Last week, Apple TV users reported issues with HBO Max refusing to rewind, fast-forward, or pause content. According to The A.V. Club, the issue is still ongoing. From the report: Strangely enough, HBO Max's customer service Twitter account acknowledged the issue on June 4. They wrote to a Twitter user, "We're aware of this issue with our app on Apple TV and our team is working to find a solution as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience while we sort this out." HBO says "fixes coming," according to The Verge. Yesterday, the site's editor-in-chief tweeted about the issue to HBO Max's executive vice president and general manager Andy Forssell, who tweeted, "First priority is to deliver for users in addressing the issues, but in parallel we will also dive deep into that question." As of now, though, the company is still charging users for an app that won't let you rewind, say, that scene from Dumb & Dumber where Harry has diarrhea. This leads us to ask, where's the money going?

Google's Stadia is heading to new devices. On Monday the search giant announced that it will begin rolling out the cloud-based video game service to its Chromecast with Google TV streaming stick as well as a handful of other Android TV-powered televisions and devices on June 23. From a report: Those devices include: Hisense U7G, U8G and U9G Android TVs, Nvidia Shield TV and Shield TV Pro, Walmart's Onn FHD Streaming Stick and UHD Streaming Device, Philips 8215, 8505 and OLED 935/805 Android TVs, and Xiaomi Mi Box 3 and Mi Box 4.

Samsung is killing the first-generation SmartThings Hub at the end of the month, kicking off phase two of its plan to shut down the SmartThings ecosystem and force users over to in-house Samsung infrastructure. "Phase one was in October, when Samsung killed the Classic SmartThings app and replaced it with a byzantine disaster of an app that it developed in house," writes Ars Technica's Ron Amadeo. "Phase three will see the shutdown of the SmartThings Groovy IDE, an excellent feature that lets members of the community develop SmartThings device handlers and complicated automation apps." From the report: The SmartThings Hub is basically a Wi-Fi access point -- but for your smart home stuff instead of your phones and laptops. Instead of Wi-Fi, SmartThings is the access point for a Zigbee and Z-Wave network, two ultra low-power mesh networks used by smart home devices. [...] The Hub connects your smart home network to the Internet, giving you access to a control app and connecting to other services like your favorite voice assistant. You might think that killing the old Hub could be a ploy to sell more hardware, but Samsung -- a hardware company -- is actually no longer interested in making SmartThings hardware. The company passed manufacturing for the latest "SmartThings Hub (v3)" to German Internet-of-things company Aeotec. The new Hub is normally $125, but Samsung is offering existing users a dirt-cheat $35 upgrade price.

For users who have to buy a new hub, migrating between hubs in the SmartThings ecosystem is a nightmare. Samsung doesn't provide any kind of migration program, so you have to unpair every single individual smart device from your old hub to pair it to the new one. This means you'll need to perform some kind of task on every light switch, bulb, outlet, and sensor, and you'll have to do the same for any other smart thing you've bought over the years. Doing this on each device is a hassle that usually involves finding the manual to look up the secret "exclusion" input, which is often some arcane Konami code. Picture holding the top button on a paddle light for seven seconds until a status light starts blinking and then opening up the SmartThings app to unpair it. Samsung is also killing the "SmartThings Link for Nvidia Shield" dongle, which let users turn Android TV devices into SmartThings Hubs.

Catalin Cimpanu, reporting at Record: Live streams for radio and TV stations owned by the Cox Media Group, one of the largest media conglomerates in the US, have gone down earlier today in what multiple sources have described as a ransomware attack. The incident took place earlier this morning and impacted live streaming capabilities for the Cox radio and TV stations. Official websites, telephone lines, and other IT systems remained running. While live streams for most of the impacted TV stations have now returned online, most of the Cox radio streams are still offline at the time of writing.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Dismissed by critics and devoured by fans, "Transformers: Age of Extinction" was the top box office film in 2014, bringing in $1.1 billion, with more than three-quarters of those dollars coming from overseas. ViacomCBS's Paramount Pictures, which distributed the computer animated action-fest, saved much of that money by licensing the international rights through a complex strategy designed to avoid paying U.S. taxes, according to a study published on Tuesday by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations, a nonprofit group funded in part by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It is common practice for multinational corporations to take advantage of tax shelters. The report offers a rare look at how one company has pulled it off. ViacomCBS, a media giant that came into being after the 2019 merger of the sibling companies, has used the same strategy for all its entertainment properties, according to the report. Since 2002, ViacomCBS and its predecessor companies Viacom and CBS together avoided paying $3.96 billion in U.S. corporate income tax through a system that involved subsidiaries in Barbados, the Bahamas, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Britain, according to the report. Much of the $30 billion in non-U.S. royalty revenue brought in by the company's film and TV franchises, such as "SpongeBob," "Star Trek" and "Mission: Impossible," has not been subject to corporate taxes, the study determined.

