creator

This article contains many spoilers for “Heartstopper Forever.”

In the early minutes of “Heartstopper Forever” — the feature film finale of Netflix’s hit teen romantic dramedy series — Charlie Spring (Joe Locke) notices a crooked photo strip on his boyfriend Nick Nelson’s (Kit Connor) bedroom wall. Gently pulling down the pictures, taken on the beach day they made their relationship official, Charlie smiles wistfully at their younger selves: “We look like babies.”

It’s a line that applies to the characters as much as it does to Locke and Connor. Four years after being catapulted into global stardom, the pair are bidding a bittersweet farewell to the roles that have defined their own coming of age.

“Season 1 does feel like an immensely long time ago that I do look back and think, ‘Yeah, we do look like babies,’” Connor says, with Locke nodding in agreement next to him on a recent video call from London. “‘Heartstopper’ itself was this tiny little show that was clearly something quite special to us, but we didn’t really think or know anyone was going to watch. And, suddenly, it became this thing that was immensely important to a lot of people.”

Adapted by Alice Oseman from her own bestselling graphic novels, which originated as a webcomic in 2016, “Heartstopper” chronicles the endearing love story between high-strung, gay overthinker Charlie and kind-hearted, bisexual rugby player Nick at an all-boys’ school in England.

Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke) in a scene from Season 1 of “Heartstopper.”

(Netflix)

Upon its debut in 2022, the show was lauded for its unabashedly joyful, tender portrayal of queer youth — a refreshing departure from the trauma-heavy narratives that dominate other teen dramas. Even as “Heartstopper” ventured into darker thematic territory, such as Charlie’s history of eating disorders and struggles with self-harm, Oseman’s writing never lost its deft, light touch.

From the outset, Oseman knew she wanted to end “Heartstopper” with Nick going off to university in Leeds and Charlie, who is a year younger, finding independence as head boy at school. But with her cast growing increasingly more in demand every year, the author-turned-screenwriter says it would have been logistically difficult to make a fourth and final season.

After Netflix greenlit a two-hour finale instead, Oseman elected to zero in on her protagonists — not unlike her comics — rather than give each character their own, heavily condensed arc. “I think that was definitely the right decision, because we really get to spend a lot of time with Nick and Charlie and not feel like we’re missing anything,” she says.

Directed by Wash Westmoreland (“Colette,” “Still Alice”), “Forever” finds the first loves grappling with the reality of an impending long-distance relationship, leading to a rash breakup and, ultimately, an emotional reconciliation. In a surprising role reversal, as Charlie confidently steps into a leadership role as an advocate for other LGBTQ+ students, Nick is left to discover his own identity and self-worth outside of being the protective, supportive boyfriend.

On the set of “Heartstopper Forever” as Connor and Locke film a scene from the movie.

(Samuel Dore / Netflix)

Connor, who also executive produced the film with Locke, felt Charlie and Nick’s romance would be better wrapped up in a feature-length format. “There were a few very important and crucial, but short and intense [plot points] — the breakup and the time apart, and the eventual makeup and the two of them discovering who they are without one another,” he explains. “Doing it in a shorter period, I thought, would make those things hit that much harder and feel that much more visceral.”

Unlike previous seasons in which she could rely on her existing comics as storyboards for the show, Oseman was working simultaneously last year on the sixth and final volume of the “Heartstopper” comics, released earlier this month, and the “Forever” screenplay.

Juggling the same story in two different formats turned out to benefit each end product. “When I finished writing the first draft of the script, it actually made me do a really big rewrite of the comic, because it helped me see which moments were really important and which moments didn’t need to be there,” she says. (One of the pivotal scenes was the Pride parade, filmed on the last morning of production.)

As first-time producers, Locke and Connor also provided script notes that directly influenced the story. For instance, “there was no scene between Charlie and Mr. Ajayi in the original script,” says Locke, referring to the gay art teacher, played by Fisayo Akinade, whose classroom became Charlie’s safe haven from bullying before he befriended Nick. “I was like, ‘That scene in Season 1 with them is so pivotal to the story. It would be really lovely to have just a little moment for them in the film that circles on that chapter of their relationship.’ And straight away, Alice was like, ‘Yeah, great idea. Let’s do this.’”

For his part, Connor always feared that the show’s “rose-tinted” approach, though part of the story’s appeal, “would not be nuanced enough to talk about the complexities of being human and being young.”

Locke says he proposed a scene with Fisayo Akinade, who plays art teacher Mr. Ajayi, as a way to circle back on their relationship.

(Netflix)

“There was one moment where I was like, ‘Oh God, I hope these young people watching “Heartstopper” don’t suddenly forget that these kids are human, and that these kids can make mistakes and still be lovely, delightful and good people,’” Connor says. With Oseman and Locke, Connor was adamant about “finding the place [where] these characters were being treated in a way that we all felt good about.”

According to Oseman, Locke and Connor were also heavily involved in selecting a new intimacy coordinator, Robbie Taylor Hunt. Over the years, the amount of sex — or lack thereof — in “Heartstopper” has been the subject of much discourse. “It always annoyed me slightly that people were like, ‘Oh, this is so unrealistic. They’re not having sex.’ They were underage. What do you want us to do?” Locke says with a wry laugh.

Oseman has learned to tune out that online chatter, accepting that she cannot please everyone — let alone represent the entire spectrum of the young queer experience. With each season and now this film, her creative team chose to age up the story slightly. After Charlie and Nick lost their virginity to each other at the end of Season 3, the film uses physical intimacy to reveal more about their maturing relationship.

Locke says those scenes were necessary to the plot. “The pier sex scene is this carnal lust between these two people who need to get it out. The sex scene in the pillow fort is a moment of connection for them,” he says. “And the big sex scene at the end of the film is the reconciliation of their relationship.”

