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Daily Mail
42 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Amazon announces change to streaming platform
It's time for streamers to say their final goodbyes to Freevee. The ad-supported streaming service, that's home to originals like Jury Duty, Bosch: Legacy and Judy Justice and hit shows such as Schitt's Creek, will be discontinued in August. The Freevee termination comes after Amazon confirmed its plans to shut down the service and place all its content under the Prime Video brand . As a result, all Freevee originals will be moved to Amazon's streaming service and made available to non-Prime members under the 'Watch for Free' section. The company began taking steps to end Freevee last year by launching ads on Prime Video , which is included in a Prime membership for $14.99 a month, or as a stand-alone service for $8.99. Members can also pay an additional $2.99 to remove ads. Launched as IMDB Freedive in 2019, the service rebranded to IMDB TV before turning into Amazon Freevee in 2022. The ad-supported version of Prime Video later expanded to the UK, Germany, and Austria, and by November 2024, 44 percent of US Freevee viewers did not have Prime Video accounts, according to Ampere Analysis . While there are currently over 200 million Prime Video streamers, some members have been unimpressed with the company as a whole in recent years. Some of the fury was ignited after the company opted to raise its annual membership price to $139 from $119 in 2022. It started becoming 'unbearable' for some customers in January after they noticed the high number of ads in TV shows and films . Besides the streaming service issues, some shoppers have threatened to delete their Amazon accounts after the company axed a same-day delivery perk , raised the price of Amazon Music Unlimited , and discontinued its Try Before You Buy service . But Amazon is now expanding its same-day and next-day delivery services to over 4,000 small cities, towns, and rural communities. The move is meant to help shoppers who have limited delivery options. The company is now hard at work in preparing to launch its Prime Day sales event . The now four-day sales special has already begun offering early deals , including a $1/gallon discount on gas . Freevee is not the only streaming service to shut in recent years. Quibi, a service that featured reboots of Punk'd and Singled Out, crashed and burned eight months after its launch in 2020 . Prior to its demise, Quibi was exploring potential sales options a month before announcing the shutdown and faced backlash for paying Reese Witherspoon $6 million to narrate a show on the platform. The Crackle platform ceased operations in 2024 after 20 years of operation. At the time, most of its stake was owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, the owner of Redbox that filed for bankruptcy . With these streaming platforms biting the dust, Prime Video's primary competition includes services like Netflix , Hulu, Peacock, and HBO Max.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Crystal Palace in dark over European place and stuck in Textor's tangled web
A champion skateboarder in his youth, John Textor has never been averse to risk. The American businessman even warrants a mention in Craig Snyder's book A Secret History of the Ollie as 'one of the few who beat eight-time world champion Rodney Mullen in freestyle competitions during the turn of the 70s', but a serious head injury put an end to his competitive career. Textor surprisingly turned his attention to football club ownership in 2021 when he bought a stake in Crystal Palace after making his fortune in digital technology and the next week could prove decisive for his latest venture. The New York Jets owner, Woody Johnson, is poised to complete his purchase of Textor's 43% share in the FA Cup winners if – as expected in the coming days – he passes the Premier League's owners' and directors' test. However, Palace's participation in the Europa League appears to rest on the outcome of Lyon's appeal against their relegation from Ligue 1. That is due to be heard this week by French football's national directorate of management control (DNCG), with Lyon – who are also owned by Textor's company Eagle Football Holdings – having accepted in a meeting with Uefa that if they fail they would relinquish their Europa League place and clear the way for Palace. In an attempt to increase hopes of winning the appeal, given his rocky relationship with the DNCG since Textor bought out Jean-Michel Aulas in June 2022, he announced last Monday that he had resigned from his leadership roles at Lyon. Michael Gerlinger has been appointed as chief executive and Michele Kang – who also owns the Washington Spirit and London City Lionesses and bought Lyon's extremely successful women's team from Eagle Football Holdings last year – as chair and president. On Friday Lyon were fined €12.5m (£10.8m) by Uefa for a breach of financial sustainability requirements. Reports in France say Lyon must inject €70m to be allowed to play in Ligue 1 next season. Should the appeal fail, Textor is understood to be confident Lyon will be cleared, even if it it means ending up in court. But with the American fund Ares Management, that provided a €425m loan to complete the purchase of Lyon, breathing down his neck, time is of the essence. Eagle Football was listed for an initial public offering in the United States last month, with Textor understood to want to begin selling shares in September. He is believed to have spent the weekend in the Bahamas after stating he was 'looking forward to the reduction of my day-to-day management responsibilities in Europe, so I can focus on markets where we have the full freedom to run our football clubs … to invest, innovate, grow and compete. OL [are] in great hands with Michele, and I will focus on Botafogo, Daring Brussels and our next club in England.' Sheffield Wednesday, who have been banned from spending money on transfers until January 2027 after the repeated failure to pay players' wages, have been mooted as a potential target once the sale of his Palace shares to Johnson is ratified, although Dejphon Chansiri is reported to want more than £150m for the Championship club. Textor has held talks with Watford's owner, Gino Pozzo, about investing at Vicarage Road in the past. Textor's close relationship with Evangelos Marinakis – the Nottingham Forest owner whose side would stand to be promoted to the Europa League should Uefa rule against Palace – has led to several players moving from Botafogo and Lyon to the City Ground over the past 12 months. Igor Jesus's signing was announced on Saturday and Jair Cunha could be to be latest after the Brazilian champions' elimination from the Club World Cup that cost the coach, Renato Paiva, his job as Textor was unhappy with team selection and formation. 