The National have been a band for just over two decades, and they’re not showing any signs of slowing down. The band released the record I Am Easy To Find in 2019 and had big plans to tour this year, which have been canceled due to the pandemic. After setting up a relief fund for their touring crew, The National are making up for a canceled tour with a special gift to fans. The group released an official video accompanying their song “Hard To Find” seven years after the song was first released.

Accompanying the 2013 Trouble Will Find Me track, the “Hard To Find” video is a scenic underwater view. A man explores the ocean floor and encounters a seal on his journey.

Sharing the video to social media, the group wrote that the video consists of footage from an old hard drive. “Lost video for Hard To Find surfaces,” The National wrote on Twitter. “Director Michael Brown discovers lost underwater footage on old hard drive.”

Ahead of the video’s release, The National’s Matt Berninger spoke with Uproxx about their 2019 record. In the interview, Berninger said he doesn’t mind the “dad rock” label that gets attached to their music:

“The things that sound like insults, like dad rock — I like that. I like a lot of dad rock music, and even when I was a little kid, I liked the music my dad liked. Willie Nelson’s Stardust is a fabric of my DNA, because of my dad, my dad’s rock, or whatever. And I’m a dad, and I’ve been a dad for 10 years. I was writing about becoming a father way before I was, becoming a husband way before I even met my wife. ‘Slipping Husband,’ I wrote that about myself way before I met Carin. So, that doesn’t bother me. I mean, I don’t mumble that much, and I sing in lots of different registers. And I think I’m kind of funny, funnier even in the records. I’m not as funny as I think I am, but I’m funnier than other people think I am.”

Watch The National’s “Hard To Find” video above.

A world without sports is a dour one, and for organizations like ESPN it’s also an existential crisis. Sports networks have scrambled to keep airtime filled as the NBA, NHL and MLB continue to stay on pause as coronavirus spreads throughout the United States and the world at large, and the network has

According to The Hollywood Reporter, ESPN has asked its top 100 on-air commentators to take a pay cut during the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to save jobs and keep from furloughing others working at the network. The network issued a statement about the decision to THR that said the measure lines up with what executives at the company have already done to their own salaries.

“We are asking about 100 of our commentators to join with our executives and take a temporary salary reduction,” the company said in a statement. “These are challenging times and we are all in this together.”

The commentators are expected to take cuts of approximately 15 percent of their salaries, likely for about three months.

The network’s executives took pay cuts earlier this month, corresponding to level of seniority at the network.

Sports Business Journal reported that the effort was stressed to agents and on-air talent that the paycuts would “deter furloughs for ESPN employees who may be in more precarious financial positions than some of the on-air commentators,”

It’s shaping up to be a difficult 2020 for ESPN, which in 2019 saw layoffs and other efforts to cut costs as the cost of live sports packages increase while cable subscriber rates sag in the wake of new technology and the rise of cord-cutting. Moreover, ESPN’s parent company, Disney, is expecting heavy losses across its companies as coronavirus not only impacts sports but the production of movies, television and keeps movie theaters closed.

It’s a difficult time across nearly every industry and there’s nothing many can do but wait until things blow over and industries can pick up the pieces. But it’s clear ESPN is anticipating some tough decisions, and this may just be the first of them.

When Megan Thee Stallion pointed to fans as the source of beef between female rappers, she had a point; many past feuds were fueled by rumors and hearsay from fans and press. In recent years, though, there’s one fan base that has been at the center of most of the controversy though: Nicki Minaj’s Barbz, who have tried to pit their favorite against Cardi B and are now apparently trying to do the same with burgeoning star Doja Cat.

After Doja Cat shared a fan’s drawing of herself, Megan Thee Stallion, and Nicki Minaj on the cover of Rolling Stone, a Doja fan suggested a minor change only to be challenged by one of the Barbz. Although it seemed to only be an innocent question on the face, Doja was clearly aware of some of the account or the tactics, advising her own supporter to “stop responding to them” because “they’re Twitter gangsters and they have nothing kind to say about you or anyone.” According to Doja Cat, Barbz “live and breathe being f*ckin immature.”

It didn’t take long for the tweet to garner the attention of the Barbz as a whole, who set about throwing a #DojaCatIsOverParty, which quickly trended on Twitter. However, Doja — who is no stranger to being “canceled” after taking flack over old tweets in the wake of her viral hit “Mooo!” — turned the tables on her critics, as many of the tweets in the hashtag are now dominated by Doja Cat supporters defending her from the “toxic” attacks from Nicki’s fans.

For her part, Doja seems to be ignoring the controversy, focusing instead on making “dank memes” and posting goofy TikTok videos eating Band-Aids.

Check out the tweets above.

In the run-up to its arrival on April 6, there was a lot of speculation over whether Quibi — the new, short-form streaming service founded by former Dreamworks honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg — would succeed. Do people really want to binge short content? Do they really want to watch things on their phone? Is it perhaps terrible timing to have a quick bite service when much of America suddenly has gobs of time to kill while quarantining? Well, according to its CEO, Quibi defied the skeptics and had a great first week.

According to Deadline, Quibi head Meg Whitman claimed the service had seen 1.7 million downloads since dropping last week, which “exceeded company expectations.” She also noted 80% of viewers actually finished at least the first episode of any show they started. Earlier, preliminary data showed that 300,000 users had downloaded the app on its first day, and by day two, the total of users had grown to 530,000. (To put things in perspective, 4 million people installed Disney+ on its first day, though Disney was already, to put it lightly, an established brand.)

Right now, Quibi isn’t making money off its subscribers; rather than delay release till after the pandemic slows down, they offered a 90-day free trial. (After that, subscribers can either pay $4.99 a month with ads or $7.99 without.) It’s also worth noting that, as with Netflix, who claims huge viewership on certain titles without supplying any data, Whitman’s claim of 1.7 million downloads is just that. We also have no other figures to compare that to, especially since there’s never been a streamer whose content was as short as Quibi’s. Whatever the case, it appears that the streamer was not, as some expected, dead on arrival.

(Via Deadline)

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