Platform Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Ben Croll Questions about the free ad-supported streaming TV services (FAST) model and concerns about AI will take the foreground at the many conference panel sessions and keynotes organized for this year’s MipTV. If both are familiar subjects at the audiovisual market – as last year’s MipTV held a standing-room only FAST summit while the Mipcom “Unlocking AI” summit drew similar attention this past October – the interest they provoke reflects their topicality.

Video-hosting platform Vimeo has named Philip Moyer as its new CEO, effective Apr. 8.

William Earl “Vanderpump Rules” alum Faith Stowers is ready to speak her truth about reality television. The actor is launching a podcast with her creative partner Marcus Millions called “The Frequency,” which is set to debut on Sunday. The duo first connected when Millions, a stylist and creative director, started collaborating with Stowers on her image and red-carpet persona after she left “Vanderpump Rules,” and the two became friends.

Jenna Ortega’s new film will be streaming on Netflix soon. “Miller’s Girl,” which follows the affair that forms between a creative writing teacher and his student, stars Ortega and Martin Freeman, and will be debuting in the platform at the end of the month. Jenna Ortega talks about her ‘Beetlejuice’ role and playing Winona Ryder’s daughter‘Beetlejuice 2’ is about Jenna Ortega and Winona Ryder’s relationshipMiller's Girl starring Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman is coming to Netflix April 25.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Video platform provider Vimeo named Philip Moyer, a senior exec at Google Cloud overseeing AI applied engineering and business development, as CEO and member of its board. Moyer’s appointment is effective April 8, 2024.

Vice Television is going through a shuffle at the top, with head exec Morgan Hertzan set to exit next week and Pete Gaffney replacing him on an interim basis.

The NFL Network is making some on-air talent cuts, and among those leaving are Melissa Stark, Andrew Siciliano, Will Selva, and James Palmer.

Ellise Shafer It appears that Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, has restored blue check marks to popular users overnight — and some of them are taking to the platform to clarify that they didn’t pay for the perk. Musk detailed his plan to remove legacy blue checks soon after he acquired Twitter in October 2022, trashing the company’s previous account-verification policy as “corrupt and nonsensical.” Musk’s new policy went into effect in April 2023 and to keep the checks, users were required to subscribe to Twitter Blue (now called X Premium), which starts at $8 per month.

Matt Rife landed an exciting deal with Netflix after the success of his 2023 Natural Selection special.

We bet Bravo is going to love these comments from Jax Taylor…

Will Trent will be back another go-round. Amid strong ratings, ABC has renewed the drama series, starring Ramón Rodríguez, for a third season.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Marketing veteran Scott Donaton has joined VersusGame, an AI-powered interactive content company, as chief marketing officer. Donaton, most recently senior VP of marketing at Disney’s Hulu, will oversee all marketing functions for Versus, including brand strategy, communications, content, social media and consumer insights. Donaton had joined Hulu in 2019; he introduced the streaming industry’s first branded entertainment practice before exiting Hulu in the spring of 2023.

Annika Pham On the eve of the global content market MipTV in Cannes, Viaplay Group’s Vanda Rapti, EVP Viaplay Select and Content Distribution, has offered a confident outlook on the Scandi streamer’s international activities and content sales. The sales executive, who joined the group in 2003, was able to announce exclusively to Variety a string of new deals on Viaplay’s premium Nordic scripted content.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Warner Bros. Television Group chairman/CEO Channing Dungey is returning to the Banff World Media Festival this June to serve as one of its keynote speakers, the event announced on Wednesday. Dungey joins a lineup that also includes Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade as a summit series keynote.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Leading Japanese broadcaster TV Tokyo and Taiwan-based LGBT streaming platform GagaOOLala will this month release “At 25.00 in Akasaka,” a live-action drama series in the popular Boys Love (BL) genre. Based on a popular manga by Natsuno Hiroko, the underlying comic has sold over 1.2 million copies. The series explores the romance between a renowned actor and an aspiring talent, cast as leads in a BL drama that wins the hearts of audiences worldwide.

K.J. Yossman Disney is licensing a number of its original series to BBC Studios-owned broadcaster UKTV. Among the shows that are set to appear on UKTV networks are Anne Frank drama “A Small Light” and all seven seasons of “Sons of Anarchy.” “A Small Light” is heading to UKTV’s free to air network Drama in May while the complete series of “Brothers and Sisters” will go to UKTV Play this spring followed by “Sons of Anarchy” in the summer.

Crocs is getting into the slides sector of the shoe world and plenty of celebs are already wearing the new style!

