GeekWire Founder Launches Ad-Supported, ‘American Asian’-Focused Platform JoySauce Network (EXCLUSIVE)

San Francisco Pride organisers have been told by the city’s Democratic Mayor London Breed that she will boycott the annual Pride parade, if police officers are not allowed to march  in uniform. Police presence in pride marches have been a contentious issue across the world, including in Australia. In 2020, in the wake of protests over the murder of George Floyd, SF Pride organisers had banned the police from marching in the parade in uniform.

EastEnders fans spotted the disappearance of a key prop ahead of Prince Charles and Camilla visiting for their Jubilee cameo.The Queen Vic in Walford is known for its iconic portrait of Princess Diana, set against a white backdrop and with the princess looking regal as ever in a high-collared white gown.This week, however, the portrait disappeared - just ahead of Charles and Camilla dropping in for the upcoming Jubilee party.But in episodes transmitting this week, Vic owner Mick Carter - played by Danny Dyer - is busy dressing the pub for the Platinum Jubilee street party.Fans were quick to point out that the portrait of Diana shad vanished, despite being seen in the background as Mick discussed the party with Kathy Beale and Sonia Fowler, intending to ask the council if he can close the Square off.In the next shot, Mick could be seen holding a portrait of the Queen and informing Kathy that he wants to put it up ‘there’ - where the Diana portrait had been just moments before.Baffled fans took to social media to share their thoughts, with one writing: “I’ve just seen the pic of Diana in the Vic. Has it really been removed?”“Since the Carters moved inside the Vic there was a picture of Princess Diana on the wall.

BBC Breakfast has been hit with a slew of exits in recent months - including long-term hosts Louise Minchin and Dan Walker.This week, it emerged that political correspondent Adam Fleming is also taking an extended break from the show in order to focus on different projects, including presenting BBC Newscast.And on Friday (May 27), hosts Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt turned their attention to various job advertisements they found in the newspapers.During a discussion about the headlines of the day, Charlie impressed Naga by reading aloud an article about a school on a Scottish island searching for a new teacher for its four pupils.Charlie told Naga: "Job advert there for you in the paper. A job advertised which is a for a new headteacher on a remote Scottish island."How many pupils will you be teaching on the remote Scottish island? I'll tell you.

Led Zepplin‘s most iconic concerts – held at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 1970 – has been unearthed and uploaded to the internet.Captured on 8mm film, the brief clip was shot during their September 19, 1970 performance at the famed venue. The footage jumps in places, but isn’t too fragmented, as it’s synced to bootleg concert audio.

SEVENTEEN have dropped their new single ‘Hot’, a cut from their latest full-length album ‘Face The Sun’.In the brazen new visual, the 13 members of the K-pop boyband make their way across an almost-barren desert, performing the song’s choreography against the backdrop of a construction site around a partially-built structure that appears to be a giant palm.“Face the sun, set it on fire / So hot / Face the sun, set it on fire / This song’s sizzling, everybody join in,” they chant on the song’s high-octane chorus. It’s the second single from ‘Face The Sun’, following the English track ‘Darl+ing’.‘Face The Sun’, which dropped alongside ‘Hot’, features seven other brand-new tracks from the boyband.

James Righton, formerly of the Klaxons, has released a new single from his forthcoming album ‘Jim, I’m Still Here’, and teased an accompanying short film. Listen below.Titled ‘Never Give Up On The City’, the song follows previous singles ‘Pause’ and ‘Empty Rooms’, the latter of which was released in April and features ABBA member Benny Andersson.‘Never Give Up On The City’ is the latest track to be lifted from Righton’s upcoming album ‘Jim, I’m Still Here,’ and will mark Righton’s second solo project to be released under his own name since his 2020 debut, ‘The Performer’.The single continues Righton’s exploration of Jim, an alter ego he conceived during lockdown who will narrate the album.

Troian Bellisario and Chris Pine are stepping out to promote their new movie!

