Amazon has announced that Amazon Original Series’ The Man in the High Castle is the most-streamed original show ever by Prime members globally and has been renewed for a second season. The show broke a previous record set by Amazon Original Series Bosch, which is launching its second season next year. Amazon did not release any viewership figures for The Man in the High Castle, which was developed by Frank Spotnitz and executive produced by Scott Free Productions’ Ridley Scott and David Zucker, along with Isa Dick Hackett. The one-hour drama series is available exclusively on Amazon Prime.
Based on Philip K. Dick’s Hugo Award-winning 1962 alternative history novel, The Man in the High Castle explores what would have happened if the Allied Powers had lost World War II. Some 17 years after that loss, the United States, and much of the world, has been divided between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, the dominating global powers. But while Germany controls the eastern half of the United States, and Japan controls the Pacific Coast, the Rocky Mountains have become a “neutral zone”–and ground zero for a resistance movement that refuses to accept the new world order. Under the direction of a mysterious figure known only as “the Man in the High Castle,” members of the resistance hunt down an enigmatic series of black and white newsreel films that they believe hold the key to freedom–the films show footage from our own past in which the Allies, in fact, won the war.
The Man in the High Castle stars Luke Kleintank, Alexa Davalos, Rupert Evans, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Joel de la Fuente, Rufus Sewell and DJ Qualls. Frank Spotnitz developed and executive-produces the series, alongside executive producers Isa Dick Hackett and David Zucker. The show is available in US, UK, Germany, and Austria–only on Amazon Prime.
“We’re very proud of this outstanding series created by Frank Spotnitz, Scott Free and Isa Dick Hackett, which Amazon customers around the world have enthusiastically embraced, and we look forward to the second season,” said Roy Price, VP, Amazon Studios. “We hoped that once again bringing together the work of Phillip K. Dick and the vision of Ridley Scott–who brought us the classic film Blade Runner–would help deliver on our promise of creating some of the best television in the world for Prime customers, and we believe that it has.”
The Grammys’ voting body is more diverse, with 66% new members. What does it mean for the awards?
For years, the Grammy Awards have been criticized over a lack of diversity — artists of color and women left out of top prizes; rap and contemporary R&B stars ignored — a reflection of the Recording Academy's electorate. An evolving voting body, 66% of whom have joined in the last five years, is working to remedy that.
At last year's awards, women dominated the major categories; every televised competitive Grammy went to at least one woman. It stems from a commitment the Recording Academy made five years ago: In 2019, the Academy announced it would add 2,500 women to its voting body by 2025. Under the Grammys' new membership model, the Recording Academy has surpassed that figure ahead of the deadline: More than 3,000 female voting members have been added, it announced Thursday.
"It's definitely something that we're all very proud of," Harvey Mason jr., academy president and CEO, told The Associated Press. "It tells me that we were severely underrepresented in that area."
Reform at the Record Academy dates back to the creation of a task force focused on inclusion and diversity after a previous CEO, Neil Portnow, made comments belittling women at the height of the #MeToo movement.
Since 2019, approximately 8,700 new members have been added to the voting body. In total, there are now more than 16,000 members and more than 13,000 of them are voting members, up from about 14,000 in 2023 (11,000 of which were voting members). In that time, the academy has increased its number of members who identify as people of color by 63%.
"It's not an all-new voting body," Mason assures. "We're very specific and intentional in who we asked to be a part of our academy by listening and learning from different genres and different groups that... Read More