Todd Spangler Ny Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor ESPN+ is now available to Charter’s Spectrum TV Select Plus customers nationwide at no additional cost — coming after the cable operator added Disney+ for free earlier this year. The addition of ESPN+, which regularly costs $10.99 per month, comes under Disney and Charter’s distribution agreement reached in September 2023 — following a 12-day blackout of ESPN and other Disney networks on Charter.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor J.J. Abrams is taking a look back at “Felicity,” the beloved series he co-created that premiered 25 years ago, in a difference kind of rewatch podcast featuring guest appearances by the show’s stars, including Keri Russell, Scott Speedman and Scott Foley. “Dear Felicity,” from Abrams’ Bad Robot Audio and Spotify’s The Ringer, is set to debut Wednesday, March 13.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Vince McMahon, the founder of WWE who resigned from the board of TKO Group earlier this year amid sexual assault allegations against him, filed to sell $411.95 million worth of TKO stock, according to a regulatory filing. McMahon’s sale comprised 5.35 million shares of TKO, per an SEC filing Monday. That came after he sold 8.4 million shares of Class A common stock in TKO — in sale worth $670.3 million — last November.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney CEO Bob Iger acknowledged that the company is behind Netflix in terms of technical capabilities — and that the Mouse House is in the process of catching up. “We need to be at their level” of technical capability, in order to reduce marketing expenses and cut churn rates, Iger said about Netflix, speaking Tuesday at the 2024 Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference. Iger reiterated that Disney is on track to achieve profitability in the streaming business — which includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ — by the fiscal quarter that ends September 2024.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Facebook appeared to be experiencing widespread technical problems Tuesday, with thousands of users logging errors in accessing the social media service. Users reported problems including being logged out of Facebook.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The “face with tears of joy” emoji represents “a crying with laughter facial expression,” according to Wikipedia. “The emoji is used in communication to portray joking and teasing on messaging platforms.” Elon Musk, the multibillionaire tech baron who owns X (formerly Twitter), on Monday was sued by four former Twitter executives, whom Musk fired immediately after (reluctantly) closing the $44 billion takeover of the company in October 2022.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Will Shortz, the longtime crossword puzzle editor of the New York Times and NPR’s “puzzlemaster” for more than three decades, suffered a stroke last month and has spent the last several weeks rehabilitating. Shortz revealed the injury in a recorded message aired on on NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday” on March 5. He has been absent from the show in recent weeks, and at the end today’s puzzle segment, “Weekend Edition Sunday” host Ayesha Rascoe shared an audio clip from Shortz to let fans know the situation.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The 8th annual Crunchyroll Anime Awards just concluded in Tokyo — with “Jujutsu Kaisen” Season 2 wining a total of 11 honors, including the top prize of anime of the year. Crunchyroll revealed the winners during a live ceremony Saturday, March 2, featuring celebrity presenters and musical performances.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor UTA is tucking a small acquisition into its marketing division: The company announced the acquisition of JUV Consulting, a marketing, creative services and research agency that helps clients target Gen Z consumers. The JUV operations, to be rebranded as Next Gen, will become a new practice within UTA’s entertainment marketing division. About a dozen of JUV Consulting’s employees will join UTA, including CEO Ziad Ahmed (pictured above), working at UTA’s offices in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Fubo chief David Gandler took the gloves off in lambasting the joint venture formed by Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox Corp.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The descendants of Walt Disney and his brother Roy O. Disney have weighed in on the bid by two activist investment firms to win seats on the board of the Walt Disney Co. Nelson Peltz, the activist investor who runs hedge fund Trian Partners, is waging a proxy-fight battle to install himself and ex-Disney CFO Jay Rasulo as directors; Peltz’s stated aim is to drive up the price of Disney’s stock.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Dwayne Johnson now officially owns title to the sobriquet “The most electrifying man in sports and entertainment.” The actor and entertainment mogul, who broke out as a star in the WWE ring two decades ago, has gained rights to a number of nicknames, insults and catchphrases from his time in the ring in the 90s and early 2000s — including “Candy Ass,” “Jabroni,” and “If you smell what The Rock is cooking.” The transfer of the intellectual-property rights to the names and phrases to Johnson came under his deal to join the board of directors of TKO Group Holdings, the company formed by Endeavor that merged WWE and the UFC. As announced last month, Johnson officially has the rights to his famous ring name, “The Rock.” In its 10-K filing Feb.