Just three weeks after the streaming service launched, Warner Bros. Discovery announced it is shutting down CNN+. Variety broke the news. The service will cease operations on April 30th, according to multiple reports, meaning it will close after just 32 days.
CNBC reported last week that CNN+ was pulling in just 10,000 daily users who were willing to pay $6 per month for exclusive live, on-demand and interactive news-driven programming. New CNN president Chris Licht, who was appointed after WarnerMedia and Discovery merged earlier this month, reportedly made the recommendation to kill CNN+.
Andrew Morse, the executive vice president who was running CNN+, is expected to leave Warner Bros. Discovery after a transition period. Reports suggest there may be hundreds of related job cuts.
It seems some CNN+ programming could be bound for HBO Max. CNN itself noted that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav wants to combine the company’s content into a single streaming service. That tracks with the plan to eventually merge HBO Max and Discovery+.
CNN had high hopes for the project. It invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the streaming service and recruited talent from other networks (such as Kasie Hunt from NBC and Chris Wallace from Fox News) to host CNN+ shows. However, Warner Bros. Discovery executives quickly pulled the plug after CNN+ failed to gain much traction.
For what it’s worth, CNN+ crashed and burned even harder than Quibi. The short-form streaming service launched in April 2020 and shut down that December. Warner Bros. Discovery might take a little solace in the fact that Quibi blew nearly $2 billion instead of a relatively meager nine-figure sum.
Get ready for a Dynamite workout. Apple has a few updates for Fitness+ timed with International Dance Day, which is coming up on April 29th, and arguably the most interesting are the new Dance workouts set to Korean pop sensation BTS’ music. Through its existing relationship with BTS, Apple will be teaching users the actual choreography from videos for songs like “Dynamite,” “Mic Drop” and, very aptly, “Permission to Dance.”
The first of the BTS dance workouts will arrive next week, but Apple is also bringing new content to its Artist Spotlight series. In addition to music from BTS, Fitness+ is also getting playlists from ABBA and Queen. Every Monday over the next four weeks, there will be new workouts featuring each artist across categories like Strength, HIIT, Treadmill, Cycling, Yoga, Pilates and Dance.
There will be new dance workouts featuring music from other musicians too, including sessions led by trainer Jhon Gonzalez set to genres like cumbia, tango and Indian pop. While the Fitness+ team generally comes up with their own choreography, for the BTS videos they will be teaching the band’s own smooth-like-Butter moves.
Those who work hard enough and shed some Blood, Sweat and Tears (okay, hopefully no blood) on April 29th will be eligible to earn limited-edition awards and animated Messages stickers. You’ll have to be On the workout for at least 20 minutes, and Fitness+ will highlight six sessions of that duration to help you Go get those rewards.
On April 25, which by the way is the perfect date for a Spring Day, Apple will also release a new collection of workouts to ease beginners into dancing with three 20-minute guides. There will also be three 30-minute options that focus more on performance, and span categories like 80’s classics, Latin music and hip hop. That last one is great for Hip Hop Lovers.
If BTS is your Idol, this news is probably Dope. Or Fire. Apple may add more workouts based on the band’s music so Stay tuned for more. And if BTS or dance are not your thing, then Life Goes On.
The plans for an It Takes Two movie appear to be solidifying. Deadline and Variety sources claim Amazon Studios and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions have taken up the game-to-movie adaptation alongside Sonic the Hedgehog production company dj2 Entertainment. There’s even a chance Johnson could star in the movie, the insiders said.
We’ve asked Amazon for comment. The Prime Video operator’s involvement would make sense when dj2 has a “first look” deal with Amazon, as do the movie’s executive producers (and writers) Pat Casey and Josh Miller. It Takes Two developer Hazelight Studios’ Josef Fares and Oskar Wolontis will also executive produce.
It’s still not certain when a movie might launch. The project might stand a better chance of succeeding than some big-screen game adaptations, though. Casey and Miller are widely credited with the success of the two Sonic the Hedgehog movies. Moreover, It Takes Two‘s plot could be well-suited to a movie format — it sees a couple on the brink of divorce embark on a fantastical journey that helps them rediscover each other. It’s just a question of whether or not Amazon, dj2 and Seven Bucks can translate the co-op game’s concept to a passive entertainment format.
