Todd Spangler Ny Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Tubi hired Mike Bidgoli, a six-year veteran of internet giant Meta, as chief product and technology officer for the Fox-owned free streaming service. Bidgoli, who reports to CEO Anjali Sud, will be responsible for leading the product and engineering teams overseeing the product experience and innovation strategy for Tubi.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Julia Phelps, Paramount Global‘s executive VP and chief communications and corporate marketing officer, is exiting after almost 20 years with the company and predecessor Viacom. Phelps had long worked with Bob Bakish, who was ousted as CEO of the company last month and replaced by a three-exec committee. Phelps, in a memo to her team Friday, said she will leave Paramount at the end of May.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Elon Musk is retiring one of the last vestiges of Twitter — the twitter.com web address — as the social network has fully moved over to the x.com domain name. “All core systems are now on X.com,” the multibillionaire tech mogul posted on the platform late Thursday.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor BuzzFeed is changing the way it compensates founder and CEO Jonah Peretti, who will now receive most of his pay package in stock, in addition to introducing new incentives for other top execs — a bid to persuade shareholders that the senior leaders will be better incentivized to turn things around at the struggling digital media company. In an SEC filing Friday, BuzzFeed said Peretti’s annual base salary was immediately reduced from $325,000 to $115,000, “which approximates the median employee compensation for BuzzFeed and its peers.” That will also reduce the annual cash bonus for which Peretti is eligible (the target amount of which remains 100% of his salary).

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The joint venture of Disney/ESPN, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery to package together a sports streaming bundle has a name — Venu Sports.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor YouTube‘s message to Madison Avenue: The video giant isn’t like traditional TV — it’s bigger, with literally billions of viewers, and better at targeting relevant audiences. At its annual Brandcast event, held Wednesday during the TV biz’s upfronts week, YouTube drilled home massive scale. On average, viewers watch more than 1 billion hours of content on TV screens daily.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney CEO Bob Iger said that as the traditional pay-TV universe continues to shrink, the company is cutting its investment in content for linear TV networks while also amortizing that expenditure across streaming platforms. The strategy is “to reduce pretty dramatically our investment in content specifically aimed in those traditional networks,” Iger said Wednesday at MoffettNathanson’s 2024 Media, Internet and Communications Conference in New York.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor In Netflix‘s first move into big-league sports streaming, the company has won the rights to two NFL games on Christmas Day 2024. On Dec. 25, 2024, Netflix will be the global home of the NFL’s two Christmas Day games.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor CAA has turned to technology vendor Veritone to help build and operate the talent agency’s early-stage database housing replicas of its clients’ digital likenesses. In September 2023, CAA launched The CAA Vault, an in-house service based in Burbank, Calif., that can scan, capture and securely store clients’ digital likenesses (face and body) and voice. The point is to give talent ownership, control and permission over their digital identities to address issues of consent, credit and compensation related to AI usage.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Roku has landed exclusive multiyear rights for Major League Baseball‘s Sunday Leadoff live games, a package previously with NBCUniversal’s Peacock. Starting May 19, Roku will stream Sunday MLB games for free on the Roku Channel. The company also will launch a new MLB Zone to help baseball fans find live and upcoming games, nightly recaps, highlights, a fully programmed MLB free, ad-supported streaming TV channel, and other content across the Roku platform.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Carrie-Anne Moss is joining Arnold Schwarzenegger in action comedy series “Fubar” Season 2 as a former East German spy — who has a passionate history with Schwarzenegger’s CIA operative. Moss (“The Matrix” movies, Disney+’s “The Acolyte”) joins the returning cast of “Fubar,” which includes Schwarzenegger, Monica Barbaro, Fortune Feimster, Travis Van Winkle, Jay Baruchel, Aparna Brielle, Andy Buckley, Milan Carter, Fabiana Udenio and Barbara Eve Harris.In Season 2 of “Fubar,” Schwarzenegger reprises his role as Luke Brunner, a veteran CIA operative who, until recently, was on the verge of retirement.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Julie McNamara, one of Spotify‘s top podcast content execs, is leaving the company, Variety has confirmed. McNamara, who joined the company in 2021, most recently served as VP and global head of podcast studios. She oversaw Spotify Studios, which consolidated the Parcast and Gimlet groups producing original podcasts, as well as licensed podcast deals with partners including Joe Rogan, Alex Cooper (“Call Her Daddy”) and Emma Chamberlain.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor They’re not dead yet: Most of Vice Media Group‘s digital brands — including Vice.com — will be relaunched under a new joint venture formed by the struggling media company. But the future of Vice News remains uncertain. In February, Vice Media had announced that it would stop publishing content on consumer-facing digital outlets and the Brooklyn-based company laid off several hundred employees.