Building on that success, in March 2021, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez unveiled the AVS Hub Plan, which would invest €1.6 billion ($1.8 billion) into Spain’s audiovisual sector.

Smart-TV maker Vizio reported better-than-expected results for the first quarter but still saw total revenue slump 27% as consumers cut spending in a time of ongoing inflation and economic worries.

A proposal to turn shop storage space into six flats in Ayr High Street has ‘disaster written all over it’, according to an objector.

Cinemark posted a dramatically smaller loss for the first quarter, besting analyst expectations as the national theater chain saw customers return to the movies.The Plano, Texas-based company said revenue leaped 32% to $610.7 million for the three months ended March 31, compared with $460.5 million for the 2022 first quarter. Analysts polled by Zack’s Investment Services had expected revenue of $569 million.The loss for the quarter came in at $3.1 million, or 3 cents per share.

Apple struggled in a tough economic climate during the quarter ending March 31, but still managed to beat Wall Street expectations.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Roku is reinvesting in — and bulking up — its originals lineup, announcing a new season of “The Great American Baking Show” and an unscripted comedy featuring singer-songwriter Charlie Puth among the shows coming to the Roku Channel. Notably, the content announcements at Roku’s 2023 NewFronts presentation — coming on Day One of the WGA writers strike — were unscripted/reality formats. Also at the event in New York Tuesday, the streaming platform unveiled a suite of new ad solutions, including sponsorships for its popular Roku City screensaver. The company announced that it has renewed reality competition series “The Great American Baking Show” for Season 2. The news came ahead of the premiere Friday, May 5, of the new six-episode run of the show featuring Paul Hollywood, Prue Leith, Ellie Kemper and Zach Cherry (pictured above, left) on the Roku Channel. “The Great American Baking Show,” produced by Love Productions USA, ran for five seasons on ABC as a spinoff of original hit “The Great British Baking Show” before it was picked up last year by Roku. The streaming company previously acquired U.S. rights to dozens of episodes in the “Great Baking Show” franchise for a FAST channel. Roku will also bring back the holiday special of “The Great American Baking Show,” which will feature all-new celebrity bakers and debut this upcoming holiday season.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor It’s not just you: Thousands of Twitter users on Monday reported problems with the web version of Elon Musk’s social media service — as it was spontaneously logging people out. The source of the error was unknown as press time. According to uptime-monitoring service Downdetector, user problem reports began to spike at around 3:30 p.m. ET. About 96% of the error reports were related to Twitter’s website or not being able to log in. In some cases, even after a Twitter user was able to successfully log back in, the website was kicking them out shortly afterward. It appeared that the Twitter app for iOS and Android was not affected by the technical problem. In addition, users of Twitter’s TweetDeck application reported that they were also not experiencing issues in accessing the service.

Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace. “That’s what I’m hearing here, Chris. But I’ll fight to keep you on the [news] station,” Sanders added with a laugh.Wallace, in good spirit, was quick to jab back.“You poked the bear!” joked Wallace, who has been working in broadcast journalism since 1964 when he was an assistant to Walter Cronkite.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Charlie Collier, who joined Roku last fall as president of its newly created media division, had a compensation package worth $53.3 million last year — more than twice as much as his boss, CEO Anthony Wood, took home. Collier left his post as CEO of Fox Entertainment to head up Roku Media, where he now oversees content and ad sales for the Roku Channel. Roku’s recruitment of the high-profile TV exec — who brought such hits as “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad” and “The Walking Dead” to AMC — signaled that the company plans to spend more on original content. That said, Roku has been taking steps to cut costs, including laying off about 400 employees, after its revenue growth slowed dramatically in the last two quarters.

quarterly earnings report.Imax reported quarterly revenue of $86.9 million and earnings of $5.1 million or 4 cents per share on a diluted basis and 16 cents per share on an adjusted basis. That beat Wall Street projections of $77.5 million in revenue and adjusted EPS of 15 cents per share, according to analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Amazon has apparently rediscovered its mojo.

the letter reads.The letter continues, “Evan’s case is the latest in a disturbing trend where journalists are harassed, arrested or worse for reporting the news. The unjust arrest of any reporter, anywhere in the world, is simply unacceptable.

Roku delivered first-quarter results with some bright spots, including better-than-expected revenue, but the streaming provider said it sees its advertising business remaining challenged.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Meta, parent of Facebook and Instagram, turned in better-than-expected earnings for the first quarter of 2023 — even as net income dropped sharply on a year-over-year basis. Overall, the company reported revenue of $28.65 billion, up 3% from the year prior, and net income of $5.7 billion (or $2.20 per share), down 24%. Analysts on average expected Meta to post revenue of $27.65 billion and EPS of $2.03, according to Refinitiv. Click here to sign up for Variety’s free Strictly Business newsletter covering earnings, financial news and more. In announcing Q1 results, the company said Facebook averaged 2.04 billion daily active users in March, up from 2.0 billion the prior quarter. Across all its apps, Meta reported daily active users of 3.02 billion on average for March 2023, an increase of 5% year-over-year.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Jerrell Jimerson, Disney Streaming’s chief product officer and one of the architects of Disney+, has been let go as part of the media conglomerate’s latest round of layoffs, Variety has learned. Jimerson on Wednesday sent a note to his team at Disney Streaming telling them that “after five incredible years at Disney, I will be leaving the company at the end of June.” Disney is laying off some 4,000 employees across the company this week, part of its previously announced target of cutting 7,000 jobs to reduce costs. As chief product officer and EVP of product and design for Disney Streaming, Jimerson has overseen all aspects of product, user experience and design for Disney’s direct-to-consumer video streaming businesses, including Disney+, Hulu and Star+.