Established streaming industry leaders like Netflix and Amazon are facing more competition than ever. Now legacy entertainment giants are in the game with their own subscription services, like Peacock, HBO Max, Paramount Plus, and the Disney Plus / Hulu / ESPN Plus bundle, while Apple TV Plus attacks around the edges. Meanwhile, the rise of ad-supported free platforms like Roku Channel and Pluto TV has attracted enough attention that Plex, YouTube, and Amazon’s Freevee are trying to get a chunk of the action too.
The ultracheap ad-free streamer, called Howdy, launched last year across Roku devices and on the Howdy.tv website. But now, subscribers can access the “thousands” of titles on the platform from a new app on iOS and Android.
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It didn’t take long for the latest Disney Imagineering innovation to freeze up (hah) and fall backwards in front of a small crowd of children at Disneyland Paris. Even his magnetically attached carrot nose decided to “Let It Go.”
J.K. Rowling has made it abundantly clear that she will continue using her fortune to harm transgender people.
Something Jimmy Iovine said in a recent interview caught Artist manager Joel Gouveia’s ear: “The streaming services, to me, are minutes away from being obsolete.” It sounds wild on its surface, but it got Gouveia thinking. He makes a compelling case that Spotify’s days are numbered, and what comes next could be interesting:
We are witnessing the death of the “Mass Audience” and the birth of the “Micro-Community.”
The music industry has spent a decade obsessing over how to get a million people to listen to a song once. The next decade will be defined by artists figuring out how to get 1,000 people to care forever.
In an interview with the New York Times, Neal Mohan was asked about the platform’s responsibility for policing lies, conspiracy theories, and hate speech, but avoided addressing the questions in any substantive way. He wouldn’t even say whether it was wrong to suspend Trump following the January 6th attack on the Capitol.
Each one of the channels on our platform, the New York Times channel, the Interview channel, you have the editorial standards that you live by and they are certainly different across the various channels. And our job is to have a set of rules and guidelines. Every channel will draw a different line in terms of what they think is appropriate.
[New York Times]
The main series feels like it just ended, but Netflix is headed back to Hawkins pretty soon. Here’s the latest trailer for Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85, which starts streaming on April 23rd.
Jeopardy! is a beloved institution. Which is why Sony Pictures TV is trying to drag it into the streaming era with a YouTube Edition. The first episode will debut on March 31st at 9PM ET with contestants Monét X Change, Rebecca Black, and Brennan Lee Mulligan playing for charity. According to Variety:
“…they will compete across a dynamic range of clues that blend the classic format and style of Jeopardy! with the energy of internet culture with categories spanning YouTube-inspired topics—from viral trends to the rich 20+ year history of the platform—along with custom video clues featuring notable YouTube talent.”
Last month Warner Bros. Discovery announced that the streaming service would be coming on March 26th, which happens to be today. Subscriptions start at £4.99 per month in the UK for Basic with Ads. Until now, HBO content had been available in the UK through Sky or Now TV.
HBO has released the first trailer for its upcoming Harry Potter series, which will help fund executive producer J.K. Rowling’s ongoing crusade against transgender people. In addition to dropping the trailer, HBO has also bumped the series’ premiere date up to December 25th 2026.
It’s like liner notes meets Wikipedia. Premium users can tap a SongDNA card at the bottom of the Now Playing screen to show the writers, producers, and other contributors, as well as any samples or interpolations. Spotify says you can then tap on those to expose connections to other artists and songs:
It’s an interactive way to follow the connections between tracks and see how artists, eras, and genres intersect, giving you a deeper understanding of how what you’re listening to came together.
The show returns for season 5 on Friday, and Apple just announced that it would be coming back for one last season after that. Now we have the first teaser trailer for Star City, a spinoff that shows the other side of the alternate reality sci-fi story. It starts streaming in May.
There could be a sticky situation if jurors don’t reach a verdict today on day nine of deliberations, independent journalist Meghann Cuniff reports. One juror is set to leave on a prepaid vacation tomorrow, and the judge hasn’t yet said what would happen if they go before a verdict.
Though we knew Jon Bernthal was co-writing a Punisher-focused streaming special for Disney Plus, the streamer has just announced that it will premiere on May 12th, right as the second season of Daredevil: Born Again comes to a close.
Though Disney almost put an end toMarvel’s Wonder Man series before it got a chance to stream, the studio is bringing it back for another season according to Variety.
Been meaning to catch the film, maybe I will once it’s available to stream. My colleague Kevin Nguyen reviewed it last year.
Until now, Mister Rogers Neighborhood has only been available on YouTube in a limited capacity via the PBS Kids account and sketchy uploads. But now it will have an official home on YouTube thanks to a partnership between Fred Rogers Productions and Little Dot Studios, which has, let’s say, diverse interests.
Now that Stranger Things is over — the main series, anyways — you can finally own the whole thing on disc. Arrow Video is releasing a box set of the complete series on Blu-Ray and 4K UHD, which will be available in July. I hope the collection spans exactly 11 discs.
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein won a handful of Oscars last night, including one for best make-up and hairstyling. Last year I had the chance to talk to Mike Hill, who designed the creature from the film, about his relationship with del Toro and all the work that went into recreating the character.
After being removed last month the HDR format and 3D movies are once again available to Disney Plus Premium subscribers in Europe, although some German users are still reporting them missing. Disney confirmed to FlatpanelsHD the removal was a result of a “German patent dispute with American company InterDigital.”
[FlatpanelsHD]
Last year Netflix confirmed that its long-gestating Assassin’s Creed series was still happening, and now we have further proof of life thanks to a casting announcement. Noomi Rapace, Sean Harris, Ramzy Bedia, and Corrado Invernizzi have joined the cast, though there’s still no word on when it’ll start streaming.
Creators can now upload video thumbnails up to 50MB instead of just 2MB, according to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan. Bring on the hi-res YouTube Face.
This spring, Peacock is bringing a new Jeopardy! game to its mobile app. It will feature daily trivia rounds straight from the Jeopardy! team, along with shareable scores and streak challenges.
Parent advocates were determined to make their presence known to Meta’s CEO.
