All posts tagged "netflix"

'Sesame Street' jumps to Netflix after Trump threatens PBS funding

After 56 years on PBS, Big Bird and friends are finding new life on Netflix following President Donald Trump's threat to pull the plug on publicly-funded media, according to The Wall Street Journal.

"The streaming giant has reached an agreement to broadcast new episodes of 'Sesame Street,' giving the beloved children’s show a home after Warner Bros. Discovery said it was stepping away from the program," the report said.

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Netflix plans to air 90 hours of previous episodes, while new episodes "will also air on PBS stations and PBS Kids the same day they debut on Netflix," the report said.

The Journal quoted Sesame Workshop saying the deal serves “as a unique public-private partnership to enable ‘Sesame Street’ to continue to help children everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder."

Trump signed an executive order at the beginning of the month to end "taxpayer subsidization of biased media."

Read The Wall Street Journal report here.

'Utterly tone deaf': Meghan McCain slams ex-royal Meghan Markle for Netflix trailer

Meghan McCain is slamming Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, for releasing the "highly curated, produced and out of touch" trailer to her new Netflix show during a time of turmoil.

Markle and husband Prince Harry, who famously quit British royal duties to live in the United States, have a $100 million deal with Netflix to produce programs through their company, Archwell Productions. Their current offering, called simply "Polo," received poor reviews and was dubbed "unintentionally hilarious" by the UK's The Guardian.

The aspirational show, called "With Love, Meghan," is set to be released Jan. 15.

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According to Forbes, "The nearly two-minute-long trailer released by Netflix on Thursday shows Markle wandering the rows of a meticulously kept garden, choosing fresh flowers, harvesting honey, kneading homemade bread and working in the kitchen with a lineup of famous friends."

McCain posted to X on Friday:

"I was originally a Meghan Markle supporter, I thought she was cool, stylish and refreshing. Like the rest of the world my opinion changed when she disrespected the royal family. Now that she wants to be American again instead of British aristocracy what she seems to forget is Americans want real, raw, uncensored. All of this even in the trailer is highly curated, produced and out of touch. There have been 2 terror attacks in 2 days, major wars raging and Americans can’t pay for groceries. We are a country in rage, uncertainty and intensity right now. This concept is ill advised. I would have told her to do a show helping bring fresh food to food deserts in low income neighborhoods. Do something to help people instead of your ego. This is why the world doesn’t like you, nothing else. Just completely and utterly tone deaf to the moment."

The "lifestyle series" was first announced by Netflix in April. It followed the launch of Markle's lifestyle brand called "American Riviera Orchard," which, according to Forbes, "has yet to produce any content or products."

‘Tiger King’ Joe Exotic cashed in on book, toy deals, but still owes Carole Baskin: presidential docs

“Tiger King”-star-turned-presidential-candidate Joe Exotic is earning income in creative ways while in prison — despite facing a hefty liability from his big cat rescue foe Carole Baskin, according to a new federal financial disclosure filing.

Exotic — real name Joseph Maldonado — reported just one liability on his disclosure report, a requirement for all presidential candidates: a “$814,465 judgment from “Big Cat Rescue (Carole Baskin).”

Maldonado is in federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, serving a 21-year sentence for two counts of murder-for-hire related to alleged plans to kill Baskin, along with 17 other crimes, including violations of a law prohibiting illegal wildlife trading.

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Baskin and Maldonado’s animosity toward each other as rivals in the big cat rescue industry was the center of the Netflix documentary, “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness,” that was a cultural touchpoint in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite serving a lengthy prison sentence, Maldonado is bringing in some income from diverse sources, ranging from a book advance to toy payments and music royalties.

The average hourly prison wage is 52 cents per hour, The Marshall Project reported.

Maldonado reported a $35,000 advance from Simon & Schuster for a book payment, a $5,000 advance from a contract with Wilder Toys and $2,000 payment for an NFT promotion from a contract with E&J Holdings.

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Plus, he’s earned $11,197 in royalties from SoSouth Music Publishing, $3,150 in podcast and interview stipends and $1,017 from Facebook views, according to the filing.

Maldonado is running for president as an ultra-long-shot Democratic candidate against President Joe Biden, environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and author Marianne Williamson — a field that’s a fraction of the size of the Republican race, which former President Donald Trump leads despite his own legal issues.

Maldonado’s campaign, Joseph Maldonado to Free America, reported raising $10,294.10 with $1,764.49 cash on hand as of June 30, after spending most of the funds on campaign merchandise, according to the Maldonado campaign’s most recent financial filing with the Federal Election Commission.

Maldonado's press secretary, Michael Robison, was not immediately available for comment.


What does Roger Stone think of Trump’s indictment? He has a T-shirt for that.