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Oprah Winfrey will leave the board of WeightWatchers after almost 10 years, following the entertainment mogul’s revelation that she is using a weight-loss drug. Winfrey informed the company this week that she decided to not stand for reelection at the annual meeting of shareholders to be held in May 2024. She has served on the company’s board since 2015.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor SiriusXM named industry veteran Sarah van Mosel to the newly created position of senior VP of podcast strategy. It’s a return to SiriusXM for von Mosel, who previously served as chief revenue office at its subsidiary Stitcher.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Tubi has given its logo an overhaul and a new coat of vivid paint — and has introduced a buoyant sonic logo akin to Netflix’s “tudum” — as the Fox Corp.-owned streamer prepares to launch into more international markets. The free, ad-supported streaming service’s new brand identity was developed in partnership with London design consultancy DixonBaxi. The new logo and sonic brand will begin rolling out across all supported platforms, including in the Tubi user interface, starting Wednesday, Feb.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor David Duchovny is diving deep into screwing up in “Fail Better,” marking his first foray as a podcast host. The actor, writer, director, author and singer-songwriter’s seasonal weekly series is produced by podcast network Lemonada Media. “Fail Better” is slated to premiere in May 2024, to be available across all major audio platforms.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Stephen A. Smith, known for his no-filter commentary on sports, politics and culture, has a new podcast partner. “The Stephen A.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Adam McKay’s Hyperobject Industries has set up “Jockular,” a podcast from three queer best friends Katie Kershaw, Tien Tran and E.R. Fightmaster — who, along with their guests, will discuss all things queer, trans and women-forward in the world of sports. “Jockular” will dispense “equal doses of sports commentary, cultural criticism and light-hearted gossip,” per Hyperobject Industries, spanning sports including collegiate basketball, professional soccer and “power slapping” (which, weirdly, is an actual thing).

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Whoopi Goldberg, famed EGOT and business mogul, is adding another entry to her résumé: streaming entrepreneur. Goldberg is an equity investor in Blkfam, billed as the first and only Black-owned and Black-focused family streaming platform. The free, ad-supported service launches Feb.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor It’s the end of the road for Warner Bros. Discovery‘s MotorTrend+ automotive streaming service. The media company announced that MotorTrend+ will be shut down after content from the service is fully migrated to Discovery+ and Max at the end of March.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Timothée Chalamet’s magical, musical candyman is coming to Max. “Wonka” will make its streaming debut exclusively on Max on Friday, March 8, Warner Bros.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Reddit, the popular internet discussion “community of communities,” filed a registration statement Thursday for its long-awaited initial public offering. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. Reddit intends to list its Class A common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “RDDT.” In the S-1 filing with the SEC, Reddit reported 2023 revenue of $804.0 million, up 21% year over year, and a net loss of $90.8 million in 2023, compared with a $158.6 million loss the year prior.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix says its ad-supported plan includes “the vast majority” of TV shows and movies available on the standard no-ads tiers — but more than a year after the streamer introduced the cheaper option, several popular titles remain unavailable to customers with the ad plan. Most recently, Netflix customers noticed that Eli Roth’s horror film “Thanksgiving” (pictured above), added Feb. 17 for subscribers on ad-free tiers, is unavailable on the ad plan.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor After critics slammed Google‘s “woke” generative AI system, the company halted the ability of its Gemini tool to create images of people to fix what it acknowledged were “inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions.” Google’s Gemini, formerly known as Bard, began offering text-to-image generative features this month. The problem appeared to be that, in trying to compensate for gender- and racial-representation bias in AI, the system was creating ahistorical images of people.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Paris Hilton‘s 11:11 Media appointed Rachel Webber, former chief brand officer of Playboy, to the newly created role of chief commercial and brand officer. Webber reports to Bruce Gersh, 11:11 Media president and COO, who co-founded the media and consumer lifestyle company with Hilton in 2021.