In the end, Nick and Charlie decide to give their relationship another shot, confident that their love can defy the conventional wisdom that teen romances rarely last. But what they learn during their split is “that you can’t put all of your hopes and dreams, your mental health and your ability to survive into one person, because it’s not fair on yourself and on that other person,” Connor says.

Over the years, the amount of sex, or lack of it, in “Heartstopper” has been the subject of online discourse. The film shows more physical intimacy.

(Netflix)

The film’s epilogue, like in the comics, offers a brief glimpse of Charlie visiting Nick for a weekend in Leeds, ending with the two of them looking through the pages of a scrapbook that still has room for new photos. While Oseman has her own vision of Nick and Charlie’s future in 10 years — they’d be newly married with a dog, she believes — the actors who play them aren’t so sure.

“I feel like the beauty of ‘Heartstopper’ is that we get to see a chapter of these two young men’s lives, and it ends in a way that doesn’t promise anything,” Connor says. “Even if they were to not end up together eventually, it wouldn’t make the experience that they shared together any less special or pivotal to who they are as people. I think that’s kind of beautiful.”

Locke is reluctant to divulge his own interpretation of the characters’ future, preferring instead to let viewers make sense of the hopeful ending. “I hope they’re happy,” he says simply. (But for the record, the actors both believe that Charlie and Nick will stay together. “Of course, we all hope so,” Connor clarifies.)

Although she is ready to tell new stories, Oseman believes that she will be revisiting Nick and Charlie, who first appeared in her 2014 debut novel “Solitaire,” “in small ways for the rest of my life.”

“I think there definitely won’t be another 10-year-long webcomic — probably not — but I love thinking about what Nick and Charlie might be up to when they’re 40 or 60,” Oseman says. However, she adds, “I think the main story of ‘Heartstopper’ has concluded, and I do feel good about that.”

Like their high school characters, Locke and Connor are ready to graduate from the “Heartstopper” universe. Wary of being typecast, they have established themselves as versatile stage actors, making their Broadway debuts in “Sweeney Todd” and “Romeo + Juliet,” respectively. Onscreen, Locke joined the Marvel universe in “Agatha All Along,” while Connor has explored vastly different cinematic genres — his next major project, the film adaptation of the dark fantasy video game “Elden Ring,” will reunite him with “Warfare” director Alex Garland.

Even on the day of our interview, Connor and Locke looked a world away from Nick and Charlie. Locke wore an all-black designer outfit, while Connor — dressed in a light blue striped button-down over a white tank and khakis — had traded Nick’s signature floppy hair for designer stubble. Yet both actors have made peace with the reality that they will forever be linked to each other and their roles. “That’s part and parcel of the job,” Connor says.

Fittingly, the last scene Connor and Locke filmed as Nick and Charlie was the anniversary scene in the park where there is a fallen tree with the letters “N+C” carved into the trunk. “It was lovely because it was back to how a lot of the ‘Heartstopper’ experience has been, which is just me and Joe,” Connor says.

“I love thinking about what Nick and Charlie might be up to when they’re 40 or 60,” says creator Alice Oseman. However, she adds, “I think the main story of ‘Heartstopper’ has concluded, and I do feel good about that.”

(Netflix)

Would they be open to revisiting Charlie and Nick’s love story as older adults? “In 10, 15, 20 years, who knows? Maybe,” Connor says. “Even if Alice were to decide that they wanted to make a TV show about another character in the universe of ‘Heartstopper’ and they wanted us to cameo or something, then, hey, maybe.”

While the “Heartstopper” team expected the series to resonate with younger audiences, they have been particularly moved by the reactions of older queer viewers, who have marveled at the strides in LGBTQ+ representation onscreen. Coming from the world of young-adult fiction — where she notes stories of queer joy are abundant — Oseman recalls being surprised that “Heartstopper” was treated as an anomaly in mainstream media. Still, she is proud to have helped move the needle on LGBTQ+ representation, particularly when such characters remain underrepresented.

“My hope is that people will be able to look back … and say, ‘Hey, “Heartstopper” did really well. Let’s make another queer show that’s got the [same] ‘queer joy’ vibes,’” Oseman says. “I hope it’s been able to give that encouragement to the people in power to let there be more stories out there because we just need more, different kinds of queer stories.”

Connor believes that anyone can enjoy the show because “Heartstopper” simply captures the universality of “human beings being happy and being in love.”

“Obviously, the [queer] representation is incredibly important. I think that the very existence of the show and the comfort and safety that it can bring people is one of the things that makes it so special,” Connor says. And the demand for such stories “isn’t going to change,” he adds. “Queer people are always going to exist.”

Sherlock’s co-creator and co-writer has hinted at a potential fifth series of the BBC drama

With hit detective drama Sherlock now nearing a decade-long hiatus, bosses have offered an update.

Co-creator and co-writer Steven Moffat has teased the possibility of a fifth series of the immensely popular BBC programme.

The modern-day adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic literary works starred Benedict Cumberbatch as the legendary detective, with Martin Freeman as his faithful sidekick Dr John Watson.

After four three-episode series, plus a one-off special – The Abominable Bride – in 2016, the show entered a break in 2017 following the transmission of The Final Problem, leaving its fate up in the air.

Steven, who co-created and co-wrote the show with Mark Gatiss, has expressed hope about bringing the team back together, and has a definite plan should that wish materialise.

“If I can persuade everybody else, of course I’d revisit it,” he disclosed during an appearance on the Half the Picture podcast, reports Digital Spy. “Can you ever say that you’ve run out of Sherlock Holmes stories? There are 60 originals. We’ve done, what is it, 13 or 14?”.

“There’s loads more you could do with Sherlock. I’d quite like to revisit it simply because they would now – our two leads – be the normal age for Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson,” he explained.

“We were conscious that we were doing the beginning of the story… So I’d quite like to see them as their more middle-aged, settled versions.. I don’t think it’s used up,” the writer remarked, who also co-created and co-wrote the BBC’s Dracula alongside Gatiss, reports the Express.

