Industry leaders came out in force on Jan. 5 for the 82nd annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton. Unusually warm weather lifted spirits and made the bling on display even more sparkly as executives, movers and shakers schmoozed on the red carpet in advance of the first kudocast of 2025. Variety parent company […]

The room was overflowing with emotion, gratitude and appreciation Friday night as the Golden Globe Awards’ inaugural Golden Gala paid tribute to two singular and beloved stars, Ted Danson and Viola Davis. Danson took the audience at the Beverly Hilton through his journey as an actor as he accepted the Carol Burnett Award for his […]

UPDATED with new start time for the postponed Sugar Bowl. The Sugar Bowl, a college football tradition for 90 years, has been postponed for one day following the horrific attack on a crowd in New Orleans on New Year’s Day that left at least 10 people dead and more than 30 wounded. As law enforcement […]

If Charles Dolan had never taken an interest in media, other business leaders and entrepreneurs would have found a way to harness the power of technology and the arts to lay the foundation for the pay television marketplace. But Dolan got there first. The legendary founder of HBO and Cablevision, who died Dec. 28 at […]

Linda Lavin, star of CBS’ long-running sitcom “Alice” and a Tony winner for Neil Simon’s play “Broadway Bound” who remained active in TV and on stage, died Sunday. She was 87. A representative for Lavin confirmed the actress died unexpectedly Sunday due to complications from lung cancer that had been recently discovered. As recently as […]

Charles Dolan, a titan of the early cable industry who owned Cablevision, launched HBO and AMC Network and later branched out into iconic New York venues and sports teams, has died. He was 98. Dolan’s death was reported Saturday by Newsday, the Long Island newspaper owned by the Dolan family. Dolan’s influence in shaping the […]

Forty years ago, it was a big deal when Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton became the first female athlete to be featured on the front of a Wheaties cereal box, a consumer-culture laurel reserved for the highest achievers in sports. The Wheaties placement of today is to be part of a recurring national advertising campaign […]

A downtown Los Angeles building made famous as the setting of an album cover photo for the legendary rock band the Doors was heavily damaged after fire broke out Thursday morning. The building that was once home to a transient hotel known as the Morrison Hotel was the setting for cover photo for the band’s […]

As it turns out, more than just Americans were curious to check out live football games and a Beyoncé peformance on Netflix. The streamer’s big “NFL Christmas Gameday Live” stunt drew a broadcast network-level audience in the U.S., and it prompted subscribers in more than 200 countries to check out some part of the nearly […]

In May 2020, Pixar filmmakers invited me to collaborate with them as they began their work on “Inside Out 2.” They explained that in the sequel Riley would now be a teenager, and the action would begin with her “headquarters” being crashed by four new emotions, led by Anxiety. As a clinician focused on population-level […]

After two years of massive layoffs and the promise of more consolidation to come in media and entertainment in 2025, the mood is bleak among executives of a certain age. The pink-slip bloodbath has hit hard on Gen X veterans in the middle-management ranks of networks, studios, talent agencies and PR firms. And it’s come […]

About half of the Jewish characters depicted in scripted TV shows were played by Jewish actors, according to a study of portrayals of contemporary Judaism in TV released by the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center Media Impact Project. The “Jews on Screen” study conducted as part of the center’s Media Impact Project sought to examine […]

Back in June 2019, J.J. Abrams struck a massive overall deal that would keep him in the fold of Warner Bros., his home studio since 2006. The five-year pact, pegged at $500 million at the time, had a unique structure that allowed Abrams to draw from a significant pool of money to sign other writers […]