Tag: broadcasting industry

It’ll cast a spell on you: Disney+ sequel ‘Hocus Pocus 2’ is magical | CNN

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A version of this story appeared in Pop Life Chronicles, CNN’s weekly entertainment newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

CNN
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Why am I already seeing Thanksgiving decorations out and about?

Halloween-themed decor I can understand, but Thanksgiving is still months away and just a stone’s throw from Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah – it all feels way too soon.

What I am ready for is cooler temperatures, though, so I have an excuse to stay in, curl up on the couch and watch some of this week’s new streaming content.

‘Hocus Pocus 2’

Speaking of Halloween: Almost 30 years after Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker blessed us – or should it be cursed us? – with what’s widely considered the official film for the spooky season, the trio is back as our favorite witches in a sequel to the Disney classic “Hocus Pocus.”

The new movie resurrects both the Sanderson sisters and some of the original movie’s premise – a trio of high school students has to try and stop them seeking revenge (again) on the town of Salem after mistakenly unleashing some dark magic and bringing them back to life. Wouldn’t you be tempted to light the Black Flame Candle to hear Midler belt out a show tune, though?

“Hocus Pocus 2” is now streaming on Disney+.

‘Blonde’

Ana de Armas definitely nails looking like Marilyn Monroe.

The former Bond girl has been winning rave reviews for her leading role in new movie “Blonde,” and how she channels the Hollywood bombshell, whose life – and death at the age of 36 in 1962 – was controversial in just about every sense.

“Blonde” dramatizes the life of the tragic actor, with an unconventional (and also controversial) narrative that seeks to peel back layers and go beyond her superstardom to better uncover the real Norma Jeane Mortenson.

It’s streaming now on Netflix.

‘Yvonne Orji: A Whole Me’

If you saw “Momma I Made It!” – Yvonne Orji’s first HBO special – then you are probably giggling to yourself about the title of her second.

In “A Whole Me,” the “Insecure” star is back with a second comedy showcase that mixes stand-up and scripted skits, talking everything – including the Covid-19 pandemic, dating and relationships – as well as peppering in some hilarious stories about her parents, who also played a central role in her first special.

Orji’s new special debuts tonight at 10pm on HBO and will subsequently stream on HBO Max (both of which are owned by CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery).

Undoubtedly one of Iceland’s greatest musical exports, Björk is back with new music.

“Fossora” is her 10th album, and she explained its theme to Pitchfork as an embodiment of her “fungus period.”

“It’s something that lives underground, but not tree roots,” she explained of the mushroomy metaphors that guided the new album. “A tree root album would be quite severe and stoic, but mushrooms are psychedelic and they pop up everywhere.”

“Fossora” is out now.

I have been obsessed with Rita Wilson since she rapped Naughty by Nature’s “Hip Hop Hooray” in the early days of the pandemic.

And let us not forget, as such a performance would suggest, that she is also an accomplished singer. Her latest album, “Rita Wilson Now & Forever: Duets,” includes collaborations with major artists, including Keith Urban, Josh Groban, Willie Nelson, Elvis Costello and Leslie Odom Jr.

“These songs feel like my Great American Songbook, because of the songwriting and the impact that they had on me,” Wilson said in a statement. “I was looking at these songs and how they could be conversations between two people. I liked that the lyrics could be coming from two points of view, even if they were mostly written for one person to sing.”

The album is also out now.

Kelly Ripa is spilling the tea.

In her new book, “Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories,” she talks about how tough things were at times with her former “Live with Regis and Kelly” cohost Regis Philbin.

Those who loved the daytime show, which ran from 2001 to 2011 on ABC, may be surprised by the rough start the pair had in the beginning.

According to Ripa, who shared details of her challenges with People, when she showed up at the beginning of her cohosting gig with her hair and makeup team, Philbin had a barbed quip for their producer, Michael Gelman: “Uh-oh, Gelman, it’s got an entourage.”

