Media & Entertainment
HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’ gets a second season following successful debut
HBO announced today that the hit series “The Last of Us” is getting a second season, likely satisfying more than 22 million domestic viewers that watched the Season 1 premiere episode so far. On t
Google created an AI that can generate music from text descriptions, but won’t release it
An impressive new AI system from Google can generate music in any genre given a text description. But the company, fearing the risks, has no immediate plans to release it. Called MusicLM, Google’
Substack introduces ‘private Substacks’ that readers can request to subscribe to
Newsletter platform Substack announced today that it’s introducing several new features, including private Substacks. A private Substack is a publication that you can host alone or readers can r
HBO’s ‘Succession’ Season 4 premieres on March 26
Today, HBO announced that the fourth season of the Emmy-winning drama series “Succession” will premiere on Sunday, March 26. It will debut at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and will stream on HBO Max. “Succes
Peacock tops 20M subscribers in Q4 as losses widen
Comcast-owned streaming service Peacock had its best quarterly result since its 2020 launch, adding five million paying subscribers in its fourth quarter of 2022 to bring the total to 20 million, up f
Critical Role’s second campaign will get its own Amazon animated series
Amazon is deepening its ties to hit Dungeons & Dragons actual play series Critical Role, entering a multiyear deal with the growing role-playing content empire that will see any new adaptations sp
Disney+ advertisers will soon get Hulu’s ad targeting capabilities
Disney Advertising held its annual Tech and Data Showcase today, revealing plans to roll out some of Hulu’s ad targeting capabilities to Disney+. When Disney+ launched its ad-supported tier last mon
Valiant Hearts mobile game sequel is set to launch on Netflix Games on Jan 31
The mobile game Valiant Hearts: Coming Home by Ubisoft will launch exclusively on Netflix Games on January 31. Previously announced in September 2022, Netflix and Ubisoft announced the official releas
After inking its OpenAI deal, Shutterstock rolls out a generative AI toolkit to create images based on text prompts
When Shutterstock and OpenAI announced a partnership to help develop OpenAI’s Dall-E 2 artificial intelligence image-generating platform with Shutterstock libraries to train and feed the algorit
Senate questions Live Nation president amid Taylor Swift ticketing debacle
“May I suggest respectfully that Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m the problem, it’s me,'” Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said on the Senate floor
Netflix’s ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ is among the most nominated Oscar films
Netflix received 15 Oscar nominations this year, putting the streaming service ahead of most other media companies. Warner Bros. was close behind with 13 nominations, and Disney+ earned 12. Combined w
Can Korean digital storytelling platforms captivate North American and European audiences?
Korean storytelling companies want to kindle the popularity of webtoons and web novels in the West on the back of their success in East Asia.
Meta expands its partnership with the NBA to offer 52 games in VR
Meta is expanding its partnership with the NBA and WNBA to offer more than 50 live VR games on Meta Quest, the company announced on Monday. Meta Quest is the official headset of the NBA, as Facebook s
Netflix teams up with Bumble so users can bond over popular TV shows
Bumble is putting the phrase “Netflix and Chill?” to the test with the launch of a weekly in-app Netflix-themed question game called “Netflix Nights In” that asks users questions about a popul
Spotify cuts 6% of its workforce, impacting 600 people
Music streaming service Spotify has announced that it will be conducting a round of layoffs that will impact around 6% of its global workforce. In its most recent earnings release, the company said th
Netflix says it’s open to adding free streaming ‘FAST’ channels to grow its ads business
Netflix reported its Q4 2022 financial results yesterday, topping 230 million global subscribers, up from 223.09 million, thanks to the addition of 7.7 million subs. During the earnings call, Netflix
Amazon’s Music Unlimited quietly gets a price hike in the US and UK
Starting on February 21, Amazon’s Music Unlimited streaming service will increase by $1/£1 in the U.S. and the U.K. The Amazon Music Unlimited Individual Plan is increasing from $9.99 (£9.99) to $
Gas, Slay, what’s next? Fire?
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This week, Natasha Mascarenhas, Mary Ann Azevedo and Rebec
Fandom lays off employees across Giant Bomb, GameSpot and Metacritic
Entertainment company Fandom has laid off an unspecified number of employees across multiple properties, including Giant Bomb, GameSpot and Metacritic. These properties are mainly focused on publishin
Netflix founder Reed Hastings steps down as co-CEO
Netflix founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings announced Thursday that he would step down after more than two decades at the company. While news of his departure comes as a shock, Hastings noted that Netfli