Author: rb809rb

SiriusXM, iHeartMedia Eye Merger, With Irving Azoff and Apollo in Mix

iHeartMedia and SiriusXM are in early talks about combining the two companies, according to sources familiar with the matter, who say that music industry titan Irving Azoff and Apollo Global Management are involved to try and help facilitate a deal.

iHeartMedia is the largest radio station owner in the U.S., with more than 860 stations in 160 markets, while SiriusXM is the largest satellite radio service, boasting talents deals with the likes of Andy Cohen, Alex Cooper and most famously Howard Stern. In recent years, both companies have leaned into podcasts as a growth engine amid a decline in radio listenership. iHeartMedia filed for bankruptcy in 2018 and has since been working to mount a turnaround, with shares up 10 percent year to date.

Representatives for SiriusXM declined to comment, and reps for Apollo didn’t respond to request for comment. A representative for iHeartMedia said that “we don’t comment on rumors or speculation.”

Apollo is a major private equity player in the media landscape. In 2024, the company made a bid for Paramount, which was ultimately acquired by David Ellison. Azoff has been one of the most prominent figures in the music industry for decades, managing the Eagles, John Mayer and U2 among many others. He also co-founded the venue management company Oak View Group as well as the performing rights organization Global Music Rights. He also served as the CEO of Ticketmaster, where he helped the ticketing company merge with concert promotion giant Live Nation.

Combined, iHeart and SiriusXM would have a more dominant scale across the radio waves, as well as in the podcast market and developing platforms with artists. A combination of the companies could face regulatory hurdles, given the potential competition concerns the deal would present in the podcast space.

SiriusXM is the biggest podcast network in the U.S. and has a roster of shows that often appear in the top 10 most popular, including Call Her Daddy, SmartLess, The Mel Robbins Podcast and more. iHeartMedia is the third largest podcast network, with popular shows including My Favorite Murder, The Breakfast Club and Las Culturistas.

While SiriusXM has been working to cut down churn among its satellite radio base and expects flat revenue for the upcoming year, it said that podcast ad revenue grew 41 percent in 2025, after double-digit growth in 2024. IHeartMedia saw a similar growth pattern in its fourth-quarter earnings, with podcast revenue up 24.5% year over year and total revenue up just 0.8 percent.

April 24, 2026
iHeartRadio and SiriusXM in Early Merger Talks, With Irving Azoff and Apollo Advising

IHeartMedia and SiriusXM are in early talks to join forces, with Irving Azoff and Apollo Global Management offering to help with any such deal, sources tell Variety.

News of the potential merger was first reported by Bloomberg, however, a source stated that any reports of financial problems at iHeart are untrue, and also that the companies are looking at a merger, not the sale of one to the other.

The sources stressed that the talks are in very early stages and there is no guarantee that a deal will take place.

Such a merger would ⁠unite iHeart’s 850-plus broadcast radio stations and SiriusXM’s podcast network, among other services. IHeartMedia is the largest radio network and ⁠audio company in the U.S. and claims to reach 250 million monthly listeners.

The sources said that the objective of combining the companies would be to provide greater scale and partner with artists to create platforms. However, it is clear that, with both terrestrial and satellite radio losing listeners and influence as streaming and multiple other options become increasingly available, the companies would be stronger together than apart.

For 2025, iHeartMedia reported revenue of $3.865 billion, flat when compared with the previous year, with its digital audio group’s revenue up 14% and podcast revenue up 26%.

Reps for iHeartMedia and SiriusXM either declined or did not respond to Variety‘s requests for comment on Friday afternoon.

April 24, 2026
Brazil blocks Kalshi and Polymarket in crackdown on prediction markets

Brazil has blocked access to prediction market platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket, escalating a regulatory crackdown on products officials say operate like illegal betting.

Finance Minister Dario Durigan said Friday that telecom regulator Anatel shut down 27 prediction market platforms after the government concluded they breached betting rules approved by Congress. The sites of Kalshi and Polymarket were offline in Brazil by early Friday afternoon.

The move follows a new National Monetary Council rule limiting derivatives to economic and financial benchmarks such as price indexes, interest rates and exchange rates. Contracts tied to sports, online gaming, politics, elections, cultural events and social outcomes were excluded from the permitted derivatives framework.

Brazil’s Finance Ministry said in a technical note that prediction markets use binary event contracts where users take yes or no positions on future outcomes. The ministry said platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket are among the best known examples globally and argued that their structure overlaps with fixed odds betting.

