15 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Streaming

Established streaming industry leaders like Netflix and Amazon are facing more competition than ever. Now legacy entertainment giants are in the game with their own subscription services, like Peacock, HBO Max, Paramount Plus, and the Disney Plus / Hulu / ESPN Plus bundle, while Apple TV Plus attacks around the edges. Meanwhile, the rise of ad-supported free platforms like Roku Channel and Pluto TV has attracted enough attention that Plex, YouTube, and Amazon’s Freevee are trying to get a chunk of the action too.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Chair Company opens for business next month.

When HBO’s new comedy The Chair Company premieres on October 12th, William Ronald Trosper (Tim Robinson) will set out to discover the truth behind “a far-reaching conspiracy” that has him questioning everything about his life.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The bells are tolling for Benoit Blanc.

Nobody wants to fess up to murder in the latest teaser for Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, but Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc knows that there’s a killer in his midst — one whose identity will be revealed when the film hits theaters on November 26th.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Scott Hanson explains the new ads on NFL RedZone.

There’s been a backlash to the news that RedZone’s “commercial-free football” promise is coming to an end, but the host explained on X that the new ads shouldn’t be too intrusive with a few points, matching an earlier report by Front Office Sports:

  • The 4 total commercials tomorrow will be :15 seconds and in a double box, in between plays. *none* during the Witching Hour.
  • Adding commercials was not a Disney / espn decision.
  • Opening catch phrase will change - (you & I will have to get used to it together.)
Kevin Nguyen
Kevin Nguyen
NFL RedZone becomes AdZone.

Every Sunday, you can watch seven uninterrupted hours of NFL football via RedZone, a program that cuts to the every game that features a team within scoring distance. Not only could you get a glimpse at out-of-market matchups but RedZone also cut away during ad breaks, sparing you from spots hawking beer, gambling, and insurance.

But yesterday, the host Scott Hanson confirmed that this season, RedZone will feature ads of its own. “We are not going to sacrifice any great football for the business side of things,” Hanson said on a podcast, after describing how the show would sacrifice great football for the business side of things.

The Paper doesn’t hit its stride until it’s out of the office

Peacock’s new mockumentary series is a bingeable crash course in the basics of community journalism.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
The Paper is printing more episodes.

Peacock’s spinoff of The Office starts streaming tomorrow — with all 10 episodes dropping at once — but today comes news that it’s already been renewed for season 2. No date has been announced, but Variety reports that the plan is to premiere the second season around the same time next year.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Marvel Zombies will not be for the faint of heart.

While Marvel has released TV-MA projects before, the new trailer for Marvel Zombies makes it look like the series is really going to earn that rating by piling on as much (animated) blood and guts as possible.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Pennywise wants you to come visit this October.

After months of teasing us all with snippets from It: Welcome to Derry, HBO has finally given the prequel series an October 26th premiere date.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
Knives Out, in theaters.

Just like with Glass Onion, Netflix is giving Wake Up Dead Man a brief theatrical run before it starts streaming in December. The movie is also premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival later this week, and I’ll be on hand to check it out. Stay tuned.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
AI-enhanced decision paralysis.

We’re a little skeptical about Showrunner, a new platform that promises to be the “Netflix of AI.” It lets viewers generate their own shows from just a few prompts, unlocking whole new levels of streaming indecision.

pretendworld:

“ok so you know how people get paralyzed with indecision when looking at a wall of on-demand content in a streaming app? what if they had to instead pick the plot, characters, visual style and dialog?”

Get the day’s best comment and more in my free newsletter, The Verge Daily.

KPop Demon Hunters was this year’s biggest surprise, but can Netflix do it again?

The streamer has already ordered a sequel, but part of what made the first movie a sleeper hit was that no one saw it coming.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Time to get Hype.

Nearly one year after announcing its new “Hype” button, YouTube is rolling it out to 39 countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and others. The feature is meant to help highlight smaller creators by letting fans “hype” videos that will then appear on a dedicated leaderboard.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Is YouTube’s Shorts experiment using AI or just upscaling?

As reported by the BBC and Rhett Shull, some creators have noticed their YouTube Shorts videos look... enhanced, possibly by AI.

YouTube’s Rene Ritchie says the experiment is “using the kind of machine learning you experience with computational photography on smartphones,” not generative AI. What do you call it?

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters Sing-Along streams tomorrow, one day after sold-out theatrical showings.

Variety and THR are reporting that a two-day special event showing of the animated hit pulled in $18 to $20 million from 1,700 theaters in North America this weekend. And now, Netflix has announced the sing-along version of KPop Demon Hunters will be available for streaming at home starting tomorrow, August 25th.

Here are the best streaming service deals available right nowHere are the best streaming service deals available right now
Sheena Vasani and Cameron Faulkner
Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
The Paper is taking a different route.

While the Office spinoff was originally planned to stream new episodes weekly, Peacock now says that it will “drop all 10 episodes on its September 4th premiere date.” Good thing there isn’t anything else releasing that day...

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Paramount’s “full movie” YouTube stream of Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning transmits the script in Morse Code.

Yes, Paramount just trolled everyone waiting for its Mission Impossible livestream and links you to purchase the movie online instead.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Kick ‘humiliation streamer’ found dead.

Raphaël Graven, a 46-year-old French influencer known by his streaming handle, Jeanpormanove, died in his sleep during a live broadcast on Kick earlier this week after being “humiliated and mistreated for months” on the platform, according to French technology minister Clara Chappaz. A judicial investigation into his death is underway.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Duffer Brothers are joining the Paramount family.

The Duffer Brothers will still be able to oversee their in-development Netflix projects when their current contract with the streamer is finished next year. But Deadline reports that the Stranger Things creators are jumping ship to Paramount, a Skydance Corporation, after signing a new production deal.