“I felt horrible,” Ripa recalled. “He was probably trying to be funny, but at the same time it felt like a pile-on. I understand that probably he didn’t want a cohost, but the network wanted me to be the cohost and I didn’t think I should pass up that opportunity. I don’t think it was fair to him. But it was also not fair to me.”

For me, that story helped put into context Ripa’s tension with her “Live with Kelly and Michael” cohost Michael Strahan, who famously left the show in 2016 amid Ripa’s complaints that she was the last to know of his decision.

Anything hard-earned is likely to be jealously guarded, after all.

A common theme I respect in celebrities is their using their platforms for the greater good.

Which is why I was thrilled to learn (via my CNN colleague Marianne Garvey) that rapper Megan Thee Stallion has launched “Bad B*tches Have Bad Days Too,” a website offers mental health resources, among others.

Megan Thee Stallion garnered fascination from many with her determination to graduate college while being a multiplatinum-selling artist, and her latest project further confirms how very much she values education.

By educating her fans about self-help and self-care, the rapper is an even bigger star in my eyes.

What did you like about today’s newsletter? What did we miss? Pop in to poplife@cnn.com and say hello!

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October 1, 2022
See what’s streaming in October | CNN

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Helen Sloan/Netflix

October was made for Halloween, and Netflix is getting in the spirit with “The School for Good and Evil,” starring Kerry Washington as Professor Dovey and Charlize Theron as Lady Lesso. The story centers around a pair of best friends, Sophie and Agatha, who find themselves on opposing sides of a modern fairy tale.

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October 1, 2022
A ‘Community’ movie is finally on its way | CNN

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CNN
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Class is back in session once again.

“Community,” the six-season hit NBC comedy series about a group of students at a community college, will return with a long-awaited movie, NBC’s streaming service Peacock announced Friday – fulfilling the show’s own “six seasons and a movie” prophecy.

“‘Six seasons and a movie’ started out as a cheeky line from Community’s early seasons and quickly ignited a passionate fan movement for this iconic, hilarious and cool (cool, cool) NBC comedy,” said Susan Rovner, the chairman of entertainment content at NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. “We’re incredibly grateful that 15 years later, we are able to deliver fans this promised movie.”

The movie will stream on Peacock, which will also acquire the full series non-excusively. Though a release date has not yet been announced, original stars Joel McHale, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs, Jim Rash and Ken Jeong will all return for the film, according to the official announcement. It is not yet clear whether Yvette Nicole Brown and Donald Glover will make appearances, though the two were tagged on Twitter by McHale as the news was announced. (McHale did not tag former cast member Chevy Chase whose exit from the series followed reported clashes with series creator Dan Harmon.)

“Community” premiered in 2009 on NBC and quickly became a fan favorite. The show ran for 110 episodes, with its sixth season moving to Yahoo! Screen, where its finale aired in 2015.

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September 30, 2022
The viral new ‘Drake’ and ‘Weeknd’ song is not what it seems | CNN Business

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CNN
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One of the buzziest songs recently circulating on TikTok and climbing the Spotify charts featured the familiar voices of best-selling artists Drake and the Weeknd. But there’s a twist: Drake and the Weeknd appear to have had nothing to do with it.

The viral track, “Heart on my Sleeve,” comes from an anonymous TikTok user named Ghostwriter977, who claims to have used artificial intelligence to generate the voices of Drake and the Weeknd for the track.

“I was a ghostwriter for years and got paid close to nothing just for major labels to profit,” Ghostwriter977 wrote in the video comments. “The future is here.”

“Heart on my Sleeve” racked up more than 11 million views across several videos in just a few days and was streamed on Spotify hundreds of thousands of times. The original TikTok video has seemingly been taken down, and the song has since been removed from streaming services including YouTube, Apple Music and Spotify. (TikTok, YouTube, Apple and Spotify did not respond to a request for comment.)

The exact origin of the song remains unclear, and some have suggested it could be a publicity stunt. But the stunning traction for “Heart on my Sleeve” may only add to the anxiety inside the music industry as it goes on offense against the possible threat posed by a new crop of increasingly powerful AI tools on the market.

