WASHINGTON President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday will be more available to “cord cutters,” a nod to the changing television viewing habits of Americans, the White House said on Sunday. Cable and satellite providers have been grappling ... More »
BOSTON Viacom Inc (VIAB.O) will allow investors to vote in March on a proposal to extend voting rights to all shareholders, though the measure is certain to fail as it is opposed by executive chairman Sumner Redstone’s holding company. Still, the vote will tes... More »
The National Football League is planning to live-stream all three games scheduled to be played in London next season, and Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) subsidiary Google are among the technology companies in talks to buy the rights to conduct t... More »
WARSAW Poland dismissed European Commission concern on Friday that a new law on state-run media threatened media freedom, warning Brussels not to interfere in its affairs on the basis of “biased and politically-engaged” reports. Simultaneously, the government,... More »
Activist shareholders could push media company Time Warner Inc to sell itself or spin off its lucrative HBO business, the New York Post reported late on Thursday. While the activist shareholders have not approached Time Warner officially, New York-based firm C... More »
STOCKHOLM Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson (ERICb.ST) on Monday said it has signed a patent license agreement with Apple Inc (AAPL.O) but did not specify how much it would earn from the deal. Ericsson estimated however that its overall revenues from in... More »
The host of the Miss Universe pageant mistakenly announced the wrong winner on Sunday, who then had to give up the crown and hand it over to a 26-year-old actress and model from the Philippines. It was the first edition of the annual beauty show since it was t... More »
LOS ANGELES “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” shattered box office records with an estimated $517 million in worldwide ticket sales through Sunday, a staggering debut that re-established the celebrated space saga as a global phenomenon under Walt Disney Co. The f... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Sunday that Democrat Hillary Clinton was a “liar” for claiming that his proposal to ban entry of all foreign Muslims into the United States has aided Islamic State’s propaganda efforts. Spe... More »
BERLIN Children carried toy lightsabers to a church in Berlin and some of the congregation dressed up as Darth Vader on Sunday to mark the release of the new Star Wars movie with a service on Sunday. At the terracotta-brick Zion Church, an organist played the ... More »
A star of the “Real Housewives of New Jersey” reality TV show who last year pleaded guilty to bankruptcy fraud is due to be released from prison this week, local media reported on Sunday. Teresa Giudice, 43, pleaded guilty in March 2014 to charges related to h... More »
LOS ANGELES “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” collected a galactic $250 million of global ticket sales through Friday and headed toward a historic opening weekend in the United States and Canada as fans around the world reveled in the return of the beloved space ... More »
BERLIN Kurt Masur, the German conductor who revitalized the New York Philharmonic and played a key role in peaceful protests in Leipzig that paved the way for the 1990 reunification of postwar Germany, died on Saturday at age 88. Masur’s distinguished musical ... More »
SAN FRANCISCO/BENGALURU Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook dismissed as “total political crap” the notion that the tech giant was avoiding taxes. Cook’s remarks, made on CBS’ 60 Minutes show, come amid a debate in the United States over corporations avoiding t... More »
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Friday it approved the $9.1 billion sale of U.S. regional cable company Suddenlink Communications to European telecoms group Altice NV. The Dutch firm announced in May its acquisition of a majority stake in Su... More »
Walt Disney Co’s shares slumped after BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield cuts his rating to “sell” from “neutral”, saying the likely success of the latest Star Wars movie would not be enough to offset the impact of subscriber losses at ESPN. Disney’ shares fell a... More »
SEOUL A South Korean court cleared a Japanese journalist on Thursday of defaming the South Korean president in a case that raised new questions about media freedom and had threatened to inflame relations between the uneasy neighbors. Tatsuya Kato, former Seoul... More »
SYDNEY Australian tax authorities on Thursday took the unprecedented step of publishing the records of hundreds of companies, including Google Inc (GOOGL.O) and Apple Inc APPL.O, which show they paid little or no tax on their in-country earnings. Of more than ... More »
SAN SALVADOR El Salvador’s former soccer federation president, Reynaldo Vasquez, who is wanted in the United States in connection with a probe targeting alleged corruption in the sport, has been detained, police said on Wednesday. Earlier this month El Salvado... More »
LOS ANGELES As Disney reboots the much-loved “Star Wars” franchise with “The Force Awakens” this week, the absence of Luke Skywalker from the film’s marketing has been the subject of much speculation – and for good reason. Luke Skywalker has vanished. So opens... More »