Update 4/21 12:25PM ET: Amazon has confirmed the production details, although it’s still not clear if Johnson will act in the movie.
Netflix might offer cheaper, ad-supported plans in the coming years. In the company’s most recent earnings call, co-CEO Reed Hastings said the company is working on the offering, and it’ll finalize details for those plans “over the next year or two.”
The service lost around 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022, a development it blamed on stiffer competition, inability to expand in some territories due to technological limitations and pesky account sharing. It also lost 700,000 subscribers in early March after its decision to suspend service in Russia.
To tackle account sharing, Netflix has tested a feature in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru that allowed subscribers to add two “sub-members,” who’ll get their own log-ins and profiles, for $3 — much less than the typical subscription cost. Netflix executives noted on its earning call that this model could expand to other countries. We’ve put our account-sharing parents and children on notice.
Revenue rose to $18.76 billion in the face of rising inflation.
Tesla built 305,000 vehicles in the first “exceptionally difficult” quarter of this year, delivered 310,000 vehicles to customers and opened new factories in Berlin and Austin — all while CEO Elon Musk sought a highly publicized hostile takeover of Twitter. And just generally made headlines.
Like many companies, Tesla faces an increasingly tight supply of critical semiconductors and rising prices spurred by inflation brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s also currently navigating the shuttering of its Gigafactory in Shanghai, which closed due to COVID outbreaks in the region.
Glorious PC Gaming Race, the maker of the Model O gaming mouse, the GMMK Pro mechanical keyboard and other popular peripherals, is changing its name. In rebranding as Glorious, the company is hoping to leave behind a name tinged with racial overtones. “While we remain committed to serving PC gamers and not taking ourselves too seriously, we have also grown and matured significantly as a brand,” Shazim Mohammad, the founder and CEO of Glorious, said in a statement.
SpaceX has wanted to put Starlink internet on planes for quite some time.
Delta Chief Executive Ed Bastian has revealed in an interview that the airline held talks with SpaceX and conducted “exploratory tests” of Starlink’s internet technology for its planes. According to The Wall Street Journal, Bastian declined to divulge specifics about the test, but SpaceX’s Jonathan Hofeller mentioned the company’s discussions with several airlines back in mid-2021.
‘Sonic Origins’ includes the first four Sonic games.
Sega
Sega has announced its Sonic Origins collection will debut June 23rd on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Switch. The $40 (£33) standard version will include remasters of Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic CD, while a $45 (£37) Digital Deluxe edition adds difficult missions, exclusive music and cosmetics. Because it’s 2022.
‘AMP harms users’ privacy, security and internet experience.’
Brave is bypassing any pages rendered with AMP and taking users directly to the original website. “Where possible, De-AMP will rewrite links and URLs to prevent users from visiting AMP pages altogether,” the company wrote in a blog post.
The faster load times you might experience with Google’s AMP pages — hard to complain about that — are undercut by the way they offer Google a much tighter grip on advertising, hosting content on its servers. A group of publishers recently announced it was moving away from AMP, and a lawsuit filed by several US states accuses Google of running a monopoly that harmed both advertising rivals and publishers.
Meta hid a heck of a surprise up the sleeve of its boiler suit for the end of its Quest gaming showcase. A Ghostbusters VR game is in the works for Meta Quest 2. Sony Pictures Virtual Reality (SPVR) will publish the four-player co-op game, which is being developed by Far Cry VR: Dive Into Insanity studio nDreams.
Ghostbusters VR (as the game is called for the time being) shifts the action from the franchise’s home base of New York City to San Francisco. No prizes for guessing that you’ll hunt down and trap ghosts with the help of your proton pack and particle thrower. SPVR says the game will have an “extensive and engrossing campaign” that you can experience solo or with up to three friends. No release window was announced, but SPVR says more will be revealed in the coming months.
It’s not the only Ghostbusters title in the pipeline either. Friday the 13th: The Game developer Illfonic is making Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, which will pit a team of four players against someone else who controls the ghost. That game is scheduled to arrive on PC, PlayStation and Xbox later this year.
