Trending Stories from variety.com
NFT startup Dapper Labs hires Nick Grudin, formerly Meta's Head of Content Partnerships for 12 years, as chief business officer
How (and Why) Neil Gaiman Finally Adapted ‘The Sandman’ for TV
On its Q2 2022 earnings call, Warner Bros. Discovery announced plans to launch a combined HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming service in the US in summer 2023
A US federal judge rules Visa must face a lawsuit alleging it is liable for the distribution of child sex abuse material on Pornhub and other MindGeek websites
Snap launches a Sounds Creator Fund, awarding up to $100K per month to artists distributing songs on Snapchat via DistroKid, or $5K per song, starting in August
Roku misses with Q2 revenue up 18% YoY to $764M, vs. $805.2M est., 200M fewer streaming hours at 20.7B, and 1.8M active accounts added to 63.1M; stock down 25%+
YouTube's Q2 ad revenue grew 4.8% YoY to $7.34B, below expectations of a 7% YoY increase to $7.49B and marking YouTube's slowest ad growth in over two years
Netflix plans to launch its cheaper, ad-supported plan in "the early part of 2023", starting in "a handful of markets where advertising spend is significant"
YouTube rolls out new shopping features, including a partnership with Shopify to let eligible US creators link their Shopify store and YouTube channel
Techmeme · 3 weeks ago
Disney plans to raise ESPN+'s monthly subscription from $6.99 to $9.99 and its annual price from $69.99 to $99.99, 43% increases, starting on August 23, 2022
Google says YouTube TV has 5M+ subscribers including free trial users, making it the US' biggest internet pay-TV provider and fifth-largest TV distributor
The CEO and COO of Pornhub's parent company MindGeek resign, shortly after a report that looked at sexually explicit nonconsensual videos hosted on the site
PwC report: subscription streaming video services in the US will generate revenue of $25.32B in 2022, up 13% YoY but down from annual growth of 19.5% in 2021
Netflix, which has released 23 mobile games since November 2021, says it plans to double the number of games on its service by the end of 2022
Spotify's podcast business had ~€200M in revenue in 2021, up 300% YoY, but had a negative gross margin of 57%; it monetized only 14% of listening time in Q1
Following years of complaints from creators, TikTok announces its first crediting tools, linking back to creators and trend originators within videos
PwC/IAB: podcast ad revenue in the US hit $1.45B in 2021, up 72% YoY, and is expected to grow 47% to $2.13B in 2022 and double over two years to $4.2B in 2024
Cameo, Celebrity Video Shout-Out App, Lays Off 25% of Its Employees
Roku reports Q1 revenue of $734M, up 28% YoY, 20.9B total streaming hours, up 14% YoY, and the addition of 1.1M active accounts to reach 61.3M, up 14% YoY
YouTube reports $6.87B in Q1 ad revenue, up 14% YoY, but below estimates of $7.48B, and blames Q1 2021's "exceptional" direct response ad performance
Warner Bros. Discovery Expected To Shut Down CNN+
Netflix estimates that its users are sharing passwords with 100M+ non-paying households globally, including 30M+ in the US and Canada, in violation of its rules
Coda wins three Oscars, including as the Best Picture, giving Apple its first Oscars and making Apple TV+ the first streamer to win the awards' highest honor
After suspending its paid subscription service in Russia earlier this month, Spotify now says it will fully suspend its service in the country
Media-measurement giant Nielsen says it has turned down a bid by a private equity consortium, after reports of a potential acquisition caused its stock to soar
Amazon finalizes its $8.5B acquisition of MGM, two days after the deal received clearance from the EU's antitrust regulator
Techmeme · 5 months ago
Netflix will launch an "add an extra member" test in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru to let primary account holders pay a fee for users outside their households
William Hurt Dead: Oscar Winner for 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' Was 71 – Variety
Amazon suspends access to Prime Video for customers based in Russia, and stops shipping retail products to customers in Russia and Belarus
Techmeme · 5 months ago
Apple announces Friday Night Baseball on Apple TV+, comprising two exclusive Major League Baseball games every week
Apple begins rolling out TV+ to Comcast's US video platforms with three months free and will launch the service on Sky in the UK and Europe in December
Netflix says it is shutting down its service in Russia, which operates through a joint venture with the country's National Media Group, and has 1M+ subscribers
Spotify closes its office in Russia "indefinitely" and has removed all content from RT News and Sputnik in the EU and other markets, except for Russia
Bandcamp is joining Epic Games
Mobile marketing company AppLovin announces a $430M deal to acquire Wurl, a content distribution and advertising service for connected TVs
Court documents: Meta agrees to pay $90M in damages to settle a cookie privacy lawsuit filed in 2012, subject to court approval
Disney+ ended 2021 with 129.8M subscribers, up 37% YoY; in the US and Canada it had 42.9M subscribers, international excluding Hotstar 41.1M, and Hotstar 45.9M
Filing: Amazon spent $13B on TV, movie, and music content in 2021, up 18% YoY, a significant slowdown from 2020, when spending grew 41%
Techmeme · 6 months ago
Apple had 785M paying subs globally across all services in Q1, up 27% YoY; Cook says Apple doesn't make "purely financial decisions" about Apple TV+ content
In a YouTube creator update, Susan Wojcicki defends hiding dislikes, discusses adding NFT support, says creators making over $10K/year jumped 40% YoY, and more
Netflix reports Q4 revenue of $7.71B, up 16% YoY, net income of $607M, 222M paid subscribers, and $30B in 2021 revenue, up 19%; stock down 15%+ on weak guidance
YouTube says it's winding down YouTube Originals after six years and will only fund programs that are part of its Black Voices and YouTube Kids Funds
Amazon says it sold over 150M Fire TV devices worldwide, announces Ford and Stellantis deals to bring Fire TV to their in-car entertainment systems
Techmeme · 7 months ago
AT&T plans to sell its Xandr programmatic advertising marketplace to Microsoft; the deal would not include the ad sales business supporting DirecTV
Spotify rolls out a five-star ratings system for podcasts that will only let users rate a show after listening
‘Lord of the Rings’ at 20: Why It Was One of Hollywood’s Riskiest Projects Ever
Snap says it paid out over $250M to more than 12,000 creators through its Snapchat Spotlight programs in 2021, after dialing back its $1M+ per day pace
Britney Spears Court Hearing: 13-Year-Long Conservatorship Terminated – Variety
Amazon reports Q3 revenue of $8.09B for its "other" segment, which mostly covers its ads business, up 50% YoY, and $8.15B for subscription services, up 24% YoY
Techmeme · 10 months ago