Universal Music Group, the music label that represents Drake, The Weeknd and numerous other superstars, sent urgent letters in April to streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music, asking them to block AI platforms from training on the melodies and lyrics of their copywritten songs.

“The training of generative AI using our artists’ music — which represents both a breach of our agreements and a violation of copyright law as well as the availability of infringing content created with generative AI on digital service providers – begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation,” the company said in a statement this week to CNN.

The record label said platforms have “a fundamental legal and ethical responsibility to prevent the use of their services in ways that harm artists.”

But attempting to crack down on AI-generated music may pose a unique challenge. The legal landscape for AI work remains unclear, the tools to create it are widely accessible and social media makes it easier than ever to distribute it.

AI-generated music is not new. Taryn Southern’s debut song “Break Free,” which was composed and produced with AI, hit the Top 100 radio charts back in 2018, and VAVA, an AI music artist (i.e. not a human), currently has a single out in Thailand.

But a new crop of AI tools have made it easier than ever to quickly generate convincing images, audio, video and written work. Some services such as Boomy specifically leverage generative AI to make music creation more accessible.

There’s little known about who is behind the Ghostwriter977 account, or which tools the creator used to make the track. The user did not respond to a CNN request for comment.

In the bio section of the user’s TikTok account, a link directs users to a page on Laylo, a website where fans can sign up to get notifications from artists when new songs are dropped or merchandise and tickets become available. The company told CNN the account likely registered to build up its fan base and brought in “tens of thousands” of signups in the past few days.

Laylo CEO Alec Ellin denied that the company was behind the viral track as some have speculated, but Ellin told CNN whoever did make it was “clearly a really savvy creator” and called it “a perfect example of the power of using Laylo to own your audience.”

Michael Inouye, an analyst at ABI Research, said “Heart on my Sleeve” could have been made in several ways depending on the sophistication of the AI and level of musical talent.

“If music artists were involved, they could create the background music and the lyrics, and then the AI model could be trained with content from Drake and The Weekend to replicate their voices and singing styles,” he said. “AI could also have generated most of the song, lyrics and replicated the artists again based on the training data set and any prompts given to direct the AI model.”

He added that part of this fascination and virality of the song comes from “just how good AI has gotten at creating content, which includes replicating famous people.”

Roberto Nickson, who is building an AI platform to help boost productivity and work flow, recently posted a video on Twitter showing how easy it is to record a verse and train an AI model to replace his vocals. He used the artist formerly known as Kanye West as an example.

“The results will blow your mind,” he said. “You’re going to be listening to songs by your favorite artist that are completely indistinguishable and you’re not going to know if it’s them or not.”

Although the entertainment industry has seen these issues coming, regulations are lagging behind the rapid pace of AI development.

Audrey Benoualid, an entertainment lawyer based in Los Angeles, said one could argue “Heart On My Sleeve” does not infringe copyright as it appears to be an “original” composition.

“Ghostwriter also publicized that Drake and The Weeknd were not involved in the making of the song, which could protect them from a ‘passing off’ claim, where profits are generated as consumers are misled into believing the song is actually a Drake-Weeknd collaboration,” she said in an email to CNN.

However, Benoualid added, machine learning and generative AI programs may also be found to infringe copyright in existing works, either by making copies of those works to train the AI or by generating outputs that are substantially similar to those existing works. “Major labels would undoubtedly, and have already begun to, argue that their copyrights (and their artists’ intellectual property rights) are being infringed,” she said.

Michael Nash, an executive VP at Universal Music Group, recently wrote in an op-ed that AI music is “diluting the market, making original creations harder to find, and violating artists’ legal rights to compensation from their work.”

No regulations exist that dictate on what AI can and cannot train. But last month, in response to individuals looking to seek copyright for AI-generated works, the US Copyright Office released new guidance around how to register literary, musical, and artistic works made with AI.

The copyright will be determined on a case-by-case basis, the guidance continued, based on how the AI tool operates and how it was used to create the final piece or work. The US Copyright Office announced it will also be seeking public input on how the law should apply to copywritten works the AI trains on, and how the office should treat those works.

