Podcast U.S. Ad Revenue Projected to Hit $2.3 Billion in 2023, up 43%

ans watched the midseason finale on January 1, 2023, but we'll have to hold our horses a little longer until the new episodes of season 5 air later this year. While the Duttons are taking a break, you can catch up on all the drama from the season's first eight episodes along with old seasons of the most-watched show on cable. Keeping up with has always been a bit tricky — the Paramount Network series, unlike prequels  and, is not available on Paramount+ — but we’ve got all the tips and tricks to make sure you can watch new episodes of in real-time.

The Warehouse Project will be back in September, with the likes of Bicep, Honey Dijon, The Blessed Madonna and Jamie Jones on the bill for its 2023 season. It’s also revealed that it will be opening up two new areas of its Depot Mayfield home, including the roof.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Jeffrey Katzenberg took a massive swing at the streaming biz with Quibi — and despite the startup’s shutdown just six months after it launched, he says he’s still proud of the effort. Katzenberg, an investor, Hollywood producer and former top studio chief, founded Quibi with former eBay and Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman. The streaming service had positioned itself as the HBO of short-form mobile video and had raised $1.75 billion before it closed its doors in late 2020 after failing to attract subscribers. Katzenberg reflected on Quibi in an interview with LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky on the latest episode of the business-focused social network’s “The Path” series. “I’m humbled by the failure,” Katzenberg said. “But I’m proud that what we tried was a moonshot.”

Average White Band will launch their international farewell ‘Let’s Go Round Again One Last Time’ Tour in North America.The stay in the U.S. will be short for the British outfit though.At the time of publication, the funk, soul and R&B group featuring original members Alan Gorrie and Onnie McIntyre only have five stateside shows lined up.This run of concerts includes two gigs at New York City’s City Winery on Friday, Aug.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor It’s the beginning of the end for Showtime as a standalone brand. Paramount Global will launch the newly integrated Paramount+ With Showtime service in the U.S. on June 27, establishing it as the company’s top-tier streaming product without commercials. As previously announced, the Paramount+ With Showtime plan will cost $11.99 per month — up 17% from $9.99/month, but still less than the standard ad-free packages from rivals like Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max (nee HBO Max) and Netflix. At the same time, the price of the Paramount+ Essential Plan (without Showtime) will increase from $4.99 to $5.99 per month.

Hollywood heavy-hitter Tom Hanks is weighing in on the use of artificial intelligence in films, especially as he grows older and his name and likeness are still coveted. The "A Man Called Otto" actor gave his opinion on AI – noting that its use in the industry is nothing new and has rather "always been" lingering. "The first time we did a movie that had a huge amount of our own data locked in a computer, literally what we looked like, was a movie called ‘The Polar Express,’" Hanks said on "The Adam Buxton Podcast" about his 2004 animated film.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor YouTube’s biggest ad innovation for 2023? It might be borrowing a well-worn page from old-fashioned linear TV. At the YouTube Brandcast upfront event Wednesday in New York, execs announced the introduction of 30-second unskippable ads in top-performing YouTube content on TVs — you know, just like the commercials that have run on broadcast and cable networks for decades. YouTube also will start testing new “Pause Experiences” for YouTube on TV screens, showing an ad when viewers pause a video akin to the pause ads Hulu first bowed four years ago. In their pitch to Madison Avenue types, YouTube execs also boasted of the streaming service’s massive reach: More than 150 million unique viewers in the U.S. watched YouTube and YouTube TV on televisions for the month of December 2022, according to Nielsen estimates. YouTube remains the No. 1 most-watched service on TV screens in America (across both streaming platforms and traditional TV networks), and in April was one of the only streamers to see month-to-month growth, per Nielsen.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney has pegged total cash content spending at around $30 billion for this year — but the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike may drive that down, CFO Christine McCarthy said. “If you haven’t noticed we’re in the middle of a writers strike,” McCarthy said, speaking Wednesday at MoffettNathanson’s Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in New York. The WGA walkout may reduce Disney’s cash spending on content for the balance of the year, she said. At the MoffettNathanson conference, MCarthy appeared alongside Disney president of ad sales Rita Ferro. The two Disney execs spoke a day after the media conglom’s upfront presentation in the Big Apple to ad buyers and brands — which was noticeably light on scripted fare, given the writers strike. Marvel’s Kevin Feige previewed upcoming Disney+ series “Secret Invasion,” featuring Samuel L. Jackson and Don Cheadle, and announced premiere dates for “Loki” Season 2 and “Hawkeye” spinoff “Echo.”

2023 has been a big year for Hulu.

In case you’re living under a rock, FX’s “The Bear” took the TV world by storm last year, seemingly coming out of nowhere and turning the whole cast and crew into rock stars, especially the series’ lead Jeremy Allen White, known from “Shameless,” but seemingly receiving a whole new career overnight thanks to the runaway and critical success of the show (nearly everyone who covers TV put it on their list of the Best TV of 2022, including us).

