San Francisco — Netflix added 13 million subscribers in the final three months of last year, the company said on Tuesday, despite price hikes at the leading streaming service.

Netflix finished 2023 with slightly more than 260 million subscribers worldwide, with a profit of $938 million in the final quarter versus just $55 million in the same period a year earlier.

“We believe there is plenty of room for growth ahead as streaming expands,” the U.S. company said in an earnings letter.

Netflix shares were up more than 8% to $532.75 in after-market trades that followed the release of the earnings figures.

“Netflix sticks out as the clear front-runner in the streaming wars,” said Insider Intelligence principal analyst Ross Benes.

The streaming pioneer said that despite last year’s strikes by Hollywood actors and writers, the company has a “big, bold” slate of content for release this year.

The company touted coming content including a sequel to the hit Squid Game series out of South Korea and a brand new “3 Body Problem” show based on a bestselling novel by the same name.

“Choice and control are the price of entry in modern entertainment, and that is streaming,” Netflix said in the letter. “It’s what consumers want, and we believe it’s the best way for our industry to stay relevant and growing.”

The earnings news came the same day that Netflix sealed a long-term broadcast deal with the WWE professional wrestling juggernaut, as it pushes further into sporting events.

Beginning in the United States in 2025, Netflix will become the exclusive new home of “Raw,” the WWE’s flagship program that has been broadcasting on television since 1993.

The agreement will also see WWE shows and live events streamed across the globe as their rights become available.

With an initial 10-year term for $5 billion, the deal has an option for Netflix to extend the deal for an additional 10 years or opt out after the first five years.

“We expect our industry to remain highly competitive,” Netflix said, citing heavy investment by rivals including Amazon, Apple and YouTube. “It’s why continuing to improve our entertainment offering is so important.”

Netflix late last year increased the price of its basic plan in the United States to $11.99 monthly and its premium plan to $22.99, with similar price increases seen in Britain and France.

After a period of rocky earnings, earlier in 2022, the Silicon Valley giant expanded its crackdown on users sharing passwords with people beyond their immediate family.

In a separate bid for revenue, Netflix launched an ad-subsidized offering around the same time as the crackdown.

The ad-supported tier is priced at $7 monthly and is growing fast but has yet to become a main driver of overall revenue, according to Netflix.

As the ad-tiers gain momentum, the company said on Tuesday that it would retire the lowest cost ad-free plan, starting with Canada and the UK in the second quarter of this year.

The company said earlier this month it has 23 million subscribers using the ad-supported tier, which accounts for 40% of new sign-ups.

Netflix Co-Chief Executive Greg Peters said during an earnings call that the company is continuing to expand its lineup of more than 80 mobile games that subscribers can play, having recently added the blockbuster “Grand Theft Auto.”

“We’re stoked by the performance of GTA,” said Peters, noting that the Netflix mobile game exceeded even the company’s high hopes for it.
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NEW YORK — Charles Osgood, a five-time Emmy Award-winning journalist who anchored “CBS Sunday Morning” for more than two decades, hosted the long-running radio program “The Osgood File” and was referred to as CBS News’ poet-in-residence, has died. He was 91. 

CBS reported that Osgood died Tuesday at his home in Saddle River, New Jersey, and that the cause was dementia, according to his family. 

Osgood was an erudite, warm broadcaster with a flair for music who could write essays and light verse as well as report hard news. He worked in radio and television with equal facility and signed off by telling listeners: “I’ll see you on the radio.” 

“To say there’s no one like Charles Osgood is an understatement,” Rand Morrison, executive producer of “Sunday Morning,” said in a statement. “He embodied the heart and soul of ‘Sunday Morning.’ … At the piano, Charlie put our lives to music. Truly, he was one of a kind — in every sense.” 

“CBS News Sunday Morning” will honor Osgood with a special broadcast on Sunday. 

Osgood took over “Sunday Morning” after the beloved Charles Kuralt retired in 1994. Osgood seemingly had an impossible act to follow, but with his folksy erudition and his slightly bookish, bow-tied style, he immediately clicked with viewers, who continued to embrace the program as an unhurried TV magazine. 

Osgood, who graduated from Fordham University in 1954, started as a classical music disk jockey in Washington, served in the Army and returned to help start WHCT in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1963, he got an on-air position at ABC Radio in New York. 

In 1967, he took a job as reporter on the CBS-owned New York news radio station NewsRadio 88. Then, one fateful weekend, he was summoned to fill in at the anchor desk for the TV network’s Saturday newscast. In 1971, he joined the CBS network and launched what would be known as “The Osgood File.” 

