Little Voice arrived on Apple TV+  on Friday. It features an autistic character Louie King, who was played by an actor who is on the autism spectrum, Kevin Valdez. The actor joined the show’s co-creator, Jessie Nelson, to explain why this was so important.

“He’s really similar to me,” Valdez says. “It’s almost like this role was made with me in mind”… Apple’s service has a show, See, that features a large cast of actors who are blind or low vision.  “I was so pleased with how far we’ve come that Apple was so supportive of finding an autistic actor to play this role,” Nelson says. “This is a very different moment in history.” Increasingly, autistic actors are playing characters on the autism spectrum. And those characters are moving beyond the male autistic savant stereotype, says Arianna Esposito, director of lifespan services at Autism Speaks. Having a person with autism playing a role like Louie “really brings an authenticity to the character,” Esposito says.

Quibi lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired. That’s according to data from Sensor Tower, reported on by The Verge. 

According to the firm’s new report on Quibi’s early growth, the short-form video platform signed up about 910,000 users in its first few days back in April. Of those users, only about 72,000 stuck around after the three-month free trial, indicating the app had about an 8 percent conversion rate. That’s not too bad. But compare it to the streaming video industry’s most successful debut of the last few years, Disney Plus, and the resulting picture is a grim one for Quibi.

NBCUniversal is set to fully enter the streaming wars next week. Variety took a look at the story behind the Peacock service, which has suffered delays to some of its major launch productions.

Most of the Peacock originals slate has been delayed by COVID-19. The service will come out with just nine originals, which include a slick series adaptation of “Brave New World” and U.K.-set workplace comedy “Intelligence,” starring David Schwimmer. The Summer Olympics were postponed until 2021, depriving the launch of some valuable promotional real estate. And with two weeks before go time, Peacock had deals for Apple, Google, Xbox and Vizio and LG TVs, but still had not clinched distribution pacts with Roku or Amazon Fire TV, the two biggest over-the-top TV device makers (which also have been holdouts on HBO Max). But Strauss remains undeterred, convinced that Peacock’s greatest potential lies in the free-to-watch tier with a light advertising load that promises no more than 5 minutes of commercials per hour. NBCU’s theory is that “Free as a bird” will resonate with millions of Americans who are financially strapped or just too maxed out to pay for yet another streaming package.