Twitter Reportedly Is Now Requiring All Advertisers to Pay for Verification Unless They Spend at Least $1,000 per Month

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.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Fans of “The Voice” will soon be able to jump into a new immersive virtual world where they can create music, show off their dancing skills, compete in battles, win digital merch — and even audition to be on an upcoming season of the reality-competition series. “The Voice Studios,” from ITV Studios and metaverse developer Virtual Brand Group, is set to debut May 12. The global launch of the Roblox-style virtual world is timed for the final weeks of Season 23 of “The Voice” on NBC. Free for anyone to access, “The Voice Studios” will be located in Vegas City, the entertainment destination in metaverse platform Decentraland (at this link). Its launch follows a virtual pop-up event for “The Voice” last year at the Decentraland Metaverse Music Festival that also was created by VBG.

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.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Coulda, woulda, shoulda? Ten years ago, Yahoo was looking for a “transformative” acquisition, former CEO Marissa Mayer said in a recent interview with Tech Brew. Among the targets the internet company was looking at: Netflix and Hulu. Yahoo ended up buying blogging site Tumblr for $1.1 billion in 2013 — which, to put it mildly, did not pan out as expected. “We looked at a transformative acquisition, and we bought Tumblr,” Mayer said. “At the same time, we were also considering whether it was possible to buy Hulu or, ironically, Netflix. And I think Netflix was $4 billion and Hulu was at $1.3 billion at the time. And either of those, with hindsight being 20/20, would have been a better acquisition.” (Netflix’s market capitalization in May 2013 was $12.7 billion; as of Friday, it was about $143.5 billion.)

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Grogu, better known to his legion of fans as Baby Yoda from Disney+’s “The Mandalorian,” has infiltrated the Googleplex. Type “Grogu” or “Baby Yoda” into the Google Search bar — and the diminutive creature appears in the lower right-hand section of the screen. When you click or tap on Grogu, he commences to use The Force… and knocks out the top section of the search results. If you keep clicking on him, he continues to dismantle the Google Search page. Grogu stars alongside Pedro Pascal in Disney+ original series “The Mandalorian,” which just finished its Season 3 run on the streamer, and the toddler also appears in “The Book of Boba Fett.” (Before he was identified by name, Grogu was simply called “The Child.”)

