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Speaking at the ATX Television Festival, the creator discussed how much freedom he had to acknowledge "grown-up" topics in his "Star Wars" story: "I've been allowed to start using the word 'fascism' the last couple weeks. That's liberating." ..."I mean, [for] Disney this is $650 million," he said. "For 24 episodes, I never took a note. We said '[redacted] the Empire' in the first season, and they said, 'Can you please not do that?' ... In Season 2, they said, 'Streaming is dead, we don't have the money we had before,' so we fought hard about money, but they never...

Whatever remains of “Napster” has been sold off for the umpteenth time to a media company that you’ve never heard of for $207 million, continuing the legacy of a filesharing service bringing the music industry to its knees before imploding. Launched originally in 1999 as the most successful of the peer-to-peer file sharing services, Napster was crushed by lawsuits and shut down in 2001, and filed for bankruptcy a year later. Still, assets remained, and a corpse with a known name can have juice in Silicon Valley. So in 2003, its branding and logos were snapped up by Roxio at...

Netflix revealed it has now reached 301.63 million subscribers globally when it reported its fourth-quarter 2024 earnings Tuesday. Analysts estimated the streamer would add 9.18 million paid subs during the October-December time period versus the 13.12 million it tacked on in the comparable Q4 2023. Netflix smashed those expectations by adding a record-breaking 18.91 million subscribers, a year-over-year increase of 15.9%. For comparison, Netflix added 5.1 million paid subscribers in Q3 of 2024 to reach 282.72 million globally. That marked year-over-year growth of more than 14%. “Our Q4 slate outperformed even our high expectations: ‘Squid Game’ season 2 is on...

Good afternoon all. I recently dusted off a Roku device I had boxed away. I bought it several months ago, never got much use out of it, and I boxed it away. I decided to dust it off and plug it back up, but I realized I need to find some good streaming services to watch. I'm looking for suggestions; movies, TV shows, news, religion, all are welcome. Of course I'd like as many free streaming channels as possible! I appreciate your time, and suggestions!

Netflix’s cheaper, ad-supported tier has reached 70 million global monthly active users two years after it was launched. The company said Tuesday that more than 50% of its new sign-ups are for ad-supported plans in countries that offer the option. Netflix said it continues “to see positive momentum and growth across all areas of the business,” adding it has seen “steady progress across all countries’ member bases.” Netflix launched the option in November 2022 as one of its responses to a slowdown in subscriber growth. Recently, subscriber growth hasn’t been an issue. Last month Netflix reported it added 5.1 million...

Bait and Nintendo Switch... Exciting news, Nintendo fans! The video game giant just revealed something huge! Could this be it? The fabled Nintendo Switch 2 announcement that internet leakers have been teasing for months?! Nope, it’s just Spotify for Nintendo music.Last night, Nintendo revealed Nintendo Music; a music streaming app that comes as a packaged deal for anyone with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription.Anyone who has been desperately searching for a way to listen to the Pikmin 4 soundtrack while they pump iron down at the gym is probably thrilled, but the other 99.99% of the internet is not best...

Bet you didn't see this coming.Leftover Pickle Brine Is Liquid Gold — Here’s How to Use It, According to a Pro Pickler and Chef Chick-fil-A reportedly has a brand-new product coming out. And it has nothing to do with chicken. Reports began to surface on Thursday night that the fast-food chain is working on a new streaming entertainment venture and will create multiple original shows to debut later this year. According to Deadline, which broke the story, Chick-fil-A is specifically working with studios on "family-friendly" content, including unscripted reality shows, and is in the process of licensing and acquiring new...

Monday, "For the People" - Biden will address the convention Monday to kick things off, and according to DNC officials he will focus on the accomplishments of his administration, and how a Harris administration would look to continue that work.--PBS Convention: Biden and Dr. Jill Biden speak, along with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and a welcome from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.--NBC Protests Pro-Palestinian HAMAS protestors are probably the biggest single group, estimates of 30,000 to 100,000 protesters. The meet at Haw Schedule:DNC events start at 9:00 a.m. CentralEvening program with speakers 5:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. CentralSchedule: https://demconvention.com/schedule/Viewing...

Last week, Sony broke the news that it is putting the kibosh on its writeable Blu-Ray disc business. While that’s not catastrophic news for physical media fans, it’s certainly disappointing. The first hint about the death of Sony’s recordable discs business was a rumor about layoffs at the company’s optical media plant that recently circulated the web. That rumor was ultimately confirmed by Japanese outlet AV Watch last week. Tom’s Hardware subsequently picked up the news last week and translated it into English, setting off a minor panic about what impact this could have on Blu-Ray fans’ collecting habits. While...

If you use Redbox’s streaming service, you may have noticed you can’t stream the movies you bought or even the free collection of movies they offer. Earlier today, Redbox’s website stopped working. Now it just displaying an error message where you would typically find the free movies and movies or TV shows for sale. For now, the issue is limited to Redbox, as Crackle, also owned by the same company, is still working. The exact cause of the issue is unknown and Cord Cutters News has reached out to Redbox for comment. If we hear back we will update our...

