Television doctor Mehmet Oz is a partner in a new venture announced Monday that will attempt to give immigrants online access to popular television programs from their home countries.
The service, called JungoTV, will launch in September with some 18,000 hours of programming. It will target Arabic, Chinese, Filipino, Greek, Iranian, Italian, Spanish, Turkish and Vietnamese communities. For $14.99 a month, subscribers will get an app that provides access to entertainment programs, not news or sports.
"I'm still startled by how often immigrants aren't able to access their cultural stories, the stories they grew up with," the star of TV's "Dr. Oz" show said. He is partners with Sandy Climan of Entertainment Media Ventures and George Chung, who had a company that brought Vietnamese programming to the United States.
Oz and his partners aren't the first media executives to see potential profit in the idea, but hope that the online app will catch on as a different approach.
The son of Turkish immigrants, Oz said he recognized how his parents often missed the cultural attachment to their home countries. The practicing heart surgeon and talk-show host said the venture also represents a growing interest in the business of media.
Sean “Diddy” Combs seeks bail, citing changed circumstances and new evidence
Sean "Diddy" Combs filed a new request for bail on Friday, saying changed circumstances, along with new evidence, mean the hip-hop mogul should be allowed to prepare for a May trial from outside jail.
Lawyers for Combs filed the request in Manhattan federal court, where his previous requests for bail have been rejected by two judges since his September arrest on racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees, while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
He has been awaiting a May 5 trial at a federal detention facility in Brooklyn.
In their new court filing, lawyers for Combs say they are proposing a "far more robust" bail package that would subject the entertainer to strict around-the-clock security monitoring and near-total restrictions on his ability to contact anyone but his lawyers. But the amount of money they attach to the package remains $50 million, as they proposed before.
They also cite new evidence that they say "makes clear that the government's case is thin." That evidence, the lawyers said, refutes the government's claim that a March 2016 video showing Combs physically assaulting his then-girlfriend occurred during a coerced "freak off," a sexually driven event described in the indictment against Combs.
They wrote that the encounter was instead "a minutes-long glimpse into a complex but decade-long consensual relationship" between Combs and his then-girlfriend.
The lawyers argued that the jail conditions Combs is experiencing at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn violate his constitutional... Read More