Steven also cast his mind back over his “extraordinary” stint with the beloved detective drama, which overlapped with his time as showrunner on the BBC’s iconic science fiction series Doctor Who.

He described it as a “manic time”, admitting he never “stopped working”.

“I loved that show. I look at it now and I watch it, and I think all of it is excellent,” he said of Sherlock. “I just think it’s really well made, beautifully acted, and dare I say it, [a] beautifully written show. I think it’s cracking. And I’m massively proud of it. And I miss it.”

While Moffat is clearly eager to return to the world of 221B Baker Street, a comeback looks unlikely any time soon, as Gatiss confirmed in June 2025 that Cumberbatch and Freeman “didn’t want to do any more” episodes (via RadioTimes).

Sherlock aired on BBC One and streams on BBC iPlayer.

When the gates opened at St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino on Good Friday, the music coming from inside wasn’t that of angel-faced choristers or pipe organs; it was the collective scream of electric guitars.

As the sky darkened over the white stucco church framed in palm trees and the dry peaks of the San Bernardino Mountains, fringed teenagers made their way inside, shaking their limbs and chattering in excitement. Fluorescent lights shone overhead in a room that, by day, hosted Bible studies and food pantries — that night, it would be the site of Spinkick Dance Hall, a regular underground music series where noses are bound to bleed and limbs to flail along to ear-splitting riffs.

It’s just one of many shows taking place from Pomona to Palm Desert, heralding a Latino-led youth revival where the freewheeling movement of mosh pits meets the raw power of punk rock: Inland Empire hardcore.

Teenagers congregate in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino before the start of the night’s hardcore shows on April 3, 2026.

(Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times)

As the fast-paced and anti-establishment genre known as punk went mainstream in the ’80s, a harder and more unhinged variant emerged in the States; bands like Bad Brains, Minor Threat and Black Flag pushed the limits of vocalization and instrumentation into dissonant new sounds that would make up the subgenre known as hardcore punk.

“As a teenager pre-social media, the music scene was the release for teen angst,” said music photojournalist Zach Cordner. “It was a convergence of nationwide bands that would come to play at [the now shuttered Riverside venue] Showcase Theater, and through word of mouth people got inspired to make cassettes and zines.”

Cordner and his friend Ken Crawford grew up in Riverside in the ’80s and ’90s, photographing the initial wave of hardcore punk taking shape in the Inland Empire. They turned these photographs into a sprawling exhibition held at the Riverside Art Museum earlier this year, “60 Miles East.”

“The scene looks a lot different today than it did in the ’90s,” Crawford said. “It’s browner, it’s queer, and that’s a good thing, to see how it’s become way more diverse.”

Inside the church, the frontman of all-Latino hardcore band Barrio Slam emitted rough growls as the crowd broke into a bustling mosh pit. Teenagers did pinwheel kicks, wrapped Mexican flags over their shoulders and filled the air with chants of “F— ICE.”

Lead vocalist Victor Campos’ family moved from Guadalajara, Mexico, to Pomona, where he says he discovered hardcore through friends. Then, at age 14, Campos attended his first rock show.

“That was the first time that I saw hardcore and metal and the heavier side of music for what it was, and the violence and culture of the shows just sucked me in and I’ve been in it ever since,” Campos said. “It felt like freedom.”

Angela, 19, was in the mosh pit during Load Tha Nine’s performance when she was accidentally struck in the nose by another concertgoer on April 3, 2026, in St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino. Hardcore shows are characterized by intense music and rough dancing where bloody accidents are not an uncommon sight.

(Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times)

Jose Ruelas and his Barrio Slam bandmates headbang as they perform on April 3, 2026, in St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino.

(Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times)

Campos credits local Latino-led bands like Xibalba and Harsh Reality as inspirations to dive into making music and embrace his identity in the genre.

“In the I.E., it’s really the norm. We’re singing in Spanish, we’re proud. But when we tour, we see it’s not like that everywhere,” Campos said. “Some people still consider punk ‘not for us.’ My own family members will say, ‘You’re listening to white people music.’”

The show at St. John’s is just the tip of the Inland Empire’s DIY venue iceberg. Living rooms, restaurant dining rooms, tattoo shops and record stores have transformed into hardcore venues across the region as established locales closed down.

San Bernardino four-piece “beatdown” group Big Ass Truck is one band that found success beyond the I.E. scene. They signed to Nuclear Blast Records, and at the time of our interview, they had just returned from a tour of Europe.

“With the I.E. especially, we lose a venue like every week. If we have a venue, it’s not staying around for long. I’ve personally seen like three or four venues [in the last few years] just call it,” said Big Ass Truck vocalist Abel Abarca. “So we do get scrappy, and I think that’s what sets the I.E. apart from places like L.A. and O.C.”

San Bernardino hardcore band Big Ass Truck performs a surprise concert at Creator Fest on May 2, 2026, at Creator Tattoo in Pomona.

(Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times)

Izzy Leyva, 17, describes being met with an immediate “sense of welcoming” at her first DIY hardcore show.

“It’s nice finding people my age to talk about life with. You can start conversations so easily,” Leyva said. “Especially after moshing with someone in the crowd. If you’re struggling to make friends in school, you’ll be able to find someone here.”

She enters the mosh pit fearlessly, dodging flailing arms to two-step — a synchronized dance move that requires punching and running in place — unleashing her energy in the punk sanctum.

“I never feel like an outsider here,” Leyva added.

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1. Mauricio Rivera performs with his band Barrio Slam on April 3, 2026, in St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino. (Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times) 2. Toni Feliz shows her “IE” tattoo, a nod to her hometown, at Creator Fest on May 2, 2026, at Creator Tattoo in Pomona. (Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times) 3. Izzy Levya, 17, two-steps during Marked for Death’s performance on April 3, 2026, in St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino. (Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times) 4. Fans dance and “two-step” during Barrio Slam’s performance on April 3, 2026, in St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino. (Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times) 5. Andres Rodriguez, 18, moshes during Marked for Death’s performance on April 3, 2026, in St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino. (Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times)

As 25-year-old Guatemalan American vocalist Jorge Cruz entered the show, he embraced his friends and bandmates. Cruz, who fronts the voracious hardcore band KnuckleSandwich, says he sees TikTok as a major platform for hardcore fans to find one another.