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterMonday’s Met Gala red carpet was the highest-viewed ever for “Live From E!” when counting all platforms, Variety has learned exclusively.Per NBCU, “Live from E!: Met Gala” scored the biggest multiplatform-viewing for “Live from E!” in the brand’s history, drawing 444 million total multiplatform engagements across linear TV, digital and social views and social post responses via E! News handles and E! Online platforms.That’s up +146% from what “Live From E!” saw for last year’s Met Gala coverage and +390% from 2019. The Met Gala event wasn’t held in 2020 due to COVID-19.There were 151 million video minutes watched across platforms, up +68% from last year, according to E!.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“House of Gucci” and “Boardwalk Empire” star Jack Huston has joined AMC’s “Mayfair Witches” TV adaptation.Based on Rice’s “Lives of the Mayfair Witches” trilogy, AMC’s “Mayfair Witches” focuses on intuitive young neurosurgeon Dr. Rowan Fielding (Alexandra Daddario ) who discovers that she is the unlikely heir to a family of witches.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterHBO revealed a fiery “House of the Dragon” teaser trailer and nine character posters featuring the leads for the “Game of Thrones” prequel series Thursday.Set 200 years before the events of HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” the new series, premiering Aug. 21, tells the story of House Targaryen.Like its mother series, “House of the Dragon” has a large cast with a smaller core set of characters at the center of its story, including Paddy Considine (as King Viserys I), Emmy D’Arcy (as Princess Rhaenrya, Viserys’ first child and his heir apparent), Matt Smith (as Prince Daemon, Viserys’ younger brother), Rhys Ifans (as Ser Otto Hightower, the Hand of the King), Olivia Cooke (as Lady Alicent Hightower, Otto’s daughter), Fabien Frankel (as Ser Criston Cole, a knight with eyes for Rhaenrya), Steve Toussaint (as Lord Corlys Velaryon a.k.a.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterNetflix has ordered a docuseries from Shawn Levy, Vox Media Studios and The Verge about how technology will affect the basic aspects of our lives in the future, Variety has learned exclusively.Titled “The Future Of…,” the show asks: “What if we could look into the future to see how every aspect of our daily lives — from raising pets and house plants to what we eat and how we date — will be impacted by technology?” Per Netflix, “We can, and should, expect more from the future than the dystopia promised in current science fiction. ‘The Future Of…’ will reveal surprising and personal predictions about the rest of our lives — and the lives of generations to come.”The series will be released globally in two batches, with the first six episodes premiering Tuesday, June 21, and the remaining six episodes on Tuesday, June 28.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterPeacock ended the first quarter of the year with 28 million monthly active accounts (MAAs) and 13 million paid subscribers, Comcast revealed along with its Q1 earnings results Thursday.That total is up from the 24.5 million Comcast reported for the streamer’s end of 2021 figure. During Q1, Peacock streamed Super Bowl LVI and the Beijing Winter Olympics, along with debuting splashy titles like “Bel-Air,” its dramatic take on the ’90s classic “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” Jennifer Lopez’s theatrical-and-streaming release “Marry Me,” and “Tiger King” scripted series “Joe vs.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterCartoon Network Studios and NFL alumnus Trevor Pryce’s animation studio have teamed up on a content development deal designed to discover emerging creators and artists from underrepresented communities, Variety has learned exclusively.Pryce’s Mid-Atlantic-region-focused Outlook Company will host the initiative out of its recently formed animated projects incubator Neru Projects. The program will launch with six local participants who will have creative executives at Cartoon Network Studios and Neru Projects to shepherd their ideas from concept to pitch through the development of a series bible.Per Cartoon Network Studios, “At least one project will be selected to begin formal development at Cartoon Network Studios and Outlook Company but, through the program, all participants will learn how to collaborate with creative partners to develop and package their original animated series ideas.” The inaugural group for the development program includes these six individuals, who “represent diversity in race, gender, and age and will use their unique perspectives to shine a light on their homes, communities, and personal experiences through animation”:“Elevating original and diverse creative voices is one of our top priorities at Cartoon Network Studios,” Sam Register, president of Cartoon Network Studios and Warner Bros.