The American Forces Network is a U.S. government TV and radio broadcast service provided by the military for overseas personnel. But there's an interesting quirk. As an official Department of Defense product, it's not allowed to run ads or even mention commercial products, according to Stars and Stripes. "Instead, it lets commanders put out messages about force protection, weather, current events and base services."

And that's where things get creative...

Killer vending machines, security-conscious hamsters and a roommate who devolves into a caveman. These are some of the memorable features of Garry Terrell's vast collection of military-grade videos from the American Forces Network and its predecessor, the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. The son of a former U.S. soldier, Terrell is trying to preserve "all things AFN/AFRTS," and boasts over 3,600 videos on the YouTube channel AFRTSfan. He began his collection nearly three decades ago, after learning that little had been done to save the many AFN spots that serve as a touchstone for troops and military families who've lived overseas.

The military-made productions fill what would normally be ad time in broadcasts back home... Because they're broadcast across various theaters, the ads served as "kind of like this bonding thing" for kids' friend groups frequently reshaped by duty station changes, said Sabine Brown, an airman's daughter who grew up in Germany in the 80s and 90s. For Terrell, whose mother is German, "it was just my local TV and radio provider" growing up on the bases where his father served as a career U.S. soldier in the 70s and 80s. He took it for granted until the early 90s Base Realignment and Closure process threatened to shutter bases he'd grown up on.

"Fearing that AFN might also go away, I decided to try and collect some AFN radio and TV items to add to my ever-growing memory book of Germany," he said in an email. "I felt like I was in a race against time."

He began contacting and befriending AFN staff and alumni, growing his collection through contributions from his expanding network of AFN insiders and "superfans." He started sharing this burgeoning library on YouTube over a decade ago, creating something of a time capsule, with spots that run the gamut from cringe-inducing, silly or lame to fun, brilliant and truly memorable.
The article notes that the videos once were even affectionately lampooned in a duet by two folk-singing Air Force pilots — which apparently remembers, among other things, the AFN ad illustrating the importance of the power-of-attorney by re-dubbing an old Hercules movie.

Who wants to be an astronaut? If the answer is you, there's a reality TV show, appropriately titled "Who Wants to Be an Astronaut?", that you ought to apply for. From a report: The Discovery Channel is seeking to cast about 10 would-be astronauts to compete during the series' eight-episode run next year for a seat on a real-life trip to the International Space Station, followed by live coverage of the launch of the winner on a SpaceX rocket. "We'd like a diverse group of people that each have their own story, why they want to go to space, why they're worthy of going to space, what their back story is," said Jay Peterson, president of Boat Rocker Studios, Unscripted, one of the companies producing the show for Discovery. That person will not be the only amateur astronaut destined for the space station next year. So many tourism and entertainment efforts are preparing trips there that it could begin to look more like a soundstage for television shows and a hotel for the wealthy than an orbiting research laboratory.

Many who work in the business of space believe that is a good thing, even if trips to orbit will remain out of reach of all but the wealthiest passengers in the near term. "This is a real inflection point, I think, with human spaceflight," Phil McAlister, NASA's director of commercial spaceflight development, said during a news conference this month announcing that the agency had signed an agreement with Axiom Space, a Houston-based company, to fly the first mission of private astronauts to the space station. "I'm very bullish on the tourism market and the tourism activity," Mr. McAlister said. "I think more people that are going to fly, they're going to want to do more things in space." Although the International Space Station may stay up in orbit at least until 2028, in the future it will not be only space station. Russian space authorities last month declared their intention to leave the I.S.S. in the coming years and build a station of their own. A Chinese orbital outpost is expected to come online in the next year or two.

