Roku Beats Q4 Sales Estimates and Tops 80 Million Active Accounts, Stock Drops on ‘Challenging’ Media and Entertainment Outlook for 2024

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 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.

Naman Ramachandran The Indian media and entertainment industry grew 8% in 2023 to reach a value of $27.9 billion, according to the annual EY report released during the ongoing Frames conference in Mumbai, organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). The growth was 21% above its pre-pandemic levels in 2019. The report collates data from television, digital media, film, animation and VFX, out of home media, live events, music, radio, online gaming and print.

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 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.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer “The Last Animal,” the award-winning bestselling novel from Ramona Ausubel, has been snatched up for film adaptation by production companies Walden Media and Big Beach. Ry Russo-Young has been set to direct the feature based on the emotionally resonant story.

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 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.

Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade is to keynote at this year’s Banff World Media Festival.

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 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 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.