NEW YORK The verdict is nearly unanimous: The Force is strong with this one. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” won rave reviews on Wednesday with critics saying it has breathed new life into the almost 40 year-old franchise that has spawned three original movies ... More »
Facebook Inc said on Wednesday it launched its instant articles service for Android users which allows media firms to publish articles directly to the social network’s news feeds. The service involves more than 350 publications worldwide including the New York... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said on Wednesday that his department has been consulting social media in reviews of immigration applications since early this year, hitting back at criticism that U.S. authorities are not doing enough to... More »
NEW YORK Apple Inc has shut down its Topsy Labs unit, which specialized in analyzing Twitter data and providing insights into current sentiment on a variety of topics, and the move prompted an outcry from many of its users. The website for the platform www.top... More »
LONDON Barclays Plc has sold its benchmark indices and risk analytics business, which includes the widely used Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, to financial information provider Bloomberg for about 520 million pounds ($781 million). Barclays said on Wednesd... More »
LONDON The male-centric universe of the original “Star Wars” gives way to a woman warrior and a female version of Yoda in the much-ballyhooed “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” that will inevitably take the planet – this one – by storm as it opens this week. The t... More »
Satellite radio company Sirius XM Holdings Inc and “shock jock” Howard Stern have renewed their five-year deal for his popular “Howard Stern Show,” ending the uncertainty around the fate of the decade-long association. The news comes after years of Sirius, maj... More »
Sumner Redstone’s former girlfriend filed a new lawsuit on Monday alleging that the 92-year-old media mogul’s signature was forged on a document, supporting her allegation that he was being manipulated in his business and personal affairs. Redstone is the cont... More »
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK President Barack Obama on Sunday called on Silicon Valley to help address the threat of militant groups using social media and electronic communications to plan and promote violence, setting up renewed debate over personal privacy online. “... More »
WASHINGTON The White House is urging Silicon Valley to help address the threat posed by militant groups by restricting the use of social media for planning and promoting violence, a senior administration official said on Sunday. Last week’s mass shooting in Ca... More »
BROOKLINE, Mass. Famed Massachusetts mill owner Aaron Feuerstein has this message for his friend and embattled media executive Sumner Redstone: hang in there. “As long as he is succeeding, and as long as it’s profitable, I don’t see why he should step down,” F... More »
The New York Times, in its first front-page editorial in nearly a century, on Saturday called for outlawing the kinds of rifles used in the California shooting massacre this week that left 14 people dead. The newspaper’s editorial comes three days after Syed R... More »
SAN FRANCISCO Yahoo Inc’s board of directors on Friday is in the third and final day of meetings that could decide the future of one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent but troubled companies. One option on the table for the nine board members is whether to sel... More »
Univision has asked a U.S. federal court to throw out a $500 million lawsuit filed by presidential candidate Donald Trump for the Spanish-language television network’s decision to end its contract to broadcast the Miss USA beauty pageant, which is owned in par... More »
Gannett Co Inc (GCI.N), the publisher of USA Today, said on Thursday it would bring its local and national publications under the USA Today Network. Gannett was separated from its broadcasting and digital arm, Tegna Inc (TGNA.N), in June and the new brand mark... More »
Sumner Redstone’s physicians have publicly attested that he is mentally capable, William Schwartz, chairman of Viacom (VIAB.O)’s governance and nominating committee, wrote in an e-mailed to Reuters Wednesday afternoon. “As has been widely and publicly disclose... More »
HONG KONG The theft of toy maker VTech Holdings Ltd’s database highlights a growing problem with basic cyber security measures at small, non-financial companies that handle electronic customer data, industry watchers said on Monday. The hacked data at VTech in... More »
HONG KONG/SINGAPORE Almost a year after students ended pro-democracy street protests in Hong Kong, they face an online battle against what Western security experts say are China-sponsored hackers using techniques rarely seen elsewhere. Hackers have expanded th... More »
TOKYO An award-winning Japanese manga artist, whose retellings of traditional ghost stories and depictions of the horrors of World War Two helped propel anime to global popularity, died on Monday at the age of 93. Shigeru Mizuki, a beloved household name in Ja... More »
NEW YORK British singer Adele’s new album sold a record 3.38 million U.S. copies in its first full week, Nielsen Music said, becoming the biggest-selling album of 2015 in an astonishing feat for an era when artists rarely top 1 million. In just seven days on s... More »
WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday reframed his claim that he saw Muslims in Jersey City, New Jersey, cheering the attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001 by asserting the sentiment... More »
SINGAPORE Adam Lambert may have been a hit on American Idol but rival petitions in Singapore have gathered thousands of online votes in a lively debate over whether he is too sexy to be allowed to perform at the city-state’s largest New Year’s eve concert. The... More »
Rupert Murdoch, co-chairman of Wall Street Journal publisher News Corp (NWSA.O), on Friday said he had “strong word” that the Tribune Publishing Co’s (TPUB.N) newspaper group will be bought by a Wall Street firm, while the Los Angeles Times will be split off a... More »
U.S. media stocks fell on Friday after Walt Disney Co’s disclosure of a drop in subscribers at ESPN spooked investors, underscoring concerns that viewers are increasingly opting for online streaming over pay TV. Disney’s shares were down 3.6 percent at $114.44... More »
The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating whether Comcast Corp, the biggest U.S. cable TV provider, is hindering competition in cable advertising sales, a source told Reuters. The department’s Antitrust Division has sent documents known as civil investig... More »
WASHINGTON Leading Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said on Sunday the United States is not doing enough to fight Islamic State, and the group is gaining strength outside Iraq and Syria. Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, ... More »
LONDON “Hang loose! Hang loose!”, exhorts Brittany Howard as she warms up a tense crowd at Alabama Shakes’ sold-out two-night set at London’s Brixton Academy on Thursday, where extra security staff were on hand following terrorist attacks in Paris. Lead singer... More »
The California rock band that was playing in Paris on the night of the Nov. 13 attacks survived the massacre at their concert, but others died seeking shelter in a dressing room, the group’s lead singer said in an interview with international news channel Vice... More »
BERLIN Germany withdrew its contender for next year’s Eurovision song contest on Saturday following a backlash from critics who accuse the R&B artist of using anti-Semitic and homophobic slurs in his songs. Xavier Naidoo, a singer of Indian and African heritag... More »
Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple Inc (AAPL.O) co-founder Steve Jobs, is the lead investor who funded the buyout of News Corp’s (NWSA.O) money losing digital education business Amplify earlier this year. A representative for Powell Jobs’ organization, the Em... More »
BEIJING/HONG KONG Google, part of Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), aims to launch the China version of its Google Play smartphone app store next year, according to people familiar with the matter, its first major foray in the market since ending localized product suppo... More »
MARSHALL, Texas A U.S. jury on Friday found Apple Inc (AAPL.O) did not infringe five antipiracy patents owned by a Pendrell Corp (PCO.O) subsidiary at trial in a Texas federal court. The jury also found that Apple did not prove that the patents were invalid. N... More »
SAN FRANCISCO Snapchat, maker of a free mobile app that lets users send videos and messages that disappear in seconds, is struggling to gain traction with advertisers, fuelling investor concern that its $16 billion valuation isn’t justified by a business that ... More »
NEW YORK It is not just millennials looking to cut the cable television cord: famed 73-year old billionaire value investor Mario Gabelli is planning to make a similar move. “I just got my bill for cable and it was outrageous,” Gabelli said at the Reuters Globa... More »
SINGAPORE The co-founder of a Singapore church and five other leaders were sentenced to jail terms of up to eight years on Friday, for fraudulently diverting millions of dollars to support his wife’s pop singing career. The mix of faith and fraud has fascinate... More »
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – James Bond is back on top, after “Spectre” led the U.S. box office for the second weekend in a row. Of course, the dashing super spy wasn’t exactly facing off against Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Its main competition was the second weekend... More »
LOS ANGELES While heroine Katniss Everdeen leads a rebellion in the final “Hunger Games” movie, the actress who brought the character to life, Jennifer Lawrence, is coming into her own in a business dominated by men. With an Oscar and a number of hit films to ... More »
All the musicians performing with the California-based rock band Eagles of Death Metal emerged unharmed from the lethal terror attack inside a Paris concert hall, but a member of their entourage was killed in the violence, relatives said on Saturday. The band’... More »
LOS ANGELES Pauley Perrette, an actress on the popular U.S. television show “NCIS,” was attacked in Los Angeles by a homeless man who punched her repeatedly in the face and made her fear for her life, she said in a social media post. A man has been arrested in... More »
CHICAGO The sound of gunshots in Harlem in 1997 was nothing new to Jamal Joseph, who was then a 44-year-old filmmaker living in the New York City neighborhood. “You’d hear gunshots every night,” he recalled. “The crack epidemic was raging- the neighborhood was... More »