James Bond has a new home: Amazon and MGM announced a definitive merger agreement under which Amazon will acquire MGM for $8.45 billion. From a report: MGM, founded in 1924, complements Amazon Studios, which has primarily focused on producing TV programming, the companies said. Amazon will help "preserve MGM's heritage and catalog of films," and provide customers with greater access to these existing works, the companies said. For Amazon, snapping up MGM -- which has more than 4,000 movies and 17,000 TV shows in its catalog -- is a way to supercharge its Prime Video service with a slew of well-known entertainment properties. In addition, Amazon is anticipating being able to tap into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer properties like the Pink Panther, Rocky, and, yes, the 007 franchises for new originals.

"The real financial value behind this deal is the treasure trove of [intellectual property] in the deep catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with MGM's talented team," Mike Hopkins, senior VP of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, said in announcing the deal. "It's very exciting and provides so many opportunities for high-quality storytelling." Hopkins noted that MGM productions collectively have won more than 180 Oscars and 100 Emmys. The studio has roughly 800 employees globally.

The Telegraph reports: Video-sharing platform YouTube has announced changes in its terms of services, which confer the company the right to monetise all content on its platform by placing advertisements along its videos from channels that are not covered by its partner programme. From June onwards, content created by those who have not enrolled for the YouTube partner programme will also run advertisements curated by YouTube.

The creators/uploaders will not earn any revenue from these promotions...

"You grant YouTube the right to monetise your content on the service (and such monetisation may include displaying ads on or within content or charging users a fee for access)," said the updated terms of service. "This agreement does not entitle you to any payments...." This was already in effect in the U.S. from November last year and will now be extended across other geographies effective from June. According to industry observers, the change in terms of service is motivated by the fast growing revenue channels from YouTube advertisements. For the March quarter of 2021, Alphabet, Google's parent, earned a revenue of $6 billion from YouTube advertising, posting a year on year growth of 49 per cent...

Philipp Schindler, senior vice president and chief business officer, Google explained to the analysts on what is driving such growth... "Advertisers are using YouTube now to reach the audiences they can't find anywhere else. And remember, more 18-to-49-year-olds are actually watching YouTube than all linear TV combined...." According to official figures, over 2 billion logged in users visit YouTube every month and every day people watch over a billion hours of video on the platform...

"Today there are two models in place - either the subscriber pays or the advertiser pays. It is inevitable that all platforms will follow one or the other and viewers and content creators have to accept that," said a media and entertainment industry analyst requesting anonymity.
YouTube reminds users that its Terms of Service also "already state that you cannot collect any information that might identify a person without their permission. While this has always included facial recognition information, the new Terms make that explicitly clear."

Rotten Tomatoes is continuing on its quest to grow into something substantially bigger than its Tomatometer movie and TV rating scores. From a report: The website -- owned by NBCUniversal's Fandango -- expands its entertainment footprint with the launch of The Rotten Tomatoes Channel, a new over-the-top streaming service that will initially debut on on The Roku Channel. The OTT service will then come to NBCU's Peacock platform and Comcast-owned Xumo, with other distribution deals in the works including with internet pay-TV providers, according to Fandango. The first 24-hour linear video channel from Rotten Tomatoes will loop about 100 hours of premium programming around the clock on the channel, culled from RT's stable or original shows.

With the launch of The Rotten Tomatoes Channel, Fandango wants to expand its audience reach and provide new entry-points into the entire Fandango ecosystem (i.e., to push movie tickets and digital sales or rentals). Some of the shows on The Rotten Tomatoes Channel will include "Countdown," a show discussing the best upcoming movies and shows according to the Tomatometer and panelists; "The Vault," a nostalgic look back at star interviews, red carpet chats, games and more from the Rotten Tomatoes archives; "Trailers Reloaded," recapping the biggest movies and shows with an extensive collection of trailers; and "Rotten Tomatoes Essentials," a look back at movies, shows, stars and directors that defined genres and eras.

