Cord Cutters

Spotify and Universal Music Group recently announced a licensing deal that clears both master recording and publishing rights for AI-generated music, allowing the company to launch a tool letting Premium subscribers create covers and remixes of songs from participating UMG artists. The tool will cost extra on top of a standard Premium subscription. No price and no launch date have been set so far.

Spotify Guided Workout Experiences Launch: Features, Limits, and Access

Spotify used its 2026 Investor Day this week to announce four podcast features and, more deliberately, to argue that they belong together. Spotify podcast memberships, AI-generated personal audio, in-episode Q&A, and rebuilt brand sponsorship tools are not separate bets.

2026 Apple TV 4K Rumors: A17 Pro, Siri Delay, and Release Window

Nearly 700 ad-free titles are now streamable across 135 countries, but eligibility, scope, and what stays Audible-only are worth understanding before you assume full access.

Apple Music introduced a mandatory AI disclosure system in early March, requiring labels and distributors to tag content whenever artificial intelligence played a "material portion" of its creation. The Apple Music AI-generated music policy covers four categories: sound recordings, artwork, lyrics and compositions, and music videos. Here is the tension at the center of it: Apple says the tags are required, but its own technical specification describes them as optional, defaults to assuming none...

Spotify just launched verified badges for podcasts, bringing its "Verified by Spotify" program to show pages and search results across the platform. The light green checkmark identifies a show as the official presence of the creator, publisher, or brand it claims to be. The rollout pairs with a reinforced takedown policy that explicitly covers AI-assisted impersonation but the badge itself says nothing about whether a show's content was made by a human.

Disney announced a new round of Disney+ and Hulu integration features on May 19, 2026, bringing the two apps closer together with Hulu profile linking, Hulu access inside Disney+ for eligible Hulu subscribers, new Hulu profile avatars, and an upcoming Live Guide. Bundle subscribers who primarily watch Hulu on demand can now bring more of their Hulu activity into Disney+, though Hulu Live TV, add-ons, and non-adult profile linking are not fully folded in yet. Disney says there are "no current...

Apple SVP Eddy Cue wants an F1 movie sequel, and he wants more Formula 1 streaming rights. Those two ambitions point in the same direction: Apple is trying to own more of the F1 fan experience, not simply carry races under contract through 2030. A sequel to F1 The Movie is in development, Apple's U.S. rights deal is now in effect, and the question now is whether Apple's platform-first approach actually expands F1's U.S. audience or just repositions it behind a different paywall.

Sony's PlayStation Plus price increase is due to take effect tomorrow, May 20, pushing monthly subscriptions from $9.99 to $10.99 and three-month plans from $24.99 to $27.99 across the U.S., UK, and Europe, GamingBolt and BBC reported this week. The annual plan stays flat at $80. Sony cited "ongoing market conditions."

Spotify confirmed last Wednesday that its app, Web Player, and support site were degraded around 8 p.m., with users reporting access problems on Downdetector. The company's response was brief: the service was "slow or not working properly," and the matter was under investigation. No mention of an external attack, a DDoS event, or any outside actor appeared in Spotify's public statement.

Netflix began rolling out a redesigned mobile app on April 30, 2026 in nine countries, including the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia, built around a new vertical video swipe feed called Clips. Netflix says the redesign is meant to capture more daytime viewing and help members discover titles faster, Variety reported. The company plans to roll out the update to the rest of the world "in the months to come."

Spotify announced today that Spotify for Creators and Megaphone will adopt Apple's HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) protocol, the same technology Apple introduced for video podcasts in iOS 26.4. Once that rollout completes, Spotify-hosted shows will be able to distribute and monetize video on Apple Podcasts without any changes to existing setups, TechCrunch reported. Separately, creators on five supported third-party hosting platforms can already publish video directly to Spotify now.

Netflix told advertisers Wednesday that its ad business is entering a new phase and for most subscribers on the ad-supported plan, the changes are not what the headlines imply. More ads on Netflix does not mean longer commercial breaks in the middle of Bridgerton. It means more countries, more live-event inventory, new ad surfaces, and smarter targeting. Whether Netflix ads are increasing next year depends almost entirely on what you watch.

How much is AMC+? Plans, prices, and free trials

YouTube TV Customizable Multiview: What's Changing and What's Not

Spotify launched "Spotify 20: Your Party of the Year(s)" yesterday, giving every user, free or premium, access to lifetime listening data the platform has never surfaced before. The feature went live as part of the company's 20th anniversary campaign and is available now in the mobile app. It's a different product than Wrapped, not an extension of it, and that distinction matters before you go looking for yours.

Walmart's Onn 4K Pro is sold out, and Onn 4K Pro scalpers on eBay and Facebook Marketplace are listing the $60 streaming box for $90 to $100 before shipping, Android Authority reported today. That's a 50 to 67 percent markup. The Pro is marked out of stock on Walmart's product page; the cheaper Onn 4K Stick remains available at $40, per the same report.

Mint Mobile's $45 wireless and home internet bundle: true cost breakdown

League of Legends KeSPA Cup on Disney+: Global Streaming Deal Explained

Walmart Onn 4K Google TV Streaming Stick Leak: What We Know

Switch 2 owners searching for how to watch YouTube on Switch 2 have one documented option right now, and it runs through a free battle royale game. A Reddit user discovered that Super Animal Royale surfaces YouTube clips in a scrolling news feed on its main menu. Select a clip, choose "watch on YouTube," and the console opens an external browser with full YouTube search. Video tops out at 360p, account sign-in isn't available, and the YouTube web interface frequently fails to render correctly.

Spotify launched lossless streaming in September 2025, four years after first promising it. For subscribers who stream at home over Wi-Fi, the upgrade was seamless. For anyone who depends on downloaded tracks, the rollout left a quiet problem in place: enabling lossless does nothing to audio files already stored on a device. Older downloads stay at whatever compressed quality they were originally saved, and Spotify has not announced a fix. Streaming sounds one way; the phone plays another.

The same YouTube symptoms can come from three different bugs. A frozen spinner, a black screen, a "Content no longer available" error, any of these could point to a timing race in WebKit's codec pipeline, a blocked-request loop in Brave, or a rendering failure in Zen Browser. The surface looks identical. The causes are not, and neither are the fixes.

Spotify today launched the Verified by Spotify badge, a green checkmark that appears on artist profiles and next to artist names in search results, confirming a real person is behind the music. The timing is pointed. Sony Music had requested removal of more than 135,000 AI-generated songs impersonating its artists from streaming services in the weeks before this launch, TechCrunch reported. Rival platform Deezer disclosed last week that AI-generated tracks now represent 44% of all new music...

Netflix today pushed a redesigned mobile app to iPhone users in nine countries, with a new vertical video feed called Clips at its center. The update is Netflix's most significant mobile overhaul in years, built to turn the frustrating "what should I watch?" moment into a swipeable discovery experience rather than a chore. For iPhone users in the launch markets, the Netflix iPhone app redesign is live now.

The YouTube watch history workaround covered here is straightforward but requires a real tradeoff: turn off watch history, accept that the homepage algorithm stops working, and replace it with four manual discovery methods. Search, subscriptions, direct channel browsing, and the Explore tab. None of those require YouTube to know what you've watched.

YouTube TV has stripped the biggest restriction from its multiview feature. Subscribers can now build a YouTube TV customizable multiview layout from any live channel in their plan, up to four streams at once, rather than picking from a short list of combinations YouTube pre-selected for them. The launch was officially declared today, Variety reported.

The Champions League is back with one of the most anticipated matchups of the season, and if you're looking to catch Newcastle vs. Barcelona without being tied to traditional cable, you've got more streaming options than ever before. The challenge isn't finding a way to watch—it's navigating the maze of streaming platforms, geographic restrictions, and device compatibility to get the best viewing experience possible.

The streaming hardware landscape just got a little more interesting with some behind-the-scenes revelations from Sonos. The company's CEO recently opened up about a significant strategic decision that could have reshaped how we think about premium streaming devices and the competitive dynamics with Apple's ecosystem.

Singapore police have arrested a 26-year-old man suspected of gaining unauthorized remote access to a media server, downloading Paramount's completed animated film The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender, and posting portions of it online months before its scheduled Paramount+ debut. The Criminal Investigation Department identified him and made the arrest within a single day of receiving an April 16 report that extracts from an unreleased animated film were circulating on social media, AsiaOne...

The question is not hypothetical in the abstract. Streaming consolidation has followed a recognizable pattern across the past decade, and a merger between Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global would be the largest test of that pattern yet. The combined entity would control HBO, CNN, DC, Paramount Pictures, CBS, Nickelodeon, and MTV under a single owner. That is a content library large enough that a meaningful share of U.S. subscribers would find it genuinely difficult to cancel either...

The 2026 Oscar nominations have dropped, and if you're anything like me, you're already mapping out your viewing strategy. From blockbuster sequels to indie darlings, this year's nominees span every corner of the entertainment landscape—which means they're scattered across just as many streaming platforms and rental services.

A Rome court recently ruled that Netflix illegally raised prices on Italian subscribers and ordered the company to issue refunds, reduce current bills, and inform former customers to inform them of their rights. The headline figures are striking up to €500 for long-term Premium subscribers. The reality is narrower, and none of it is final.

The streaming wars just took an unexpected turn. While Disney has long been synonymous with media dominance, a new giant has emerged as a leading media company by ad revenue. YouTube's meteoric rise to become the world's largest media company by advertising revenue signals a fundamental shift in how we consume, create, and monetize content in the digital age.

T-Mobile's 2024 MLB.TV Offer: What Happened to Sports Streaming Perks?

International baseball fans are in for a treat this March, as the 2026 World Baseball Classic brings 20 national teams together for what's shaping up to be an epic showdown. Now here's the thing about watching this tournament without cable – with Fox Sports controlling comprehensive broadcast rights, cord-cutters need a strategic approach to catch every pitch without traditional subscriptions.

The streaming landscape just got a little friendlier for channel surfers. If you've ever found yourself scrolling endlessly through Roku's massive collection of free live TV channels, wondering if there's something specific you're missing, you're not alone. With over 500 of FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television) channels now available across the platform, discovery has become both a blessing and a curse—there's tons of content, but finding exactly what you want can feel like searching for a needle...

How to Watch F1 Live Streams Online for Free: The Complete 2024 Guide

The streaming wars have reached every corner of the globe, but there's one battlefield where even the biggest platforms are struggling to gain ground. While Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video dominate in Western markets, a different reality exists in regions like the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where geopolitical tensions, payment infrastructure gaps, and licensing complexities create the perfect storm for widespread piracy.