Wondery Hires Netflix and Apple Podcast Alum N’Jeri Eaton in Senior Role (EXCLUSIVE)

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Members of the Directors Guild of America have until Friday to vote on their new contract, and those contacted this week by Variety were overwhelmingly voting yes. In interviews, members noted the contract includes significant gains in residuals, creative rights, safety provisions and working hours. But several also indicated that they have no interest in compounding Hollywood’s labor strife. Most directors and below-the-line DGA members have been out of work since the Writers Guild of America strike began on May 2. “I’ve been around long enough that is a pretty good deal, and I’d like to get back to work,” said Matt Rebenkoff, who has worked as a first assistant director on “Don’t Look Up,” and “Jumanji: The Next Level.”

Sophia Scorziello editor Since 2006, the city of New York’s Made in NY Production Assistant Training Program has been an onramp to successful careers in TV and film production open to low-income New Yorkers across the five boroughs. A new study has measured the long-term return on that investment for the more than 1,100 people who have gone through the four-week program over the past 16 years. The study, commissioned by Brooklyn Workforce Innovations and Bloomberg Philanthropies, measured the impact of training program, which is a highly competitive intensive offered yearly to about 80 New Yorkers each year since its inception. The training program was birthed during Michael Bloomberg’s mayoral administration. Bloomberg Philanthropies has kept a close watch on it since the billionaire investor left office in 2013.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Harrison Ford is retiring from playing Indiana Jones after the upcoming “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” but that doesn’t mean Ford himself is leaving Hollywood behind. Far from it. During an upcoming interview on CNN and Max’s “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” (set to air and stream on June 23), Ford laughs at the idea of retiring from acting. Next month, he will turn 81 years old. When asked if he plans to retire, Ford replied, “I don’t. I don’t do well when I don’t have work. I love to work. I love to feel useful. It’s my jones. I want to be helpful” Why does Ford still have the acting bug as he gears up to turn 81 years old? “It is the people you get to work with,” he said. “The intensity and the intimacy of collaboration. It’s the combined ambition somehow forged from words on a page. I don’t plan what I want to do in a scene. I don’t feel obliged to do anything. I’m naturally affected by things that I work on.”

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Nearly 100 people were injured by “golf-ball sized” hail before a Louis Tomlinson concert scheduled for Wednesday night at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside Denver, the West Metro Fire Department told CNN. At least seven people were transported to area hospitals with “non-life-threatening” injuries, the fire department tweeted, with as many as 90 people treated at the venue for abrasions and broken bones. “I managed to hide where they were selling drinks and I used my backpack to protect myself and another girl,” one fan told CNN, saying she experienced minor injuries. The National Weather Service office in nearby Boulder issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the areas at around 9 p.m., noting the venue would be affected.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor High Fidelity Pictures and newly formed sister company Nuworx Productions are set to adapt Behzad Karim Khani’s bestselling novel “Hund, Wolf, Schakal” together with a yet-to-be-announced German broadcasting partner. Production for the series is due to start next year. The critically acclaimed novel tells the story of two very differently wired brothers who fled Iran with their father, and must now stand up for themselves on the streets of Berlin. The book received the Debut Prize at the Harbour Front Literature Festival, along with numerous positive reviews and was on the Shortlist of the Aspekte-Literature-Award.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The livestream for Netflix’s third annual Tudum fan event garnered 78 million views across all of the streamer’s social platforms Saturday, marking this version — presented in front of 11,000 people in São Paulo, Brazil — as up 86% in viewership from last year’s 41.8 million views, and more than 203% from 2021’s initial 25.7 million. Netflix likely didn’t set out to bring the in-person Tudum crowd to tears during the three-hour event — but once they started flowing, it was a fortunate side effect the streamer proudly displayed on social media. “I wish you could have been there to convey the electricity of the audience and capture those moments,” Netflix chief marketing officer Marian Lee told Variety Tuesday about the streamer’s first attempt at pulling off Tudum as a real-time presentation with an in-person audience, following two years of the virtual-version of the event. “We posted on Twitter crying fans in the audience because it was just like that sort of Beatles moment every time one of their favorites came on stage, there were just sobbing tears in the audience.”

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Francois de Brugada, the long-running boss of Banijay France, will be stepping down in September to lead FL Entertainment’s newly created division dedicated to live events. Named Banijay Events, the division will build on Banijay’s parent company FL Entertainment’s recent investment in The Independents, a global marketing and communications group for luxury and lifestyle brands, as well as Banijay’s acquisition of Balich Wonder Studio, the Italian entertainment group. FL Entertainment said Banijay will be able to seize opportunities within the live event industry as it “remains largely unconsolidated and has a business model very similar to that of content production and distribution.” Banijay reached €3.2 billion ($3.5 billion) in revenues for 2022.