AT&T has agreed to spin off its media operations in a deal with Discovery that will create a new entertainment company, merging assets ranging from CNN and HBO to HGTV and the Food Network. From a report: AT&T will receive $43 billion in cash, debt securities and debt retention, with AT&T shareholders getting stock representing 71% of the new company, the companies said in a statement Monday. The deal is structured as a tax-advantaged Reverse Morris Trust. Discovery Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav is to lead the new entity. WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar's future is to be determined, AT&T CEO John Stankey said on a conference call discussing the deal. The plan, first reported by Bloomberg News, would combine Discovery's reality-TV empire with AT&T's vast media holdings, creating a formidable competitor to Netflix and Walt Disney. It marks a retreat for AT&T's entertainment-industry ambitions after years of working to assemble telecom and media assets under one roof. AT&T, now the world's most heavily indebted nonfinancial company, gained some of the biggest brands in entertainment through its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, completed in 2018. Further reading: Jason Kilar, the WarnerMedia chief, is said to be negotiating his exit.

In Vizio's first public earnings report today, the company revealed that in the first three months of 2021, profits from its Platform+ business -- the part that sells viewer data and advertising space via the SmartCast platform -- were $38.4 million. Engadget reports: As execs said on the call, the company continues to court relationships with brands and agencies, following the same plan laid out six years ago with a business built on its Inscape Automated Content Recognition tech. Its device business (the part that sells TVs, sound bars and the like) had a gross profit of $48.2 million in the same period, up from $32.5 million last year. While the hardware business has significantly more revenue, profits from data and advertising spiked 152 percent from last year, and are quickly catching up.

Vizio did say that hardware profits were affected by products getting stuck at ports due to a shipping glut that has impacted many companies over the last year, buts forecast is that Platform+ revenue and profit will continue to grow in Q2, as device profit margins "trend toward the single digits." Vizio said it now has 13.4 million active SmartCast accounts, with viewers spending 52 percent of their viewing time on SmartCast inputs (the built-in apps, or casting from another device). 34 percent of viewing time went to linear TV, with 7 percent for game consoles or over the top devices. If you have a Vizio TV, you can opt out of anonymized tracking by following these steps.

Chinese television maker Skyworth has issued an apology after a consumer found that his set was quietly collecting a wide range of private data and sending it to a Beijing-based analytics company without his consent. From a report: A network traffic analysis revealed that a Skyworth smart TV scanned for other devices connected to the same local network every 10 minutes and gathered data that included device names, IP addresses, network latency and even the names of other Wi-Fi networks within range, according to a post last week on the Chinese developer forum V2EX. The data was sent to the Beijing-based firm Gozen Data, the forum user said. Gozen is a data analytics company that specialises in targeted advertising on smart TVs, and it calls itself Chinaâs first "home marketing company empowered by big data centred on family data."

The user did not identify himself, and efforts to contact the person received no reply. However, the post quickly picked up steam, touching a nerve among Chinese consumers and prompting angry comments. "Isn't this already the criminal offence of spying on people?" asked one user on Sina.com, a Chinese financial news portal. "Whom will the collected data be sold to, and who is the end user of this data?"

NBC News reports on what exactly happened during Elon Musk's appearance on Saturday Night Live — starting with a surprisingly personal monologue: "I don't always have a lot of intonation or variation in how I speak," Musk said, "which I'm told makes for great comedy." He admitted he's socially awkward and said he was the first person with Asperger syndrome to host the show — "or at least the first to admit it."

"I know I sometimes say or post strange things but that's just how my brain works," Musk, 49, said. "I reinvented electric cars and I'm sending people to Mars on a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?"
ET Canada notes that Twitter users later pointed out that former SNL castmember (and later episode host) Dan Aykroyd has also said he was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. But NBC notes that Saturday's show was focused on the interests and eccentricities of Elon Musk. His mother, Maye Musk, appeared as part of the show's pre-celebration of Mother's Day. "I'm excited for my Mother's Day gift," she said, before mentioning a form of cryptocurrency hyped by her son. "I just hope it's not Dogecoin."