Apple Music’s spatial audio is now available for those who’d rather spend their nights at the club than the concert hall. The service is now offering DJ mixes in Dolby Atmos that promise a more immersive dance music experience — not quite like sweating through an all-night rave, but considerably closer. The initiative kicks off today with an enhanced One Mix set from Detroit techno legend Jeff Mills (above) as well as 15 Boiler Room sets from stars like Boys Noize and The Blessed Madonna.
You can expect more spatial audio mixes throughout the year, including monthly One Mix episodes and Boiler Room albums. Apple hasn’t teased future artists, although it is promising the “finest DJs” from the dance and electronic music realms.
Spatial audio is only automatically enabled for AirPods and some Beats headphones. You can use capable third-party gear, but you’ll need to manually enable support and forego head tracking.
It’s not surprising to see Apple expand Atmos support to the mix-and-scratch crowd. Spatial audio is a selling point for Apple Music and AirPods, of course, but electronic artists were also some of the first to embrace surround sound — just ask anyone familiar with Amon Tobin’s gigs. In theory, you’re more likely to keep your Apple Music membership knowing that a favorite DJ might produce an Atmos mix you won’t get at rival services.
Brave is putting Google’s Accelerate Mobile Pages (AMP) on blast with a new feature called De-AMP, The Verge reported. It’s designed to bypass any pages rendered with AMP and take users directly to the original website. “Where possible, De-AMP will rewrite links and URLs to prevent users from visiting AMP pages altogether,” the company wrote in a blog post.
If that’s not possible, then “Brave will watch as pages are being fetched and redirect users away from AMP pages before the page is even rendered, preventing AMP/Google code from being loaded and executed,” it added.
The new feature was implemented in the name of privacy, security and internet experience, according to Brave. “In practice, AMP is harmful to users and to the Web at large,” the article states. “Just as bad, AMP helps Google further monopolize and control the direction of the web.” It adds that the next iteration of AMP “will be even worse.”
Google originally promoted AMP as a way to improve the mobile web experience by loading pages faster. However, it has recently been a target of critics who see it as a way for Google to increase its hegemony in the internet ad market by hosting content on its own servers. A group of publishers recently announced it was moving away from AMP, and a lawsuit filed by several US states accuses Google of running a monopoly that harmed ad-industry competitors and publishers.
Brave promises “the best privacy online” with its browser, so of course attacking Google is part of its business strategy. Despite its efforts, though, it lags well behind most other browsers in mobile market share, sitting in the “other” category behind Internet Explorer on Statcounter. De-AMP is now available in beta and “will be enabled by default in the upcoming 1.38 Desktop and Android versions, and will be released on iOS soon after,” Brave said.
Netflix might offer cheaper ad-supported plans in the coming years. In the company’s most recent earnings call, co-CEO Reed Hastings has revealed that the streaming giant is currently working on the offering and that it will be finalizing details for those plans “over the next year or two.” Hastings said he finds ads complex and he’s a huge fan of the simplicity of subscriptions, but giving consumers who don’t mind watching ads the option to pay less “makes a lot of sense.”
And it could make a lot of sense for the company, too. The service lost around 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022, a development it blamed on stiffer competition, inability to expand in some territories due to technological limitations and account sharing. Apparently, 222 million households are paying for Netflix, but over 100 million more are sharing those accounts.
Back in March, Netflix started testing a feature in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru that allowed subscribers to add two “sub-members,” who’ll get their own log-ins and profiles, for $3. It may just be a fraction of what a full membership costs, but at least Netflix is getting something from people who’d normally just borrow their friends’ accounts.
Hastings clarified during the call that the ad-supported memberships will be added as tiers and members who don’t mind paying full subscription fees don’t have to be subjected to advertisements. “It is pretty clear that it is working for Hulu, Disney is doing it, HBO did it. We don’t have any doubt that it works,” he said. The executive also added that Netflix will merely be a publisher and that it will not track user data to match ads like some of its competitors do.
Amy Hennig’s Skydance New Media studio is working on not one but two new games with Disney. Following last year’s Marvel announcement, Hennig and company revealed today they’re working on a AAA Star Wars game with Lucasfilm Games. And just like the stu…