“I saw shows online and was hooked … I used to be so nervous to be in the mosh pit, I’d throw up outside. But when I got in there for the first time, I feel like it changed me into someone who was more comfortable in myself,” Cruz said. “It was like a baptism.”

His music, ranging from songs like “Melting ICE” and corrido-hardcore fusion “El Corrido del Maton,” is inspired by his immigrant household upbringing and interest in Chicano studies.

“Especially with this growing anti-intellectualism going on, and conservatives in our government, writing about Chicano identity and the issues in America feels important,” Cruz said. “There’s no one out there to speak up for us than us.”

A day after attending the show, Garrett Boyer and Kenny Sylvia, longtime friends with nearly matching tattoo sleeves and baseball caps, stood talking in Creator Tattoo Parlor in Pomona.

The pair helps to run Division One, a local booking company that books anywhere from Corona storefront DBZ Books N’ Records to their very own tattoo parlor.

A few weeks prior, Boyer got a call from his sister: His niece was diagnosed with an aggressive childhood cancer called neuroblastoma that had spread through her body, causing his sister to tackle insurance and medical costs. Boyer said he reached out to the hardcore community for help and was “overwhelmed” by the response.

“The community really, really, really came together. A lot of people reached out and really quickly we threw this benefit show that raised thousands of dollars,” Boyer said. “That’s the core of what hardcore music should be and is. It’s community.”

A few months before that, they had united with local bands to throw a benefit show, raising money for immigrant coalition groups after increased ICE raids.

“We thought, ‘How could we not help?’ I’m second generation from El Paso. So many of my neighbors and even my partner’s family were directly affected,” Boyer said. “So many shows are not just about music but they can [impact] people’s lives.”

Brett Rock, bassist of San Bernardino hardcore band Big Ass Truck, performs during Creator Fest on May 2, 2026, at Creator Tattoo in Pomona.

(Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times)

In Creator’s graffitied back lot area on May 2, bands Load Tha Nine, ’92 and Auditory Anguish opened up a DIY festival called Creator Fest, where 22-year-old Cynthia Garcia came out to “let off steam.”

Garcia, who fronts local band Exutoire, said discovering the local alternative scene “changed everything.”

“In high school, it was very much like nothing was happening. We’re all bored. We’re all depressed. We’re writing, and finally, we get to put the writing to use,” Garcia said. “We meet people that are like-minded and trying to get out of that boredom, and then [the music scene] just exploded.”

At Garcia’s shows, she says she constantly meets concertgoers from L.A., or even from San Diego, who drive hours into the I.E. to be part of its blossoming scene.

At Creator Fest, Abarca commanded the stage, building up the energy of the crowd until hair whipped in frenzies. Abarca says he sees I.E. hardcore continuing to evolve, fusing new genres and making the Inland Empire a place to watch as alternative music booms in the “scrappy” venues of San Bernardino, Corona, Pomona and Riverside.

“Latinos in the Inland Empire have always been hardcore,” Abarca said. “People just know it now because we make them hear us.”

Euphoria’s creator Sam Levinson has claimed that Sydney Sweeney pushed him to include nude scenes for her character Cassie Howard as he defends himself from fan backlash

After the Euphoria season finale, fans were outraged by the inclusion of copious nude scenes for Cassie Howard, but Sam Levinson has claimed that Sydney Sweeney ‘forced’ him into it.

During the third and final season, Sweeney’s character was nude in multiple scenes, including a montage of nude fetish scenes, as her character started a career as an OnlyFans model. Some fans felt the show over sexualised Cassie and criticised Levinson for the direction the show took. But Levinson said in a podcast episode that it was Sweeney’s choice.

The showrunner said: “When I first wrote it, I thought, ‘Well maybe we shoot all of this and we don’t have any nudity.’ I was talking to her, and you know, [I said] ‘Maybe there’s ways to shoot around certain things?’

“She looked at me, and she was like, ‘Are you kidding? It’s like, I’m playing an OnlyFans model. You’re telling me you’re going to, like, skirt around it?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, OK, it’s a fair point.’ So there’s always a discussion of what works best for the character.”

He added the the New York Times podcast that Sweeney was a “totally fearless actor” and “wonderfully professional”. Levinson said: “I adore working with her, because there’s such a flexibility in terms of the performance.”

Fan backlash to the scenes was quite strong. Critics of the show questioned their inclusion and argued Cassie was being “degraded” in them and that it was a “humiliation ritual” for Sweeney.

Levinson addressed the fan backlash: “I believe very strongly that the best, most honest performances are when an actor feels free and safe. That’s how you get a great performance. You can’t if there is any tension, the emotion that is going to be blocked. And that’s something I’ve known from my days of studying acting.” He claimed his role on set was to “create the most conducive environment for the actor”.

Sweeney has also appears to have spoken about the nude scenes. She took to Instagram on 31 May to share a series of behind the scenes pics from the last season, including one from when she was nearly naked, with a python draped over her body. She said underneath the image: “It’s called… acting.”

Fans were also angry with the the season finale for killing off Zendaya’s character Rue via an accidental overdose. After being sober all season, the character was given pain pills that were laced fentanyl and died. Accidentally overdosing on fentanyl was the same way Euphoria star Angus Cloud died in in 2023.

Some fans felt the death was wrong as Rue had been sober all season. “What the hell is this show about ??? Rue has been sober since episode one how come she died from overdose in the last episode?” one wrote on X. Another added: “I think it’s safe to say that this was the worst season of Euphoria.”