The subscription video-on-demand service's staff was let go, and the app will shutter later in the year.Noggin, Paramount Global‘s subscription video-on-demand service targeted at young kids, is shutting down. The platform is a casualty of a round of layoffs that saw 800 staffers across Paramount lose their jobs. CEO Bob Bakish said the layoffs are part of “streamlining costs” at the conglomerate. Noggin’s entire staff is among the 800 layoffs. The app will stop taking on new subscribers and will shutter sometime later this year, as first reported by trade publication Kidscreen. Noggin features a library of educational games, books...

Paramount Global — the parent company off CBS, Paramount Pictures, Showtime, and numerous other media properties — is reportedly set to lay off “hundreds” of employees across nearly all of its divisions. The impending cuts represent the latest Hollywood bloodbath following layoffs at other corporations, including Disney, NBCUniversal, Amazon MGM Studios, and Universal Music Group. Hollywood is feeling the squeeze on multiple fronts. Households continue to cut the cord by the millions while the advertising market is still in the doldrums due to poor consumer sentiment tied to President Joe Biden’s economic policies. Meanwhile, consumers are cutting back on discretionary...

The URL now leads to a domain-for-sale site. Uncle Earl's was (is?) the best site for streaming classic TV shows online. It was free and had no ads. Virtually every notable TV series from the 50s through the 70s & beyond was there, from classic westerns to private eye shows. For a while now westerns on Uncle Earl's have been all I watch. Anyone have any info on what is going on with UE? Also, any suggestions for sites to replace it?

While Disney+ remains a competitor against Netflix, Max, Amazon Prime Video, and others, it also turns out that the streaming platform is actually losing the company hundreds of millions of dollars. Disney’s recent earnings report showed that its current attempts to corner the streaming market have been utterly failing, even as it increasingly jacks up subscription prices and deletes original content. In a call to analysts, Iger revealed that beginning in December, the new service will be beta-tested as a combined app with Hulu, with both apps to be permanently replaced in March of 2024 (per Deadline). According to him,...

$50 per year. $5 per year.

Bad news for retro-TV fans: Hulu is getting ready to part ways with roughly a dozen classic and cult titles over the next two weeks, including Arrested Development, The Bob Newhart Show, Beverly Hills 90210, Hill Street Blues, and Ally McBeal. The Disney-owned platform began posting expiration notices on the shows earlier this week, but sometimes those get applied in error. (Indeed, Hulu briefly put one on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and St. Elsewhere, but those turned out to be false alarms.) But Buffering checked in with Hulu PR, which confirmed that indeed all of the aforementioned shows will...

2023 Streamy Awards winners, nominees, & categories Winners in each category are highlighted. CREATOR OF THE YEAR Airrack Alix Earle Charli D’Amelio Jay Shetty JiDion Logan Paul Mikayla Nogueira MrBeast Ryan Trahan Zach King SHOW OF THE YEAR AMP BRYCE – Brandon Rogers Challenge Accepted – Michelle Khare Chicken Shop Date – Amelia Dimoldenberg Good Mythical Morning Hot Ones – First We Feast I spent a day with – Anthony Padilla RDCWorld Sam and Colby UNHhhh – WOWPresents STREAMER OF THE YEAR Emiru HasanAbi Ironmouse IShowSpeed Kai Cenat Ludwig Quackity tarik Valkyrae xQc INTERNATIONAL Enaldinho (Brazil) Gaules (Brazil) ibai (Spain)...

The Hawaiian Stand Off: A Teachable Moment.By J. JohnsonWhile watching with earnest about the happenings on Maui since August 8, 2023, a ran across a YouTube video of a man I believe named Eric West, who has been documenting actions there ever since. This video in question was a live stream where he and his son (I believe) ended up in a law enforcement matter that thankfully ended peacefully. During this standoff, Eric tried to assert his rights to film on a public road at or near Lahaina against the wishes of law enforcement. This was a teachable moment, and...

Online searches of the phrase “cancel Disney Plus” have reportedly spiked after Disney announced it will hike prices for the streaming entertainment service by more than 25 percent. Google’s search data show that “cancel Disney Plus’ jumped worldwide by 510 percent on Monday — the most significant increase of that phrase on Google Trends since January 2023, according to an analysis from NoDeposit.guide. Last week, the Walt Disney Company said it is hiking Disney+’s monthly subscription price to $13.99 from $10.99 — a 27 percent increase. Last year, the price rose to $10.99 from $7.99, which means Disney+ subscribers will...

Key PointsDisney CEO Bob Iger sat down with CNBC's David Faber at Allen & Co.'s annual conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on Thursday.Disney announced Wednesday that it was extending Iger's contract by two years through 2026.Iger returned to the helm of Disney late last year. The company has since undergone thousands of layoffs and cut billions of dollars in spending, including from content.Disney CEO Bob Iger opened the door to selling the company's linear TV assets as the business struggles during the media industry's transition to streaming and digital offerings.Iger appeared Thursday on CNBC, the morning after the company announced...