Todd Spangler Ny Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

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.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Mickey Mouse, kickin’ ass for the working class? Employees who work in Disneyland’s Characters and Parades departments announced they are unionizing with Actors’ Equity Association. Actors’ Equity represents some 51,000 professional actors and stage managers on Broadway and in live theatre across the U.S.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Meghan Markle is back in the podcast game — with a new partner. Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, inked a partnership with podcast network Lemonada Media. That comes after Spotify‘s exclusive podcast deal with Prince Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Productions ended in mid-2023 with the couple having had delivered just one show — the Markle-hosted interview series “Archetypes” — under the agreement.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor SiriusXM is eliminating about 160 jobs, a move to cut expenses that represents a layoff affecting just under 3% of the satellite radio and audio streamer’s workforce. Jennifer Witz, CEO of SiriusXM, announced the layoffs in a memo to staff Monday.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor At the 2024 Super Bowl, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Usher soaked up the limelight as the Kansas City Chiefs became back-to-back champions with their overtime defeat of the San Francisco 49ers. And of course, the Super Bowl was again a venue for dozens of advertisers — who spent up to $7 million for a 30-second spot in CBS’s telecast — to try to break through on the noisiest night on TV.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor This Super Bowl Sunday, don’t forget Uber Eats — but also, as the food-delivery service has learned, don’t forget that trying to make fun of a life-threatening allergy is bad PR. Uber Eats, a division of the ride-sharing company, on Feb. 6 debuted its 60-second 2024 Super Bowl commercial, centered on the running joke of forgetfulness.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor After seeing big viewership gains for “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video this past NFL season, Amazon is getting its hand on an extra bit of pigskin for the next one. Amazon’s Prime Video will have exclusive U.S. rights to one NFL playoff game in the 2024-25 season, Variety confirmed.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Is politics a major buzzkill? Instagram execs seem to think so. In a blog post Friday, Instagram, the popular photo and video app owned by Meta, said it will no longer “proactively recommend” political content from accounts that users do not already follow.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Just days before the kickoff of this year’s Super Bowl, X, the social-media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk previously called Twitter, launched a new partnership to display betting odds to users in the U.S. BetMGM on Friday announced an agreement with X to become the platform’s exclusive live-odds sports betting partner.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Joe Rogan‘s popular podcast is back on Apple Podcasts after a more than three-year hiatus. Last Friday, Spotify announced a multiyear deal renewal with Rogan that is worth as much as $250 million. Under the new pact, “The Joe Rogan Experience” will be widely distributed to third-party platforms including Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Amazon Music.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor X, the social network owned by Elon Musk formerly known as Twitter, has finally taken a rudimentary step to try slow the spread of fake graphic images of Taylor Swift. As of Saturday, searches that include the text string “Taylor Swift” returned an error message on X that said, “Something went wrong.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has weighed in on explicit AI-generated deepfakes of Taylor Swift that have gone viral across social media this week. In an interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt, Nadella said, “First of all, absolutely this is alarming and terrible, and so therefore yes, we have to act, and quite frankly all of us in the tech platform, irrespective of what your standing on any particular issue is — I think we all benefit when the online world is a safe world.” In an NBC Nightly News exclusive, “I don’t think anyone would want an online world that is completely not safe for both for content creators and content consumers,” Nadella said in the interview.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor In a change that reflects AI’s growing influence — and potentially disruptive power — in Hollywood, Netflix added generative AI to the list of potential risk factors on its annual report filed with the SEC. In Netflix’s 10-K report filed Friday, it added this new section to the long section of risk factors (which are required under SEC rules) in the section about video competition: “[N]ew technological developments, including the development and use of generative artificial intelligence, are rapidly evolving.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor A former employee of WWE sued founder Vince McMahon, alleging he abused and sexually exploited her when he was CEO of the wrestling-entertainment company — and that McMahon allegedly trafficked her to other men “as a pawn to secure talent deals” with prospective wrestlers the company was recruiting. The former WWE employee, Janel Grant, filed a lawsuit in U.S.