But Levinson said this was an “honest” ending for Rue. “The honest ending is that people like Rue don’t make it. There’s no reason to sugarcoat it. I wanted to tell this story for Angus [Cloud] and for people who weren’t granted a second chance.”

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The television industry has changed dramatically over the last decade, but one tradition that won’t die is the annual gathering of ad-buying execs in Manhattan to hear the pitches of networks and streamers looking to sell their commercial time.

This past week’s lavish presentations, known as the upfronts, included the usual array of big-name actors (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Lopez), NFL legends (Tom Brady and Mike Tomlin) and “Real Housewives,” past and present.

Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein speak onstage during the 2026 Netflix Upfront at Sunset Pier 94 Studios on May 13.

(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Netflix)

The selling buzzwords are far different from the days when the presentations were a vehicle for networks to boast about their ratings and present new program line-ups. The 2026 upfronts talked a lot about “connections” and “community” as the personalized nature of TV viewing brought on by streaming video-on-demand has been fully integrated into the buying and selling of commercials.

“Three of us could be watching the same show, maybe at a different time, maybe at the same time, but receive very different advertising based on what ad technologies, know about us as an audience segment,” said Josh Mattison, executive vice president of digital revenue pricing, planning and operations for Walt Disney Co. “The old model would be, hey, did 10 million people watch this ad? 
I think the new model is, which 10 million people watch this ad.”

Here’s a sampling of what ad executives were seeing and hearing this week:

Using new ad tools that target viewers

Every company presentation touted advancements in the ability to target consumers now that advertising has become the main source of revenue growth in the streaming business. They also played up new services — such as NBC’s Performance Insights Hub — providing advertisers with up to date information on the effectiveness of their advertising so they can adjust accordingly.

Streamers can take the consumer research collected by advertisers and align them with the viewing habits of their subscribers. The data are analyzed in a secure room to protect consumer privacy.

Netflix doesn’t ask subscribers for personal information in the sign-up process, as it can discourage people from buying the service. But the company does use the viewer habits on the platform to help advertisers reach the customers they seek.

“We are seeing where there is overlap and use that to help our advertisers target better,” Amy Reinhard, president of advertising for Netflix, told The Times. “It’s all based on viewer preferences.”

Every company is turning to AI to respond to the needs of advertisers. NBC now offers them the chance to insert commercials that relate to the action seen on the screen during live sports events.

Creators are going mainstream

YouTube’s annual upfront gatherings used to have the feel of an alternative show business universe, with personalities who built their rabid followings on the streaming platform far away from the audiences for traditional TV.

Now creators such as the sports stunt group Dude Perfect have their own studios. Beast Industries, the corporate home of MrBeast, held its own invitation-only breakfast for marketing executives at a high-end New York venue . YouTube stars, such as Jesser, are landing shows on other platforms.

At YouTube’s presentation at Lincoln Center, longtime favorites such as “Call Her Daddy” podcast mogul Alex Cooper and “SubwayTakes” host Kareem Rhama appeared on stage to announce new projects on the platform, looking more like established show producers rather than social media renegades.

Ten years ago, YouTube advertisers had to worry about their spots running next to Islamic State videos. Now it’s become common for marketers to embrace YouTube stars and fully integrate products and messages into their programs.

“When creators talk about your products on YouTube, viewers are 13 times more likely to search for your brands and five times more likely to buy,” said Paul Downey, president of Americas & Global Partners for YouTube.

Mary Ellen Coe, chief business officer for YouTube, told The Times that advertisers can determine if a creator is right for their brand by looking at audience numbers, subscriber data and comments from their communities of fans. But many have their own personal focus groups at home that introduce the hottest YouTube personalities.

“Most of these advertisers have children and teenagers and they go nuts for them,” Coe said.

YouTube is the most watched TV platform according to Nielsen, accounting for nearly 13% of all TV viewing. But that share is much higher among younger consumers.

“My kids don’t watch TV — they watch YouTube,” said Anthony Pedalino, vice president and head of media investment at the ad buying firm Giant Spoon. “So I think this is a bit of future proofing.”

Other companies are seeking creators for their platform.

Amazon Prime Video introduced an alternative feed of some of its NBA games on its streaming platform Twitch, which will turn them into a “CreatorCast.” The streamers who are regulars on the site call the action live in an effort to bring in younger fans. The format will be used in WNBA games in the league’s new season.

Fox touted its creator initiative that develops programs for Tubi, the company’s fast-growing ad-supported streaming platform that now has 100 million active users. The company also has a partnership with TikTok to support creators who want to turn their short-form clips into full-length programs.

There’s always room for comfort food

Amid all the innovations in ad buying and audience measurement presented during the week, many of the programs and personalities offered up by the major networks and streamers were extremely familiar.

“They may be resigned to the fact that people are going to go to emerging platforms for more niche and esoteric programs,” Pedalino said.

Oprah Winfrey made an entrance on the Beacon Theatre stage to promote the move of her podcasts to Amazon Prime Video.

Disney rolled out the cast of “Scrubs” to announce another 10-episode order of the early 2000s sitcom for Hulu. The series had a successful reboot as Gen Z viewers continue to devour vintage programs. Amazon Prime announced “The Greatest,” a Michael B. Jordan-produced mini-series on legendary heavyweight fighter Muhammad Ali, not exactly uncharted territory.

Fox introduced a reboot of “Baywatch,” which was canceled after a single season on NBC in 1990, but went on to become a worldwide hit in syndication over the decade that followed. The slow-motion shots of toned lifeguard bodies running into Venice beach waters are coming back without a hint of irony.

Netflix brought out the set of “Pop Culture Jeopardy” at its presentation at Sunset Pier 94 Studios, NBC previewed comedies with proven prime time stars and touted its 100th anniversary which will be celebrated with an old-fashioned variety special later this year.

WASHINGTON — In recent weeks, several social media influencers have popped up in online feeds touting the California gubernatorial campaign of billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer.