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor After record-breaking growth in 2021, U.S. internet ad revenue slowed last year — but continued to show double-digit growth. That’s according to the 2022 annual ad revenue report from the Internet Advertising Bureau trade group, conducted by PwC. Between 2021-22, U.S. internet advertising revenue grew 10.8% year-over-year to a total of $209.7 billion, compared with 35.4% surge the previous year, per the study. In 2022, digital ad spending saw the highest growth in Q2 (21.1%) followed by Q2 at 11.8% before slowing in Q3 (8.4%) and Q4 (4.4%). By comparison, U.S. TV advertising revenue in 2022 grew 2%, to $71 billion, according to estimates from PwC’s Entertainment and Media Outlook 2022-2026 report.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Roku is reinvesting in — and bulking up — its originals lineup, announcing a new season of “The Great American Baking Show” and an unscripted comedy featuring singer-songwriter Charlie Puth among the shows coming to the Roku Channel. Notably, the content announcements at Roku’s 2023 NewFronts presentation — coming on Day One of the WGA writers strike — were unscripted/reality formats. Also at the event in New York Tuesday, the streaming platform unveiled a suite of new ad solutions, including sponsorships for its popular Roku City screensaver. The company announced that it has renewed reality competition series “The Great American Baking Show” for Season 2. The news came ahead of the premiere Friday, May 5, of the new six-episode run of the show featuring Paul Hollywood, Prue Leith, Ellie Kemper and Zach Cherry (pictured above, left) on the Roku Channel. “The Great American Baking Show,” produced by Love Productions USA, ran for five seasons on ABC as a spinoff of original hit “The Great British Baking Show” before it was picked up last year by Roku. The streaming company previously acquired U.S. rights to dozens of episodes in the “Great Baking Show” franchise for a FAST channel. Roku will also bring back the holiday special of “The Great American Baking Show,” which will feature all-new celebrity bakers and debut this upcoming holiday season.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor It’s not just you: Thousands of Twitter users on Monday reported problems with the web version of Elon Musk’s social media service — as it was spontaneously logging people out. The source of the error was unknown as press time. According to uptime-monitoring service Downdetector, user problem reports began to spike at around 3:30 p.m. ET. About 96% of the error reports were related to Twitter’s website or not being able to log in. In some cases, even after a Twitter user was able to successfully log back in, the website was kicking them out shortly afterward. It appeared that the Twitter app for iOS and Android was not affected by the technical problem. In addition, users of Twitter’s TweetDeck application reported that they were also not experiencing issues in accessing the service.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Triller reached an agreement with Sony Music Entertainment to pay $4.57 million to settle the music label’s breach of agreement lawsuit against the TikTok-style video sharing app, according to a court fling. Triller has admitted liability in the dispute, according to the filing, submitted by Sony Music’s lawyers April 26 to the federal district court judge in the case. Reps for Triller did not respond to a request for comment Friday. A Sony Music spokesman declined to comment. “Prompt entry of judgment is needed to protect against any further dissipation of Triller’s assets or, worse still, a bankruptcy filing,” Sony Music said in the request for the court to rule on the consent agreement. “Triller is more than a year late on some of those contract payments and Sony Music should not have to wait longer to enforce a judgment to collect.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Charlie Collier, who joined Roku last fall as president of its newly created media division, had a compensation package worth $53.3 million last year — more than twice as much as his boss, CEO Anthony Wood, took home. Collier left his post as CEO of Fox Entertainment to head up Roku Media, where he now oversees content and ad sales for the Roku Channel. Roku’s recruitment of the high-profile TV exec — who brought such hits as “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad” and “The Walking Dead” to AMC — signaled that the company plans to spend more on original content. That said, Roku has been taking steps to cut costs, including laying off about 400 employees, after its revenue growth slowed dramatically in the last two quarters.

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.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney+ subscribers will be able to jump into the Quantum Realm next month when “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” hits the streaming service. The film, starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly and Jonathan Majors, will come to Disney+ worldwide on May 17. That’s 89 days after “Quantuamania” opened wide in the U.S. on Feb. 17. “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” has been one of the worst-reviewed Marvel movies to date. It hauled in $213 million at the domestic box office during its theatrical run and grossed $261.6 million worldwide; the movie had an estimated production budget of $200 million.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Former President Barack Obama narrates and is featured in “Working: What We Do All Day,” a new docuseries from Higher Ground Productions coming to Netflix. In the four-part series, Obama visits everyday people in their homes and places of work as part of exploring questions like, What brings you joy in work — and what gives you purpose? The series follows individuals at all levels of the workforce, from service jobs all the way up to the C-suite, in home care, tech and hospitality industries. “Working: What We Do All Day” premieres May 17 on Netflix globally. Obama posted the trailer for the show on social media (watch below).

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Meta, parent of Facebook and Instagram, turned in better-than-expected earnings for the first quarter of 2023 — even as net income dropped sharply on a year-over-year basis. Overall, the company reported revenue of $28.65 billion, up 3% from the year prior, and net income of $5.7 billion (or $2.20 per share), down 24%. Analysts on average expected Meta to post revenue of $27.65 billion and EPS of $2.03, according to Refinitiv. Click here to sign up for Variety’s free Strictly Business newsletter covering earnings, financial news and more. In announcing Q1 results, the company said Facebook averaged 2.04 billion daily active users in March, up from 2.0 billion the prior quarter. Across all its apps, Meta reported daily active users of 3.02 billion on average for March 2023, an increase of 5% year-over-year.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor YouTube, as part of promoting subscriptions to the newly secured NFL Sunday Ticket games package, is flying more than a dozen top creators to Kansas City, Mo., for the 2023 NFL Draft – including popular trick-shot specialists Dude Perfect. Dude Perfect, the five-member comedy and sports group with more than 59 million YouTube subscribers, and Ryan Trahan (12.3 million subscribers) are slated to appear on stage at the NFL Draft to announce some of the picks in this year’s draft. The 2023 NFL Draft, to be held April 27-29 at Union Station Kansas City, will be broadcast on ESPN, ABC and NFL Network. All told, the YouTube creators tapped to attend the NFL Draft have a combined reach of more 145 million subscribers, according to the video platform. In addition to the Dude Perfect crew and Trahan, YouTube creators scheduled to be on-site in KC this week at the 2023 NFL Draft include: NichLmao (23.6 million subscribers), Topper Guild (17 million), Jesser (12.8 million), Adam W (12 million), Deestroying (5.1 million), Lisa Nguyen (4.35 million), Pierson (3.7 million), Katie Feeney (3.2 million), Haley Kalil (1.8 million), Ashley Yi (1.1 million) and The Pivot (686,000).

