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    ‘Love Island: Beyond the Villa’ Will Follow Season 6 Cast Around Los Angeles

    Trying to capitalize on the success of the sixth season of “Love Island USA,” Peacock announced a series that would follow former islanders around Los Angeles.In its sixth season, “Love Island USA,” an American remake of the popular British dating reality show, found its footing with fans. That season, which aired on Peacock last summer and was hosted by Ariana Madix, a veteran of “Vanderpump Rules,” was the top-rated reality series in the United States for multiple weeks and a hot topic on social media. It also produced some of the franchise’s most memorable couples, many of whom are still together.Given that success, it was not a surprise this week when Peacock announced “Love Island: Beyond the Villa,” a spinoff series featuring some of the islanders from Season 6.Here’s what we know.How is it different from the original show?“Love Island USA” is a reality dating competition that gathers a group of contestants, called islanders, into a luxury villa — Season 6 was set in Fiji — and has them couple up, either out of true love, friendship or simply for survival. Single islanders are kicked out of the villa, and every so often viewers are given the chance to vote out their least favorite couple. The pair voted “most compatible” at the end wins a cash prize.“Love Island: Beyond the Villa” appears to be more of a straightforward reality show, without a competition element. According to Peacock, the show will follow several of the cast members “around Los Angeles as they navigate new careers, evolving friendships, newfound fame and complex relationships outside of the Love Island villa.”Who’s going to be on it?Almost all of the Season 6 favorites are slated to star in the show, including two couples that made it to the finale: JaNa Craig and Kenny Rodriguez, and Leah Kateb and Miguel Harichi. Kendall Washington, who split from his finale partner, Nicole Jacky, will also star in the show alongside Olivia Walker, Connor Newsum and the exes Aaron Evans and Kaylor Martin.Ms. Craig and Mr. Rodriguez, who made it to the Season 6 finale, are both part of the main cast for “Love Island: Beyond the Villa.”Eugene Gologursky/Getty ImagesIn something of a surprise, only half of Season 6’s winning couple was officially announced as being part of the show: Serena Page, who, alongside her partner, Kordell Beckham, took home the grand prize, will appear. But Mr. Beckham — the younger brother of the N.F.L. player Odell Beckham Jr. — is not listed as a main cast member.Ms. Page cleared up the gossip around Mr. Beckham’s absence rather quickly, replying to a fan on Snapchat, “He’s gunna be in it with me!!!” and saying that he could not be announced as part of the main cast because he had booked another role.Also missing from the listed cast was Robert Rausch, a veteran of Seasons 5 and 6 of the show, though Peacock’s announcement said other islanders would appear, so he might be on at some point.What else do we know?Peacock did not release a trailer or announce a release date for the show, but the streamer said it would be coming in summer 2025. More

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    Liz Moore on ‘Long Bright River’ and the Slow Burn of Success

    Suddenly Liz Moore blazed, comet-like, onto small screens and best-seller lists. But her writing career has been a slow burn.No matter how you slice it, Liz Moore has arrived.This month, an adaptation of her blockbuster novel “Long Bright River” started streaming on Peacock. And her next book, “The God of the Woods,” now on the best-seller list for 36 weeks (and counting), will soon hit the million mark in sales — a distinction normally reserved for celebrities and novelists recognizable by last name alone.Moore isn’t one of those authors. But, over the past two decades, she’s proved to be “a writer who can do anything,” as her editor Sarah McGrath put it.Moore taps into an elusive sweet spot between literary and commercial fiction, populating vividly drawn settings with characters who seem to live, breathe and make terrible mistakes along with the rest of us. Her novels can be enjoyed by, say, a teenage girl and her 50-something father, defying genre and categorization to such an extent that, from one to the next, a reader might not register that they’re written by the same person.“I get messages saying, I loved your new book. Do you have any others?” Moore, 41, said during an interview at a cafe in Philadelphia. “Or they’ll call ‘The God of the Woods’ my second book because ‘Long Bright River’ was my first that broke out.”In fact, “The God of the Woods,” a mystery about siblings who disappear 14 years apart, is Moore’s fifth book. She wrote her first, “The Words of Every Song,” while she was a student at Barnard College. Shortly after she graduated in 2005, she signed on with an agent who’d come to campus for a panel on the publishing industry.“I reached out and said, ‘I have this manuscript of interconnected stories about the music industry. Would you be interested in looking at it?’ She said yes,” Moore recalled. “Only in retrospect do I realize what a lucky break that was.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Comcast Explores Spin-Out of Cable Business

    The company’s president, Mike Cavanagh, said the company was also considering finding a partner for its Peacock streaming service.Comcast, one of the nation’s biggest television companies, said on Thursday that it was weighing whether to cleave its cable networks from the rest of the company, a move that could put it in position to shake up the struggling cable industry.Mike Cavanagh, the company’s president, said on an earnings call that the company could put the cable networks owned by its NBCUniversal division — which include Syfy, Bravo and USA — into a new company.As Americans continue to drop their cable TV subscriptions, cable networks are generally considered the most problematic part of traditional media businesses like NBCUniversal.“Like many of our peers in media, we are experiencing the effects of the transition in our video businesses, and we have been studying the best path forward for these assets,” Mr. Cavanagh said.Mr. Cavanagh said that the new company would be owned by Comcast shareholders and that it would be “well capitalized” — implying that it would not be loaded up with debt from its parent company, a common tactic for corporate spinoffs. NBC — a broadcast network owned by Comcast — would probably not fit into the new company.His comments came after Comcast reported a 3.3 percent decrease in net income last quarter, even as revenue increased by 6.5 percent, to $32 billion. The company reported losses of 87,000 U.S. customers for its broadband services compared with the same period last year, and cable TV subscribers continued to decrease. The company’s share price was up nearly 3 percent in midmorning trading.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More