Some complain about the price of gasoline. Others mention environmental concerns. One cites her newfound sobriety as evidence that people can change — a nod to Steyer’s self-proclaimed metamorphosis from hedge fund titan to scourge of big corporations.

“I did not expect the most progressive governor candidate to be a billionaire, but look at the policies you guys,” said one content creator on TikTok with the user name Jaz R. “Hear me out. I know Tom Steyer is a billionaire, but he also is for the people.”

The posts include direct-to-the-camera appeals, with personal details interwoven into messages of support for Steyer. An influencer goes for a stroll as onscreen text touts Steyer’s policies. Some seek to convey authenticity, if occasionally ham-fistedly; one influencer mispronounces Steyer’s last name.

What they do not include is a disclosure that their creators were paid by the Steyer campaign to produce the videos, according to a complaint filed this week with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission and a Times review of the posts.

The complaint alleges that the Steyer campaign failed to notify the influencers it hired of their obligation to inform their audience when their posts have been sponsored by the campaign.

California passed a law in 2023 requiring that influencers disclose if they have been paid to create promotional content for or against a candidate or ballot measure, one of the few jurisdictions in the country with such a requirement. There is no such requirement at the federal level.

“Every time there’s a new technology, you have to create legislation that requires them to disclose,” said state Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange), who sponsored the bill.

Violating the law doesn’t carry criminal, civil or administrative penalties, but the FPPC can take influencers who break the law to court and ask a judge to force them to comply.

The complaint was filed by two California women — political influencers themselves — who said they noticed a number of new accounts that suddenly started posting similar-sounding videos promoting Steyer earlier this month.

“They had the exact same language, they had the same talking points,” said Beatrice Gomberg, who worked with Kaitlyn Hennessy in their digital sleuthing efforts.

The FPPC did not comment on the complaint.

Steyer’s campaign appears to have relied on paid influencers more than any candidate for governor, according to the most recent campaign finance filings.

That spending represents only a small fraction of the massive campaign war chest Steyer has seeded with nearly $180 million of his own money. But the complaint highlights the growing degree to which political candidates have come to seek out the authenticity that social media influencers seem to offer.

Steyer campaign spokesperson Kevin Liao said the campaign had properly followed the rules in hiring influencers and that the campaign is “confident” that Gomberg and Hennessy’s complaint is “baseless.”

“Creators make their living generating content. The campaign believes in compensating people for their time and work product and has paid creators to generate content,” Liao said in a statement. “Payments for creator content are disclosed in campaign finance reports, and we notify creators we directly work with of their disclosure requirements.”

While many of the new Steyer influencers have few followers, Steyer’s campaign disclosed in its most recent campaign finance report that it had paid thousands of dollars to numerous social media influencers with massive audiences, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Several of the videos produced by these popular social media personalities also failed to disclose that they had been paid by the campaign, according to the complaint and The Times’ review of the content.

But even accounts with few followers can still have a big impact if they are producing a steady stream of content supporting Steyer, said veteran California political strategist Mike Madrid.

“What they’re trying to do is trip the algorithm,” he said. “It looks like it has a bigger audience than it really does. It’s taking the concept of astroturfing into the digital age.”

Gomberg and Hennessy said they became friends after meeting at an April campaign event for Xavier Becerra, Steyer’s chief Democratic rival in the race, who holds a narrow advantage over Steyer in several recent political polls.

The pair have been prolific social media supporters of Becerra’s campaign ever since, though they insist they are not being paid for their efforts.

They said they discovered that many of the new pro-Steyer accounts seemed to be run by influencers — mostly women — who had previously created different social media accounts to hawk other products.

One of the pro-Steyer influencers had an online portfolio listing numerous clients, including the Steyer campaign and a gummy designed to boost arousal, according to the complaint and the Times review of the publicly accessible website.

The pair said they stumbled on an advertisement placed by a vendor for the campaign on a platform used by creators to find work. The advertisement indicated that creators would be paid $10 for each post, with bonuses for posts that amassed large viewership.

The vendor who posted the ad did not respond to a request for comment.

The advertisement has since been updated to say that it pays $1,000 per month and that creators will have to disclose that it is paid content.

As Gomberg and Hennessy dug deeper, they determined that some of the influencers promoting a candidate for governor weren’t even based in California.

A TikTok account using the handle jess.votes, for example, appears to be connected to a woman registered to vote in Florida. Other accounts were connected to women who indicated elsewhere that they were based in Pennsylvania, Missouri and Michigan.

Several influencers who created seemingly paid content promoting Steyer did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Times.

The brouhaha over paid social media content is just the latest instance of the growing political impact of online creators.

Eric Swalwell’s campaign for governor — and congressional career — came to an end after multiple women accused him of sexual assault. A pair of influencers had publicly raised concerns about Swalwell’s behavior and helped connect victims with journalists who produced highly detailed reports of the allegations.

The California law requires influencers to disclose in a political post’s audio or text that it was sponsored and who paid for it.

The onus is on the creators to make the disclosure, but campaigns are required to tell them that they must do so. Despite passage of the law, the issue has so far remained largely under the radar.

“I have dozens of candidates and campaigns and I have not heard this issue come up one time,” said a campaign finance lawyer who requested anonymity because they represent numerous candidates with active campaigns.

Gomberg and Hennessy said that they were driven to call attention to potential violations of the disclosure requirements because of their concern about the corrosive influence such paid content could have if left unchecked.

“You have people who have trust in these creators,” Hennessy said. “You have a responsibility to your audience.”

Ted Turner, the brash media mogul who created CNN and revolutionized how Americans watched television, and who wielded his media empire and wealth to pursue liberal global causes and land conservation, has died. He was 87.

Turner died Wednesday, according to his family.

In 2018, he revealed he had been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, a neurodegenerative disease, which had been progressing in recent years.