"It is," said Musk, a big investor in the cryptocurrency...
And later in a skit with Michael Che, Musk had also played a fictional cryptocurrency expert who's asked repeatedly to explain Dogecoin. "It actually started as a joke based on an internet meme but now it's taken over in a very real way," Musk said. "It's the future of currency." Asked again by Che, he said, "I keep telling you, it's a cryptocurrency you can trade for conventional money."

"Oh," Che said. "So it's a hustle."

"Yeah," Musk said, "it's a hustle...."

Dogecoin tracker Darren Rovell tweeted that the cryptocurrency had, at one point, lost $30 billion in value during the show.
In fact, by early Sunday Dogecoin was down 40%, trading as low as 44 cents, reports CNN: It's unclear what was driving the dogecoin selloff. Perhaps investors wanted Musk to say something more supportive of the cryptocurrency. But more likely, there was some "buy the rumor / sell the news" strategy, trying to capitalize on investors' predictions coming true by selling high. Dogecoin traded so actively that Robinhood announced early Sunday morning it was having issues processing crypto trades and was working to resolve the problem.

This afternoon Elon Musk tweeted a special URL allowing viewers outside the U.S. to simultaenously livestream his 90-minute appearance on Saturday Night Live for the first time in more than 100 countries, starting at 11:30 p.m. EST. The A.V. Club had a sardonic reaction to the livestreaming on YouTube: Good news for anyone looking at tonight's upcoming broadcast of Saturday Night Live — in which labor-busting vaccine skeptic Elon Musk will be given a platform to broadcast his techno-dystopian brain contents to the world — and thought, "Wow, there's not enough Google involved here." Well, not anymore.
Musk has already appeared in a two promos for the show. (Though CNN quips that the tonight's live show means NBC is "relying on Musk to filter his thoughts in real time, despite little evidence, historically, of him holding back on just about anything he wants to say — even when under scrutiny by federal regulators.") And the rest of the world is getting ready too. While Tesla brought the Cybertruck prototype to its New York City store, Lucid Air made plans to broadcast an ad for its coming 500-mile-range electric car that will compete with cars from Musk's Tesla.

Meanwhile, Bleeping Computer reports that Twitter scammers have been hacking into verified Twitter accounts and changing the profiles to impersonate SNL's, then replying to Musk's tweets with URL's lead to cryptocurrency giveaway scams. "We have determined that the scammers have made at least $97,054.62 over the past two days. The Ethereum giveaway scams also earned them $13,758." And the Dogecoin scammers netted at least $42,456.

And this week Slate also noted a spike in the price of Dogecoin. The joke cryptocurrency based on a shiba inu meme is up — uh, let me check — about 20 percent since this time Tuesday, has just about doubled in price since April 27, and as of this moment is up about 26,000 percent for the year (lol). It's trading around 64 cents as I type this... [I]t's probably not worth overthinking this. We're living in the stonks era. Elon is going on a sketch comedy show and is hinting that he might bring up a dumb digital token that everyone finds inherently funny. Now CNBC is hauling on experts to illuminate what the hell is going on, and members of the financial media are having to write earnest explainers about why you should invest in the dog money with caution, as if a single sane person would think otherwise.

What makes the whole rally uniquely amusing, compared with, say, the rise of Bitcoin, is that it's a willfully dumb affront not just to traditional finance, but also to the broader crypto community — which has, shall we say, mixed feelings about Dogecoin, mostly because they think it makes their project, which they tend to treat with self-righteous seriousness, look very silly... Dogecoin is the, well, underdog of the crypto world, the currency that was looked down upon by much of the Bitcoin- and Ethereum-boosting elite. Except now it has an $82 billion market cap. The dogecoiners — basically the sweet, dumb, bong-ripping frat of the crypto world — find all this hilarious.
So what will happen tonight? Ultimately castmember Michael Che, who co-hosts the show's parody newscast segment Weekend Update, joked that while some of the show's performers objected to Musk's appearance, he saw the selection of Musk as both "polarizing" and "exciting."

"You know, what's funny is that I would say I know about 20 to 25% of the white people that get to host the show anyway. So Elon, I was like, 'Oh, I know who he is at least.'"

