Category: 5. Entertainment

The BBC deemed Bob Vylan “high risk” before their controversial Glastonbury set, the corporation has said.

The punk duo led a chant of “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]” during their set, which was available to watch via a live stream on iPlayer on Saturday.

In a statement, the BBC said the corporation is taking action to “ensure proper accountability” for those found to be responsible for the broadcast.

BBC News understands that a number of staff have been moved off their day-to-day duties from the music and live events team.

BBC chair Samir Shah said the decision not to pull the live feed was “unquestionably an error of judgement”.

In a statement to staff, director general Tim Davie said he “deeply regrets that such offensive and deplorable behaviour appeared on the BBC and want to apologise to our viewers and listeners and in particular the Jewish community”.

The BBC said Bob Vylan had been “deemed high risk following a risk assessment process applied to all acts appearing at Glastonbury”.

“Seven acts including Bob Vylan were included in this category and they were all deemed suitable for live streaming with appropriate mitigations.”

The statement continued: “Prior to Glastonbury, a decision was taken that compliance risks could be mitigated in real time on the live stream – through the use of language or content warnings – without the need for a delay. This was clearly not the case.”

The BBC noted the live stream was monitored “in line with the agreed compliance protocols and a number of issues were escalated”.

Warnings appeared on the stream on two occasions, but, he added: “The editorial team took the decision not to cut the feed. This was an error.”

Davie, who was attending Glastonbury himself on the day, was “subsequently made aware of what had happened and instructed the team that none of the performance should feature in further coverage”.

The BBC said the team on duty prioritised stopping the performance from becoming available on demand, meaning that the set would not appear on iPlayer or BBC Sounds.

However, the live feed remained available for several hours, meaning viewers were able to rewind and view the content.

“Given the failings that have been acknowledged we are taking actions to ensure proper accountability for those found to be responsible for those failings in the live broadcast,” the BBC said. “We will not comment further on those processes at this time.”

The BBC also said it would be making “immediate changes to livestreaming music events”.

These would, it said, include:

• Any music performances deemed high risk by the BBC will now not be broadcast live or streamed live
• The corporation’s Editorial Policy unit will always be available on site at major music festivals and events, to improve compliance processes and the speed of available advice
• The BBC will provide more detailed, practical guidance on the threshold for withdrawing a live stream.

In a statement, BBC chair Samir Shah apologised “to all our viewers and listeners and particularly the Jewish community for allowing the ‘artist’ Bob Vylan to express unconscionable anti-semitic views live on the BBC”.

“This was unquestionably an error of judgement. I was very pleased to note that as soon as this came to the notice of Tim Davie – who was on the Glastonbury site at the time visiting BBC staff – he took immediate action and instructed the team to withdraw the performance from on demand coverage.”

New York
CNN
 — 

When Karandeep Anand’s 5-year-old daughter gets home from school, they fire up the artificial intelligence chatbot platform Character.AI so she can chat about her day with her favorite characters, such as “Libarian Linda.”

Anand’s experience using the product as a parent might be helpful now that he’s Character.AI’s new chief executive, a change the company announced last month.

He’s taken on the top job at a complicated moment for the company, which lets users talk to a variety of AI-generated personas. Character.AI faces fierce competition in an increasingly crowded space, as well as lawsuits from families who claim the service exposed their children to inappropriate content and failed to implement adequate safeguards.

Character.AI has also received tough questions about safety from lawmakers, and one advocacy group said earlier this year that AI companion apps should not be used by kids under 18. Even for adult users, experts have raised alarms about people forming potentially harmful attachments to AI characters.

Anand brings experience at some of the biggest tech companies to his new role leading Character.AI’s approximately 70-person team. He spent 15 years at Microsoft and six years at Meta, including as vice president and head of business products at the social media giant. He also served as a board advisor for Character.AI before joining as CEO.

And he told CNN he sees a bright future for the platform in interactive AI entertainment.

In other words, rather than people consuming “brain rot” on social media for entertainment, Anand wants them co-creating stories and conversations with Character.AI for fun.