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer George Carlin‘s estate has settled a lawsuit over an AI-generated imitation of the late comedian, with the creators agreeing to remove it from their YouTube channel and podcast feed. In January, the Dudesy podcast released “George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead,” which purported to be an hour-long special created by artificial intelligence.

An open letter from the Artists Rights Alliance and signed by more than 200 major figures in the music and entertainment industries is calling on AI companies and digital music service platforms to pledge that they won’t develop or use AI tools “that undermine or replace the human artistry of songwriters and artists or deny us fair compensation for our work.”

Everyone is still very much Keeping Up With the Kardashians after all these years.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter “9-1-1” has been renewed for Season 8 at ABC, Variety has learned. The news comes about two weeks after the Season 7 premiere, which marked the first season of the first responder drama to debut on ABC after it moved over from Fox. It also comes days ahead of the series’ 100th episode, which will air on Thursday at 8 p.m.

Passengers have been left stranded on stationary trains for two hours amid the London Euston chaos on Tuesday (April 2). A fault with the signalling system at the major station meant lines were blocked, with services cancelled or severely delayed throughout the afternoon.

Elon Musk made an April Fools’ joke yesterday that he had accepted a job at Disney to help make their content “more woke”.The Tesla CEO took to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that he also owns, to make the spoof announcement.“Excited to join @Disney as their Chief DEI Officer,” he wrote. “Can’t wait to work with Bob Iger & Kathleen Kennedy to make their content MORE woke! Even the linguini.”Excited to join @Disney as their Chief DEI Officer.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, Stevie Wonder, Pearl Jam, Kacey Musgraves, Camila Cabello and more than 200 other artists have joined with the Artist Rights Alliance non-profit – an artist-led education and advocacy organization – to issue an open letter supported by more than 200 artists calling on “AI developers, technology companies, platforms, and digital music services to cease the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.” A full list of signatories appears below. While AI-related threats such as deepfakes and voice cloning continue to attract significant (and legal) scrutiny, the letter also highlights two related trends: the use of musical works by AI developers without permission to train and produce AI “copycats,” and the use of AI “sound” to dilute royalty obligations.

Disney+ tentpole Uncle Samsik will debut on May 15 on the platform globally, and on Hulu. The streamer also announced that Korean crime thriller Nine Puzzles will premiere exclusively on the platform in 2025.

Naman Ramachandran Steffi Niederzoll’s Berlin, CPH: DOX and El Gouna-winning documentary “Seven Winters in Tehran” added another award to its collection with the best international film honor at India’s inaugural Cinevesture International Festival (CIFF). Anmol Sidhu’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards nominee “Jaggi” won best Indian film and Elham Ehsas’ BAFTA and Clermont-Ferrand nominee “Yellow” was named as best short.

So far, we’ve learned of 20 major TV shows that have been canceled this year.

Trump Media & Technology Group, the newly formed company whose assets include nascent social media platform Truth Social, has reported 2023 revenue of $4.1 million and a net loss of $58.2 million.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Neal Freyman and Toby Howell’s “Morning Brew Daily” is coming to indie streamer Nebula in a deal that will see media company Morning Brew launch four news-focused channels on the platform. Beginning Monday, Nebula subscribers will have access to Morning Brew, “Morning Brew Daily,” “Good Work” and “Maxinomics.” Here are the descriptions for the respective channels, per Nebula: As part of the recent reveal of its upcoming slate, creator-owned platform Nebula announced plans for “Nebula News.” According to Nebula, the addition of Morning Brew’s content “signals the first of many channel expansions.” “Devin was integral behind the scenes to the development of Nebula’s early successes, so he has a better understanding than most of what we’re building and why,” Nebula CEO Dave Wiskus said.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Tom Ryan co-founded the free, ad-supported streaming service Pluto TV, which launched 10 years ago with a linear TV-like grid and a cluster of “live” channels stocked with online videos. Viacom, one of Paramount Global’s two predecessor companies, acquired Pluto TV for $340 million in cash in January 2019.

The wait is almost over for Manchester City supporters as the club's highly-anticipated Netflix docuseries releases tomorrow.

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Leah McSweeney is opening up about the money that she is making by selling subscriptions to an OnlyFans account.

Katcy Stephan Miramax’s “Here,” which reunites “Forrest Gump” filmmaker Robert Zemeckis with stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, will get a three-step platform release this November from TriStar Pictures. The film will premiere exclusively in L.A. and N.Y.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. and Legendary are hoping for a monster-sized opening weekend for “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” and are tapping every method possible to pull in moviegoers, including partnering with Roblox to grab the attention of its young audience so that they will sway their parents to take them to the theater. Over the past two weeks, Warner Bros.

Paramount+ has purged 10 Nickelodeon original series, following the removal of other Nick titles from the platform over the past several months.