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor YouTube’s advertising revenue dropped for the third quarter in a row, dragging down Google’s financial results as the video platform continues to navigate a soft ad market. Ad sales at YouTube declined 2.6% year over year in the first quarter of 2023, to $6.69 billion. Analysts expected it to come in at $6.6 billion, per FactSet. Parent company Alphabet doesn’t break out YouTube’s subscription revenue (from YouTube TV or YouTube’s other premium services). YouTube revenue was down 7.8% in the fourth quarter of 2022 following a 1.9% dip the quarter before that. In February, Susan Wojcicki stepped down as YouTube’s CEO after nine years in the role, staying on at Alphabet in an advisory capacity. Stepping in to lead YouTube was Neal Mohan (pictured above), previously the video platform’s chief product officer.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Spotify packed on more users than it expected in Q1 but revenue fell short of its guidance, which the company blamed on headwinds in its advertising business. For the first quarter of 2023, the company, total monthly active users (free and paid) grew by 22% year-over-year to 515 million “driven by strength in both developed and developing markets, and nearly all age groups,” the company said. Spotify Premium subscribers grew to 210 million, a net gain of 5 million in the quarter, which beat its expectations with “outperformance across all regions, led by Europe and Latin America.” Total revenue grew 14% year-over-year to €3.0 billion, below Spotify’s expectation of €3.1 billion “due to macro-related variability in our advertising business.” The company reported a Q1 operating loss of €156 million, which was better than projected, helped by lower marketing spend.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Elon Musk’s Twitter has stirred up a new wave of confusion. After the multibillionaire tech baron made good on his threat to yank Twitter blue check-marks from celebrities who weren’t paying him $8 per month last week, the social network has reinstated the badge for many — including on accounts of people who have died. The Musk-owned social network on April 20 revoked verified blue check-mark status from thousands of accounts belonging to celebrities, athletes, politicians and other “notable” figures granted under the company’s previous ownership. The hope was that taking away the “free” Twitter blue check-mark would boost revenue from subscriptions to Twitter Blue, while Musk has also framed it as democratizing the user-verification process.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Twitter is no longer labeling any accounts as “state-affiliated media” or “government-funded media,” a change that comes after organizations including NPR and PBS objected to the descriptions from the Elon Musk-owned social network and have suspended their activity on Twitter in protest. According to NPR reporter Bobby Allyn, when he emailed Musk to inquire about the decision to drop media labels, the CEO replied, “This was Walter Isaacson’s suggestion.” Isaacson, who has penned biographies of Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin, is working on a book about Musk. As of this writing, NPR (8.8 million followers) and PBS (2.2 million) have not resumed posting to their Twitter accounts since suspending activity earlier this month.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Chloe Sims, star of British reality show “The Only Way Is Essex,” last year moved to L.A. with her three siblings to try to break into Hollywood — an experience they’ve documented in an original show for OnlyFans’ free streaming service. OnlyFans generates billions of dollars in revenue, much of it from sexually explicit content. But the social platform also is working to build out the non-porn side of its business, including through OFTV, its free-to-view, safe-for-work streaming platform and app. The company inked a multiyear deal with Chloe, Frankie, Demi and Charlie Sims, starting with the five-episode first season of “House of Sims,” billed as reality series in the vein of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” OFTV this week unveiled the trailer for “House of Sims” (watch below) whose premiere episode will debut May 3. The remaining episodes will be released weekly on Wednesdays on OFTV.