In 1990, he was inducted into the radio division of the National Association of Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame. In 2008, he was awarded the National Association of Broadcasters Distinguished Service Award. He won four Emmy Awards and earned a fifth lifetime achievement honor in 2017. 

Jane Pauley succeeded Osgood as host of “Sunday Morning,” becoming only the third host of the program. 

When he retired in 2016 after 45 years of journalism, Osgood did so in a very Osgood fashion. 

“For years now, people — even friends and family — have been asking me why I continue doing this, considering my age,” the then-83-year-old Osgood said in brief concluding remarks. “It’s just that it’s been such a joy doing it! It’s been a great run, but after nearly 50 years at CBS … the time has come.” 

And then he sang a few wistful bars from a favorite folk song: “So long, it’s been good to know you. I’ve got to be drifting along.” 
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Nairobi, Kenya — Being the preferred choice of footwear for many, flip-flops – typically made of plastic or rubber – break easily and often aren’t disposed of properly. Therefore, millions of them end up in oceans, waterways, dumpsites, and landfills all over the world. 

Ocean Sole, a Kenya-based company, has found creative and functional ways to reuse the hundreds of thousands of discarded flip-flops that arrive regularly at their warehouse located in Karen, about 45 minutes from Nairobi’s city center.

Joe Mwakiremba has been working for the company for about 10 years. He says the company was “founded on the premise of cleaning our ocean and waterways [while] at the same time employing lots of artists from high-impact communities in Kenya.” 

He told VOA that flip-flops are generally collected from weekly beach cleanups and other places.  

At Ocean Sole, they usually weigh the material and pay collectors about 18 cents per kilogram. Then, to prepare them for carving, they are first hand-washed, one flip-flop at a time.

“The next stage for our smaller and medium-size sculptures, we have a die cut machine that would punch out a template of a giraffe, a lion or a rhino. Those templates are joined together with glue and carved out into that respective animal,” he notes. 

For life-size pieces, the company reuses an additional material. 

“The big piece like this couch I am sitting on, the inside of it is polystyrene. Polystyrene comes from shipping companies; they use it as insulation. When it’s worn out, they toss it away, so we carve out our big-size sculpture like the giraffe behind me using that material and pad it using the flip flops around it,” he expressed.

Using a machine, the pieces are then sanded before being cleaned again and readied for shipment. 

In 2023, the company said it recycled 750,000 flip-flops. This year it aims to recycle one million. 

Florence Auma is an artist who has been working for the company for 14 years. Auma told VOA she had to learn the art of carving from scratch. 

“I came into this company, washing flip-flops. I started with washing, then I started with blocking, then I am the first female carver in this company. Now, I am happy because I have many skills in this company,” she says.

Skills, she says, that have allowed her to be able to carve just about anything — like coasters — and to travel the world to showcase her talent. 

Mwakiremba told us one of the largest pieces the company made was a life-size car for a Honda dealership in the United States. They spent three months on the project, using 2,500 flip flops.

Ocean Sole is now collaborating with a design artist from Uganda who now lives in Finland and founded a studio there, in one of their biggest projects to date.

It’s a project they had planned to work on together in 2019 but had to pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lincoln Kayiwa – who has used material such as ceramic, granite, wood, and glass — has decided to try something new with flip flops. 

He recently traveled to Kenya to finalize a furniture project to be launched in April during Milan Design Week — Salone del Mobile — in Italy. 

To cook up this kind of project, Kayima told us he wanted to combine different elements, including a unique design concept with a meaningful product combined with his Ugandan and Finnish cultures — and that of Kenyans at Ocean Sole.

“The project itself has 14 pieces; you are just seeing three of them … of course it’s a win-win situation; the more flip-flops are used, that means the more flip-flops are being taken out of the environment. For me that’s the meaning of sustainability,” the Alvar Aalto University graduate said.
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NEW YORK — After a tumultuous movie year marred by strikes and work stoppages, the Academy Awards showered nominations Tuesday on Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic, “Oppenheimer,” which came away with a leading 13 nominations.

Nolan’s three-hour opus, viewed as the best picture frontrunner, received nods for best picture; Nolan’s direction; acting nominations for Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt; and multiple honors for the craft of the J. Robert Oppenheimer drama.

But the year’s biggest hit, “Barbie,” came away with a nominations haul notably less than its partner in Barbenheimer mania. Greta Gerwig’s feminist comedy, with more than $1.4 billion in ticket sales, was nominated for eight awards, including best picture; Ryan Gosling for best supporting actor; and two best-song candidates in “What Was I Made For” and “I’m Just Ken.”