Viacom Inc (VIAB.O), the owner of MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, reported weaker-than-expected quarterly revenue on Thursday, although declines in ad sales for its U.S. cable TV business were not as steep as analysts had anticipated. Chief Executive Offi... More »
Media mogul John Malone, known for striking complex deals and running companies with intricate structures, is restructuring two companies he controls using tracking stocks and spinoffs. Liberty Interactive Corp (QVCA.O), which mainly houses Malone’s e-commerce... More »
Viacom Inc is cutting the number of TV advertisements it airs in a bid to boost ratings. But the owner of MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon has drawn skepticism by saying the move will also help it raise ad prices. A cut in ads would not necessarily improve ... More »
NEW DELHIIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet leaders of his party on Monday to discuss whether to overhaul policies and priorities in the wake of a humiliating defeat in elections in the eastern state of Bihar. Modi was due to huddle with a dozen sen... More »
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF.Academia just turned a little more glitzy for a select group of scientists. Russian billionaire Yuri Milner on Sunday handed out seven Breakthrough Prizes, the award for scientific accomplishment he created three years ago alongside techno... More »
NEW YORKDonald Trump’s appearance as guest host of “Saturday Night Live” helped the TV comedy sketch show earn its highest viewership ratings since 2012, the NBC television network said on Sunday. The show, which came under fire from Latino groups for inviting... More »
LOS ANGELES, (Variety.com) – James Bond and Charlie Brown brought the box office roaring back to life, as “Spectre” and “The Peanuts Movie” attracted big crowds over their opening weekends. “Spectre,” the latest 007 adventure, took first place, debuting to $73... More »
NEW YORKCandidate Donald Trump on Saturday satirized his imaginary presidency with a Washington Monument covered in gold mirrors and policy agenda made of magic in his turn as host of comedy show “Saturday Night Live.” The Republican front runner steered clear... More »
SAN FRANCISCOApple Inc (AAPL.O) defeated a U.S. class action lawsuit brought by Apple retail workers over bag search practices at the company’s California brick and mortar outlets, according to a court ruling on Saturday. The decision, from U.S. District Judge... More »
SAN FRANCISCOMobile payments company Square Inc set a price range on Friday for its highly anticipated initial public offering that values the company at up to $4.2 billion, a 30 percent discount to its valuation at its last fundraising round. San Francisco-ba... More »
SAN FRANCISCOYouTube announced two new features Thursday for its Android app that expand the video site’s use of virtual reality, giving the new technology its biggest platform yet. The app now supports VR video – a format that gives viewers what the company s... More »
NASHVILLE, Tenn. Fred Thompson, a former Republican U.S. senator from Tennessee who briefly ran for president and straddled the world of politics and entertainment with a prolific television and film acting career, died of cancer on Sunday at age 73. Thompson,... More »
WASHINGTON Representatives from Republican presidential campaigns on Sunday demanded a more active role in negotiations with TV networks over how presidential debates are conducted and sought a more limited role for the Republican National Committee. Officials... More »
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Illustrating the limits of star power, “Our Brand is Crisis” and “Burnt” were both roundly rejected by audiences despite the presence of Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper. “Our Brand is Crisis,” a political satire about a spin-docto... More »
LONDON Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper the Sun is to take down its online paywall, after the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid failed to win enough readers in the latest troubled digital experiment for a traditional publisher. The scrapping of the online subscr... More »
BOSTON Survivors of clergy sex abuse said they hope the upcoming film “Spotlight,” about the Boston Globe’s groundbreaking report that Roman Catholic officials routinely covered up abuse by priests, prompts more victims to publicly confront their abusers. The ... More »
New York Times Co (NYT.N) reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit, and said it expected digital revenue from its international business to account for a significant portion of its revenue in five years. The newspaper publisher said earlier this month ... More »
Charter Communications Inc (CHTR.O) said its acquisition of Time Warner Cable Inc (TWC.N), which is awaiting clearance from U.S. regulators, is now expected to close in the first quarter of 2016, and not by the end of 2015 as planned. The $56 billion deal, ann... More »
BRUSSELS Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who has been sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail for insulting Islam and for cyber crime, was awarded the European Union’s prize for human rights and freedom of thought on Thursday. Badawi received the first of hi... More »
MOSCOW Russia’s Bolshoi Theater presented a new director for its world-famous ballet troupe on Monday, a position it said it was creating after its outgoing artistic director was nearly blinded in an acid attack. Vladimir Urin, the theater’s director general, ... More »
