Mediagazer

9:05 AM ET, December 15, 2025

Top News:

Rose Henderson / Bloomberg:

Memo: Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos lay out Netflix's WBD case, moving to quell concerns about job losses and the end of theater releases, after Paramount's bid — The two chief executive officers of Netflix Inc. laid out the company's case for acquiring Warner Bros Discovery Inc. …

Discussion: Reuters and @mgsiegler, more at Techmeme »

Scott Fitzgerald / Wall Street Journal:

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on antitrust, argues consumers stand to benefit from Netflix's acquisition of WBD — Consumers stand to benefit from Netflix's acquisition of Warner. — In a crossover event fit for Hollywood, Netflix is acquiring Warner Bros …

Rohan Goswami / Semafor:
In a letter to the Trump administration, the GOP Senatorial Committee Chair Sen. Tim Scott said the Netflix-WBD deal raises “significant antitrust problems”

Discussion: Chris Heatherly on LinkedIn, U.S. Senator Tim Scott …, Gizmodo and The Wrap

Lauren Hirsch / New York Times:
Sources: WBD chose Netflix partly fearing limited recourse if Paramount's bid failed, since Larry Ellison has not provided a personal guarantee

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Paul Krugman, CBC News, Livemint, Front Office Sports, Fortune and Mobile World Live

Chris Morris / Variety:

Acclaimed actor and director Rob Reiner, 78, and his wife Michele Singer were found dead in their home; LAPD is investigating the deaths as a homicide — Rob Reiner, who segued from starring in “All in the Family” to directing movies including “This Is Spinal Tap,” “A Few Good Men” and …

Discussion: TMZ.com, People, NBC Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, ABC7, @mayorofla, TVNewsCheck, New York Post, E! Online, Page Six, Wall Street Journal, New York Sun, Us Weekly, The Hill, TODAY.com, @jbenton, WPXI-TV, FemaleFirst, GamesRadar, BizPac Review, Suggest, NewsMax.com, Townhall, Daily Star, Washington Post, Associated Press, Nicki Swift, NBC Bay Area, Dexerto, Daily Mail, Empire, France 24, El País, The Sun, Mirror, Le Monde, Benzinga, CBS News, Fox News, NBC News, @erikdavis, Rolling Stone, Forbes, The Hollywood Reporter, @letterboxd, Breitbart, @da__dealer, RADAR, World of Reel, @nickterrymgr, @angus.bsky.social, @reallorispencer, Deadline, The Indian Express, The Japan Times, USA Today, The Scottish Sun, The Forward, The Wrap, Looper, TVLine, Vogue, NDTV Profit, IJR, @lonsj.bsky.social, Comic Book, @trumanswhack, @fightingliberal.bsky.social, @tjandcasper, Pasadena Star News, Lawyer Monthly, RedState, @phillewis.bsky.social, Entertainment Weekly, Raw Story, @vronskies, @yashar, Extra, @spongebobsloth, @ceo_branding, @variety, @michaeljstern.bsky.social, @collinrugg, WWL-TV, The Post Millennial, @theflickpick, @richarderoeper, /Film, The Guardian, UPI, Gizmodo, @antonia2024bsky.bsky.social, Vanity Fair, Advocate, @madgreek2024.bsky.social, TV Insider, Business Insider, @variety, @sherripizza, Consequence, @danielsilvabook, David Earl Williams III on LinkedIn, HELLO!, IndieWire, Channel2 NOW, @elex_michaelson, @stylesgala, @unhealthytruth, New York Daily News, Oh No They Didn't!, Press Telegram, CNBC, Just Jared, Washington Examiner and Governor of California

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

How media coverage of Trump's AI EO overstated federal authority over states and overlooked how the order's interstate commerce argument could backfire — The mainstream media just failed a basic civics test so badly that you'd think their brains have been pickled by the kinds of folks who spend all their time on X (oh, wait...).

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

Major brands were replaced by direct-response advertisers during commercial breaks of CBS News' December 13 town hall with Erika Kirk, moderated by Bari Weiss — During a Saturday-night town hall led by Bari Weiss, the recently named editor in chief of CBS News, most of Madison Avenue sought an off-ramp.

Max Tani / Semafor:

Internal tests show WaPo launched its AI podcast feature despite 68%+ of generated scripts failed its standards, saying it would “iterate through” the issues — The Scoop — The Washington Post began putting out AI-generated podcasts even after internal tests found …

Discussion: @status.news, @oliverdarcy.bsky.social, Futurism, NPR, Status, The Wrap, TVNewsCheck, Instapundit and Mediaite

Kanis Leung / Associated Press:

Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai is found guilty of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiring to publish seditious articles — Jimmy Lai, the former Hong Kong media mogul and outspoken critic of Beijing, was convicted in a landmark national security trial …

Anna Heim / TechCrunch:NEW!

Berlin-based Mirelo, whose AI models can interpret video content to add matching sound effects, raised a $41M seed led by Index and a16z, after a $3M pre-seed — AI lets anyone create videos, but many AI video creation tools lack support for audio. Mirelo is building AI that adds soundtracks to match the video's action.