But Gerwig was surprisingly left out of the best director field. Gerwig was nominated for best director in 2018 for her solo directorial debut, “Lady Bird.” At the time, she was just the fifth woman nominated for the award. Since then, Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”) have won best director. Before those wins, Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker,” in 2010) was the only woman to win the Oscar’s top filmmaking honor.

Both Martin Scorsese’s Osage epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Frankenstein riff “Poor Things” were also widely celebrated. “Poor Things” landed 11 nods, while “Killers of the Moon” was nominated for 10 Oscars.

Lily Gladstone, star of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” became the first Native American nominated for best actress. For the 10th time, Scorsese was nominated for best director. Leonardo DiCaprio, though, was left out of best actor.

The 10 films nominated for best picture were: “Oppenheimer,” “Barbie,” “Poor Things,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “The Holdovers,” “Maestro,” “American Fiction,” “Past Lives,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest.”

Lead nominees “Oppenheimer,” “Barbie,” “Poor Things” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” made for a maximalist quartet of Oscar heavyweights. Nolan’s sprawling biopic. Gerwig’s near-musical. Scorsese’s pitch-black Western. Lanthimos’ sumptuously designed fantasy. Each utilized a wide spectrum of cinematic tools to tell big, often disturbing big-screen stories. And each — even Apple’s biggest-budgeted movie yet, “Killers of the Flower Moon” — had robust theatrical releases that saved streaming for months later.

The Associated Press notched its first Oscar nomination in the news organization’s 178-year history with “20 Days in Mariupol,” Mstyslav Chernov’s harrowing chronicle of the besieged Ukrainian city and of the last international journalists left there after the Russia invasion. It was nominated for best documentary, along with “Four Daughters,” “Bobi Wine: The People’s President,” “The Eternal Memory” and “To Kill a Tiger.”

“20 Days” is a joint production between The Associated Press and PBS’ “Frontline.”

The nominees for best international film are: “Society of the Snow,” (Spain); “The Zone of Interest,” (United Kingdom); “The Teachers’ Lounge” (Germany); “Io Capitano” (Italy) ; “Perfect Days” (Japan).

The nominees for best animated film are: “The Boy and the Heron”; “Elemental”; “Nimona”; “Robot Dreams”; “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.”

Oscar season has reunited “Oppenheimer” with its summer box-office partner, “Barbie.”

Historically, blockbusters have helped fueled Oscar ratings. Though the pile-up of award shows (an after-effect of last year’s strikes ) could be detrimental to the Academy Awards, the Barbenheimer presence could help lift the March 10 telecast on ABC. Jimmy Kimmel is returning as host, with the ceremony moved up an hour, to 7 p.m. Eastern.
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Being the preferred choice of footwear for many, flip-flops — typically made of plastic or rubber — break easily and don’t get disposed of properly. Millions of them, therefore, end up in oceans, waterways, dumpsites and landfills all over the world. A Kenya-based company has found creative and functional ways to reuse them. VOA Nairobi Bureau Chief Mariama Diallo visited their warehouse located in Karen, about 45 minutes from the city center, and has this report. Camera: Amos Wangua
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NEW YORK — Norman Jewison, the acclaimed and versatile Canadian-born director whose Hollywood films ranged from Doris Day comedies and “Moonstruck” to social dramas such as the Oscar-winning “In the Heat of the Night,” has died at age 97. 

Jewison, a three-time Oscar nominee who in 1999 received an Academy Award for lifetime achievement, died “peacefully” Saturday, according to publicist Jeff Sanderson. Additional details were not immediately available. 

Throughout his long career, Jewison combined light entertainment with topical films that appealed to him on a deeply personal level. As Jewison was ending his military service in the Canadian navy during World War II, he hitchhiked through the American South and had a close-up view of Jim Crow segregation. In his autobiography “This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me,” he noted that racism and injustice became his most common themes. 

“Every time a film deals with racism, many Americans feel uncomfortable,” he wrote. “Yet it has to be confronted. We have to deal with prejudice and injustice or we will never understand what is good and evil, right and wrong; we need to feel how ‘the other’ feels.” 

He drew upon his experiences for 1967’s “In the Heat of the Night,” starring Rod Steiger as a white racist small-town sheriff and Sidney Poitier as a Black detective from Philadelphia trying to help solve a murder and eventually forming a working relationship with the hostile local lawman. 

