HBO pulls Gone With The Wind over ‘racist’ depiction of slave era June 10, 2020 HBO has removed Gone With The Wind from its streaming platform over its “racist” depiction of the American south during slavery. HBO Max, the broadcaster’s streaming service launched last month, announced that it has temporarily dropped the 1939 film. HBO said it would return the film to its platform at an unspecified date with a [...]
BBC appoints Tim Davie as new director general June 5, 2020 The BBC has named Tim Davie as its new director general, bringing to an end months of speculation over the successor to outgoing boss Tony Hall. Davie, who is currently chief executive of BBC Studios, will take up the role in September. Davie is one of the corporation’s longest-serving executives and stepped in as acting [...]
Coronavirus: BBC calls for right to publish news directly on Whatsapp June 4, 2020 The BBC should be allowed to publish directly on chat platforms such as Whatsapp to help counter fake news about the Covid-19 crisis, one of the broadcaster’s top bosses has said. Jamie Angus, director of the BBC World Service Group, urged tech giants to open their platforms to trusted news providers as part of their [...]
Bafta Awards: Sky production push pays off as Chernobyl leads nominations June 4, 2020 Hit Sky series Chernobyl has picked up 14 nominations at the Bafta Television Awards 2020 as the media giant reaps the rewards of its production push. The critically-acclaimed miniseries, which is based on the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, led the field at this year’s awards. It is now one of the [...]
Channel 4 to air Hollyoaks on Snapchat as it targets young viewers June 4, 2020 Channel 4 today said it will air Hollyoaks on Snapchat as part of a fresh deal to bring more than 300 episodes of its TV programmes to the social media app over the next year. From today the broadcaster will show short-form edits of the soap opera favourite on Snapchat’s Discover section. The Undateables, The [...]
Hipgnosis shares jump as lockdown streaming boosts music catalogue June 3, 2020 Shares in Hipgnosis rose sharply today after the music royalties investment firm said the continued growth of streaming had pushed up the value of its song portfolio. The London-listed company reported better-than-expected revenue of £64.7m in the year to the end of March, while net asset value grew 17.7 per cent. Shares in Hipgnosis jumped [...]
Warner Music raises $1.9bn in biggest US listing this year June 3, 2020 Warner Music Group today said it had raised $1.93bn (£1.5bn) from its initial public offering (IPO), marking Wall Street’s largest listing this year. The record label had planned to price its IPO yesterday, but postponed it by a day to mark Black Out Tuesday, a global social media event to show support for racial justice. [...]
Evening Standard appoints media veteran Charles Yardley as new chief executive June 3, 2020 The Evening Standard today said it has appointed veteran media executive Charles Yardley as its new chief executive following the surprise departure of Mike Soutar. In April the London newspaper said Soutar would step down at the end of May after just six months in the role, citing the boss’ decision to “pursue other business [...]
News Group hit with 45 new phone hacking claims June 2, 2020 Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers has been hit with 45 new phone hacking legal claims in the last week, court filings reveal. The Sun-owner has had 85 claims issued against it for phone hacking since May 2018, data from litigation analytics company Solomonic shows. The latest batch of claimants includes Hollywood star Johnny Depp, TV [...]
Spectator to return furlough money as sales hit 87,000 June 2, 2020 The Spectator today said it will return the money it used to furlough staff to the government after a rise in sales helped bolster the company’s balance sheet during the Covid-19 crisis. The weekly magazine said that while it had suffered a hit to revenue from advertising, events and newsstand sales as a result of [...]