“AI can power a very, very powerful personal entertainment experience unlike anything we’ve seen in the last 10 years in social media, and definitely nothing like what TV used to be,” Anand said in an interview.

Unlike multi-purpose AI tools like ChatGPT, Character.AI offers range of different chatbots that are often modeled after celebrities and fictional characters. Users can also create their own for conversations or role play. Another distinction is that Character.AI bots respond with human-like conversational cues, adding references to facial expressions or gestures into their replies.

The personas of AI characters on the app vary widely, from romantic partners to language tutors or Disney characters. It also features characters like “Friends hot mom,” which describes itself as “curvy, busty, kind, loving, shy, motherly, sensual”; and “Therapist,” which calls itself a “licensed CBT therapist,” although it features a disclaimer that it is not a real person or licensed professional.

“(We’re) doubling down on entertainment, doubling down on trust and safety,” Anand said. “And a lot of the work we want to do is enable an entirely new creator ecosystem around AI entertainment.”

Character.AI was first sued by a parent — a Florida mom who alleges her 14-year-old son died by suicide after developing an inappropriate relationship with chatbots on the platform — last October. Two months later, two more families filed a joint suit against the company, accusing it of providing sexual content to their children and encouraging self-harm and violence.

Since then, the company has implemented a range of new safety measures, including a pop-up that directs users who mention self-harm or suicide to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. It also updated its AI model for users under the age of 18 to reduce the likelihood that they encounter sensitive or suggestive content, and gives parents the option to receive a weekly email about their teen’s activity on the platform.

Anand said he’s confident in the improvements Character.AI has made since last year, but that work to keep the platform safe, especially for young users, continues. Character.AI’s policies technically require users to be over the age of 13, although it does not ask for information to verify that users are signing up with the correct birthdate.

“The tech and the industry and the user base is constantly evolving (so) that we can never let the guard off. We have to constantly stay ahead of the curve,” Anand said.

He added that the company continues to test how people could misuse new features to prevent abuse, such as a video generator launched last month that lets users animate their bots. In the days following the tool’s arrival, users shared unsuccessful attempts to test its limits by creating fake videos of prominent figures like Elon Musk.

“We had to red team the product for such a long time to make sure you cannot use this for any negative use case like deepfakes or bullying,” Anand said.

Those efforts aside, Anand said in an introductory note to Character.AI users last month that one of his top priorities is to make the platform’s safety filter “less overbearing,” adding that “too often, the app filters things that are perfectly harmless.”

He told CNN that things like mentions of blood when users are engaging in “vampire fan fiction role play” — something he says he’s a fan of — might be censored under the current model, which he wants to update to better understand context while balancing the need for safety.

Among Anand’s other key objectives: encouraging more creators to join the platform to make new chatbot characters and upgrading the social feed where users can share content they’ve created with Character.AI chatbots.

The latter feature is similar to an app Meta launched this year that allows people to publicly share their prompts and AI-generated creations. Meta drew heat when apparently confused users shared conversations that contained embarrassing or personal details — a reminder of the privacy challenges that can come with AI tools.

But the social element could help further differentiate Character.AI from bigger competitors like ChatGPT, which users are also increasingly forming personal connections with.

Another challenge Anand will face as CEO is retaining and growing the company’s workforce, as an AI talent war heats up across the tech industry. In a sign of the competition for top talent, Meta has reportedly offered pay packages and bonuses worth hundreds of millions of dollars to grow its new superintelligence team. Character.AI co-founder and former CEO Noam Shazeer was also lured back to Google last year, where he’d previously built conversational AI technology.

“It is hard, I will not lie,” Anand said. “The good news for me as CEO is all the people we have here are very, very passionate and mission driven.”

Narrated by Welsh actor Richard Harrington (The One That Got Away, Hinterland), the nine-part podcast Making of a Fugitive follows the stories of international fugitives who go to great lengths to try and stay hidden from the authorities. We’ll hear stories of stolen identities, drastic plastic surgery and hair transplants, and the families who get left behind.