Economic reforms secretary Regis Dudena said prediction markets had been presented as financial products but resembled betting in practice, while presidential chief of staff Miriam Belchior said the government wanted to prevent an unregulated betting market from taking root.

The decision also sharpens Brazil’s position as global regulators wrestle with how to classify prediction markets. Brazil’s regulated online betting market launched in January 2025, but officials said current law only allows fixed odds betting tied to real world sports events and online games, leaving political, cultural and other event based markets outside the legal framework.

April 24, 2026
As ‘Michael’ Opens, ‘Leaving Neverland’ Accuser James Safechuck Issues Message to Abuse Survivors

James Safechuck, one of two men whose allegations of childhood sexual abuse by Michael Jackson anchored HBO’s 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, has released a video message to other survivors of childhood sexual abuse, timed to the renewed publicity surrounding the upcoming Jackson biopic Michael.

Distributed by Safechuck’s attorney John Carpenter of the Los Angeles plaintiffs’ firm Carpenter & Zuckerman, the video addresses other survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

“The Michael movie’s coming out and it’s getting a lot of promotion,” says Safechuck, 48. “There’s billboards and commercials and just people praising Michael and it can be triggering for survivors who have their own Michael in their lives, whether it’s the priest who’s close to God or the sports coach who’s just helping the kids or the step-parent who’s supporting the family.

“Our abusers are praised sometimes, even after we come out and tell the truth,” he continues. “And I just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone and that there’s other survivors out there that understand what you’re going through and that are there with you. And that if you’re feeling all the feels, then lean into people that are close to you, lean into people that support you and that give you love and know that you’re not alone. … [T]elling the truth and telling what happened is a good thing and that it’s part of your healing.”

Safechuck is a plaintiff in an ongoing civil suit against Jackson’s corporate entities, MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures, which a California appeals court revived in 2023 after years of dismissals.

Michael, directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Jaafar Jackson — Michael Jackson‘s nephew — as the late singer, is already breaking box office records as it heads into its opening weekend. Michael earned a huge $12.6 million in Wednesday and Thursday previews, putting it on course to open to $70 million-plus domestically, the top start ever for a music biopic.

Dan Reed, the director of Leaving Neverland, told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview that “people don’t care that [Jackson] was a child molester. Literally, people just don’t care.”

The Jackson estate has consistently denied the allegations made by Safechuck and fellow Leaving Neverland subject Wade Robson, saying after the project’s 2019 Emmy win, “The film takes uncorroborated allegations that supposedly happened 20 years ago and treats them as fact.”

Safechuck’s attorney Carpenter tells THR his client was “struggling with everybody celebrating his abuser,” leading him to make the video. “The most successful abusers, be they Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, priests, coaches, relatives, or Caesar Chavez, tend to have inordinate power and/or influence, which translated into misplaced trust,” Carpenter says. “It’s very powerful. It’s powerfully hurtful when people are celebrating their abuser. And so I think that’s what’s happening right now.”

Carpenter says he does not expect Robson to put out a statement regarding Michael. As for the pending trial, Carpenter says the date is currently “in flux” but expects it to happen “sometime in 2027.”

April 24, 2026
‘Chicago Fire’ Showrunner Andrea Newman Steps Down, Victor Teran to Take Helm of Season 15

“Chicago Fire” showrunner Andrea Newman is departing the show, Variety has confirmed.

With Newman’s exit, series co-executive producer Victor Teran has been promoted to executive producer and showrunner for the NBC drama’s upcoming 15th season.

“Working at ‘Chicago Fire,’ with the absolute best cast and crew in the business, has been the highlight of my career,” Newman said. “Like so many others, I was inspired to get into TV writing because of Dick, so what a thrill it’s been to work with him and the amazing Wolf team of Peter Jankowski, Rebecca McGill and Anastasia Puglisi. I’m so grateful to them, Derek Haas and the NBC and Universal execs who have been so supportive of the show all along the way. After 14 years, you really do become a family and working with this group will always feel like home.”

Newman has been a mainstay at “Chicago Fire” since it began. She originally joined the show as a writer and co-executive producer in its first season in 2012. She rose through the ranks to become an executive producer and eventually co-showrunner in 2021 before taking over sole leadership of the show in 2023.

