Reports of Roger Ailes’ impending departure from Fox News have come to pass. On Thursday, 21st Century Fox announced that the exec, who served as chairman and CEO of Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network, as well as chairman of Fox Television Stations, has resigned, effective immediately. The news comes in the wake of an investigation into recent sexual harassment allegations against him.
With Ailes out, Rupert Murdoch, 21st Century Fox’s executive chairman, will step in as chairman and acting CEO of Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network. He bid his colleague a fond public farewell, highlighting the contributions Ailes has made over his decades with the media company.
“Roger Ailes has made a remarkable contribution to our company and our country,” said Murdoch in a statement. “Roger shared my vision of a great and independent television organization and executed it brilliantly over 20 great years.”
Impressive as his accomplishments have been, there has certainly been a cloud over Ailes’ departure. In early July, longtime Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment suit against the chairman, as reported by The New York Times. Carlson claimed that she was fired after rejecting advances from Ailes, which led 21st Century Fox to launch an investigation. Sources recently told New York Magazine that the investigation turned up further claims from employees, including from popular Fox News host Megyn Kelly of The Kelly File.
The timing of Ailes’ departure may not be the worst for Fox as it coincides with the Republican National Convention. The RNC has already inspired numerous buzzworthy headlines, from whether or not prospective first lady Melania Trump plagiarized her speech to Ted Cruz’s noticeable lack of an endorsement for Donald Trump.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?