Alison Herman TV Critic Every generation gets the aspirational workplace it deserves. In 2006, “The Devil Wears Prada” helped establish the archetype of an imperious, intimidating woman who rules her chic urban office with an iron fist; with its obvious Anna Wintour analog, the book-turned-film also doubled as a bookend to the era of the print magazine editor’s omnipotence. Eight years later, Sophia Amoruso coined the term “Girlboss,” a cutesy moniker that soon got a Netflix adaptation to match. Latter-day examples have updated the template to keep pace with the times: “Younger” took place in the wake of the Great Recession, when securing a dream job requires some deceit, while “The Bold Type” was proudly progressive — think 2010s Cosmo, not mid-aughts Vogue. In these stories, actual employment is less secure, but the employer acts less like a dictator than a stern, if nurturing, mentor.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic “Sorry to Bother You,” Boots Riley’s 2018 directorial debut, was a cultural event: It announced Riley, who’d already made a career as a politically minded rapper, as a sharp critic of contemporary capitalism who could pair his ideas with grabby, memorable imagery. The cascade of reveals and visual transformations toward the end of that film, too good to spoil for the uninitiated, worked brilliantly as spectacle and made Riley’s case too: Under our current system, we all end up becoming beasts of burden.  Riley returns with a larger canvas and new expressions of familiar concerns with “I’m a Virgo.” Like “Sorry to Bother You,” which addressed the problems of its telemarketer characters, this series merges the prosaic with the surreal. On “I’m a Virgo,” we follow a 13-foot-tall man trying to figure out where he fits into his community and into the ongoing struggle for a fairer future. As played by Jharrel Jerome (of “Moonlight” and an Emmy winner for “When They See Us”), the massive fellow known as Cootie is taciturn, shy — understandably out of place. To work out, he bench-presses an entire car; his aunt and uncle (Mike Epps and Carmen Ejogo), raising him in their Oakland home despite being people of more typical stature, fret over how much food it takes to keep their nephew alive.

Naman Ramachandran Respected British broadcaster Clive Myrie was removed at the last minute from presenting an edition of the BBC’s “News at Ten” last week, according to a report in the U.K.’s Times newspaper. Myrie was replaced by Jane Hill as the news bulletin presenter on June 16 because BBC chief content officer Charlotte Moore had impartiality concerns regarding the ruling Conservative party, per the Times. Earlier that evening, Myrie had hosted the BBC’s “Have I Got News For You,” a satirical comedy quiz show that grills celebrity contestants on the week’s top stories and news, where he made several jokes about former Prime Minister Boris Johnson who had been found guilty of deliberately misleading the U.K. parliament over the ‘partygate’ scandal.

Ryan Giggs' case was back in court ahead of a scheduled trial next month. The former Manchester United star did not attend the hearing at Manchester Crown Court on Thursday morning, as his attendance had been excused.

More than two-thirds of people eligible for the Disability Cost of Living payment have received their cash, according to figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