“We’re sad to say goodbye to Andrea. She’s been at the center of the heart and soul of ‘Chicago Fire’ since the beginning and the show thrived under her watch,” said series executive producer Peter Jankowski. “We’re grateful for her commitment to the development of the next generation and know the show will be in great hands with Victor taking the reins.”

Teran originally joined “Chicago Fire” in its 10th season. He was previously vice president of physical production at Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and also produced, wrote and directed indie films like the Sundance Dramatic Competition selection “Filly Brown,” starring Gina Rodriguez and Edward James Olmos, and the SXSW Competition film “Snap.”

He is repped by Verve.

All three One Chicago shows were renewed back in March. All three shows remain ratings stalwarts on the NBC primetime lineup, even this late in their runs. They continue to power NBC’s Wednesday night schedule, airing back-to-back.

Deadline first reported Newman’s exit.

April 24, 2026
XChat, the standalone app for messaging on X, is available on iOS now

XChat, the standalone app for accessing X’s messaging feature, is available to download now for iOS. X first suggested it would be stripping direct messaging from X in 2025, but at least for now, XChat is available in the original X app, the web and this new app.

Based on its launch video, the new XChat app offers many of the elements of modern messaging X had already introduced to its chats feature, like the ability to delete and edit messages, block screenshots and send disappearing messages. The new XChat app also supports video and audio calls, and X claims that all messages sent with XChat are end-to-end encrypted.

XChat will also be expected to be the home of any groups that formed around X’s Communities feature. The social platform recently announced that it was retiring Communities at the end of May, and suggested that XChat’s support for larger group chats could be a worthwhile alternative. XChat’s group chats can currently have 350 participants, but X plans to expand that number in the future.

Elon Musk’s original pitch after he rebranded Twitter as X, was to turn the platform into an “everything app,” where things like an algorithmic feed, messaging, job boards and even payments could exist side-by-side. A standalone messaging app seems like the exact opposite of that, but it might also reflect where X finds itself in 2026. The company is now a subsidiary of xAI, and xAI itself is part of SpaceX. Musk’s push into AI appears to be the going concern, and cloning something like WeChat might just be less important.

April 24, 2026
Cardano Founder Says NIGHT Is Among Crypto’s Most Traded Assets, Teases Busy Year for Midnight
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson comments on the rapid rise of Midnight’s native token, $NIGHT, describing it as one of the most actively traded assets.

In a recent commentary, Hoskinson pointed to strong liquidity growth since late 2025 and increasing exchange adoption as signs of accelerating market traction for $NIGHT.

Moreover, he signaled that Midnight’s development is entering a high-activity phase. Consistent progress, partnerships, and ecosystem expansion are set to follow throughout the year.

Key Points
- Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson described Midnight as one of the most actively traded assets in the crypto industry.
- Since its December debut, the token has already secured listings on Binance, Kraken, KuCoin, Bitget, and OKX, among others.
- $NIGHT’s trading volume surged by 102% in 24 hours, reaching approximately $39.66 million.
- He framed the coming months as a critical growth phase, stating that it would be a very busy year for Midnight.
Midnight Among the Most Traded in the Industry

The Cardano founder has highlighted the growing prominence of Midnight, noting that $NIGHT has quickly become one of the most-traded assets in the crypto industry.

According to him, liquidity for $NIGHT began in December 2025, marking a key milestone in the project’s market debut. Since then, the token has secured listings on major exchanges, including Binance Spot and Kraken, as well as several other trading platforms.

This rapid expansion in availability has significantly boosted trading activity, positioning $NIGHT as an actively traded asset within a relatively short timeframe. Amid rising trading activity, $NIGHT’s market cap surpassed $1 billion within a few days of its launch.

Although its valuation has dropped to around $600 million, its trading activity has continued to accelerate. Notably, $NIGHT’s volume has skyrocketed by 102% over the past 24 hours to $39.66 million. The vast majority of this volume stems from Bitget, KuCoin, and Binance.

Midnight Trading Volume

A Busy Year Ahead for Midnight

Beyond trading activity, Hoskinson emphasized that Midnight’s development pipeline is accelerating. He noted that the project’s guarded mainnet had launched last month, marking a transition into a more advanced deployment phase.

He further highlighted a pattern of steady progress, with meaningful updates and milestones emerging approximately every three months.

“It’s just been remarkable to see how every three months, major progress is made, major partnerships and collaborations come on board,” Hoskinson stated, adding that “it’s going to be a very busy year.”

