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  • Monday, Apr. 12, 2021
Costume Designers Guild to honor Shonda Rhimes, Betsy Beers
Producers Shonda Rhimes, left, and Betsy Beers attend the "Scandal" 100th Episode Celebration on April 8, 2017, in West Hollywood, Calif. Rhimes and Beers will be honored for their wardrobe efforts with the Distinguished Collaborator Award for projects like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Bridgerton” at the Costume Designers Guild Awards. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
By Jonathan Landrum Jr., Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- 

From "Grey's Anatomy" to "Bridgerton," television producers Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers have strived to work with costume designers to visually create appealing wardrobes to help tell their character's story.

Now, both women will be recognized for their successful collaborative efforts at the Costume Designers Guild Awards.

The guild announced Monday that Rhimes and Beers will be honored with the Distinguished Collaborator Award. The award will be presented by "Bridgerton" actor Nicola Coughlan during the 23rd annual ceremony, which will take place Tuesday on Twitter. 

Rhimes and Beers both gave credit to the costume designers who have worked with them. The award honors individuals who demonstrate support of costume design and creative partnerships with designers.

"This feels more like a giant compliment to the costume designers that we've gotten to work with over the years," said Rhimes, founder of television production More

  • Monday, Apr. 12, 2021
R/GA generates recognition of pandemic achievement for all AICP entrants
NEW YORK -- 

Amidst the challenges of 2020, getting any work made--let alone a project worth entering in an AICP Awards Show--is an accomplishment deserving of recognition. So this year, AICP is awarding every single entry with a Certificate of Achievement simply for having managed to make something they are proud of during a pandemic. 

The Certificate of Achievement has sprung from a creative side project, The AICP Award Generator, conceived by a trio from R/GA consisting of: global chief creative officer Tiff Rolfe; Zack Roif, creative director, visual; and associate creative director Chloe Saintilan. Rolfe is this year’s AICP Next Awards judging chair while Roif and Saintilan served as the creative duo behind Helvetica and Merch Aid.

When people submit an entry for the AICP Show, AICP Post Awards and AICP Next Awards, they’ll be prompted to claim their Certificate of Achievement that is pre-filled with their company’s name, categories and one-liners More

  • Saturday, Apr. 10, 2021
Fellow "SNL" writer remembers Anne Beatts as courageous, witty
Anne Beatts arrives at the premiere of "Live from New York!" in Los Angeles on June 10, 2015. Beatts, a groundbreaking comedy writer who was on the original staff of “Saturday Night Live” and later created the cult sitcom “Square Pegs,” died Wednesday, April 7, at her home in West Hollywood, California, according to her close friend Rona Kennedy. She was 74. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
By Hillel Italie, National Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- 

As Lorne Michaels was putting together a writing team for what became "Saturday Night Live," Rosie Shuster was paired with a former National Lampoon staffer known for her dark humor, disciplined approach and gift for parody, notably a Volkswagen ad that mocked Sen. Ted Kennedy's notorious car ride on Chappaquiddick Island. 

Anne Beatts. 

"She was witty, and she was good at editing. It was a good team," Shuster said of Beatts, who died Wednesday at age 74. 

Unlike Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner and other cast members Beatts and Shuster wrote for, Beatts wasn't widely known to the public and could be reached in her final years simply by emailing her at Chapman University, where she taught comedy writing. But among her peers, and generations of writers and performers who followed, she was a pioneer, a force, and an easy rebuttal to the undying prejudice that women can't be funny. 

From 1975-80, Beatts and Shuster worked on such More

  • Saturday, Apr. 10, 2021
Australian photographer June Newton dies at 97
In this Friday March 23, 2012 file photo,June Newton, widow of late fashion photographer Helmut Newton, holds a news conference at the opening of Helmut Newton's first retrospective in France at Paris' Grand Palais museum. The Australian photographer and actress June Newton, also known under her pseudonym Alice Springs, has died at age 97, the Helmut Newton Foundation said Saturday in Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, file)
BERLIN (AP) -- 

The Australian photographer and actress June Newton — also known under her pseudonym Alice Springs — has died at 97, the Helmut Newton Foundation said Saturday in Berlin.

