On Eighth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, right next to a Chik-fil-A, is Spyscape — a two-floor, futuristic-looking museum/interactive experience space that gives spycraft lovers a close-up l…
SOURCE: Variety at 09:01AMMusical theater has become a thing on TikTok. This Sunday, for example, “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical” became the first project that originated on TikTok to win a Grammy. Now the po…
SOURCE: Variety at 01:16PMTop stand-up comedian Sebastian Maniscalco surprised fans at his shows in the New York area by giving away free commemorative NFTs to all ticketholders — the first comedian to launch such …
SOURCE: Variety at 10:42AMDisney Streaming Services tapped Ajay Arora, previously Netflix’s director of product innovation for growth, as senior VP of product, commerce and experimentation. In the new role, Arora w…
SOURCE: Variety at 11:32AMLauren Jarvis, formerly Spotify’s head of content partnerships for North America, has joined subscription book club startup Literati as chief business officer. At Spotify, Jarvis managed t…
SOURCE: Variety at 02:58PMBuzzFeed is going public in a deal with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), which will give the digital media company an implied valuation of $1.5 billion once the pact closes, the…
SOURCE: Variety at 02:58PMFor Disney Plus, maybe getting the first 100 million subscribers was the easy part. Shares of Disney were down 2.6% in midday trading Friday, after the media company missed revenue estimates…
SOURCE: Variety at 04:18PMThe jets kept firing for Disney Plus, which reached 103.6 million subscribers worldwide as of April 3, the company reported — although the growth was not as torrid as Wall Street hoped. Th…
SOURCE: Variety at 05:45PMThe latest gold rush in digital video? Short, shareable video clips — like those popularized by Vine half a decade ago, before Twitter shut down the Vine app. YouTube, the world’s bigges…
SOURCE: Variety at 07:10AMNetflix has a new way to try to get customers binge-watching in a hurry: The company is launching “Play Something,” which picks a TV show or movie based on what its algorithms think you …
SOURCE: Variety at 07:05PMNetflix wants people to pay their fair share to access its streaming service. But Reed Hastings promises that any crackdown on illicit password-sharing that the company decides to launch acr…
SOURCE: Variety at 06:30AMNetflix’s subscriber growth cooled in the first quarter of 2021 after record pandemic-fueled gains last year: The streamer added about 2 million fewer customers than it previously expected…
SOURCE: Variety at 07:56PMIn the wake of escalating violence against Asians in the U.S., crowdfunding site GoFundMe collaborated with independent film director Bao Nguyen to produce a short film that shines a light o…
SOURCE: Variety at 11:24AMCameo, the startup that lets users buy video shout-outs from celebrities, has banked $100 million in Series C funding — which the company says gives it a “unicorn” valuation of just ov…
SOURCE: Variety at 08:52AMIt’s been a breathtaking week for ViacomCBS investors. Shares of the media conglomerate slipped another 6.7% in regular trading Monday — and the company’s market value has now been cho…
SOURCE: Variety at 09:20PMViacomCBS stock dropped nearly 9.1% Tuesday, as investors exited positions on news that the media conglomerate will sell up to $3.45 billion in stock as part of funding streaming content. Th…
SOURCE: Variety at 07:43PMViacomCBS is readying itself to write some bigger checks for content flowing to Paramount Plus and its other streaming properties. The company, which bowed the Paramount Plus streaming servi…
SOURCE: Variety at 08:40AMFacebook says it wants to “empower” independent writers and journalists by letting them make money from their work. The social giant on Tuesday confirmed plans to launch a new platform f…
SOURCE: Variety at 07:47PMNetflix’s new test to verify subscription credentials of users — and convert password freeloaders into paying customers — could help the global streamer grow its subscriber count, acco…
SOURCE: Variety at 05:54PMNetflix may be finally getting serious about cracking down on password sharing. The streaming giant in the past week launched a new test that displays a warning to some users that says, “I…
SOURCE: Variety at 05:34PMRoku will add a fat stack of ad tech to its streaming platform under a deal to buy Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising business, putting Roku in position to offer a fully addressable adve…
SOURCE: Variety at 07:11PMAhead of its analyst day presentation, Twitter outlined an ambitious plan to double annual revenue by 2023. Most of that will continue to come from advertising — but the social network als…
SOURCE: Variety at 05:18PMAudible is punching up its scripted comedy podcast lineup with two new shows from Broadway Video: “Hit Job,” a high-concept workplace comedy starring Keke Palmer and “Saturday Night Li…
SOURCE: Variety at 08:56PMDisney Plus had the wind at its back to close out 2020: The streaming service notched 94.9 million customers worldwide as of Jan. 2, 2021, the company announced. That’s up more than 8 mill…
SOURCE: Variety at 07:11AMPodz, a startup whose app auto-generates highlight clips of podcasts to create what it touts as the industry’s first “audio newsfeed,” has enlisted a trio of female investors and advis…
SOURCE: Variety at 07:06AMTegna wants a bigger piece of the podcast action: The TV station group announced the acquisition of Locked On Podcast Network, which produces some 160 daily shows for teams across the U.S.�…
SOURCE: Variety at 05:40PMPresident Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris ostensibly were the main attractions on Inauguration Day. But Amanda Gorman stole the show with her reading of uplifting poem “The Hill We Climb,�…
SOURCE: Variety at 04:01PMCelebrity-driven online learning platform MasterClass hired Vanna Krantz, most recently chief financial officer of Disney Plus and ESPN Plus, as CFO. At Disney, Krantz built and led the fina…
SOURCE: Variety at 07:00AMTicketmaster agreed to pay a $10 million criminal fine to avoid prosecution over charges that it illegally accessed systems of a startup rival to steal proprietary info in an attempt to “c…
SOURCE: Variety at 10:17AMTodayTix, a Broadway-born mobile ticketing start-up, is looking to expand into a bigger global media and transaction enterprise with a capital infusion of $73 million led by private-equity f…
SOURCE: Variety at 08:15AMHas YouTube become the new center of gravity for primetime? That’s the narrative it wants Madison Avenue to believe — especially as it relates to coveted younger demos. The Google-owned …
SOURCE: Variety at 09:52AM