Discussion: Tech Funding News and Index Ventures, more at Techmeme »

Will McCurdy / PCMag:

Amazon rolls out Ask This Book to the Kindle iOS app, letting readers ask questions about plot or characters; authors can't opt out — Whether you're reading dense, challenging 19th-century classics or the latest thriller, sometimes even the best readers lose track of what's actually going on …

Discussion: Engadget, Writer Beware, 9to5Mac, The Verge, @carnage4life.bsky.social, @hypervisible.blacksky.app and Reactor

Elias Leight / Wall Street Journal:

Christmas music is more popular than ever, with listeners embracing it earlier in the year; by December 10, 20 of Spotify's top 25 tracks were Christmas-themed — One music manager described a holiday hit as a ‘little ATM machine’ — The group Pentatonix are known for their a capella renditions of Christmas classics.

Discussion: Barrett Media and Raw Story

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:

A look at financial advice YouTuber Caleb Hammer, who has over 2M subscribers and 60K to 70K subscribers paying $9.99/month for exclusive content — Caleb Hammer, the host of Financial Audit, a top podcast on YouTube, is one of the online upstarts filling the void left by the decline of combative daytime TV

Discussion: @dannygroner.bsky.social

Paul Sonne / New York Times:

A profile of Ivan Urgant, a popular Russian late-night TV host who became a pariah after his suspension in February 2022 for opposing the invasion of Ukraine — Ivan Urgant was an unstoppable Russian megastar. Then he expressed opposition to President Vladimir V. Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Discussion: @michaeljstern.bsky.social

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More News:

Freddy Mayhew / Press Gazette:
PA Media, the UK's largest press agency, says it has adopted a “video-first” strategy to meet increased demand for live and vertical social media content

Lauren Edmonds / Business Insider:
Filing: Reddit says in its lawsuit against Australia's social media ban that it's “a collection of public fora” and social interaction isn't its “sole purpose”

Discussion: MediaNama, @businessinsider.com, BMI, Breitbart, Gizmodo, iPhone in Canada, Engadget, Telegraph, TechCrunch, Biometric Update and Semafor

Sarah Holder / Bloomberg:
A look at Netflix House in Philadelphia, a new 100K sq. ft. location for in-person experiences, which resembles a Disneyland attraction and a Dave & Buster's

Discussion: Esquire, Visit Philadelphia, The Hollywood Reporter and Sarah Holder on LinkedIn

Trip Gabriel / New York Times:
R. Bruce Dold, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at the Chicago Tribune, where he became editor-in-chief and publisher, is dead at 70

Discussion: @raylong, Tony Hunter on LinkedIn, Colin McMahon on LinkedIn, Notre Dame Magazine, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Tribune

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney's Zootopia 2 surpasses $1B at the global box office, the fastest PG-rated film to do so after just 17 days in release

Discussion: Variety, @disneyanimation, @discussingfilm, @drewdisneydude, The A.V. Club, Vulture, LAmag, Reuters, People, The Walt Disney Company, Forbes, Screen, Deadline, The Movie Blog, Deadline, CNBC, The Wrap, Variety and Comic Book

Gene Maddaus / Variety:
Google has removed dozens of AI videos from YouTube that depicted Disney characters, after Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter flagging the links

Discussion: Android Central, Beyond Search, Tech Times, Breitbart, Alejandro Franceschi on LinkedIn, Engadget, TheStreet, WinBuzzer, @carnage4life.bsky.social, Gizmodo, Mashable, Far Out Magazine, Deadline, Android Headlines, Digital Music News and Analytics India Magazine

Earlier Picks:

Aidan Ryan / The Boston Globe:
Boston Globe editor Nancy Barnes steps down from her role but will remain on staff as editor-at-large; she joined the paper as the first female editor in 2023

Discussion: WPRI-TV, WBUR, Boston Business Journal and Media Nation

Financial Times:
OpenAI hopes the Disney deal boosts Sora, which has high costs and limited traction; Sensor Tower: users average 13 minutes per day on Sora vs. 90 on TikTok

Discussion: Nikkei Asia and MediaNama

Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93

Ann Gehan / The Information:
Source: livestream shopping app Whatnot nears ~$1B in revenue for 2025; Whatnot says it has passed $6B in gross sales this year, more than doubling 2024's sales

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Sources: DMGT has locked down funding for its £500M acquisition of the Telegraph, in a funding package expected to comprise equity and debt

Discussion: The Guardian and The Times

From Techmeme:

Bloomberg:
iRobot files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reaches a restructuring agreement to hand over control to its secured lender and main Chinese supplier Shenzhen Picea

Financial Times:
DTCC: credit default swaps tied to a handful of US tech groups have climbed 90% since early September, as investors seek ways to protect against an AI debt bust

Financial Times:
Sources: the UK government wants Apple, Google, and others to block explicit images at the OS level by default to protect kids and have adults verify their ages

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