Newton, who was also the wife of the late photographer Helmut Newton, died Friday in her home in Monte Carlo. The cause of death was not given.

"We mourn the loss of an outstanding person and internationally recognized photographer," the foundation wrote on its website.

Newton, who was born as June Browne in Melbourne, Australia in 1923, trained as an actor and often performed under her stage name June Brunell, the foundation said.

In 1947, she met Helmut Newton, a German-Jewish photographer who had fled the Nazis and who had just set up a photo studio in Melbourne. They got married a year later and were together until the 83-year-old Helmut Newton died in a car accident in Los Angeles in 2004.

In 1970, after having moved to Paris with her husband, More

  • Friday, Apr. 9, 2021
Study: Facebook delivers biased job ads, skewed by gender
This July 30, 2019 photo shows an update information of Facebook application on a mobile phone displayed at a store in Chicago. Facebook is showing different job ads to women and men in a way that might run afoul of anti-discrimination laws, according to a new study. University of Southern California researchers who examined the ad-delivery algorithms of Facebook and LinkedIn found that Facebook’s were skewed by gender beyond what can be legally justified by differences in job qualifications. (AP Photo/Amr Alfiky, File
By Matt O'Brien & Barbara Ortutay, AP Technology Writers

Facebook is showing different job ads to women and men in a way that might run afoul of anti-discrimination laws, according to a new study. 

University of Southern California researchers who examined the ad-delivery algorithms of Facebook and LinkedIn found that Facebook's were skewed by gender beyond what can be legally justified by differences in job qualifications. 

Men were more likely to see Domino's pizza delivery driver job ads on Facebook, while women were more likely to see Instacart shopper ads. 

The trend also held in higher-paying engineering jobs at tech firms like Netflix and chipmaker Nvidia. A higher fraction of women saw the Netflix ads than the Nvidia ads, which parallels the gender breakdown in each company's workforce.

No evidence was found of similar bias in the job ads delivered by LinkedIn.

Study author Aleksandra Korolova, an assistant professor of computer science at USC, said it might be that More

  • Thursday, Apr. 8, 2021
Anne Beatts, groundbreaking comedy writer, dead at 74
Anne Beatts arrives at the premiere of "Live from New York!" in Los Angeles on June 10, 2015. Beatts, a groundbreaking comedy writer who was on the original staff of “Saturday Night Live” and later created the cult sitcom “Square Pegs,” died Wednesday, April 7, at her home in West Hollywood, California, according to her close friend Rona Kennedy. She was 74. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) -- 

Anne Beatts, a groundbreaking comedy writer who was on the original staff of "Saturday Night Live" and later created the cult sitcom "Square Pegs," has died. She was 74. 

Beatts died Wednesday at her home in West Hollywood, California, according to her close friend Rona Kennedy. Kennedy, a film producer and a fellow faculty member at Chapman University, did not immediately know the cause of death. 

Starting in 1975, Beatts was among a team of gifted writers that included Rosie Shuster, Alan Zweibel, Marilyn Suzanne Miller and such cast members as Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase who helped make "Saturday Night Live" a cultural phenomenon. With Shuster, she would help develop the beloved family of nerds, the Loopners, and Beatts would later draw upon her own acknowledged background as an outsider in high school for her own series "Square Pegs."

"Anne was a throwback to a time when words were weapons. R.I.P. Anne," Zweibel wrote on Twitter More

  • Thursday, Apr. 8, 2021
FuseFX acquires Aussie studio Rising Sun Pictures
David Altenau
LOS ANGELES -- 

FuseFX, a full-service visual effects company with studios in Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, Vancouver, Montréal, Toronto, and Bogotá, has acquired Rising Sun Pictures (RSP), a high-end visual effects studio headquartered in Adelaide, Australia. Founded in 1995 by Tony Clark, Gail Fuller, and Wayne Lewis, Rising Sun Pictures has become known for creating world-class visual effects for many of Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster movies as well as streaming content. 