“AI and copyright law and the rights of musicians and labels have crashed into one another (once again), and it will take time for the dust to settle,” Benoualid said. “The landscape is anything but clear at the moment.”

Inouye said if AI generated content becomes associated with famous individuals in a negative way that could be grounds for a lawsuit to not only take content down but to cease and desist their operations and potentially seek damage.

“On the flip side, if the content were to be popular and the creator were to make revenue off of the artists’ image or likeness then again the artists could similarly request the content to be taken down and potentially sue for any monetary gains,” he said.

But for now, concerned parties may be forced to play whack-a-mole. While services like Spotify pulled “Heart on my Sleeve,” versions of it appeared to continue circulating as of Tuesday on other online platforms.

Even a song made with artificial intelligence may find real staying power online.

– CNN’s Vanessa Yurkevich contributed to this report.

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April 12, 2021
End of an era: Netflix DVD subscribers mourn the service’s imminent demise | CNN Business

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CNN
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When Colin McEvoy, a father of two from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and a self-described film fanatic, wants to watch a Bollywood film or an obscure independent movie, he often turns to Netflix – but not its popular streaming service.

McEvoy, 39, said he’s been using Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service since 2001, just three years after it launched.

“I remember I was in high school when I first signed up for it, and the concept was so novel, I had to really convince my dad that it was a legit service and not some sort of Internet scam,” said McEvoy, who uses an old Xbox 360 to play his Netflix DVDs. “Now I have friends who’ve seen my red Netflix envelopes arrive in the mail, and either didn’t remember what they were or couldn’t believe that I still got the DVDs in the mail.”

Now, McEvoy is one of the DVD-by-mail holdouts mourning the service’s imminent demise. On Tuesday, Netflix announced it will send out its final red envelope on September 29, 2023. marking an end to 25 years of mailing DVDs to members. The company will continue to accept returns of customers’ remaining DVDs until October 27.

“I’ll be sad to see the service go,” McEvoy said.

Introduced in 1998 when Netflix first launched, the service promised an easier rental experience than having to drive to the nearest Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. The red envelopes, which have long been synonymous with Netflix itself, littered homes and dorm rooms across the country. But in 2007, Netflix began streaming content online, and gradually shifted the focus away from its original DVD business.

Today, the idea of receiving a DVD in the mail may sound almost as outdated as receiving a dial up CD, but some longtime customers told CNN they continued to find value in the DVD option, including for its selection, pricing and added perks.

Brandon Cordy, a 41-year-old graphic designer from Atlanta, said he stuck with DVDs because many digital rentals don’t come with special features or audio commentaries.

There are other factors, too. Michael Inouye, an analyst at ABI Research, said some consumers may still not have access to reliable or fast enough broadband connections, or simply prefer physical media to digital, much in the way that some audio enthusiasts still purchase and collect CDs and records. Other households may also own cars that still have DVD players inside.

For Netflix, however, the offering has made less sense in recent years. “Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members, but as the DVD business continues to shrink, that’s going to become increasingly difficult,” co-CEO Ted Sarandos wrote in a blog post this week.

Shutting down its DVD business could help Netflix better focus resources as it expands into new markets such as gaming as well as live and interactive content. Its DVD business has also declined significantly in recent years. In 2021, Netflix’s non-streaming revenue – mostly attributable to DVDs – amounted to 0.6% of its revenue, or just over $182 million.

The cost to operate its DVD business may also be a factor, especially as Netflix rethinks expenses broadly amid heightened streaming competition and broader economic uncertainty. “Moving plastic discs around costs far more money than streaming digital bits,” said Eric Schmitt, senior director analyst at Gartner Research. “Removing and replacing damaged and lost inventory are also cost considerations.”

Even before Netflix announced the news this week, some longtime subscribers said they could see the writing on the wall.

“The inventory of available titles, while still vast, had been contracting some over the years with some movies that were once available no longer being so,” Cordy said. “Turnaround times to get a new movie or movies also started to take longer, so I knew it was only a matter of time. But I didn’t want it to end if I could help it.”