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Jon Oliver, public-domain fan and self-appointed gadfly to powerful institutions, poked a finger in the eye of the Mouse House in a new promo for his HBO show. In a teaser for the Feb.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor NPR has hired Katherine Maher, former CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation and most recently chief exec of the Web Summit conference, as its next president and chief executive officer. Maher will start at the public radio broadcaster on March 25, taking over for outgoing NPR CEO John Lansing, who announced last fall he would step down from the role before his five-year contract expired.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor NBCUniversal‘s Peacock deal to exclusively stream the NFL‘s AFC Wild Card matchup between the Kansas City Chief and the Miami Dolphins delivered an end-zone spiking TD for the streamer, according to new data. NBCU already claimed the Jan. 13 playoff game was the biggest live-streamed event in U.S.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Carrie Bradshaw and the rest of the “Sex and the City” coterie are heading to a binge-watching date on Netflix. Netflix has inked a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery to license all six seasons of the popular HBO dramedy, comprising all 94 episodes, Variety confirmed.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor It’s the beginning of the end for Netflix‘s lowest-cost plan that does not include advertising. In reporting results for the fourth quarter of 2023, in which it added a better-than-expected 13.1 million net subscribers, Netflix touted its ad-supported plan as accounting for 40% of all Netflix sign-ups in markets where it has launched that, and said the number of subscribers on ad tiers grew almost 70% quarter-over-quarter. The company didn’t break out subscriber numbers but said it recently surpassed 23 million monthly active unique users on advertising tiers.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix extended its lead as the world’s biggest premium video-streaming platform — gaining a better-than-expected 13.1 million subscribers for the fourth quarter of 2023. The company’s Q4 revenue came in slightly over Wall Street forecasts, while net income fell short. As of the end of 2023, Netflix counted 260.28 million total members globally.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor MrBeast, the massively popular YouTube creator known for big-money giveaways and outlandish stunts, is nearing a deal for a reality-competition show with Amazon‘s Prime Video, Variety has confirmed. Details of the show, including its title, aren’t known. But the idea is that a MrBeast-hosted show for Prime Video would follow the format of his viral YouTube challenges, including doling out large cash prizes.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Sports Illustrated has been hit with mass layoffs — which will potentially eliminate the entire editorial team of the nearly 70-year-old sports media brand. The union that reps SI’s editorial workers, which is affiliated with the NewsGuild of New York, said in a post on X that on Friday staff members of Sports Illustrated were notified that its parent company, the Arena Group, “is planning to lay off a significant number, possibly all, of the Guild-represented workers at SI, a result of Authentic Brands Group (ABG) revoking Arena’s license to publish SI.” In 2019, Authentic Brands Group purchased Sports Illustrated from Meredith for $110 million (before Meredith was acquired by IAC’s Dotdash).

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Anna Wintour, Condé Nast’s longtime fashion doyenne, is famous for a singular style trademark — her sunglasses. Indeed, Wintour didn’t take off her sunglasses the entire time she met with employees of Pitchfork this week to tell them they were losing their jobs after Condé Nast had decided to subsume the music criticism site into GQ, according to one now-former employee in attendance.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor It’s game on for Amazon MGM Studios‘ TV division! MGM Alternative, a division of Amazon MGM Studios, announced a pact with the Global Esports Federation to create a range of content built around the GEF’s Global Esports Games, esports pro athletes and “the gaming lifestyle.” MGM Alternative’s productions include such reality shows as “The Voice,” “Shark Tank” and “Survivor.” The Singapore-based GEF, founded in December 2019, says it “promotes the credibility, legitimacy and prestige of esports globally.” The organization and MGM Alternative will work together to develop new linear and streaming content, as well as live events within GEF’s esports conventions and events. “With the global interest in esports at an all-time high, we’re eager to share the stories and excitement surrounding the Global Esports Games, their athletes and the gaming lifestyle,” Barry Poznick, GM of MGM Alternative, said in a statement.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Scripted TV output in the U.S. dropped sharply in 2023, thanks to a combination of twin Hollywood strikes and a pullback on content spending, according to a new study from research firm Ampere Analysis.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Just when last week’s ratings resurgence for the Golden Globes had us all feeling good, along comes the Emmy Awards — rescheduled from its usual September slot because of Hollywood strikes — to deliver an all-time audience low to shake our confidence in awards show all over again. Fox’s Monday, Jan.