Roku Channel Removes ‘Reno 911’ Revival, ‘Dummy,’ ‘Survive’ and More Shows in Content Purge

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Meta has turned more than a dozen celebrities and influencers into robots. The tech company, at the Meta Connect 2023 confab Wednesday, announced partnerships with “cultural icons and influencers” to play and embody AI-powered chatbots that will have profiles on Instagram and Facebook. Those include Snoop Dogg, Charli D’Amelio, MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson), Kendall Jenner, Tom Brady, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade and Paris Hilton.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took a (virtual) trip to the Upside Down to pitch his company’s latest effort to make virtual and augmented reality a thing. The company on Wednesday announced the Meta Quest 3 mixed-reality headset, set to ship Oct.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor MrBeast continues to rake it in. The YouTube mastermind who has orchestrated dozens of over-the-top stunts and big-money giveaways pulled in an estimated $82 million over the past year — more than twice the earnings any other internet creator, according to a new Forbes report.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor CollegeHumor is dropping its collegiate moniker after nearly 25 years… to become Dropout. The company is officially rebranding from CollegeHumor to Dropout, the name of the ad-free, subscription streaming platform it launched in 2018. CollegeHumor was founded in 1999 by Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen — back in the days before the streaming revolution — and gained traction as a free, ad-supported comedy website.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor After a six-year run, Google Podcasts will be shutting down next year. Instead, the internet company plans to double down on making YouTube Music the preferred destination for podcasters and listeners.

Angelique Jackson Emmy and Tony Award nominee Corey Hawkins has signed with CAA for representation. Hawkins is best known for his recent performances in “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” “In the Heights,” “Topdog/Underdog” on Broadway, as well as his breakout role, portraying Dr. Dre in F.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor What are the most powerful franchises in TV, film and games? Fandom, which touts itself as the world’s biggest wiki platform for entertainment and gaming fans, has cooked up a proprietary metric that it claims answers the question. The company, as part of its fifth annual “Inside Fandom” study, announced the new metric — the Franchise Factor Score, which it calls “a single, definitive metric that looks beyond the financials to define the driving forces behind entertainment and gaming franchise success.” Star Wars, with a score of 100, is No.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney is planning to super-size its theme parks and cruise lines business. The Walt Disney Co.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix closed a $20 million deal on Hit Man, making the biggest deal at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival and of the year for that matter. After the Richard Linklater-directed noir comic thriller debuted to raves at Venice, the film was expected to fetch the biggest deal of the fall festivals so far. Hit Man did not disappoint. Hit Man stars Top Gun Maverick’s Glen Powell and Adria Arjona (Andor) playing the most unlikely romantic partners, in performances that will boost each of their careers. Especially Powell, who co-wrote with Linklater what will be a major star turn for him. Netflix got US, UK, Australia/New Zealand, India, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, and Iceland. There is also a theatrical component to the deal, I’ve heard.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Ari Emanuel reportedly made an offer that Elon Musk could refuse. Last year, Emanuel, chief executive officer of media and talent-representation conglomerate Endeavor, texted his friend Musk with an offer to take on the job of managing Twitter, according to “Elon Musk,” Walter Isaacson’s sprawling new biography of the techno-titan. Emanuel, in a three-paragraph text sent on the Signal encrypted messaging app, proposed that he and Endeavor would run Twitter (which is now called X) on Musk’s behalf, per Isaacson’s book.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor TikTok has been fined €345 million — about $367 million — by an Irish regulatory agency, which ruled the app violated the EU’s data-privacy laws with respect to processing information on children users. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), in addition to the fine, ordered TikTok “to bring its processing into compliance” with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) within three months.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Linda Yaccarino, on her 101st day as CEO of Elon Musk’s X (aka Twitter), announced several new hires and organizational changes at the social network. New hires include Brett Weitz, who was general manager of Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT, TBS and truTV, who joins X as the new head of content, talent and brand sales.

2020’s “Trolls World Tour” didn’t exactly light the box office on fire like its predecessor from 2016, “Trolls.” But maybe the COVID-19 pandemic and theater closures had something to do with it. In any case, DreamWorks has its third installment of its musical franchise ready for audiences later this Fall.

Taylor Swift’s spidey sense was spot on when she suspected that NSYNC’s reunion at the VMAs Tuesday night was not just a one-time stunt but the start of something. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it while standing on stage with the former boy band members. A day later, we have our answer — at least part of it.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The SEC charged a company called Stoner Cats 2 LLC — which produced an animated web series “Stoner Cats” funded by sales of NFTs that were priced at $800 each — with conducting an unregistered offering of crypto asset securities. The NFT sale of the Stoner Cats in July 2021 raised approximately $8 million to finance “Stoner Cats.” The voice cast of the “Stoner Cats” series included Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, Chris Rock, Dax Shepard, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jane Fonda, Michael Bublé, Seth MacFarlane and Vitalik Buterin.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Jennette McCurdy will dig into emotions she’s been struggling with in a new weekly podcast, “Hard Feelings,” launching this fall. The author and former actor will employ “her characteristic candor and dark humor” in the podcast, according to Lemonada Media, the independent podcast network that is producing “Hard Feelings.” McCurdy, author of bestselling memoir “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” was in the original run of “iCarly” on Nickelodeon before starring in her own spinoff series, “Sam & Cat,” alongside Ariana Grande. “I’m thrilled and utterly terrified to launch my new podcast, which will be an intimate look at my experience processing hard feelings,” McCurdy said in a statement.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has acquired worldwide rights to the documentary Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa out of the Toronto Film Festival, Deadline can exclusively reveal.

EXCLUSIVE: In the first major acquisition deal on the ground here at the Toronto Film Festlval, Netflix is closing on Woman of The Hour, the fact-based thriller that marks the directing debut of actress Anna Kendrick. We’re hearing the deal is for $11 million.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor YouTube TV’s debut of the NFL Sunday Ticket games package was expected to include a time-lag compared with live TV broadcasts of up to one minute, according to some reports. However, according to initial user reports on social media and a comparison of CBS’s broadcast versus YouTube TV’s livestream of the Cincinnati Bengals vs. Cleveland Browns on Sunday, there YouTube livestream had a delay of less than 20 seconds.

Amy Schumer turned a recent photo of herself into a meme to express how she feels about actors attending film festivals amid the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike.