Despite the best legal efforts of the Walt Disney Company, looks like Justin Connolly is going to be working at YouTube. A LA Superior Court judge pulled the plug on the Mouse House’s efforts to prevent the hit the pause button on the so-called poaching of recently departed president of Disney Platform Distribution. Connally can start his new big job at the Google-owned platform as global head of media and sports.

The Walt Disney Company has also laid off several hundred employees globally, the bulk of them are across divisions of Disney Entertainment, including marketing for both film and television as well as television publicity, casting and development. Also affected are Disney’s corporate financial operations.

Shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery have voted to reject the 2024 compensation packages of its top executives, including CEO David Zaslav. At the 2024 annual meeting, shareholders had only just barely approved WBD’s executive pay packages, and this year Institutional Shareholder Services, an influential shareholder advisory firm, recommended that shareholders reject the pay packages, “in light of inadequate responsiveness and an unmitigated pay-for-performance misalignment.”

More than 100 celebrities from across the entertainment industry have signed a letter calling for the protection of funding for a federal program that provides emergency crisis support to LGBTQ+ youth considering suicide.

The Trevor Project said today that it is at risk of losing $25 million in funding for its 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ Youth Specialized Services. The list of signatories includes Ariana Grande, Pedro Pascal, Daniel Radcliffe, Gabrielle Union-Wade, Dwyane Wade, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dua Lipa, Sabrina Carpenter, Cara Delevingne, Christina Aguilera, Troye Sivan, Sarah Paulson, Nathan Lane, Alan Cumming, Kelsea Ballerini, Tove Lo, Sophia Bush, Josh Hutcherson, Jonathan Van Ness, and many more across film, music, TV, sports, theatre, comedy, fashion, culinary arts, and book publishing.

AMC Networks is the latest entertainment group to formally make a deal with emerging Hollywood AI player Runway. AMC will use the New York firm’s tech both to generate marketing images and help pre-visualize shows that have yet to be produced.

Hallmark Media has elevated John Matts to president, in a leadership change at the company that operates Hallmark Channel. Matts was most recently COO of Hallmark Media after joining as CFO in 2022.

CAA has hired Brent Weinstein to serve as part of its senior leadership, overseeing a number of high-profile business areas including digital media, podcasts, games, talent business ventures, and speakers. Weinstein will also be involved in CAA‘s investments and M&A activity. A veteran entertainment executive, Weinstein was most recently chief development officer of Candle Media, the rollup vehicle led by Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs.

In a surprise deal, The New York Times has struck an AI licensing agreement with the tech giant Amazon, a deal that will bring Times content to the tech giant’s AI-powered devices and services. The agreement will also allow Times content to be used to train Amazon’s proprietary foundation AI models. The agreement covers news editorial, cooking, and The Athletic, and would bring that content to devices such as Alexa.

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