Other DVD subscribers are hoping there may still be a happy ending.

On Wednesday, Bill Rouhana, the CEO of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment – which owns DVD rental service Redbox – told The Hollywood Reporter he hopes to purchase Netflix’s DVD business. “I’d like to buy it… I wish Netflix would sell me that business instead of shutting it down,” he said. Redbox remains popular despite the shift in streaming, but took a hit during the pandemic because of the lack of new movies and TV shows to fill the boxes.

A Netflix spokesperson told CNN it has no plans to sell the DVD business and declined to share how it plans to dispose of the discs. But Nick Maggio, a 43-year-old elementary school teacher from Valley Stream, New York, said he hopes the company will sell their individual titles library. “I know there are several titles I’d like to get my hands on,” he said.

For now, at least, some DVD subscribers plan to focus on watching as many DVDs as they can before the service goes away.

McEvoy, who also subscribes to Disney+, Hulu, the Criterion channel and Mubi, said he’s determined to finish seeing every film listed in the book “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” with the help of Netflix.

“I absolutely would not have been able to find all of those movies if not for the Netflix DVD service,” he said. “I only have four movies left to go.”

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April 12, 2021
E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump rest their cases in civil rape trial, but Trump could still testify | CNN Politics

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New York
CNN
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Attorneys for E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump rested their respective cases in the battery and defamation trial against the former president in Manhattan federal court on Thursday evening.

Carroll, a former magazine columnist, alleges Trump raped her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim, said she wasn’t his type and suggested she made up the story to boost sales of her book. Trump has denied all wrongdoing.

While resting his case means Trump legally waived his right to testify in his own defense, District Judge Lewis Kaplan left a window for Trump to change his mind over the weekend.

Kaplan ruled that Trump’s legal team has until 5 p.m. Sunday to petition the court to reopen the defense case for the sole purpose of allowing Trump to testify. The judge said he ordered the precautionary measure in light of Trump’s public comments made earlier Thursday suggesting he would make an appearance in court before the trial ended.

Trump, who has not appeared in the courtroom at any point during the trial, told reporters in Ireland on Thursday he’ll “probably attend” the trial.

“I have to go back for a woman that made a false accusation about me, and I have a judge who is extremely hostile,” Trump said in Doonbeg, Ireland, according to Reuters.

During a sidebar on Thursday afternoon, Trump’s attorney tried repeatedly to reassure Kaplan that his client would not take the stand and implied that the judge has an idea of what it’s like representing the former president.

“I know you understand what I am dealing with,” Joe Tacopina told the judge, according to a court transcript.

If Trump does not change his mind, the parties are set to give closing arguments to the jury at 10 a.m. on Monday.

Carroll’s legal team put on 11 witnesses in her case including the writer herself over seven trial days.

Republican panelist: Trump’s glorification of accused Jan 6 rioters is “disgusting.”

Earlier Thursday the jury saw more clips of Trump’s video-recorded deposition taken last October for this case in which Trump vehemently denies Carroll’s rape allegations against him.

“She’s accusing me of rape, a woman that I have no idea who she is. It came out of the blue. She’s accusing me of rape – of raping her, the worst thing you can do, the worst charge. And you know it’s not true too. You’re a political operative also. You’re a disgrace. But she’s accusing me and so are you of rape, and it never took place,” Trump said on video, addressing Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan.

Trump stood by his social media posts published in 2019 and 2022 denying Carroll’s accusations and confirmed he personally wrote them.

At one point during the deposition, Trump held a well-known black and white photo of himself, E Jean Carroll, her former husband news anchor John Johnson, and Trump’s then-wife Ivana.

Trump recognized Johnson and recalled thinking he was good at his television job, but then mistook Carroll for his other ex-wife Marla Maples.

“That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife,” he said.

After the attorneys corrected him, Trump said the photo was blurry.

He acknowledged the photo suggests he met Carroll at least once but said it must have been very brief at an event and he does not remember or know her.

