Strategy Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Zendaya is looking as stunning as ever as she continues her Challengers press tour.

John Rood, a former longtime exec at Disney and Warner Bros, is joining consulting and research firm Magid as Chief Brand & Communications Officer.

EXCLUSIVE: Global communications agency DDA has hired BAFTA Deputy Chair Julie La’Bassiere into the newly created role of Chief Strategy Officer. She joins from her previous role as an awards contractor for Apple TV+.

K.J. Yossman CAA has signed French formats producer Dreamspark for representation. Based in Paris, Dreamspark was founded in 2022 by producer Moe Bennani and tech entrepreneur Julien Muresianu.

Zendaya is going for another bold look with her latest red carpet outfit.

Savers are being issued a stark 'stop and think' warning from pension experts about the potential pitfalls of withdrawing cash from their retirement funds.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The “Jet Lag: The Game” creators Sam Denby, Ben Doyle and Adam Chase have set their next reality travel competition series, “The Getaway,” to debut this summer on indie streamer Nebula. The show, which unlike “Jet Lag” (where episodes drop later on YouTube) will be available exclusively on Nebula, follows six creators on a road trip through the American West as they compete in a game of social strategy and deception. While the majority of the details surrounding “The Getaway’s” format are being kept under wraps by Denby’s Wendover Productions, Variety has confirmed the cast includes Foreign Man in a Foreign Land, Matt Krol, Morning Brew’s Dan Toomey, Georgia Dow, Patrick “Patch” Lacey and Steven Bridges.

Zendaya is continuing her amazing tennis-themed looks on the Challengers press tour!

Zendaya is taking over Paris!

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Norby Williamson, the ESPN veteran who has managed everything from NFL coverage to “SportsCenter,” is leaving the Disney sports-media giant abruptly just weeks after being called out on camera in a surprise and unprecedented outburst by daytime host Pat McAfee. The McAfee contretemps is not at the root of Williamson’s departure, according to a person familiar with the matter, but rather disagreements between the executive and the longer-term strategy being devised by Burke Magnus, who was handed oversight of content and news production in March of last year.

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.

EXCLUSIVE: Tracey Lincoln has been appointed to the role of Vice President, Community and Brand Partnerships at Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment.

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.

Naman Ramachandran Jio Studios, the content arm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), is on a roll with several box office hits in a row. Almost exactly a year ago, Jio Studios had launched a slate of 100 new films and TV shows. Those efforts have now come to fruition.

EXCLUSIVE: Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, founded by Seth Green, Matthew Senreich, John Harvatine IV and Eric Towner, has brought on former Skydance Animation and Disney Television exec Jonathan Schneider as President.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief BBC Studios is launching ‘BBC Kids’ in Korea as a monthly subscription service on Genie TV Kids Land, a dedicated IPTV service for young children, in collaboration with telecoms and internet service provider KT. Through the partnership, BBC Studios Asia will bring a wide range of children’s content to Korean audiences, in one place for the first time. The service will feature a mix of content in English language as well as a variety of popular titles dubbed into Korean for the first time.

Variety can confirm. Numerous attempts to reach an out of court settlement collapsed and a trial date has been tentatively set for Oct. 2024.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor The latest twist in the battle between UTA and former MediaLink chairman-CEO Michael Kassan is a defamation lawsuit filed by Kassan against UTA attorney Bryan Freedman. Kassan has sued Freedman for slander and libel stemming from a statement that the lawyer made earlier this week to Deadline, which is a sibling publication to Variety under Penske Media Corp. Kassan and UTA parted ways earlier this month amid a flurry of litigation and arbitration filings and heated accusations from both sides.

Jaden Thompson Seven fellows have been selected for the 9th annual Native American TV Writers Lab, administered by the Native American Media Alliance. The eight-week program consists of daily workshops, seminars and one-on-one mentoring with the aim of coaching the fellows on how to develop a pilot and cultivate the skills needed to land TV staff writer positions.

Karlie Koss and Joshua Kushner are relaunching LIFE.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Entrepreneur and model Karlie Koss, together with her husband, billionaire investor Joshua Kushner, is bringing LIFE back to life, more than two decades after the more than century-old iconic photo magazine ceased regular publication. Kloss and Kushner’s Bedford Media on Thursday announced a deal to bring LIFE Magazine back to print and digital distribution, as part of an agreement with Dotdash Meredith to relaunch LIFE as a publication on a regular cadence and vibrant media property. IAC formed Dotdash Meredith after the it bought Meredith was acquired by for $2.7 billion coming after Meredith had acquired Time Inc.

Alex Ritman French TV giant Banijay is losing its second C-suite exec in just over a month. The company has confirmed to Variety that COO Peter Langenberg is departing, with his last day set to be March 31. Langenberg will remain with Banijay on a consultancy basis in the ESG (environment, social and governance) space.

A Succession-style boardroom battle is playing out in Europe.

Humza Yousaf must be "bold" if he is to be viewed by the public as a leader and not just a commentator on politics, an SNP veteran has said.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor UTA announced Eric Iverson as chief technology officer, where he will lead information-technology strategy — joining the company as artificial intelligence and other tech developments are threatening to disrupt the industry. Most recently, Iverson served as director of product strategy Amazon MGM Studios, where he led product, user experience and AI efforts, and before that was chief technologist for media and entertainment in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) division.

Papa Johns is set to close 43 of its UK stores, including four in north west England.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Nelson Peltz, the activist investor agitating to win two Disney board seats, criticized the company’s “woke” strategy — specifically questioning Marvel’s “Black Panther” and “The Marvels,” which featured Black and women leads, respectively. The 81-year-old Peltz, who has admitted he “never claimed” to have experience in the media business, made the comments about “The Marvels” and “Black Panther” in a recent interview with the Financial Times. “Why do I have to have a Marvel [movie] that’s all women?” Peltz asked rhetorically.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Sesame Street” parent company Sesame Workshop has named Dannette “Danni” Hill its first-ever chief people officer. In this newly created role, Hill will oversee human resources, leading a division that supports “innovative best practices and organizational excellence” for Sesame Workshop, per the global impact nonprofit.

Patrick Bevan spent most of his life believing he was a lazy person who only ever wanted to please others.

Have you washed the Oscars out of your hair? Are you ready for another intriguing and confounding Emmy season? Well, screenings are happening, strategies are being implemented and we’re less than three months from the beginning of nomination voting on June 13. And while one colleague recently remarked the Television Academy should just throw this Emmy season in the bin, there are still many worthy contenders to consider.