Year: 2020

If you didn’t know that Reno 911! is coming back, no one could really blame you. There’ve been rumblings about it since early December, but… well, things have been a little bananas since then.

But sure enough: eleven years after the end of its original run on Comedy Central, Reno 911! is coming back by way of… not Netflix… not Hulu… but Quibi . And they just dropped the first teaser trailer for it.

For the unfamiliar, Quibi’s thing is that its content is meant to be watched in ten minute chunks. TV episodes? Ten minutes or less. Movies? They’ll be broken into chapters, ten minutes long at most.

That’s actually pretty perfect for Reno 911. While the original show’s episodes came in at 22 minutes each, each episode was really more of a handful of loosely scripted/mostly improv’d bits. Give them a ten minute cap, and it’ll still work just fine. Even in the little teaser clip above, it feels like the same, wonderful, ridiculous show.

Alas, no official launch date seems to be announced for the reboot; while Quibi itself is set to launch in April, the network has only said that Reno 911 is “coming soon.”

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that SoftBank Group is using regulatory investigations as a way to back out of its commitment to buy $3 billion in shares from existing WeWork shareholders.

WeWork’s spectacular train wreck of an initial public offering was an early harbinger that the good times might be over for a cohort of later-stage investments valued at multiple billions of dollars. And the buyout package was part of a broader effort by SoftBank to work out some of the issues at the most troubled company in its broad portfolio of high-priced, highly valued private startups.

Among those who would be left out of a potential buyback plan is WeWork’s founder and former chief executive, Adam Neumann, who was set to receive up to $970 million for his shares in the co-working company.

Citing a notice sent to WeWork shareholders, the Journal reported that if SoftBank reneged on the buyback, it would not go back on its commitment to give the office sharing company a $5 billion lifeline.

According to the Journal’s reporting, the deal to buy back shares isn’t canceled, and could just be an effort to renegotiate terms in light of the global economic slowdown caused by the world’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

So far, the SEC and the Justice Department, along with New York state regulators, have asked for information from SoftBank about WeWork’s business practices and communications to investors.

Revolut is introducing a new product specifically targeted toward kids aged 7-17 years old — Revolut Junior. Revolut Junior is a new app and service that integrates directly with the main Revolut app on the parent’s side.

Parents or legal gardians who are also Revolut users can create a Revolut Junior account for their kid. After that, your kid can download the Revolut Junior app and get a Revolut Junior card.

The new app offers a limited set of features with an interface divided in two tabs — Account and Profile. Kids can see a list of transactions in real time in the Account tab. They can configure card settings in the Profile tab. And that’s about it.

On the other end, parents can control their kids’ spending from Revolut. They can transfer money to a Revolut Junior account instantly. Parents can also access balances and transactions as well as disable some card features, such as online payments. They can also choose to receive notifications when a child is using their card.

The reason why Revolut Junior can attract a ton of users is that Revolut itself already has over 10 million users. It’s going to be easier to convince existing Revolut customers to use Revolut Junior over a custom-made challenger bank for teens, such as Kard or Step. Arguably, the biggest competitor of challenger banks for teens is still cash.

As kids grow up, chances are they’ll switch to a full-fledged Revolut account if they’ve been using Revolut Junior for years. Revolut Junior represents a great acquisition funnel as well.

Revolut Junior is only available to Premium and Metal customers in the U.K. for now. The company will eventually roll it out to more users and more countries.

Revolut plans to add more features to Revolut Junior in the future. For instance, parents will be able to set a regular allowance and financial goals. Kids will get savings options, spending reports, spending limits and more.

Facebook appears to have a bug in its News Feed spam filter, causing URLs to legitimate websites including Mediu and USA Today to be blocked from being shared as posts or comments, including posts related to coronavirus. Facebook has been trying to fight back against misinformation related to the outbreak, but may have gotten overzealous or experienced a technical error. We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment.

While few things may me feel more like social distancing than suiting up in a haptic feedback suit and strapping a computer to your face, location-based virtual reality startups have begun closing up shop alongside a host of other entertainment businesses.

The closures came quickly Monday as city governments began announcing far-reaching measures.

Disney-backed VR startup The Void announced Monday that they would be closing all of their locations in North America. LA’s Two Bit Circus closed their doors yesterday because of Covid-19. Dreamscape Immersive announced yesterday that it has temporarily closed all of its VR entertainment centers across Los Angeles, Dallas, Columbus and Dubai.