Turner’s outsized public persona — some called him the “Mouth from the South” for his free-wheeling trash talk — matched the Georgian’s influence on news, politics, sports and entertainment in the late 20th century. Turner repeatedly shook up established industries by invading quickly and expanding options for consumers, while railing against monolithic competitors who were less daring or nimble than his maverick Turner Broadcasting System.

Turner created the cable stations TBS and Turner Classic Movies; he owned the Atlanta Braves baseball team, the Atlanta Hawks basketball team and revitalized professional wrestling with World Championship Wrestling.

Turner was one of the first adopters of cable and satellite broadcasting technology, and for many rural Americans living beyond the tower signals of major cities, he was the first person to bring them interesting TV.

The media baron constantly generated headlines. He had a Clark Gable pencil mustache, raced sailboats, cavorted with the late communist leader Fidel Castro in Cuba, and at one point married Academy Award-winning actress and activist Jane Fonda. His wealth enabled him to become one of the largest private landowners and wealthiest philanthropists in the U.S.

July 1990 image of Ted Turner with Jane Fonda.

(Tony Duffy/Getty Images)

His crowning cultural achievement was the creation of the Cable News Network in 1980, which created the model for today’s cable news titans. The 24-hour news channel was not widely expected to be a success. All-night broadcasting had not been proven as a business model in an industry dominated nationally by corporate monoliths like ABC, NBC and CBS, where news programming was something that happened on a set schedule. And CNN’s headquarters weren’t in media centers like New York or Los Angeles, but Atlanta.

But Turner believed that “over-the-air networks would decline as audiences turned to videos and other outlets for entertainment on demand,” wrote the late journalist Daniel Schorr in a 2001 memoir.

“The network future belonged to whoever would deliver what was happening now — live news and live sports. That was why he wanted to be the first to deliver all news, all sports, all the time,” wrote Schorr, whom Turner courted to join CNN.

Within two years, CNN had more than 9 million subscribers. By the 2000s, Turner’s once far-flung idea for an around-the-clock news service had become so successful that it had attracted imitators like MSNBC (now called MS NOW) and Fox News.

“We not only became profitable, but also changed the nature of news — from watching something that happened to watching it as it happened,” Turner said of CNN in 2004. “If we needed more money for [broadcasting from] Kosovo or Baghdad, we’d find it. If we had to bust the budget, we busted the budget. We put journalism first, and that’s how we built CNN into something the world wanted to watch.”

Fox Corp. Chairman Emeritus Rupert Murdoch, who was both a rival and friend of Turner, said his “vision for 24-hour cable news transformed the media industry and gave viewers everywhere a front seat to witness history unfold. His impact as a trailblazer has left an indelible mark on our cultural landscape.”

Turner recognized the value of global distribution long before his rivals, launching CNN’s international business in the mid-1980s. He bought his first western property, The Bar-None Ranch in Montana, and would eventually become one of the nation’s largest individual landowners with nearly 2 million acres, which provide habitat for threatened species and his beloved American bison.

“Ted’s entrepreneurial spirit, creative ambition and willingness to take risks changed the media industry forever,” David Zaslav, chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN, said Wednesday in a note to employees. “He believed deeply in the power of ideas, in doing things differently and in building platforms that could inform, inspire and connect people around the world.”

Robert Edward Turner III was born in Cincinnati on Nov. 19, 1938, and raised in Georgia. A mischievous child — who later became a mischievous adult despite attending the Georgia Military Academy — he had a tough childhood at the hands of his alcoholic father, Ed.

“Ninety percent of the arguments I had with Ed were over his beating Ted too hard,” Ted’s mother, Florence Turner, recalled later.

“My dad ran an old-fashioned household and he insisted that pretty much everything had to be his way,” Ted Turner said in a 2008 memoir. “My father and I had a complex relationship but I loved him.”

The younger Turner attended Brown University but dropped out before graduating. His savings had run out, his father had stopped financially supporting his tuition, and in his final days on campus, he was suspended for bringing a woman to his dorm room, according to his memoir.

He soon joined his father’s expanding billboard advertising company, Turner Advertising, where he had been working off and on for years since childhood.

He inherited the business at the age of 24 after his father died by suicide. By then, Turner had already had years of experience , and he worked furiously to reverse his father’s recent sale of part of the company to a competitor and paid down its daunting debt, an act that presaged the empire-building to come.

While growing the business, Turner also pursued his passion for competitive sailing, which is how he met his first wife, Judy Nye, in college. It’s also how their marriage ended. Turner intentionally hit his wife’s boat during a 1963 race to keep her from passing him, and the pair, who had two children, split immediately afterward.

It was to be the first of three divorces. . “My problem is I love every woman I meet,” Turner has said. He would go on to win the America’s Cup in 1977 while expanding his father’s company into a modern multimedia conglomerate.

Leveraging the billboard business, Turner started buying local radio stations across the South in the late 1960s. In 1970, he bought the Channel 17 television station in Atlanta, competing with local network affiliates by airing old movies whose rights were affordable and picking up programming dropped by the less nimble competition. He didn’t like putting news on prime time back then — too negative — and soon picked up broadcast rights for the Braves, Hawks and other local sports.

Oct. 1998 photo of former President Jimmy Carter, right, and Atlanta Braves team owner Ted Turner, during Game 6 of the National League Championship Series in Atlanta.

(PAT SULLIVAN/AP)

The Braves were a ratings hit, and when the team flailed and went up for sale, Turner’s company became its owner in 1976. The team continued to flail but Turner boosted its profile with gimmicks such as sewing “Channel 17” on the back of a pitcher’s jersey and dressing up as the team’s batboy and manager, to the league’s disdain. Turner bought the Hawks shortly after.

Facing entrenched local network affiliates, Turner expanded his independent station’s reach across the South and then the U.S. by embracing the new technologies of cable and satellite broadcasting. Channel 17 became nationally known as the “SuperStation,” with call letters WTBS, later shortened to TBS.