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor More than three decades after they co-starred in hit sitcom “Cheers,” Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson are getting back together — going into the audio booth for a new podcast from SiriusXM. “Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (Sometimes)” is set to premiere June 12, with new episodes releasing weekly on Wednesdays on all major podcast platforms.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Jon Stewart is upping his output with Comedy Central to bring a weekly audio show to your earbuds. Stewart — after exiting “The Daily Show” in 2015 — rejoined the Comedy Central show as host on Mondays and as an executive producer this February.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix used to say its goal was to become HBO faster than HBO could become Netflix. Well, Netflix succeeded on that front. Now Warner Bros.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Podcast ad revenue in the U.S. — after seven years of double-digit growth — hit a slowdown in 2023, with overall spending increasing 5% to $1.93 billion, according to a new report. The tepid growth in podcast ad spending last year came amid a “challenging advertising climate” that disproportionately affected mid-tier companies, according to research conducted by PwC for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery — ordinarily rivals for consumers’ time and money — are teaming up for a triple-play bundle of Disney+, Hulu and Max. The companies announced a new streaming bundle comprising Disney+, Hulu and Max will be available this summer in the U.S.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor An Apple commercial for the new iPad Pro tablet showing an industrial press literally crushing a TV, musical instruments, books and more ignited an angry backlash among many in Hollywood and other creative industries. The ad, titled “Crush!”, shows an array of various objects — including a record player, a piano, a guitar, an old TV set, cameras, a typewriter, books, paint cans and a classic arcade game machine — getting compressed into (voila!) the new iPad Pro.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor NBCUniversal inked a deal with iHeartMedia making it the exclusive audio partner for the Olympic Games Paris 2024. Under the agreement, iHeart will provide 24-7 play-by-play audio channels for select NBCU linear coverage of the Olympic Games.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor As expected, TikTok filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the U.S.’s new law that would force parent company ByteDance to sell the app — or face a nationwide ban. TikTok filed the lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney‘s adjusted earnings per share for the March quarter beat Wall Street forecasts — but the company’s stock price stumbled amid concerning signs for the Mouse House. Shares of Disney were down 9.5%, to $105.41 per share, as of 11:30 a.m.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Tubi will give up-and-coming creatives a streaming platform — and funding — for their passion projects, with an assist from Issa Rae. The Fox Corp.-owned free, ad-supported streamer launched Stubios, which it calls “a fan-fueled studio” for aspiring filmmakers and their fans.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney‘s entertainment streaming segment, anchored by Disney+, scored its first profitable quarter, helping offset continued weakness in the media conglomerate’s linear TV business for the first three months of 2024. Overall, Disney revenue for the quarter ended March 30 was in line with Wall Street expectations, while it beat on adjusted earnings per share.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor After more than a year of talks, Condé Nast management inked a new pact with hundreds of union workers at Vogue and other publications — heading off a strike and a picket line that threatened to disrupt the company’s splashy Met Gala on Monday. The two sides reached an agreement on the terms of a new contract in the early-morning hours Monday.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor UPADTED: After months of M&A talks, Paramount Global and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone might be going it alone after all — for now. Insiders tell Variety that the expectation at the company is that neither of the two offers in play — Skydance Media-RedBird Capital Partners and Sony Pictures Entertainment-Apollo Global Management — will come to fruition. And Redstone is said to have reluctantly concluded that a deal with David Ellison’s Skydance, a longtime partner of Paramount Pictures, will not be possible.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor In the latest twist in Paramount Global‘s M&A saga, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Apollo Global Management reportedly have made a bid to take Paramount private with an all-cash buyout offer of $26 billion. Sony and private-equity giant Apollo submitted an offer letter Wednesday to Paramount Global, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The report comes as Paramount Global board’s special committee established to consider M&A proposals is evaluating the best and final offer from Skydance Media to merge Paramount and Skydance, while keeping Paramount Global public.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Jessica Casano-Antonellis is exiting SiriusXM to join the new Disney, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery sports-streaming venture as head of communications.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor SAG-AFTRA will license Nielsen‘s streaming content data, which the union will to enforce the terms of its 2023 contract with Hollywood studios. Under the deal for Nielsen’s Streaming Content Ratings, SAG-AFTRA will have “an objective source of domestic viewership data for original streaming programming,” the parties announced.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor A new U.S. law could effectively ban TikTok nationwide as early as January 2025 — and half of Americans are OK with that, with many citing concerns about data privacy and Chinese propaganda. A majority of Americans (56%) have an unfavorable view of TikTok, and half support a nationwide U.S.