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterNBCUniversal Television and Streaming has promoted Orit Blankrot to senior vice president of entertainment business and legal affairs, Variety has learned exclusively.In her new role, Blankrot, who most recently served as vice president of entertainment business and legal affairs for NBCU’s TV and streaming arm, has increased oversight of business and legal affairs for NBCUniversal’s syndication studios. This includes Stamford (Conn.) Media Center’s first-run programming, E! News and co-productions for distribution on both internal and external platforms.As SVP of the department, she will report to Inge Van Herle, the head of entertainment business and legal affairs for NBCUniversal Television and Streaming.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAfrican American-founded, faith-based channel Impact Network is making a big push into entertainment and lifestyle content with the ramping up of its Saturday programming slate, the hiring of a new chief creative officer and executive producer of original content, and the launch of a 6,000-foot production facility in Detroit with a music division, Variety has learned exclusively.The privately owned Impact Network has a reach of 80 million homes and distribution deals with DirecTV, Comcast Xfinity, Charter Spectrum, Verizon Fios, Frontier, Cable Bahamas, Cox and Altice USA. Founder and CEO Bishop Wayne T.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterHBO’s “House of the Dragon” cost under $20 million per episode to produce its 10-episode first season, which debuts Aug. 21, a source close to production told Variety.For comparison, “Game of Thrones” cost HBO around $100 million to per season.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“Abbott Elementary” got an A+ from ABC on its season finale, tripling its ratings with seven days of delayed viewing across DVRs, Hulu and other digital platforms, Variety has learned exclusively.The 9 o’clock on Tuesdays freshman comedy managed an initial 0.6 rating among adults 18-49 and 2.8 million total viewers for its April 12 finale, according to Live + Same Day data from Nielsen. Adding in a week of multiplatform viewing, the episode jumped 200% to a 1.8 rating, tying the show’s series high, and added 3.1 million viewers to reach 5.9 million total, per ABC.In looking at this same week-out metric, the “Abbott Elementary” finale’s key demo rating is up 50% from the show’s Dec.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterDiscovery+ is set to launch a new docuseries focused on Black food history in America from producer Viola Davis, featuring scholar and cookbook author Caroline Randall Williams as host, Variety has learned exclusively.The four-episode show, titled “Hungry for Answers,” will follow Williams as she travels the country, “uncovering the fascinating, essential, and often untold Black stories behind some of America’s classic and emblematic food and spirits,” per the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned streamer.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterThe finale of CNN+’s “Land of the Giants: Titans of Tech,” titled “The Netflix Effect,” launches Thursday, perfect timing for an entertainment industry that is both reeling amid Netflix’s shocking Q1 subscriber miss, poor second-quarter outlook and the wait to see if CNN+ can find its groove as quickly as it might need to in order to survive.Based on the “Land of the Giants” podcast from Vox Media’s Recode, the CNN+ docuseries explores the complicated histories of Meta (a.k.a. Facebook), Apple, Amazon, Google and now Netflix.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterWhip Media has hired Disney global integration and digital distribution operation’s strategy executive Artin Nazarian as vice president of global enterprise account management, Variety has learned exclusively.In his newly created role, Nazarian will develop and grow the company’s enterprise platform customer relationships worldwide, including focusing on strategy, product adoption and revenue.Whip brings Nazarian on board on the heels of  the commercial launch of the Whip Media Exchange, described by the company as “a first-of-its-kind global licensing and research platform for film and TV content.” Whip will model the product, along with the company’s CVM and CVMi platforms, at the 2022 NAB Show next week in Las Vegas. Prior to joining Whip, Nazarian spent nearly two decades at Disney, where he most recently served as head of global integration and digital distribution operation’s strategy.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“All Rise” has won the 2022 SeeHer Programming Award, which will be presented to the show’s new home channel Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) during the fourth annual SeeHer SheFront Tuesday, Variety has learned exclusively.The Simone Missick-led series is a courthouse drama that follows the lives of its judges, prosecutors, and public defenders, as they work with bailiffs, clerks and police to get justice for the people of Los Angeles amidst a flawed legal system. “All Rise,” which was canceled at CBS after two seasons last May and then revived by OWN in September, will debut its third season in June. OWN is airing the first two seasons ahead of the Season 3 premiere.Missick, who plays Judge Lola Carmichael, executive produces alongside showrunner Dee Harris-Lawrence, Michael M.