The quirky Atlanta station’s local broadcasts of old movies and sports games had become national broadcasts.

Still hungry for more, Turner finally turned his attention to news programming. He launched CNN in 1980 in a desperate bid to create a national 24-hour news channel before the broadcast titans ABC, NBC and CBS — and their gargantuan budgets — could beat him to it.

“The 24/7 genre started with Ted Turner,” veteran CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour said Wednesday on CNN. “He was the original, and he made us all proud, and he made us all hopeful, and he made us all strive for his vision of a better world.”

There were some lean early years. But the nascent channel fended off an attempt by ABC to create a competitor, and critics could see the value of an ever-present news channel, even if quality was a little thin at times.

“Non-viewers of CNN are missing a lot. There are so many reasons to watch,” Los Angeles Times critic Howard Rosenberg wrote in 1986, hailing the 6-year-old channel as an “institution.” “It’s not always good, but it’s always there.”

In 1986, CNN was the only broadcaster running live coverage when the Challenger shuttle liftoff ended in disaster. In 1991, the network gave Americans a live and uninterrupted look at the invasion of Iraq. American officials held news conferences knowing that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was watching them on CNN.

Americans had seen images of war before, but not broadcast nonstop into their homes.

“CNN seeks to be a stethoscope attached to the hypothetical heart of the war, and to present us with its hypothetical pulse,” the French theorist Jean Baudrillard wrote, critiquing the conflict as a media spectacle. Media scholars began to wonder whether a “CNN effect” was influencing government policy. Officials found that they now had to respond much more quickly to crises unfolding on live television.

Turner was not adversarial to communist countries of the era and even tried his own version of the Olympics, called the Goodwill Games, a bit of private-sector peace-craft that brought the Soviet Union and the U.S. out of their respective Olympic boycotts and back into direct competition in the 1989s. All on television, of course.

Turner also saw professional wrestling as part of his sports portfolio, at one point trying to pit his World Championship Wrestling program against competitor Vince McMahon’s wrestling empire, then called the World Wrestling Federation. Turner similarly tried to take a bite out of MTV with the Cable Music Channel, with a promise “to stay away from the excessive, violent or degrading clips to women that MTV is so fond of putting on.”

Moralism was a Turner hallmark. Turner had started his life as a conservative — Turner had met his second wife, Jane Smith, at a 1964 fundraiser for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater — and turned toward more liberal-leaning causes, such as world peace, nuclear nonproliferation and fighting climate change, later in life.

At the 1990 American Humanist Assn.’s annual convention, Turner presented his “Ten Voluntary Initiatives” — his atheistic version of the Ten Commandments — which included pledges to world peace, environmentalism, nonviolence and “to have no more than two children, or no more than my nation suggests.” He would become a major private donor to the United Nations, pledging $1 billion and launching the United Nations Foundation nonprofit.

In 1991, a year marked by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the first U.S. war against Iraq and the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Time magazine named Turner its “Man of the Year” for his “visionary” creation of CNN, which covered those events live. He also married Fonda that year (the ceremony was reported by CNN) and his Braves narrowly lost the World Series.

Time’s honorific was also a nice bit of corporate synergy. The magazine’s parent company, Time Warner, owned about 20% of Turner Broadcasting System stock.

Turner launched the Cartoon Network in 1992, which helped introduce his then-newly acquired Hanna-Barbera characters — including Fred Flintstone, Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo — to a new generation of viewers.

Adversaries thought that Turner’s ventures could be reckless and impulsive. Far-seeing accomplishments in national broadcasting and the creation of CNN were also paired with several expensive misadventures, including a failed attempt to buy CBS.

Turner had to unwind a purchase of the MGM film studio less than a year after buying it, though he held onto one valuable asset: The studio’s film library, which became the foundation of the Turner Classic Movies channel and, later, jewels in the Burbank-based Warner Bros. studio vault.

In 1996, Turner Broadcasting merged with Time Warner to form the world’s largest media company, marking the beginning of the end of Turner’s apex in corporate media. Time Warner’s 2000 merger with budding internet giant AOL, then the largest-ever corporate merger, ended in disaster. Turner, who had not been a key player in the negotiations and had made no secret of his disdain for that deal, was fired as an executive.

“Ted Turner was one of the rare leaders who truly changed the trajectory of an industry,” Versant Media Chief Executive Mark Lazarus, a former Turner underling, said in a statement. “I saw firsthand his willingness to take risks and his belief that media could be something bigger and more impactful.”

CNN Worldwide Chairman Mark Thompson added: “He was and always will be the presiding spirit of CNN. Ted is the giant on whose shoulders we stand.”

Turner resigned from the AOL Time Warner board in 2003, and in 2007, announced he had sold his company shares. In his later days, one of his best-known ventures was his Ted’s Montana Grill restaurant chain. His philanthropy and land conservation efforts and protection of the American bison became guide posts during his retirement years.

While CNN maintains influence in the U.S. and abroad, its TV ratings have declined in recent years — a casualty of changing consumer behavior, the rise of social media, derision from President Trump — and several ownership changes.

During the past decade, CNN has had three different corporate owners. The company is poised to be sold again, this time to billionaire David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance. That proposed merger would bring CNN under the same roof as CBS News.

“I’ve often considered and joked about what I might want written on my tombstone,” Turner said in a 2008 memoir. “At one point, when I felt like I could get out of the way of the press, ‘You Can’t Interview Me Here’ was a leading candidate. … These days, I’m leaning toward, ‘I Have Nothing More to Say.’”

Turner is survived by his five children — Laura Turner Seydel (Rutherford), Robert Edward “Teddy” Turner IV (Blair), Rhett Turner, Beau Turner, Jennie Turner Garlington (Peek) — 14 grandchildren and a great granddaughter. The family plans a private and public service at a later date.

Pearce is a former Times reporter. Times Staff Writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.