The podcast starts with Martin Evans, a small town conman turned international fraudster and drug dealer who has been in and out of the headlines for nearly 30 years, named by police as one of the UK’s “most wanted” in 2012. Evans – aka the ostrich man – swindled investors out of almost a million pounds in an ostrich farm fraud in south Wales before going on to run an international drugs and money laundering operation. He fled from justice and even prison for five years until finally being captured.

From one most wanted list to another, American conman Matt Cox came face to face with his own most wanted poster in a police station before making one of his many getaways. Cox evaded capture for almost a decade, committing bank fraud, identity theft and passport fraud, topping the FBI’s most wanted list in the early 2000s. Describing his time on the run as “awesome”, self-proclaimed narcissist Matt Cox provides a first-hand account of his story, giving a unique insight into the extraordinary lengths he went to in order to stay one step ahead of the FBI.

Cox said: “I became infamous by committing bank fraud, I stole identities and created synthetic identities in order to borrow money from dozens of US banks. Ultimately the FBI came to arrest me and I went on the run. What I decided to do was start a much larger scam, I convinced the social security administration in the US to start issuing me social security numbers to children who don’t exist. I would then order credit cards and build a false credit profile in those names. I think the amount ended up at $11.5 million.”

And we discover what led to a businessman, Mohammed Ali Ege, becoming an international fugitive following the mistaken identity murder of a teenager in Cardiff 15 years ago. In an exclusive new interview, the podcast speaks to the family of murdered Aamir Siddiqi, who are still waiting for Wales’ most wanted man to be brought to justice.

Across nine episodes, Making of a Fugitive hears from the people involved and asks what happens when a fugitive is finally cornered? Are they sorry for what they’ve done, or just for getting caught?

Series writer and producer for BBC Cymru Wales, Jayne Morgan, said: “We thought we knew these stories having worked on them over the years but this podcast gives new insights and reveals the extraordinary lengths some go to in order to stay hidden.”

Making of a Fugitive is a BBC Cymru Wales production for BBC Sounds. The first two episodes are available now, with the remaining seven episodes launching weekly.

EWL

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Vera, the heroine of Gary Shteyngart’s sixth novel, “Vera, or Faith,” is a whip-smart 10-year-old Manhattanite, but she’s not quite smart enough to figure out her parents’ intentions. Why is dad so concerned about “status”? Why does her stepmom call some meals “WASP lunches”? How come every time they visit somebody’s house she’s assigned to see if they have a copy of “The Power Broker” on their shelves? She’s all but doomed to be bourgeois and neurotic, as if a juvenile court has sentenced her to live in a New Yorker cartoon.

Since his 2002 debut, “The Russian Debutante’s Handbook,” Shteyngart has proved adept at finding humor in the intersection of immigrant life, wealth and relationships, and “Vera” largely sticks to that mix. But the cynicism that has always thrummed underneath his high-concept comedies — the dehumanizing algorithms, the rapacious finance system — is more prominent in this slim, potent novel. Vera is witnessing both the slow erosion of her parents’ marriage along with the rapid decline of democracy in near-future America. Her precocity gives the novel its wit, but Shteyngart is also alert to the fact that a child, however bright, is fundamentally helpless.

Not to mention desperate for her parents’ affection, which is in short supply for Vera. Her father, the editor of a liberal intellectual magazine, seems constantly distracted by his efforts to court a billionaire to purchase it, while her stepmom is more focused on her son’s ADHD and the family’s rapidly dwindling bank account. Things are no better outside in the world, where a constitutional convention seems ready to pass an amendment awarding five-thirds voting rights for “exceptional Americans.” (Read: white people.) Vera, the daughter of a Russian father and Korean mother, may be banished to second-class citizenry.