'I'm shocked,' Paiva said of his dismissal, 'and the staff and players are open-mouthed about the decision.' He was appointed in February after Artur Jorge led Botafogo to victory in the Copa Libertadores in 2024. Textor is said to be leading the search for the coach's successor. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion Textor's frustration over his lack of influence at Palace led to a breakdown in relations with the chair, Steve Parish. Despite holding the biggest stake, Textor was unable to persuade Parish and his fellow American co-owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer that Palace should be fully integrated into Eagle Football's multi-club network, and repeated efforts to take full control – like his attempt to buy Everton – failed. He has taken credit for last year's appointment of Oliver Glasner, having spoken to him about the vacancy at Lyon a few months earlier. But it is understood Palace produced evidence of correspondence between the Austrian manager, Parish and the then sporting director, Dougie Freedman, to support their argument to Uefa that Textor played no part in their decision-making process. If a shareholder has a decisive influence over more than one club, those clubs are not allowed to play in the same Uefa tournament. Palace are expected to appeal to the court of arbitration for sport (Cas) should the decision go against them, with Forest – the first visitors of the Premier League season to Selhurst Park on 23 August – likely to do the same if Palace are cleared to play in the Europa League. It will be intriguing to see whose side Textor is on if summoned to give evidence to Cas in Lausanne. He officially resigned as a director of Palace's board on 18 June and Parish will be hoping that Johnson, who described a report that named him as the NFL's worst owner this year as 'bogus', can provide some stability and finances as they anxiously await their fate in Europe.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
So big, so beautiful: Fox News ignores the critics and champions Trump's bill
Donald Trump's mega-bill has been widely criticized in the press. News outlets and Democrats have warned that millions of people could be stripped of their health coverage through cuts to Medicaid, that cuts to food programs would see children go hungry, and that the legislation would cause the deficit to balloon. Fox News sees it differently. 'This legislation is packed with massive, huge, important wins for you, the American people,' Sean Hannity told viewers on Monday, as US senators debated the bill in Washington. 'Here's what the bill doesn't do. It does not decrease Medicaid, Medicare, Snap or social security benefits,' Hannity continued, a claim that completely contradicted the assessment of the Congressional Budget Office, which estimates the bill will cut Medicaid across the US by 7.6 million to 10.3 million people. Hannity had more. 'The big, beautiful bill also does not increase the deficit. Instead, the deficit will go down around a little shy of $2tn – that's to begin with, according to estimates,' he said. 'Because guess what? That's what happens when you cut taxes. It stimulates the economy, creates jobs, gets people off the welfare rolls. Guess what? People are working, now they're paying taxes.' It was unclear where Hannity got his $2tn number from, because he didn't say. But the CBO says the bill would add at least $3.3tn to the national debt over the next nine years, while the tax cuts will benefit high earners more than others. Hannity held up Ronald Reagan's tax cuts in 1981 as an example of how the deficit will be reduced – a take that ignored that those tax cuts saw an increase of the deficit, and had to be reversed over the rest of Reagan's presidency. Still, Hannity was sold. 'The American people are on the verge of a level of prosperity they have never experienced before,' he said. Hannity's interpretation was starkly different from the one many Americans were seeing. Even Republican senators have been dubious about the bill's benefits, with three voting against it in the early hours of Tuesday morning, and House Republicans wavering on Wednesday. Yet, on Tuesday, Laura Ingraham largely ignored the bill – framing it only as Democrats losing a battle to 'derail' the legislation before going on a minutes-long riff about a 'slide in patriotism' in the US. She went on to offer complaints that there were 'more foreign flags waving' in America's streets and that leftwing politicians believe that 'America can only be redeemed when she's totally dismantled and then remade, with millions of new people from other countries'. Elsewhere, there were occasional, albeit small, concessions that the 'big, beautiful bill' might not quite be the masterly piece of legislation the White House would have people believe. 'It's not perfect, but it does need to pass if we want this tax cut,' Ainsley Earhardt said on Fox & Friends at the start of the week. Her co-host Brian Kilmeade at least presented some of the negative points in an interview with Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, on Tuesday, challenging him to address the claim that 'this is a tax break for the rich'. But Bessent didn't even attempt to address that, and Kilmeade was unwilling or unable to press him further. The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know. If you have something to share on this subject you can contact us confidentially using the following methods. Secure Messaging in the Guardian app The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said. If you don't already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS/Android) and go to the menu. Select 'Secure Messaging'. SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and post See our guide at for alternative methods and the pros and cons of each. Later that day, the theme continued. Trace Gallagher pulled up data from the Tax Foundation and the Tax Policy Center during his show, with a series of bullet points claiming that if Trump's bill failed it would lead to tax increases for families and small business owners. Gallagher left out the part of the Tax Foundation's analysis where the organization said the bill would reduce incomes by 0.6% and result in a nearly $3.6tn deficit increase, and ignored the Tax Policy Center's verdict that most of the tax cuts in the bill would go 'to the highest-income households'. His guests seemingly overlooked those bits, too, as they kept up the ruse. 'No bill is perfect,' Elizabeth Pipko, a former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, told Gallagher, as she claimed 'the Democrats seem to have forgotten that' before accusing the mainstream media, with no irony, of not accurately representing the bill. Pipko added: 'I think it will pass, and I think it'll go down in history as again another false alarm from the legacy media, from the Democrats, and another victory for President Trump.'