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor BuzzFeed has sold Complex — the youth-culture media company it bought three years ago — and will pink-slip another 16% of BuzzFeed’s remaining staffers in a restructuring designed to get back on financial track. BuzzFeed announced Wednesday that it closed the sale of Complex to ecommerce platform Ntwrk in a $108.6 million all-cash deal.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Fubo, which bills itself as a sports-first TV subscription streaming service, is suing Disney, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery over the trio’s plans to launch a sports streaming bundle.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Kevin Hart‘s Hartbeat has appointed Jay Levine, who previously spent more than a decade at Warner Bros. and WarnerMedia, as CEO. Levine takes over the chief executive role from Thai Randolph, who exited Hartbeat last fall after seven years with the company.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Pinterest is readying the launch of its first-ever streaming show, cooking and lifestyle series “Deliciously Entertaining” — aimed at whetting the appetite of users to engage with the image-sharing social platform. “Deliciously Entertaining” is one of Pinterest’s biggest original productions to date, developed and produced in partnership with media company Tastemade.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor HBO is no longer giving away free next-day looks to the popular “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” comedy talk show. With the Season 11 premiere of the show on Feb. 18, HBO has ceased sharing the main feature and other segments from “Last Week Tonight” on the show’s YouTube channel the following day.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Two professional esports players are demanding at least $680 million in aggregate monetary damages in a lawsuit against Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard, alleging the game company holds an “unlawful 100% monopoly” over professional leagues and tournaments for first-person shooter “Call of Duty.” Activision Blizzard has used its “unlawful monopoly power to prevent would-be competitors from entering the market, as well as to coerce the market’s other participants — in particular, professional ‘Call of Duty’ players and team owners — to acquiesce to extortionate financial terms,” the lawsuit said. The two esports players suing Activision are Hector Rodriguez (known by his “Call of Duty” handle “H3CZ”), founder of the OpTic Gaming team; and Seth Abner, known by his gamer tag “Scump.” No Call of Duty League teams are named as plaintiffs — and the lawsuit calls the other teams in the CDL “co-conspirators” in perpetuating Activision’s alleged monopoly and says “plaintiffs reserve the right to name as defendants some or all of the entities or individuals who acted as co-conspirators with Defendant in the alleged offenses.” In a statement, an Activision Blizzard rep said, “Mr.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Noggin, Nickelodeon’s interactive learning platform for preschool-age kids, is shutting down after almost 10 years, Variety has confirmed. Noggin is a casualty of Paramount Global’s companywide layoffs this week, which resulted in about 800 staffers being let go. The entire team that ran Noggin was laid off, as first reported by trade publication Kisdscreen.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Roku revenue came in above Wall Street forecasts for the fourth quarter of 2023 — and it touted new milestones of more than 80 million active accounts globally as of the end of last year and more than 100 billion hours streamed in 2023. But shares of the streaming platform and connected-TV ad provider fell as Roku warned of a “challenging” environment for media and entertainment spending for the rest of 2024.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor After more than a year away from the mic, Dr. Brené Brown is bringing back her two podcasts — “Unlocking Us” and “Dare to Lead” — under a new partnership with Vox Media. Brown, a renowned researcher, author and speaker whose work explores emotional facets of the human experience, on Wednesday announced a deal to bring her shows to the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor At least one Amazon Prime member is furious over the ecommerce company’s move to start playing ads in Prime Video programming — unless customers pay an extra monthly fee. A lawsuit seeking class-action status accused Amazon of false advertising and deceptive practices because Prime Video now serves commercials by default. “For years, people purchased and renewed their Amazon Prime subscriptions believing that they would include ad-free streaming,” the lawsuit says.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Mandy Moore stars in a new Audible podcast series as Sue Brewer, the unsung hero of the outlaw country music movement whose home became the epicenter of the scene in 1960s Nashville. Moore — singer, songwriter, producer and actor (“This Is Us”) — leads the cast of “The Boar’s Nest: Sue Brewer and the Birth of Outlaw Country Music,” a scripted podcast from Fresh Produce Media for Audible.