Google Podcasts Is Shutting Down, as YouTube Invests in Podcasting Features and Tools

Police broke up an alleged car meet-up on Saturday night as dozens of motor enthusiasts reportedly gathered at a shopping centre.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Microsoft‘s deal to buy Activision Blizzard got the green light Friday from regulators in the U.K. — clearing the way for the $68.7 billion blockbuster acquisition to close nearly two years after it was announced.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Alex Cooper‘s mega-popular podcast “Call Her Daddy” is already exclusive to Spotify. Now the host and entrepreneur has entered into a new business deal with Spotify covering ad sales and distribution for podcasts under her Unwell Network banner. Under the pact, Spotify will serve as the sales partner for the Unwell Network, aimed at Gen Z audiences.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor It’s not just X/Twitter: The European Union also has put Meta on notice about the urgent need to address a flood of misinformation about the Israel-Hamas conflict to remain in compliance with the EU’s Digital Services Act. In an Oct.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Google said it will no longer claim that YouTube TV is “$600 less than cable” in its advertising, after an industry ad-review board found the assertion was potentially misleading. The YouTube TV pricing claim, which had appeared in two of Google’s ads for the service, had been challenged by Charter Communications in a fast-track complaint submitted to the BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Jellysmack has acquired Law&Crime Network, the legal and true-crime video network and production company headed by Dan Abrams. Terms of the deal were not disclosed; Jellysmack said Law&Crime Network is the company’s largest acquisition to date. Recent deals include Jellysmack’s investment in creator commerce platform Fourthwall; its deal to buy creator-development community Network Media; and its acquisition of AI video editing company Kamua.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Hi ho! A 4K restoration of the original 1937 animation classic “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is set to land on Disney+ later this month. The 4K version of the film will be available on Disney+ worldwide on Oct.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Don’t be alarmed: The U.S. government on Oct. 4 will be conducting a test — only a test — of the emergency alert systems that span the nation’s millions of wireless phones, TVs and radios.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor TV veteran Campbell Brown, after heading Meta‘s news and media partnerships for almost seven years, is departing the internet giant this fall. In a note to staff Tuesday, Brown said she will share additional details in the coming weeks about her next role, but that she will “remain affiliated with Meta in a new consultant capacity,” according to Axios, which first reported her exit. A Meta spokesperson said the team headed by Campbell will be moved over to existing teams focused on media and sports partnerships development and operations.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor If you’re piggybacking on someone else’s Disney+ account, you may soon have to pay up to access the streamer. The Mouse House has notified Disney+ subscribers in Canada that as of Nov. 1, “Unless otherwise permitted by your service tier, you may not share your subscription outside of your household.” The notification also informs customers that if the company has determined that a Disney+ subscriber has violated those terms, “we may limit or terminate access to the service and/or take any other steps as permitted by this agreement.” The language suggests that Disney+ will be offering a new option (or options) for account-sharing outside a primary user’s household.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Paris Hilton is getting her X on. The influencer and entrepreneur — who has 16.6 million followers on X, formerly known as Twitter — announced a deal with the social platform owned by Elon Musk for an array of content and commerce initiatives.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Letterboxd has been acquired by Tiny, a Canadian holding company, in a deal that values the popular social site for film fanatics at over $50 million. Letterboxd was founded in 2011 by two entrepreneurs in New Zealand, Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Meta has turned more than a dozen celebrities and influencers into robots. The tech company, at the Meta Connect 2023 confab Wednesday, announced partnerships with “cultural icons and influencers” to play and embody AI-powered chatbots that will have profiles on Instagram and Facebook. Those include Snoop Dogg, Charli D’Amelio, MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson), Kendall Jenner, Tom Brady, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade and Paris Hilton.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took a (virtual) trip to the Upside Down to pitch his company’s latest effort to make virtual and augmented reality a thing. The company on Wednesday announced the Meta Quest 3 mixed-reality headset, set to ship Oct.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor CollegeHumor is dropping its collegiate moniker after nearly 25 years… to become Dropout. The company is officially rebranding from CollegeHumor to Dropout, the name of the ad-free, subscription streaming platform it launched in 2018. CollegeHumor was founded in 1999 by Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen — back in the days before the streaming revolution — and gained traction as a free, ad-supported comedy website.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Tubi, Fox Corp.’s ad-supported video-streaming service, has turned to OpenAI’s ChatGPT artificial-intelligence agent to suggest new TV shows and movies to watch — although the feature is really just a form of natural-language search. Tubi’s Rabbit AI is powered by ChatGPT-4.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Hablas robot? Spotify is testing out a way for podcasters to reach listeners in different languages, using artificial-intelligence technology that emulates the podcaster’s own voice. As part of the pilot, Spotify worked with a “select group” of podcasters — Dax Shepard and Monica Padman (“Armchair Expert”), Lex Fridman, Steven Bartlett (“The Diary of a CEO”) and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons — to generate AI-powered voice translations in other languages including Spanish, French and German for a few episodes.

Strictly Come Dancing contestant Amanda Abbington has hit back following claims she nearly quit the show due to alleged rows with her professional partner Giovanni Pernice. The actress posted a video on Instagram on Saturday morning, hours before the live show is due to air on BBC One.

Zendaya will share the big news when it actually happens.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor What are the most powerful franchises in TV, film and games? Fandom, which touts itself as the world’s biggest wiki platform for entertainment and gaming fans, has cooked up a proprietary metric that it claims answers the question. The company, as part of its fifth annual “Inside Fandom” study, announced the new metric — the Franchise Factor Score, which it calls “a single, definitive metric that looks beyond the financials to define the driving forces behind entertainment and gaming franchise success.” Star Wars, with a score of 100, is No.