Microsoft Sets New Activision Blizzard Management Structure as Bobby Kotick Confirms Exit Date

In what producers are calling a “provocative and zeitgeisty” new musical, The Ghost of John McCain, with a book by Scott Elmegreen and score by Drew Fornarola, will get an invitation-only industry reading in New York this week.

Sandra Hüller Set For Rotterdam Talks Program

Antoni Porowski, Bobby Berk, Jonathan Van Ness, Karamo Brown, and Tan France are back with Queer Eye season 8, and the trailer just debuted online!

Ariana Grande has officially announced new music!

(Updated 5:07 PM PT with statement from RFK Jr gala organizers) The arguably greatest fictional TV POTUS ever is not endorsing the White House bid of Robert Kennedy Jr., and Martin Sheen sure as hell isn’t showing up as a warm prop at any RFK Jr fundraiser anytime soon.

ESPN and the NCAA have agreed to an 8-year media rights deal, extending a run for college sports that began in 1979 when the all-sports cable network was in its infancy.

Every episode of BBC's Call the Midwife pulls viewers in with endearing storylines, kind characters and it's feel-good factor, and now fans won't have to wait too long for it to be back on screens. Following a teary Christmas special, the period drama has confirmed it's next series, which will mark the programme's 13th run, is just days away from airing. BBC bosses have now revealed that viewers will be able to pick up where the East London-based show left off this Sunday (January 7).

Queer Eye is set to lose one of the show’s key cast members after season eight.The rebooted US reality series sees the Fab Five – Antoni Porowski, Bobby Berk, Jonathan Van Ness, Karamo Brown and Tan France – apply their respective expertise to help improve the life of individuals across the US (and, for one spin-off, in Japan).The show, which first debuted on Netflix in 2018, is set to return for its eighth season in New Orleans on January 24, 2024.As confirmed in November 2023, Bobby Berk, the show’s expert on interior design, will make his last appearance on the show in season eight.In a post on X announcing his departure, Berk described the decision to leave the show as a “necessary one”.“It is with a heavy heart that I announce that season eight will be my final season on Queer Eye,” Berk wrote. “It’s not been an easy decision to be at peace with but a necessary one.

A day after revealing on New Year’s Eve on Fox that the newly formed United Football League will kick off in June, co-owners Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia took to ESPN to unveil the cities and coaches for the inaugural season.

Coronation Street fans have been left divided by the arrival of Bobby after he was revealed to Carla Barlow as her nephew. The character, who had just waved goodbye to her husband Peter Barlow on Boxing Day, was stunned to discover that her brother Rob Donovan has a son.

In what may be a landmark case, the New York Times has sued Open AI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, saying the publication’s content is being by the platform to feed automated chatbots, constituting “unlawful copying and use of The Times’s uniquely valuable works.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft, the creators of ChatGPT and other A.I. platforms, over copyright infringement, claiming the companies are responsible for “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages.” The suit, filed Wednesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, does not include a specific monetary demand but does assert the above-mentioned claim that Microsoft and OpenAI are responsible for billions in damages, and also demands that any chatbot models and data that pulled copyrighted work from The Times be dismantled.

Valerie Wu Intern Terry Jill Saperstein, a New York City talent manager who ran Nani-Saperstein Management for nearly 50 years, died Dec. 20 in Maplewood, N.J., after a long illness. She was 73.

EXCLUSIVE: Starring an electrifying Nicole Scherzinger, Sunset Boulevard ends its limited run at London’s Savoy Theatre on January 6. However, Deadline can reveal in its 2024 West End look ahead that the singer will lead the Andrew Lloyd Webber show to Broadway in November, according to insiders connected with the production.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is to leave his role next week.Kotick became CEO of Activision in 1991 after purchasing a 25 per cent share in the near-bankrupt company the previous year. Over the next 32 years, he headed up the company as it grew to become one of the biggest and most influential pillars in the world of video games, acquiring a number of other studios on the way.However, it was claimed Kotick knew about cases of sexual misconduct happening within the company and kept it secret, even after state regulators started investigating the company in 2018.

Bobby Kotick, the longtime CEO of Activision Blizzard, is stepping down Dec. 29 following the company’s drawn-out $69 billion sale to Microsoft that closed in October. The exec — who oversaw some of the industry’s most popular games from Pitfall to Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Candy Crush Saga and Farm Heroes Saga — had said previously he would stay on through the end of 2023.

VH1 has unveiled the cast, trailer and premiere date for The Impact New York, a spinoff to the BET+ reality series The Impact ATL.

Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global have held talks about a potential merger of the two media companies, Variety has confirmed.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Activision Blizzard will pay $54.9 million to settle a lawsuit by California’s Civil Rights Department alleging a pattern of pay and promotion practices that discriminated against women. The settlement, announced Friday, comes after Microsoft closed its $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard in October following concessions Microsoft made to clear regulatory objections in the U.K. Activision Blizzard’s franchises include Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Guitar Hero and Diablo.

Video game company Activision Blizzard has agreed to pay nearly $55 million to settle a 2021 complaint by the California Civil Rights Department.