Tony Award-winning actress Cynthia Erivo will topline a film adaptation of the hit play “Prima Facie,” which she will also executive produce.Participant and Bunya Productions are producing the film, in association with Erivo’s Edith’s Daughter. The film will be directed by BAFTA Award-winning filmmaker Susanna White.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor As streaming video continues its ascendancy, cable, satellite and internet TV providers in the U.S. turned in their worst subscriber losses to date in the first quarter of 2023 — collectively shedding 2.3 million customers in the period, according to analyst estimates. “We are watching the sun beginning to set” on the pay-TV business, SVB MoffettNathanson senior analyst Craig Moffett wrote in a report Friday. With the Q1 decline, total pay-TV penetration of occupied U.S. households (including for internet services like YouTube TV and Hulu) dropped to 58.5% — its lowest point since 1992, two years before DirecTV launched as a new rival to cable TV, according to Moffett’s calculations. As of the end of Q1, U.S. pay-TV services had 75.5 million customers, down nearly 7% on an annual basis.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney is pulling Hulu tighter into the Mouse House. On Disney’s earnings call Wednesday, CEO Bob Iger said the company will soon launch a “one-app experience” in the U.S. that incorporates Hulu content into Disney+. The new combined offering will launch by the end of 2023, he said. “While we will continue to offer Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ as standalone options, this is a logical progression of our [direct-to-consumer] offerings that will provide greater opportunities for advertisers while giving bundle subscribers access to more robust and streamlined content, resulting in greater audience engagement and ultimately leading to a more unified streaming experience,” Iger said.

ans watched the midseason finale on January 1, 2023, but we'll have to hold our horses just a little longer until the new episodes of season 5 air later this year. While the Duttons are taking a break, you can catch up on all the drama from the season's first eight episodes along with old seasons of the most-watched show on cable. Keeping up with has always been a bit tricky — the Paramount Network series, unlike prequels  and, is not available on Paramount+ — but we’ve got all the tips and tricks to make sure you can watch new episodes of in real time.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor BuzzFeed’s revenue was down substantially in the first three months of 2023, dropping 27% in the period — and the company projected sales would be off as much as 29% for Q2. Given the decline, last month BuzzFeed announced it was shuttering its unprofitable BuzzFeed News division and laying off about 180 people across the organization, about 15% of its employee base. “We have reached an inflection point in digital media. Over the last few months, we have made significant strategic and organizational changes to position the business for long-term growth. Peretti continued, “By leaning into Creators and AI, I believe we can unlock new opportunities across our portfolio of trusted brands — including Tasty, First we Feast, Complex, HuffPost and BuzzFeed,” Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed founder and CEO, said in announcing the Q1 results.

Here’s a musical surprise for all “Bridgerton” fans!

Big Boi and Phantogram reunited their Big Grams project on stage at Shaky Knees festival this weekend – see what went down below.The Outkast rapper and electronic duo released a collaborative EP together in 2015 and haven’t played together since the following year.At Atlanta’s Shaky Knees on Saturday night (May 6), Phantogram invited Big Boi on stage with them to play two of the tracks from that EP.Watch Big Grams play ‘Born To Shine’ and ‘Fell In The Sun’ below.A post shared by Meagan Iwaniszek (@melgies85)Elsewhere, 2021 saw Big Boi and Organized Noize’s Sleepy Brown release their joint album ‘The Big Sleepover’. The collaborative project between the two frequent collaborators was first teased in 2019 after the release of ‘Intentions’ featuring CeeLo Green.Big Boi also revealed that he is holding on to a song he made with Kate Bush, and he’s described it as “a monster hit”.Speaking to Mark Ronson on The FADER‘s Uncovered Podcast, the rapper said the collaboration came after he met the elusive singer in the UK in 2014, while he and André 3000 were on their Outkast reunion tour.“I have a monster hit with Kate Bush that I’m just holding,” he said, adding: “It’s a dream come true and the people are going to fucking love it.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Apple’s revenue declined again in the March 2023 quarter, marking its second consecutive quarterly drop in sales. But the tech giant topped Wall Street forecasts, with its services business hitting a new record for revenue and iPhone sales up 1.5%. The company reported revenue of $94.8 billion, down 3%, and net income of $24.2 billion (or $1.52 per share) for the quarter ended April 1, which is Apple’s Q2 of fiscal 2023. Financial analysts expected revenue of $92.96 billion and earnings of $1.43 per share for the quarter, per Refinitiv data. Apple’s Services revenue rose 5.5%, to $20.9 billion, just a hair above $20.8 billion for the year-end 2022 quarter. The segment includes the App Store, Apple Pay, and subscription services such as Apple TV+, Apple Music and iCloud.

Anitta‘s hair and necklace provided a fiery pop of color at the 2023 Met Gala on Monday evening (May 1) in New York City.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Amazon, in the midst of paring back its workforce, topped Wall Street forecasts with better-than-expected revenue growth for the first quarter of 2023. The company reported Q1 revenue of $127.4 billion, up 9% year over year, improving over a 7% rise in the year-earlier quarter but still off its historical pace of top-line growth. Net income was $3.2 billion, or 31 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $3.8 billion in Q1 2022 (which included a $7.8 billion loss on its stake in electric-vehicle maker Rivian). The results come as the ecommerce colossus is in the middle of laying off 9,000 workers, on top of the 18,000 job cuts announced in January. On Thursday, the company laid off about 100 employees at Amazon Studios and Prime Video.