Media mogul Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp said it has extend its partnership with Alphabet Inc’s Google through March 2020. Under the agreement, which has been in place for 14 years, Google will continue to provide IAC and its partners with sponsored list... More »
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – It was a pre-Halloween massacre at the multiplexes. Four new films, including “Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension” and Vin Diesel’s “The Last Witch Hunter,” crowded into theaters this weekend and were swiftly pulverized and le... More »
Walt Disney Co’s sports network ESPN said it will not make its content available on YouTube, due to the recently announced ad-free subscription-based offering coined YouTube Red. Alphabet Inc’s YouTube said on Wednesday it will launch YouTube Red, a $10-a-mont... More »
WASHINGTON Oscar-winning director Kevin Costner has turned novelist in a big way, kicking off with an adventure yarn aimed for the ages that weighs in at a doorstopping 784 pages. “The Explorers Guild,” which the 60-year-old “Bull Durham” star co-wrote with Ji... More »
AT&T Inc (T.N), the No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier and the world’s largest pay-TV operator, raised its 2015 earnings forecast as quarterly earnings beat expectations on cost cuts and gains in wireless and DirecTV subscribers. AT&T shares rose 1.7 percent in after... More »
FRANKFURT Google says European media firms, often the search giant’s harshest industry critics, share a common threat because a surge in ad-blocking technology is a threat to all businesses dependent on advertising. Carlo d’Asaro Biondo, Google’s president for... More »
LONDON Had you seen Bob Dylan reinventing popular music on the stage of London’s Royal Albert Hall in 1966, you would never have believed that nearly 50 years later he would be treading the same boards and crooning the songs of Frank Sinatra. But there he was ... More »
PARIS Vivendi raised its stakes in French video games makers Ubisoft and Gameloft and indicated that it may buy additional shares later and seek board seats. Vivendi sold off its video games business Activision Blizzard in 2013 in the opening salvo of an asset... More »
Yahoo Inc has dropped the price of advertising for its first Web-streamed National Football League game on Sunday from an early price of $200,000 to less than $100,000, two media buyers familiar with the situation told Reuters on Wednesday. The match between t... More »
CNN said on Wednesday it has launched ‘Great Big Story’, a video network that promises to deliver more than “empty clickbaits and cat videos” through various social media. The videos will not be based on news, but on “awesome, untold and inspirational stories ... More »
Yahoo Inc’s (YHOO.O) chief development officer, Jacqueline Reses, is leaving the company to join mobile payments company Square Inc, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Reses’ role changed earlier this year when she shifted her focus to... More »
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – “Goosebumps” rode a wave of Clinton era nostalgia to the top of the box office charts, as the adaptation of the popular children’s book series earned $23.5 million in its opening weekend. That just edged out Fox’s “The Martian,” the... More »
NEW YORK Tracy Morgan returned to “Saturday Night Live” on Saturday to host the long-running comedy show on which he shot to fame, more than a year after he suffered near-fatal injuries in a deadly high-speed car accident. Morgan, a “Saturday Night Live” cast ... More »
A U.S. jury on Friday ordered Apple Inc (AAPL.O) to pay the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s patent licensing arm more than $234 million in damages for incorporating its microchip technology into some of the company’s iPhones and iPads without permission. The... More »
LOS ANGELES When actress Cate Blanchett researched an infamous CBS News expose of U.S. President George W. Bush’s military service that led to the firing of journalist Mary Mapes, she came away with more questions than answers. “It’s emblematic of the problem ... More »
Cablevision Systems Inc and Viacom Inc have settled an antitrust lawsuit in which Cablevision had accused Viacom of forcing distributors and subscribers to buy channels they did not want. Cablevision and Viacom are simultaneously entering into “mutually benefi... More »
Investors questioned Netflix Inc’s premium valuation after the video-streaming service reported U.S. subscriber additions below its own expectations, a sign that competition from the likes of Hulu is intensifying. Netflix shares fell more than 9 percent to $10... More »
LONDON French fashion house Chanel is putting on display its haute couture creations, dazzling diamond jewelry and the makings of its famed No. 5 scent in a London exhibition unveiling the creative history of one of the world’s most luxurious brands. The “Made... More »
LONDON Marlon James became the first Jamaican to win the Man Booker fiction prize on Tuesday for “A Brief History of Seven Killings”, inspired by an attempt to kill reggae star Bob Marley, and said he hoped more Caribbean writers will follow. The 686-page nove... More »
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – “Pan” walked the plank over the Columbus Day Weekend. Warner Bros. spent $150 million to bring the Neverland adventure to screens and millions more in marketing, but the big-budget fantasy mustered a puny $15.5 million opening. That... More »