Indeed, Midnight has been gaining momentum over the past few months. It has secured major links with Google, Telegram, and the UK-based bank Monument Bank Limited. Despite these milestones, Hoskinson is teasing more partnerships for the project, potentially making the year a busy one for Midnight.
April 24, 2026
U.S. CFTC adds New York to string of states its suing to stop prediction market pushback

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued New York on Friday in its latest action to shield what the agency has argued is its unassailable nationwide regulatory authority over prediction market firms.

Earlier this week, New York sued Coinbase and Gemini, arguing that their prediction market contracts violated state gambling laws. And last year, the state had similarly targeted Kalshi, demanding it cease its sports wagering platform.

The CFTC, in its role as the federal derivatives regulator, has staked out a position that the states have no business interfering with those firms. The agency’s suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York argues that federal law “designates the CFTC as the federal agency with ‘exclusive jurisdiction’ over the regulation of commodity futures, options, and swaps traded on federally regulated exchanges,” and that includes these CFTC-registered designated contract markets. State law is effectively preempted, according to the synchronized positions of the regulator and the growing industry it’s seeking to protect.

But also on Friday, 37 state attorneys general — including New York Attorney General Letitia James — signed onto a legal brief in one of the Kalshi legal fights in Massachusetts to argue that “Kalshi’s aggressive theory of preemption threatens the States’ longstanding ability to protect their citizens in this area.”

CFTC Chairman Mike Selig has made this one of his most prominent initiatives since taking over the agency four months ago, and his agency has similarly sued Arizona, Connecticut and Illinois, claiming event contracts are derivatives instruments within federal jurisdiction.

“CFTC-registered exchanges have faced an onslaught of state lawsuits seeking to limit Americans’ access to event contracts and undermine the CFTC’s sole regulatory jurisdiction over prediction markets,” he said in a statement.

April 24, 2026
As ‘Michael’ Opens, James Safechuck Issues Message to Abuse Survivors

James Safechuck, one of two men whose allegations of childhood sexual abuse by Michael Jackson anchored HBO’s 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, has released a video message to other survivors of childhood sexual abuse, timed to the renewed publicity surrounding the upcoming Jackson biopic Michael.

Distributed by Safechuck’s attorney John Carpenter of the Los Angeles plaintiffs’ firm Carpenter & Zuckerman, the video addresses other survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

“The Michael movie’s coming out and it’s getting a lot of promotion,” says Safechuck, 48. “There’s billboards and commercials and just people praising Michael and it can be triggering for survivors who have their own Michael in their lives, whether it’s the priest who’s close to God or the sports coach who’s just helping the kids or the step-parent who’s supporting the family.

“Our abusers are praised sometimes, even after we come out and tell the truth,” he continues. “And I just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone and that there’s other survivors out there that understand what you’re going through and that are there with you. And that if you’re feeling all the feels, then lean into people that are close to you, lean into people that support you and that give you love and know that you’re not alone. … [T]elling the truth and telling what happened is a good thing and that it’s part of your healing.”

Safechuck is a plaintiff in an ongoing civil suit against Jackson’s corporate entities, MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures, which a California appeals court revived in 2023 after years of dismissals.

Michael, directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Jaafar Jackson — Michael Jackson‘s nephew — as the late singer, is already breaking box office records as it heads into its opening weekend. Michael earned a huge $12.6 million in Wednesday and Thursday previews, putting it on course to open to $70 million-plus domestically, the top start ever for a music biopic.

Dan Reed, the director of Leaving Neverland, told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview that “people don’t care that [Jackson] was a child molester. Literally, people just don’t care.”

The Jackson estate has consistently denied the allegations made by Safechuck and fellow Leaving Neverland subject Wade Robson, saying after the project’s 2019 Emmy win, “The film takes uncorroborated allegations that supposedly happened 20 years ago and treats them as fact.”

April 24, 2026
3 things to watch in Thunder-Suns Game 3

Devin Booker has been kept mostly under wraps in the series by Lu Dort and the Thunder defense.

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Unsurprisingly, the Oklahoma City Thunder have been the most dominant team in these playoffs, outscoring the Phoenix Suns in the first two games of their first-round series by 25 points per 100 possessions. Relative to their opponents’ regular-season numbers, the Thunder have had the best offense (by a huge margin) and the third-best defense of the playoffs through Thursday.

But the Thunder’s bid to repeat as champions has hit a bump in the road, with Jalen Williams having suffered a left hamstring injury in the third quarter of Game 2 on Wednesday night. Williams will be re-evaluated on a weekly basis and it’s likely that he’s out for (at least) the remainder of this series.