Even worse, her school has assigned her to take the side of the “five-thirders” in an upcoming classroom debate. So it’s become urgent for her to understand the world just as it’s become inexplicable. Shteyngart is stellar at showing just how alienated she’s become: “She knew kids were supposed to have more posters on their walls to show off their inner life, but she liked her inner life to stay inside her.” And she seems to be handling the crisis with more maturity than her father, who’s drunk and clumsy in their home: “If anyone needed to see Mrs. S., the school counselor with the master’s in social work degree, it was Daddy.”

It’s a challenge to write from the perspective of a child without being arch or cutesy — stories about kids learning about the real world can degrade to plainspoken YA or cheap melodrama. Shteyngart is striving for something more supple, using Vera’s point of view to clarify how adults become victims of their own emotional shutoffs, the way they use language to at once appear smart while covering up their feelings. “Our country’s a supermarket where some people just get to carry out whatever they want. You and I sadly are not those people,” Dad tells her, forcing her to unpack a metaphor stuffed full of ideology, economics, self-loathing and more.

Every chapter in the book starts with the phrase “She had to,” explaining Vera’s various missions amid this dysfunction: “hold the family together,” “fall asleep,” “be cool,” “win the debate.” Kids like her have to be action-oriented; they don’t have the privilege of adults’ deflections. Small wonder, then, that her most reliable companion is an AI-powered chessboard, which offers direct answers to her most pressing questions. (One of Shteyngart’s most potent running jokes is that adults aren’t more clever than computers they command.) Once she falls into a mission to discover the truth about her birth mother, she becomes more alert to the world’s brutal simplicity: “The world was a razor cut … It would cut and cut and cut.”

Shteyngart’s grown-up kids’ story has two obvious inspirations: One, as the title suggests, is Vladimir Nabokov’s 1969 novel “Ada, or Ardor,” the other Henry James’ 1897 novel “What Maisie Knew.” Both are concerned with childhood traumas, and if Shteyngart isn’t explicitly borrowing their plots he borrows some of their gravitas, the sense that preteendom is a crucible for experiencing life’s various crises.

In its final chapters, the novel takes a turn that is designed to speak to our current moment, spotlighting the way that Trump-era nativist policies have brought needless harm to Americans. A country can abandon its principles, he means to say, just as a parent can abandon a child. But if “Vera” suggests a particular vision of our particular dystopian moment, it also suggests a more enduring predicament for children, who live with the consequences of others’ decisions but don’t get a vote in them.

“There were a lot of ‘statuses’ in the world and each year she was becoming aware of more of them,” Vera observes. Children will have to learn them faster now.

Athitakis is a writer in Phoenix and author of “The New Midwest.”

It’s been 50 years since “Jaws” ruined that summer, spawning a fleet of increasingly dreadful sequels and knockoffs, turning a simple fish into a movie monster, and a dozen since “Sharknado” turned the monster into a joke. Sharks had been swimming in the culture before that, to be sure, often with the prefix “man-eating” appended, though men eat sharks too, and way more often — so who’s the real apex predator? And even though they are not as naturally cute as our cousins the dolphins and whales — I have never heard of one balancing a ball on its nose — they have also been made adorable as plush toys and cartoon characters.

“All the Sharks,” premiering Friday on Netflix, is a competition show in which four teams of two vie to photograph the most, and the most different, species of sharks, across two eight-hour days, and are set loose in the waters off Japan, the Maldives, South Africa, Australia, the Bahamas and the Galapagos Islands. And, brother, are there a lot of varieties — hammerhead shark, walking shark, whale shark, tawny nurse shark, pajama shark, pelagic thresher, tiger shark, tasselled wobbegong shark, puffadder shy shark, baby shark, mommy shark and daddy shark, to name but a few. (There are 124 species of sharks in Japanese waters, we’re told, and 200 off South Africa.) Points are awarded according to the rarity or abundance of the species in each location. These sharks are neither monsters nor jokes, though at least one contestant finds the banded houndshark “freaking adorable … their little cat eyes, their subterminal mouth.”