This Morning viewers were still left stunned when a detail about Dermot O'Leary was once again mentioned on the show. The presenter was back at the helm of the ITV daytime show on Thursday (June 22) alongside Holly Willoughby as they wound up a two-week stint hosting together.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor At least initially, Netflix’s broad password crackdown appears to be producing the streamer’s desired results in converting freeloaders into paying customers in the U.S., according to early data from research company Antenna. On May 23, Netflix began notifying U.S. customers that users on their accounts who live outside their households would need to be added as an “extra member” (or get their own subscriptions). Since then, Netflix has had the four single largest days of U.S. user sign-ups since January 2019, when Antenna first began tracking the metric. Based on the most current Antenna data available, Netflix saw average daily sign-ups reached 73,000 from May 25-28, a 102% increase from the prior 60-day average. That was more than the spikes in subscriber sign-ups Antenna recorded during the initial U.S. COVID-19 lockdowns in March and April 2020.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Twitch to creators: Oops, never mind. The Amazon-owned livestreaming platform on Wednesday revoked its new branded-content guidelines the day after putting them into place, following a backlash from creators. The changes, which were scheduled to be effective July 1, would have restricted the kinds of ads allowed on Twitch — completely banning “burned-in” (i.e., in-stream) video, audio and display ads on the platform and restricting on-screen logos to a maximum of 3% of the screen size. Twitch on Wednesday reversed course. “Yesterday, we released new Branded Content Guidelines that impacted your ability to work with sponsors to increase your income from streaming. These guidelines are bad for you and bad for Twitch, and we are removing them immediately,” Twitch said in a statement.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Reddit, the internet community discussion powerhouse, is cutting 90 jobs, laying off about 5% of its total employee base, as it restructure operations to position itself to break even in 2024. The job cuts were announced by Reddit CEO Steve Huffman in an email to staffers Tuesday. “We’ve had a solid first half of the year, and this restructuring will position us to carry that momentum into the second half and beyond,” Huffman wrote. Along with the layoffs, Reddit is reducing its hiring plans for the rest of 2023 to about 100 additional employees (previously it expected to hire 300). Reddit currently has around 2,000 employees worldwide.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor A software update for Apple TV devices coming this fall can turn customers’ big-screen TVs into videconferencing hubs with the addition of Apple’s FaceTime, and later Zoom and Webex. The tvOS 17 update, the next version of Apple’s operating system for Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD, also includes a feature called Enhance Dialogue, which promises to let users more clearly hear what is being said over the effects, action and music in a movie or TV show. The catch: It will work only on Apple TV 4K devices that are paired with Apple’s HomePod (second generation) smart speakers. In one handy new feature, tvOS 17 will let iPhone users locate the Apple TV’s Siri Remote if, say, it gets stuck between couch cushions or has fallen behind a cabinet. With the Apple TV remote inside the iPhone’s Control Center, an onscreen circle grows in size as users get closer to the misplaced remote.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Spotify is undertaking a “strategic realignment” of its podcast division, laying off about 200 staffers. Sahar Elhabashi, Spotify’s VP, head of podcast business, announced the job cuts in a memo to employees Monday that was shared publicly. The 200 employees represents about 2% of the audio streamer’s worldwide workforce. The layoffs come after Spotify cut 6% of its total headcount earlier this year and saw the exit of Dawn Ostroff, chief content and advertising business officer, who had previously headed Spotify’s podcast business “We are expanding our partnership efforts with leading podcasters from across the globe with a tailored approach optimized for each show and creator,” Elhabashi wrote. “This fundamental pivot from a more uniform proposition will allow us to support the creator community better. However, doing so requires adapting; over the past few months, our senior leadership team has worked closely with HR to determine the optimal organization for this next chapter. As a result, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to make a strategic realignment of our group and reduce our global podcast vertical and other functions by approximately 200 people, or 2% of Spotify’s workforce.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Not a bird or a plane — nope, it’s a new limited-time NFT-based movie marketing stunt from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. As physical disc sales have waned, Warner Bros. is trying to establish a new home-entertainment business model based on nonfungible tokens (NFTs), which verify ownership and authenticity of digital content. Customers can buy, sell and trade the NFTs in Warner Bros.’s online marketplace, powered by content blockchain technology provider Eluvio. Its newest NFT-based bundles are built around 1978’s “Superman: The Movie,” starring Christopher Reeve and directed by Richard Donner. The Superman Web3 Movie Experience is a multimedia NFT that includes the film in 4K Ultra HD format, plus extras like image galleries and artist renderings by notable DC artists. The studio is hoping to generate excitement among NFT enthusiasts and DC aficionados, to make money through the initial sales as well as to foster an engaged community of fans with the potential for longer-term upside.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Ella Irwin, after less than seven months as head of trust and safety at Elon Musk’s Twitter, has resigned from the company. Irwin confirmed to Reuters that she resigned but did not provide a reason for her exit. Earlier, Fortune reported that Irwin’s Slack account at Twitter appeared to have been deactivated. Neither Irwin nor Musk have publicly tweeted about her departure. An email to Twitter’s press account requesting comment returned an autoreply with a poop emoji. Attempts to contact Irwin were unsuccessful. As Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Irwin oversaw enforcement of its content moderation policies. Musk, a self-described “free-speech absolutist,” has eased some restrictions in Twitter’s content policies — and reinstated thousands of previously banned accounts. Third-party groups have criticized Twitter for apparent increases in instances of hate speech and lax policy enforcement since Musk assumed control; Musk has previously denied that an increase in hate speech on Twitter.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor In a symbolic rebuke of Netflix’s top executives, company shareholders voted against approving the compensation packages of leaders including co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters. At the streamer’s June 1 annual shareholders meeting, investors failed to approve the proposed exec pay packages for 2023. But the vote was a non-binding “say on pay” measure, meaning Netflix’s board can disregard the result. The vote came after the WGA had urged investors to vote against Netflix’s exec compensation measures in a letter Tuesday. “While investors have long taken issue with Netflix’s executive pay, the compensation structure is more egregious against the backdrop of the strike,” WGA West president Meredith Stiehm wrote in the letter to Netflix shareholders.