What’s Roger Stone think of former President Donald Trump’s pending indictment?

While he didn’t pick up his phone when Raw Story rang, the informal – if powerful in ways we’ll never fully knowTrump adviser texted back.

“Here is my comment,” Stone wrote, attaching a black-and-white photo of a “DONALD TRUMP DID NOTHING WRONG!” T-shirt.

Image sent to Raw Story by Roger Stone.

Trump and Stone are united in their legal troubles, which lately overlap.

Stone is unabashedly one of the most notorious, morally-dubious and unflinching (even while under court-ordered gag rules) political provocateurs in American political history. Netflix gave him a documentary – “Get Me Roger Stone” – before a Florida judge gave him a three year prison sentence for lying to Congress and threatening a witness, among other Stone-ian charges.


Trump didn’t like the thought of his favorite fixer locked up, so he publicly lashed out at his own Justice Department. That led to an unheard of televised rebuke from the nation’s top lawyer, his own attorney general, William Barr.

Trump wasn’t having that, either. Over protests from Barr and other lawyers, the former president commuted Stone’s sentence mere days before he was slated to head to the slammer. Trump then pardoned Stone about a month before leaving the White House


With no prison sentence to serve, Stone was free to help plan Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021.

The U.S. House’s select Jan. 6 committee viewed Stone – and his posse of Proud Boys – as playing a particularly venomous role in the biggest attack on American democracy since President Richard Nixon put himself above the law.

In Stone’s eyes, Nixon’s mistake was resigning. Perhaps if he had whipped up some “Nixon did nothing wrong!” tees, American politics would have been different decades ago. Just the way Stone seems to like it — embers, ashes and all.

Netflix subscribers at record high, password crackdown coming

Netflix says its new ad-subsidized subscription tier is starting out better than expected, and that it will begin a broad rollout of paid plans for people who share passwords with other households

San Francisco (AFP) - Netflix on Tuesday said that its number of subscribers hit a record high 232.5 million in the first quarter of the year and that its nascent ad-supported tier was faring well.

The streaming television giant reported a quarterly profit of $1.3 billion, in line with expectations, but said it had delayed a broad crackdown on sharing of account passwords "to improve the experience for members."

Netflix said it expects to begin rolling out its options for paid password sharing this quarter instead.

"It's clear that the company wants to manage any fallout from the new strategy," said Third Bridge analyst Jamie Lumley.

That means some membership and revenue benefits resulting from the move were postponed, Netflix said in a letter to shareholders.

Netflix has dabbled with "borrower" or "shared" accounts in a few markets, but plans to roll them out in the United States and elsewhere this month, co-chief executive Greg Peters said in a streamed earnings interview.

Netflix said it is taking time to make sure subscribers have seamless access to the service away from home or on various devices such as tablets, TVs or smartphones.

"We learned from this last set of launches about some improvements we can do," Peters said.

"It was better to take a little bit of extra time to incorporate those learnings and make this transition as smooth as possible for members."

And while a new ad-subsidized subscription tier at Netflix is in its early days, engagement is above initial expectations and Netflix has seen "very little switching from our standard and premium plans."

Market tracker Insider Intelligence forecast that Netflix will bring in $770 million in ad revenue from the new tier this year, and that revenue figure will top $1 billion next year.

As growth at Netflix cooled last year, the Silicon Valley based streaming company focused on creating a lower priced subscription tier with advertising.

Netflix also set out to nudge people watching for free with shared passwords to begin paying for the service without alienating subscribers.

"This account sharing initiative helps us have a larger base of potential paying members and grow Netflix long term," said co-chief executive Ted Sarandos.

Future of TV

For the first time ever, US adults will spend more time this year watching digital video on platforms such as Netflix, TikTok and YouTube than viewing traditional television, Insider Intelligence has forecast.

The market tracker expects "linear TV" to account for less than half of daily viewing for the first time ever.

"This milestone is driven by people spending more and more time watching video on their biggest and smallest screens, whether it's an immersive drama on a connected TV or a viral clip on a smartphone," Insider Intelligence principal analyst Paul Verna said in a release.

Netflix and YouTube are "neck and neck" leaders when it comes to digital video audience attention, according to Insider Intelligence.

Netflix planned to continue spending about $17 billion annually on shows and films, with that amount perhaps climbing after next year.

"Netflix subscriber growth shows that the streaming wars are still on," said analyst Lumley.

"The company is ahead of where it was this time last year but still clearly facing the pressure from all the players in this crowded space."

Pro-life Carly Fiorina objects to paid maternity leave

The reproductive rights of women in the U.S. are currently under attack by the same "pro-lifers" who are the most vociferous against policies that help babies and new mothers.

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