“I still don’t know this woman. I think she’s a whack job. I have no idea. I don’t know anything about this woman other than what I read in stories and what I hear. I know nothing about her,” the former president said.

“She’s a liar and she’s a sick person in my opinion, Really sick. Something wrong with her,” Trump said during another point in the deposition.

Haberman: Trump is personally bothered by the E. Jean Carroll case

Carroll’s attorney asked Trump about his comments regarding Carroll, Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff all not being “his type.”

He stood by the statements each time he was asked. At one point he said, “the only different between me and other people is I’m honest.”

He also told Carroll’s attorney she’s not his type. “You wouldn’t be a choice of mine either to be honest,” Trump said.

He also said he felt like he had a right to insult the women who’ve accused him falsely.

“I don’t want to be insulting but when people accuse me of something I think I have a right to be insulting because they’re insulting me,” Trump said.

The jury watched Trump view the “Access Hollywood” tape during his deposition. He didn’t appear to noticeably react as it was played.

When asked about the tape he said it’s already been “fully litigated” and, “it’s locker room talk, I don’t know, it’s just the way people talk.”

Former local news anchor Carol Martin testified Thursday that she remembers Carroll confiding in her soon after the alleged assault by Trump in the mid-1990s.

Martin testified under direct examination that she didn’t remember when exactly it happened, but she knew it was some time while the two were working at the same cable network between 1994 and 1996.

By Martin’s account the two friends had finished taping their respective shows and Carroll asked if she could come over Martin’s home near the studio. They talked in her kitchen for about an hour, Martin testified, and Carroll was “frenzied.”

Carroll’s “effect was anxious and excitable, but she can be that way sometimes so that part wasn’t as different but what she was saying didn’t make any sense at first.” The conversation was not linear, Carroll started her account saying, “You won’t believe what happened to me the other night,” Martin recalled.

“And I didn’t know what to expect,” Martin said she felt at the time. Carroll repeatedly said, “Trump attacked me,” according to Martin.

“I think she said ‘he pinned me’ and I still didn’t know what she meant,” Martin testified.

Martin testified that she told Carroll she shouldn’t tell anyone her story. “Because it was Donald Trump and he had a lot of attorneys and I thought he would bury her is what I told her,” Martin said.

“I have questioned myself more times than not over the years. I am not proud that that’s what I told her in truth but she didn’t contest,” Martin added.

During cross-examination, Tacopina read through a series of messages Martin has sent friends, many to Carroll, speaking negatively about Trump for years since he first ran for the presidency.

Martin testified that as “very liberal feminist women,” they frequently discussed politics including their dislike for Trump. “We would often talk about ways to change the climate or work on issues of interest to us,” Martin testified.

Tacopina also read the jury several messages Martin sent to friends and family about Carroll’s lawsuit against Trump that appeared to criticize Carroll. “She’s gonna sue when adult victims of rape law is passed in New York State or something. WTF that’s the defamation case and DOJ oversight or something. It’s gone to another level and not something I can relate to. For her, sadly, I think this quest has become a lifestyle,” Martin wrote in one text.

Martin responded in court that at the time she sent the messages she was dealing with serious matters in her own personal life that affected her feelings toward Carroll’s situation. She testified that the texts do not reflect her current feelings.

A marketing expert commissioned by Carroll testified it would take up to $2.7 million to run an effective marketing campaign to repair her reputation just from the damage of Trump’s October 12, 2022, comments denying her allegations.

Northwestern University Professor Ashlee Humphreys said that Trump’s statement at issue in this trial reached somewhere between 13.7 and 18 million impressions.

Humphreys and a team of researchers evaluated the post first published on Truth Social and how it spread across mediums like other social media platforms, websites and cable and network broadcast television.

In a series of calculations Humphreys said about 21% of the people who viewed the statement in some capacity – about 3.7 to 5.6 million people – likely believed Trump. The analysis did not consider the effects of previous statements Trump made about Carroll.

On cross examination Humphreys acknowledged that she did not consider damage done to Trump by Carroll’s statements against him.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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April 12, 2021