Catching you up on today’s top entertainment headlines with Warner Bros. Discovery announcing that they will be combining HBO Max and Discovery+, ‘Lightyear’ getting excluded from Disney+ in the Middle East, "The View" adds Alyssa Farrah Griffin and Ana Navarro as permanent hosts, and more.

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In Entertainment: Streamers Merging, Disney Plus Middle East, & 'The View' New Hosts

All right, we have a very big show ahead for you first. We got to talk about two streamers becoming one they're combining and we got to talk all about it as Warner brothers Discovery announcing they're going to combine HBO max and Discovery plus into a unified streaming service. So are the two services better together than apart. Well, we're gonna find out next year the launch is going to take place in the summer of 2023 with a name for that combined service along with the pricing to be announced at a later date and the combined streamer will have thousands of hours of programming. It'll be a one stop destination for titles from Warner's very sizable portfolio that includes HBO CNN Dc comics, the food network, HD Tv and more after the summer 2023 rollout in the U. S. Warner brothers Discovery plans to take the streaming platform to other markets at the end of 2023 into 2020 for the larger question will be given the fact that David Zaslav the Ceo of the combined company of of warnermedia Discovery. Um now that he's in cost cutting mode, we've talked all week about background getting cut. Now does that mean HBO max con tent is getting cut as well. That has been sort of the rumor that we've been hearing, especially this last week. So then the new HBO max Discovery plus platform will then highlight more of the Discovery plus stuff while including some of the HBO content but maybe not so much the HBO max content, but either way, I'll be able to get the barefoot contessa with succession, £1000 sisters alongside, you know, Sex and the City. It'll be fantastic content on both streamers are so different between both. They have about 93 million subscribers. So that's pretty incredible. So the Discovery, as you know, they really do market a lot of Children shows, they say they're gonna cut back on that, but David Laszlo says they're, Zasloff says they're still gonna continue putting out H HBO content and company, we're gonna keep producing that, that's not gonna stop, this is incredible. I just feel like, I mean, we love all the shows on both streamers, it's just so different. It totally is. But if anything is this sort of, we've been talking for years about who's gonna be the netflix killer? Is this sort of the netflix platform that has everything possibly created on it, that it satisfies so many different people. The other sort of big news here, there seem to be wanting to test out the idea of a free service platform, but it will be super ad based. So that's another sort of way to sort of get more people into the subscription into the streamers own, given the fact that we're seeing sort of streaming numbers start to elevate here just a little it would be like network tv and it was basically, yeah, isn't that what they always say, It's like you go all the way back to what we were just that one full circle. Also, Disney Plus Middle East is looking to appease local censorship rules when it comes to their content. The streaming service is aligning with regional regulatory requirements and tailoring it shows and movies to avoid sensitivities. That's according to esquire Light Years, starring chris Evans will not be appearing on Plus Middle East. It also didn't hit some theaters across the gulf and beyond for featuring a same gender kiss. A number of Disney titles have been met with some controversy in the Middle East over the last 12 months, including thor Love and Thunder, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and West Side Story along with Eternal Disney Plus series Bay max which includes L G. B. T. Q characters will also reportedly not be available on the streaming platform in the Middle East. When I was researching the story, there was actually a show on netflix called Perfect strangers and it was dubbed in Arabic and it has an L G B T. Q theme and that show actually did really, really know know very well. It's very confusing on what they're doing and by the way, this isn't law, they're just really appeasing the cultural regulations. They're true. And when it's interesting because in some cases as we've seen with a lot of these media companies, they edit out these particular scenes that might be offensive, you know to certain countries, but they don't take the whole thing down. Disney essentially decided in this, they didn't want to take out that scene from light years. So as a result they're just not going to have that entire movie over there as a result of this. So I thought that was pretty interesting. I think that's interesting and good for Disney by the way for standing up for basically the artistic creativity and also for the L. G. B. T. Q storylines were incredibly important. Meanwhile, after a season long search the weight finally over for a new conservative co host over at the view, former president trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin is now going to join Whoopi Goldberg, Sara, Haines, Joy, Behar and sunny hot at the hot table topic or hot topics table as the full time co host for the 26th season of the show will be made the announcement on air at the end of thursday's broadcast with Alyssa Griffin saying quote it's going to get Sporty sometimes, but I'm so excited for it and I'm ready for it and in a surprising twist abc also announcing Ana Navarro as a permanent co host after years of guest hosting on the show, Navarro were reportedly do two days a week while Whoopi enjoy our out as Griffin will be there five days a week. The view has welcomed a revolving door of guest hosts to fill that conservative personality void that was left by Meghan McCain who left the wrong running talk show back in august of 2021. They've tried a bunch of different people here, even having Elizabeth Hasselbeck come back for a little period of time Elizabeth Hasselbeck even sort of saying that things were gonna get intense when she was there. We didn't get a call though. No, no, I mean I don't think, I don't think we're fitting them all for what they wanted to be conservative. And a Navarro by the way, is a Republican, very vocal and very anti trump, which I think both of them are. Yeah, but listen, it worked in the trump white House. So I think she sort of pieces sort of both sides where it's like you want a conservative, maybe that's not super Trumpy but still has some trump accolades to just sort of respond to maybe the anti trump sort of sentiment that they have. Navarro actually joked that they they finally put a ring on it and it's friday, which means there's new music and it's time for our music moment john legend, just announcing that he's releasing his eighth album entitled Legend on september 9th right around the corner and with that announcement, fans are also getting a new single off the project featuring everyone's favorite icy girl, sweetie. Take a listen how long when I get my nails done. Yeah. Along when I do. It's been a big fun work all night and your grandson loving that, Loving that the roller disco track entitled All she wanna do is the third single release off the double album. In a video describing the vibe of the song, Legend says that he was going for a Michael Jackson off the wall era. Feeling matched up with a Whitney Houston, I wanna Dance with somebody group. I gotta get other artists featured on the project include Rick, Ross, Jazmine, Sullivan and Rhapsody. Earlier, Legend dropped two more singles from the album called Honey and Dope. The album was executive produced by Legend and One Republic's Ryan Tedder and it's being described as an unapologetic spirit of sensuality and Joy. Legend also planning to kick off the second leg of his Las Vegas residency at Love in Las Vegas with shows running through october 29. Can we talk about this Turn to disco? It's hot, You have Beyonce, Drake Drake, you have Calvin Harris who by the way had his new album out today has sort of like chill disco vibes that's on it. It's discos. Listen, discos hot for a reason, but I've loved disco forever me to Meanwhile, Eminem just released his latest project, curtain call to featuring his greatest hits. The follow up finds a Detroit rapper pulling cuts from recovery the Marshall Mathers LP Two Revival, kamikaze and music to be murdered by which you can see him paying homage to all five projects on the cover art on your screen, The double disc release release features 35 tracks spanning more than a decade with appearances by some of the best, including Beyonce and Rihanna. There's also an unreleased 50 cent collab titled Is This Love 09, which is produced by dr dre. Let's take a listen, I'm saying, girl, I'm digging your hole, window signal. Now, fans may have noticed Eminem left off everything from his 2009 relapse album, which he said in interviews that he quote, doesn't look back at fondly, which is really sort of interesting that it was highly acclaimed album, which is so interesting that fans really like it. So it's always interesting, sort of how you sort of make a greatest hits album when some hits are not on the greatest. Yes, exactly.