“As much as we enjoy sharing virtual reality worlds with you, we cannot ignore what’s happening in the real world,” a post on Dreamscape Immersive’s site read in part.

Not all location-based VR startups have fully scaled back operations stateside. A16z-backed Sandbox VR has temporarily closed locations in Los Angeles and San Francisco (where city officials have mandated closures for most entertainment venues), though the rest of their U.S. locations appear to remain open for reservations on their website. We’ve reached out for more details.

The broader closings are an unsurprising development as more governments across the country push to temporarily shutter non-essential public businesses, something that has swiftly impacted entertainment venues. AMC and Regal announced yesterday that they would each be closing down all of their US theaters temporarily.

Location-based VR startups have been some of the more resilient companies in the face of what has been a years-long slog for the virtual reality industry. Sandbox VR has raised more than $82 million from investors, Dreamscape Immersive has raised over $36 million, while The Void has raised $20 million.

Most of these startups create or license gaming content and allow consumers to book appointments to try out the title. Their success has largely been tied to their independence from broader consumer VR headset sales which have largely failed to meet early expectations by wide margins.

In another example for the farreaching effects of the coronavirus outbreak, the FAA today said that it is temporarily closing the tower at Midway Airport, the second largest airport in the Chicago area. In a statement, the FAA says that that several technicians at the facility tested positive for COVID-19. For a while, there was a ground stop in effect for Midway and no flights could take off to land at the airport.

In its statement, FAA notes that the airport remains open and that operations will continue at a reduced rate.

“The air traffic system is a resilient system with multiple backups in place. This shift is a regular execution of a longstanding contingency plan to ensure continued operations. Each facility across the country has a similar plan that has been updated and tested in recent years,” the FAA says in a statement. How exactly the airport will operate without a working control tower is unclear, though. Smaller airports often revert to being uncontrolled fields after the tower closes at night and have procedures in place for this. That’s not typically the case for large airports like Midway, though, which are staffed 24/7.

The largest airline at Midway is Southwest Airlines, though Delta Air Lines also flies there.

In a separate statement, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the labor union for aviation safety professionals, asks that all who work at the tower should be tested for the disease. “NATCA is adamant that the testing must occur immediately and is hopeful there will be no additional COVID-19 infections. We are encouraged that the FAA is pursuing the rapid testing of all personnel at [Midway] Tower,” the organization writes.

Fox Corp., the broadcast news and entertainment company holding what remains of the Murdoch Family’s television and cable sports and media assets after the sale of 21st Century Fox to Disney, has agreed to acquire the streaming service Tubi for $440 million. 

Tubi, once of a now-dwindling number of free ad-supported streaming services, will bring a new digitally native consumer offering to Fox with younger-skewing audience that consumes roughly 160 million hours of entertainment on the platform, according to a statement.

Available on over 25 digital platforms in the U.S. and featuring 20,000 titles and 56,000 hours of film and television from 250 content partners — including major studios — will now be able to pull from Fox’s stable of news and sports programming in addition to all that licensed television and film.

Fox said that it will integrate its digital advertising, direct-to-consumer features, and personalization technology into Tubi’s advertising platform. Fox watchers can now expect to see a deluge of Tubi ads flood their appointment watching of Neil Cavuto and Fox and Friends.

“Tubi will immediately expand our direct-to-consumer audience and capabilities and will provide our advertising partners with more opportunities to reach audiences at scale,” said Fox Corp. chief executive, Lachlan Murdoch in a statement. “Importantly, coupled with the combined power of Fox’s existing networks, Tubi provides a substantial base from which we will drive long-term growth in the direct-to-consumer area.”

Tubi’s chief executive, Farhad Massoudi, will continue to lead Tubi’s efforts and said that Fox’s relationships with advertisers and distributors would be a big boost to the company’s growth.

Fox is paying for the Tubi acquisition with money earned from its sale of the 5 percent stake it held in Roku — another ad-supported streamer. The company said it was basically exchanging a passive minority investment in Roku for full ownership and control of a leadership position in the free ad-supported streaming market.

It’ll be interesting to see how Fox adjusts programming on the service which primarily comes from Warner Bros., Paramount, Lionsgate and NBCUniversal .

With the acquisition, Fox becomes the second big old-line network to buy into the ad-supported streaming business. In January, Viacom bought the streaming service PlutoTV for $340 million.

Fox was advised by Allen & Co. on the deal, while Qatalyst Partners served as Tubi’s sole financial adviser.