Managing director Clark will continue to lead the studio under the Rising Sun Pictures brand. Together, the combined companies have nearly 800 artists at eight locations across the globe. 

Clark said that RSP “will embark on an expansion plan over the next few years, and we’re grateful to be partnering with David Altenau (FuseFX founder/CEO) and the team at FuseFX to help fully realize RSP’s potential.”

As RSP continues to execute on its plan, Clark will be joined by RSP’s More

  • Wednesday, Apr. 7, 2021
Streamland Media to acquire Sim Video International's post business
Streamland's NYC Atmos suite
BURBANK, Calif. -- 

Streamland Media is acquiring Sim Video International’s postproduction business (Sim Post). The strategic acquisition builds upon Streamland’s roster of artists and expands the company’s technical portfolio by increasing its unscripted and scripted content offerings in North America. The acquisition bolsters Streamland’s existing presence in Los Angeles and Vancouver, and gives the company a substantial footprint in New York City to provide exceptional picture and sound finishing.

“The addition of Sim Post solidifies our commitment to creating an incomparable postproduction community that relies upon a team of talented individuals,” said Streamland Media CEO Bill Romeo. “Sim Post’s alignment with Streamland’s philosophy and culture will make this transition seamless, enabling us to amplify social responsibility efforts within the communities where we live and work.”

The transaction, expected to be complete in the first half of 2021, is More

  • Wednesday, Apr. 7, 2021
Lawmakers call YouTube Kids a "wasteland of vapid, consumerist content"
This April 25, 2018 file photo, the YouTube app and YouTube Kids app are displayed on an iPhone in New York. A House subcommittee is investigating YouTube Kids. In a letter sent Tuesday, April 6, 2021, to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, the House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on economic and consumer policy says YouTube isn't doing enough to protect kids from material that could harm them. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)
By Barbara Ortutay, AP Technology Writer

A House subcommittee is investigating YouTube Kids, saying the Google-owned video service feeds children inappropriate material in "a wasteland of vapid, consumerist content" so it can serve them ads. 

The inquiry comes despite Google agreeing to pay $170 million in 2019 to settle allegations that YouTube collected personal data on children without their parents' consent. 

In a letter sent Tuesday to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, the U.S. House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on economic and consumer policy said YouTube does not do enough to protect kids from material that could harm them. Instead it relies on artificial intelligence and creators' self-regulation to decide what videos make it on to the platform, according to the letter from the committee's chairman, Illinois Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi.

And despite changes in the wake of the 2019 settlement, the letter notes, YouTube Kids still shows ads to children. But instead of More

  • Tuesday, Apr. 6, 2021
Ratings decline for NCAA basketball championship; Nielsen week in review
Baylor players and coaches celebrate after the championship game against Gonzaga in the men's Final Four NCAA college basketball tournament, Monday, April 5, 2021, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Baylor won 86-70. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
By David Bauder, Media Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- 

Even an NCAA championship matchup between two widely acknowledged as the best men's college basketball teams in the country wasn't enough to set the television world afire.

An estimated 16.92 million people watched Baylor win the national championship title by routing previously unbeaten Gonzaga on Monday, the Nielsen company said.

That's down nearly 14% from the 2019 title game between Virginia and Texas Tech. Last year's NCAA basketball tourney was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Viewership declines are hardly unusual in today's world. Awards show ratings have been cratering. Given that this year's NCAA football championship saw its ratings plummet 27% percent, the basketball ratings weren't half bad.

This was the first men's Final Four with no teams from the Eastern time zone, where nearly half of the country's television viewers are located.

Saturday's men's semifinal — already considered a classic — More

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