Share your own reactions in the comments.

From Now is one of the most popular sci-fi podcasts on the market that is now being turned into a TV series, thanks to Amazon Studios. Engadget reports: From Now, which debuted in December, stars Richard Madden (Game of Thrones, Marvel's Eternals) and Brian Cox (Succession) as identical twins separated by time. Madden plays astronaut Edward Fitz, whose spacecraft unexpectedly shows up in Earth's orbit after disappearing 35 years previously. The story deals with the aftermath of the brothers' reunion, with Edward appearing to be the same age as when he left and his twin now an old man. From Now shot up to number two in the overall Apple Podcast charts.

From Now creators Rhys Wakefield and William Day Frank, are adapting the podcast for TV. It's unclear whether Madden and Cox will reprise their roles, but they'll act as executive producers. Madden is already working with Amazon. He's currently filming Citadel, an ambitious-sounding Prime Video spy series from the Russo brothers.

A week after their broken-down negotiations spilled into the public, Google and Roku still haven't been able to reach a deal to renew YouTube TV's presence on the huge streaming platform. But Google has come up with a workaround in the meantime: it's going to let people access YouTube TV directly from the main YouTube app. From a report: YouTube users will start seeing a "Go to YouTube TV" option in the main YouTube app over the next few days. When they select that, they'll then be switched over to the standard YouTube TV user experience. This option is coming to Roku devices first -- where it's currently most needed -- but will also come to YouTube on other platforms as well. [...] Google also said today that it's "in ongoing, long-term conversations with Roku to certify that new devices meet our technical requirements," yet more confirmation that the company is insisting hardware makers implement support for AV1 decoding

Nintendo's worst-selling home console, the Wii U, continues to be the source for some of its biggest hits on the record-setting Nintendo Switch. From a report: With the Switch, Nintendo is putting on a clinic about how to turn prior failure into fortune as it repurposes games from the disastrous Wii U and tries selling them again on its newer hit device. The latest example of this salvaged success is the Switch's "Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury," which sold 5.6 million copies in its first seven weeks of release this year, according to new Nintendo financial data. Compare that seven week total to the just over seven-year total of 5.9 million copies sold of 2013's "Super Mario 3D World" for Wii U. The newer Switch game is basically the old game with a fun bonus adventure. The Wii U was a disaster even by Nintendo's usual cycles of occasional struggle and phenomenal fortunes. The 2012 successor to the popular Wii (remember swinging that controller?) bombed, with just 13.6 million units sold lifetime. Its big innovation: a home console with a controller that contained a screen, allowing players to keep playing their games using that screen when others needed the TV. But people didn't care and it was discontinued by early 2017.

Custom TV show playlists? In memoriam pages? They're all things that Netflix is weighing for "N-Plus," a project it describes as a "future online space where you can learn more about the Netflix shows and things related to them." From a report: In a survey sent to users, including Protocol reporter Biz Carson, Netflix queried people about a wide range of features and content, including podcasts, user-generated playlists, how-tos and more. "N-Plus is a future online space where you can learn more about the Netflix shows you love and anything related to them," the survey said. Contacted by Protocol, a Netflix spokesperson said that the survey was part of regular efforts to poll its audience on things the company was exploring, but said that it didn't have anything further to share for now. Netflix has long produced behind-the-scenes interviews, podcasts and other supporting content to promote its originals, and shared it through YouTube, Instagram and other platforms; examples for this include its Netflix Family Instagram account or Strong Black Lead Twitter following. The survey now suggests that the company may double down on those promotional efforts, while also adding some additional social features.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: There remains "little association" between technology use and mental-health problems, a study of more than 430,000 10 to 15-year-olds suggests. The Oxford Internet Institute compared TV viewing, social-media and device use with feelings of depression, suicidal tendencies and behavioral problems. It found a small drop in association between depression and social-media use and TV viewing, from 1991 to 2019. There was a small rise in that between emotional issues and social-media use. "We couldn't tell the difference between social-media impact and mental health in 2010 and 2019," study co-author Prof Andrew Przybylski. said. "We're not saying that fewer happy people use more social media. We're saying that the connection is not getting stronger." The paper is published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science.