Maybe that gives the Suns a little hope as the series moves to Phoenix.

Here are three things to watch for in Game 3 on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, NBC/Peacock):

1. The Thunder will manage without Williams … again

Williams missed 49 games in the regular season (the Thunder went 39-10 without him). Cason Wallace is the most likely player to start in his place, having started 58 games in the regular season. In fact, the lineup with Wallace in place of Williams was the Thunder’s most-used five-man unit in the regular season, and it outscored opponents by 18.6 points per 100 possessions in its 167 total minutes. The 102.3 per 100 that it allowed was the second-best defensive mark among the 37 lineups that played at least 150 minutes.

But the Thunder just can’t be as good offensively without Williams, who had totaled 41 points in his 52 minutes in this series, shooting 16-for-26 and also dishing out 10 assists (with just two turnovers). Not only do they lose a second off-the-dribble weapon in the starting lineup, but also the player running the offense when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander goes to the bench.

In the regular season, the Thunder scored 11.1 fewer points per 100 possessions with Gilgeous-Alexander off the floor (110.4) than they did with him on the floor (121.5). That was the fourth biggest on-off differential on offense among 263 players who played at least 1,000 minutes for a single team, and that off-the-floor mark was well below the league average.

The good news is that the Thunder are one of the best defensive teams we’ve ever seen. In the regular season, they allowed 8.3 fewer points per 100 possessions than the league average, the second-best differential in the 30 seasons for which we have play-by-play data.

2. Can the Suns free up Booker?

Booker has averaged 22.5 points per game in this series, a solid number, but down from 26.1 in the regular season.

Booker’s true shooting percentage (scoring efficiency) has been the same in the playoffs (58.5%) as it was in the regular season. But his usage rate is down from 30.7% in the regular season to just 25.7% in these two games.

The drop in usage rate is obviously more about the Thunder than Booker’s desire to take shots. Just watch this possession early in Game 2, where Lu Dort stays hugging onto Booker, even when the ball is on the opposite side of the floor and when Dort might be tempted to help on the ball …

Of the Suns’ three leading scorers, Booker is the most efficient by a healthy margin. The Thunder are right, then, to prefer that Dillon Brooks and Jalen Green take more shots. Each of them had a big half in Game 2 on Wednesday, but they’ve combined for a true shooting percentage of just 47.9% in this series.

The Suns can obviously take advantage of the attention on Booker to generate good shots on the other side of the floor …

… but they’d also like to get Booker some good shots, too. According to tracking data, he ranked near the bottom of the league in shot quality in the regular season, and that shot quality has been even lower in this series.

Even when he’s seemingly had space to pull up from mid-range, his defender has contested the shot from behind. Sometimes when he’s cut back door against a top-locking defender, another has been there to help.

Placing Booker on the weak side of the floor doesn’t help if his defender remains attached to him, but flare screens can get him some separation in a space where there are fewer help defenders with their eyes on him.

Really, Booker’s best shots have come in transition or after offensive rebounds. Winning the possession game, forcing turnovers and grabbing offensive boards are critical for Phoenix.

3. The turnover differential is historic

The Suns rank third in offensive rebounding percentage (36.5%) in the playoffs, with Oso Ighodaro (15.9%) ranking fourth among individuals. So they’ve given themselves plenty of second chances.

But the leading offensive rebounder in the playoffs has been Isaiah Hartenstein (22.2%), and the Thunder rank fourth in offensive rebounding percentage, just behind the Suns. And the turnover differential has been dramatically in favor of the champs.

In fact, the turnover differential (11.5 per game) would be the biggest in any playoff series in (at least) the last 30 years, topping that of the Thunder’s sweep of the Memphis Grizzlies (8.8 per game) in the first round last year.

The Suns have seen a huge jump in turnover rate and a huge drop in opponent turnover rate from the regular season …

Suns’ own and opponents’ turnovers per 100 possessions

Season Own Rank Opp. Rank

Reg. season 14.7 19 16.5 3

Playoffs 21.4 16 9.4 16

Diff. 6.7 -7.1

We often focus on how the Oklahoma City defense forces turnovers, but we can’t overlook how good the offense has been at avoiding them. This was the second straight season that the champs had the league’s lowest turnover rate, and they’ve been even better at taking care of the ball in this series, even though forcing turnovers has been the biggest strength of this particular opponent.

April 24, 2026