As competitions go, it is friendly, like “The Great British Baking Show” or “MasterChef Junior.” There’s no way to sabotage your opponents, no strategy past guessing where the sharks might be running, eating or hanging out. The purse — $50,000 — goes to the winners’ chosen marine charity, though prizes are also awarded to the top-scoring team in each episode. (Cool gear, seaside vacations.) Winning is not so much the point as just staying in as long as possible — because it’s fun. Sometimes things don’t go a team’s way, but no one has a bad attitude.

Naturally they are good-looking, because this is television, and fit, because you need to be to do this; most have professional expertise in fishy, watery or wild things. (They certainly know their sharks.) Brendan (marine biologist) and Chris (fisheries ecologist) are a team called the Shark Docs. Aliah (marine biologist specializing in stingrays — which are closely related to sharks, did you know?) and MJ, identified as an avid spearfisher and shark diver, comprise Gills Gone Wild; they met at a “bikini beach cleanup” and have been besties ever since. British Bait Off are Sarah (environmental journalist) and Dan (underwater cameraman), who like a cup of tea. And finally, there are the Land Sharks, Randy and Rosie. Dreadlocked Randy, a wildlife biologist, says, “I was always one of the only Black guys in my classes … I got that all the time: ‘Oh, you’re doing that white boy stuff’ and it’s just like, ‘No, I’m doing stuff that I love.’” Rosie, an ecologist who specializes in apex predators, wants to show girls it’s “OK to be badass … work with these crazy animals, get down and dirty.” She can hold her breath for five minutes.

The show has been produced with the usual tics of the genre: comments presented in the present tense that could only have been taped later; dramatic music and editing; the “hey ho uh-oh” narrative framing of big, loud host Tom “The Blowfish” Hird, with his braided pirate’s beard, whose website identifies him as a “heavy metal marine biologist.” Footage of great white sharks — the variety “Jaws” made famous — is inserted for the thrill factor, but none are coming.

But whatever massaging has been applied, “All the Sharks” is real enough. The contestants deal with rough seas, strong currents, jellyfish and sundry venomous creatures, intruding fishermen, limited air, sinus crises, variable visibility and unexpected orcas. And the sharks — who do not seem particularly interested in the humans, as there is no lack of familiar lunch options — do sometimes arrive in great, unsettling profusion. (There’s a reason “shark-infested waters” became a phrase.) Meanwhile, the ocean itself plays its ungovernable part. In their enveloping blueness, dotted with colorful fish and coral reefs, the undersea scenes are, in fact, quite meditative. (Humans move slow down there.) Someone describes it as like being inside a screen saver.

In the bargain, we learn not a little bit about shark behavior and biology, and there is an implicit, sometimes explicit, conservation theme. Each encountered species gets a graphic describing not only its length, weight and lifespan but the degree to which it is or isn’t endangered — and, sad to say, many are.

BBC

Claudine Beard

‘Minor issues’

By that measure, All Fours has been an unequivocal success. On July’s Substack page, a community of women have gathered to share not just their love for the book, but how it has changed their lives. They talk of feeling seen, understood and liberated after reading it; that it’s made them feel less alone, less crazy, braver. For some it’s prompted them to end relationships, leave jobs or confront loved ones. Groups have splintered off and arranged real-life meet-ups. In Paris, Los Angeles, London, Texas, Seattle and more, women have gathered for conversations sparked by the book.

Thanks to a bold fandom-first strategy, BBC Studios has officially outpaced every UK broadcaster and most global streamers in YouTube watch time and TikTok engagement, according to the latest data.

The numbers reveal a remarkable transformation since launching its advertising proposition in 2023:

• Highest YouTube watch time across the UK competitor set, with figures almost doubling year-on-year
• Top TikTok engagement rate in 2024 across both UK and global media brands
• 14 billion annual YouTube views, growing at +56% YoY, significantly ahead of global streamers including Disney+, Amazon Studios and Apple TV
• A 111% YoY revenue increase in 2024/25 – a direct result of fan-first digital strategy and platform-native content

“Fandom is not the end goal – it’s the starting point,” said Jasmine Dawson, SVP of digital at BBC Studios. “We’ve built a digital model that turns casual viewers into superfans, and superfans into communities that drive both cultural impact and commercial return.”