James Baldwin condemned the film’s “appalling distance from reality,” and thought the director trapped in a fantasy of racial harmony that would only heighten “Black rage and despair.” But The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther was among the critics who found the movie powerful and inspiring and, in a year, featuring such landmarks as “The Graduate” and “Bonnie and Clyde,” Jewison’s production won the Academy Award for best picture while Steiger took home the best actor Oscar. (Jewison lost out for best director to Mike Nichols of “The Graduate”). 

Among those who encouraged Jewison while making “In the Heat of the Night”: Robert F. Kennedy, whom the director met during a ski trip in Sun Valley, Idaho. 

“I told him I made films and he asked what kind I make,” he recalled in a 2011 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “So I told him that I was working on ‘In the Heat of the Night’ and that it’s about two cops: one a white sheriff from Mississippi and the other a black detective from Philadelphia. I told him it was a film about tolerance. So he listened and nodded and said ‘You know, Norman, timing is everything. In politics, in art, in life itself.’ I never forgot that.” 

He received two other Oscar nominations, for “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Moonstruck,” the beloved romantic comedy for which Cher won an Academy Award for best actress. He also worked on such notable films as the Cold War spoof “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” the Steve McQueen thriller “The Thomas Crown Affair” and a pair of movies featuring Denzel Washington: the racial drama “A Soldier’s Story” and “The Hurricane,” starring Washington as wrongly imprisoned boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. 

A third project with Washington never made it to production. In the early 1990s, Jewison was set to direct a biography of Malcolm X, but backed out amid protests from Spike Lee and others that a white director shouldn’t make the film. Lee ended up directing. 

Five Jewison films received best Oscar nominations: “In the Heat of the Night,” “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Moonstruck” and “A Soldier’s Story.” 

Jewison and his wife Margaret Ann Dixon (nicknamed Dixie) had three children, sons Kevin and Michael and daughter Jennifer Ann, who became an actress and appeared in the Jewison films “Agnes of God” and “Best Friends.” The Jewisons were married 51 years, until her death in 2004. He married Lynne St. David in 2010. 

Jewison, honored by Canada in 2003 with a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, remained close to his home country. When he wasn’t working, he lived on a 200-acre farm near Toronto, where he raised horses and cattle and produced maple syrup. He founded the Canadian Film Centre in 1988 and for years hosted barbecues during the Toronto Film Festival. 

The Toronto-born Jewison began acting at age 6, appearing before Masonic lodge gatherings. After graduating from Victoria College, he went to work for the BBC in London, then returned to Canada and directed programs for the CBC. His work there brought offers from Hollywood, and he quickly earned a reputation as a director of TV musicals, with stars including Judy Garland, Danny Kaye and Harry Belafonte. Jewison shifted to feature films in 1963 with the comedy “40 Pounds of Trouble,” starring Tony Curtis and Suzanne Pleshette. 

The director’s light touch prompted Universal to assign him to a series of comedies, including “The Thrill of It All,” which paired Day with James Garner, and “Send Me No Flowers,” starring Day and Rock Hudson. Wearying of such scripts, Jewison used a loophole in his contract to move to MGM for 1965’s “The Cincinnati Kid,” a drama of the gambling world starring McQueen and Edward G. Robinson. He followed with “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” which starred Carl Reiner and Eva Marie Saint and was the breakthrough film for Alan Arkin. 

His other films included “F.I.S.T.”, a flop with Sylvester Stallone as a Jimmy Hoffa-style labor leader; “… And Justice for All” (1979), with Al Pacino fighting a crooked judicial system; and “In Country,” featuring Bruce Willis as a Vietnam War veteran. His most recent work, the 2003 thriller “The Statement,” starred Michael Caine and Tilda Swinton and flopped at the box office. 

“I never really became as much a part of the establishment as I wanted to be,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2011. “I wanted to be accepted. I wanted people to say ‘that was a great picture.’ I mean I have a big ego like anyone else. I’m no shrinking violet. But I never felt totally accepted — but maybe that’s good.” 
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New York — On a quiet weekend in movie theaters, “Mean Girls” repeated atop the box office with $11.7 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday, while a handful of awards contenders sought to make an impact ahead of Oscar nominations Tuesday.

With a dearth of new releases in cinemas, Paramount Pictures’ Tina Fey-scripted musical “Mean Girls” pushed its two-week total past $50 million, along with $16.2 million internationally. So far, it’s outpacing the tally for the 2004 original “Mean Girls.”

Only one new film debuted in wide release: “I.S.S.,” a modestly budgeted sci-fi thriller starring Ariana DeBose. The film, which speculates what would happen aboard the International Space Station if war broke out between the U.S. and Russia, debuted with $3 million on 2,518 screens for Bleecker Street.