A New Era for Advertisers: Premium IP, Trusted Platforms, Unmatched Engagement

Since 2023, brands have been able to advertise directly within BBC Studios’ digital ecosystem – a first for the company. This offering gives advertisers access to premium, culturally influential content with proven scale and high emotional investment – all within a safe, brand-friendly environment across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and more.

Advertisers can now:

• Align with globally beloved IP like Bluey, Top Gear, BBC Earth and Doctor Who
• Reach deeply engaged fandoms that drive high retention, sharing, and repeat viewing
• Tap into creator-first branded content, powered by BBC Studios’ in-house production and strategy teams
• Partner on bespoke campaigns that are informed by platform-native insight, community feedback and real-time performance data

In 2024 alone, BBC Studios delivered almost six billion ad impressions, with formats outperforming industry benchmarks on both reach and relevance, and and has been named European Publisher of the Year for two years running at the Lovie Awards.

“This isn’t interruptive advertising – it’s brand storytelling with built-in cultural resonance,” said Jasmine. “We’re offering advertisers something most platforms can’t: emotional context, scale, and IP that audiences actively love.”

Built for Digital. Designed for Results.

This digital success is no accident. The strategy – unveiled for the first time during The Media Odyssey podcast at Cannes Lions with Evan Shapiro and Marion Ranchet – is built around four core principles:

1. Fandom-first thinking, backed by KPIs like sentiment, UGC volume, and return viewer rates

2. Creator-led content, developed in partnership with digital-native talent

3. Deep engagement over vanity metrics, prioritising watch time, shares, and comments

4. Audience obsession, using dashboards, social listening and rapid iteration to shape output

With around 150 channels across 17+ languages, a weekly reach of 40 million, and creator-driven franchises scaling across LATAM, the US, Australia and Singapore, including two of YouTube’s top 1% channels. BBC Studios is now setting the global standard for fan-powered, platform-native entertainment.

The streaming platform adds new channel offerings from the house of B4U such as B4U Movies, B4U Music, B4U Kadak and B4U Bhojpuri for viewers

 

Samsung TV Plus, India’s leading free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) service, has announced the addition of four popular B4U channels – B4U Movies, B4U Music, B4U Kadak and B4U Bhojpuri to its dynamic content lineup. This partnership further strengthens the robust catalogue of Samsung TV Plus, now boasting over 125+ FAST channels, and brings a fresh wave of premium entertainment to Indian viewers.

 

“Our mission is to deliver unmatched access and exceptional value to both our audiences and advertisers on the Samsung TV Plus platform. By introducing new FAST Channels from the house of B4U, we aim to enhance access to the latest from the world of entertainment. This collaboration with B4U underscores our dedication to this vision,” said Kunal Mehta, Head of Partnerships, Samsung TV Plus India.

 

B4U Network, a pioneer in the Indian broadcasting landscape with a global footprint in over 100+ countries, is renowned for its rich library of Hindi movies, chart-topping music, and vibrant regional content. For more than two decades, B4U has captivated audiences across generations and geographies, making it a household name in entertainment.

 

Johnson Jain, Chief Revenue Officer, B4U said, “Connected TV (CTV) has emerged as a significant force in the Indian media landscape, revolutionizing how audiences consume content. In line with this, our approach has pivoted on reaching a broader and more diverse audience base. We are delighted to announce our collaboration with Samsung TV Plus, bringing our curated set of channels to their platform. Through this partnership, we aim to engage viewers with high-quality entertainment — featuring top-tier movies and the best in music — delivered seamlessly on a premium CTV experience”

 

This partnership reinforces the positioning of Samsung TV Plus, as one of India’s fastest-growing free content destinations providing curated entertainment for the evolving preferences of India’s digital-first viewers. With the integration of B4U’s acclaimed channels, Samsung TV Plus continues to redefine home entertainment, offering Indian consumers unparalleled access to blockbuster movies, trending music, and regional favourites, all for free.