Expectations weren’t high for “I.S.S.,” which drew only so-so reviews and was lightly marketed. Audiences also didn’t like it, giving the film a “C-” CinemaScore.

But even for January, historically a low ebb for moviegoing, it was a sparsely attended weekend, with paltry options on the big screen. The top 10 films collectively accounted for just $51.3 million in box office, according to Comscore.

With a similarly thin release schedule on deck for next weekend, it could be the start of a chastening trend for Hollywood in 2024. Due to production delays caused by last year’s strikes, there are significant holes throughout this year’s movie calendar.

The Jason Statham thriller “The Beekeeper,” from Amazon MGM Studios, remained in second place, grossing $8.5 million in its second weekend to bring its total to $31.1 million. Warner Bros. “Wonka,” six weeks into its smash run in theaters, was third, with $6.4 million in ticket sales. It’s taken in $187.2 million domestically.

Also continuing to leg out was Sony Pictures’ “Anyone But You.” The rom-com starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, crossed $100 million globally in its fifth week of release. It’s the highest grossing R-rated romantic comedy — a genre that has largely migrated to streaming platforms — since 2016’s “Bridget Jones’s Baby.” Domestically, it came in fourth with $5.4 million.

Much of the weekend’s action was in expanding awards contenders.

After a qualifying release in December, Ava DuVernay’s “Origin,” starring Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as the “Caste” author Isabel Wilkerson, launched in 125 theaters and pulled in $875,000 — a strong start for the acclaimed film.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ dark fantasy “Poor Things,” starring Emma Stone, added 820 theaters and grossed $2 million from 1,400 locations. The Searchlight Pictures release, which won the Golden Globe for best comedy-musical, has earned $33.7 million globally in seven weeks of slowly expanding release.

Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction,” starring Jeffrey Wright as a frustrated novelist, expanded to 850 screens and pulled in $1.8 million. “American Fiction,” up to $8 million in six weeks, will look for a boost in Tuesday’s Oscar nominations.

Jonathan Glazer’s Auschwitz film “The Zone of Interest” expanded to 82 screens, grossing $447,684 for A24.

But after a strong launch, another awards contender, “The Color Purple,” has quickly fallen off the radar of moviegoers. Though widely acclaimed and with the backing of producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, the Warner Bros. musical has dropped fast in recent weeks. In its fourth week of release, the Blitz Bazawule-directed film starring Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson and Danielle Brooks, grossed just $720,000. Its domestic total is $59.3 million, below hopes for the $100-million budgeted film.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Mean Girls,” $11.7 million.

2. “The Beekeeper,” $8.5 million.

3. “Wonka,” $6.4 million.

4. “Anyone But You,” $5.4 million.

5. “Migration,” $5.3 million.

6. “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” $3.7 million.

7. “I.S.S.,” $3 million.

8. “Night Swim,” $2.7 million.

9. “The Boys in the Boat,” $2.5 million.

10. “Poor Things,” $2 million.
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SEOUL, South Korea — Video footage released by an organization that works with North Korean defectors shows North Korean authorities publicly sentencing two teenagers to 12 years’ hard labor for watching K-pop.

The footage, which shows the two 16-year-olds in Pyongyang convicted of watching South Korean movies and music videos, was released by the South and North Development Institute, or SAND.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the footage, which was first reported by the BBC.

North Korea has for years imposed tough sentences on anyone caught enjoying South Korean entertainment or copying the way South Koreans speak in its war on outside influences. A sweeping new “anti-reactionary thought” law was imposed in 2020.

“Judging from the heavy punishment, it seems that this is to be shown to people across North Korea to warn them. If so, it appears this lifestyle of South Korean culture is prevalent in North Korean society,” said Choi Kyong-hui, president of SAND and doctor of political science at Tokyo University, who defected from North Korea in 2001.

“I think this video was edited around 2022. … What is troublesome for [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un is that Millennials and Gen Z young people have changed their way of thinking. I think he’s working on turning it back to the North Korean way.”

The video, made by North Korean authorities, shows a large public trial in which the two students in grey scrubs are handcuffed while watched by about 1,000 students in an amphitheater. All the students, including the two 16-year-olds, are wearing face masks, suggesting the footage was shot during the COVID pandemic.

The students were sentenced, according to the video, after being convicted of watching and spreading South Korean movies, music and music videos over three months.

“They were seduced by foreign culture … and ended up ruining their lives,” the narrator states, as the video cut away to young girls being handcuffed and Pyongyang women wearing South Korean fashion and hairstyles.

Reclusive North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, and are divided by a heavily fortified demilitarized zone.
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