Mediagazer: Chris Hohn, a London-based activist investor, has built about a $3B stake in 21st Century Fox, say sources, may influence a sale amid Disney and Comcast offers (Wall Street Journal)

2:55 AM ET, April 26, 2018

Top News:

Reporters without Borders has released its annual press freedom report-card and the US is ranked 45th in the world; Philippines slid to #133 and Turkey to #157 — Last weekend, as Nicaragua's police brutally cracked down on protesters demonstrating against President Daniel Ortega …

Discussion: Reporters Without Borders, The Daily Beast, @niemanfdn, Reporters Without Borders, @sulliview, Japan Times, @kathleencarrll, @vinodjose, @nilanjanaroy, Al Jazeera English, @astroehlein, @birgitmschwarz, @jrezaian, @askakorean, @joshrogin, @jason_kint, @whca and Splinter

Natalie Jarvey / Hollywood Reporter:

Netflix orders one of its first shortform series, Follow This, a weekly docuseries following BuzzFeed News journalists as they work, premiering July 9 — The shortform series will follow the journalists at BuzzFeed News as they report a variety of stories.

Lucia Moses / Digiday:

Snap says it will begin testing six-second non-skippable ads in select Snapchat Shows beginning May 15 — Once reluctant to force ads on its users, still-unprofitable Snapchat is going to start testing nonskippable ads in its TV-like shows, according to three sources with direct knowledge …

Discussion: Gizmodo, @cvas, @digiday, 9to5Mac, Mashable, The Verge and Recode, more at Techmeme »

Cale Guthrie Weissman / Fast Company:

Digg, formerly owned by Betaworks, has been sold to Boston-based ad-tech company BuySellAds; new CEO Todd Garland plans to streamline Digg and build up ad stack — This story has been updated. — Last month, Digg, an old beloved content aggregation destination, made the sad announcement …

Discussion: @caleweissman, @inafried, Business Insider, Gizmodo, TechCrunch and @caleweissman, more at Techmeme »

Wall Street Journal:

Chris Hohn, a London-based activist investor, has built about a $3B stake in 21st Century Fox, say sources, may influence a sale amid Disney and Comcast offers — London-based firm holds roughly $3 billion in Fox shares, making TCI one of its top shareholders

Discussion: @shalini, @alexfrangos and New York Times

Christopher Williams / Telegraph:
Comcast makes £22B bid for British broadcaster Sky, at £12.50 a share, sparking a bidding war with 21st Century Fox and Disney

Discussion: Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable

Jem Aswad / Variety:

US House unanimously passes Music Modernization Act to streamline licensing and ensure royalty protection for pre-1972 performances; bill now goes to Senate — As expected, the Music Modernization Act unanimously passed the House of Representatives Wednesday afternoon.

Discussion: Multichannel News

Allison Graves / Poynter:

Lee Williams, a columnist and editor at GateHouse's Sarasota Herald-Tribune, advocates for the NRA while editing breaking news, raising ethical questions — A little more than a month after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Lee Williams sat down with Marion Hammer …

Discussion: @indira_l, @davidmastio, @emily_lecoz and @indira_l

Jonathan Randles / Wall Street Journal:

Filing: Peter Thiel agrees to withdraw bid for Gawker website and archives, will give eventual buyer legal release for archived articles — Billionaire venture capitalist will sit out sale of dormant blog to avoid potential legal claims against him — Billionaire investor Peter Thiel …

Discussion: MediaPost, The Wrap, Variety, Fast Company, Mediaite, @theseantcollins, @edmurrieta, @hamiltonnolan, Editor & Publisher, @albertburneko, @smorgasboredom, @tomscocca, Hollywood Reporter and @freedomofpress, more at Techmeme »

Sahil Patel / Digiday:

Viacom says it is working with Snap on multiyear original content and ad deal that would include Snapchat influencers in new and existing shows — Viacom and Snapchat are working together to create new shows that would star top Snapchat stars. — In a multiyear original content …

Discussion: Ad Age and @kerrymflynn

Reuters:
Viacom Q2 earnings: revenues fell 3.3% to $3.15B with domestic affiliate revenue falling 4% to $934M

Discussion: Bloomberg, The Wrap, Billboard, Viacom Inc. and The Wrap

Peter Kafka / Recode:

Jonathan Carson, who joined Mic as president in April 2017, is transitioning out of the company over next few months; CEO says Mic isn't hiring a replacement — Jonathan Carson, who joined Mic as its president in April 2017, is headed out. The millennial-focused publisher hasn't named a replacement.

Washington Post:

The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico, Associated Press, and CNN ask court to unseal records from Mueller's Russia investigation — A coalition of news organizations, including The Washington Post, asked a federal court on Tuesday to unseal materials used by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III …

Discussion: CNN and Politico

Todd Spangler / Variety:

AT&T says it netted 312K new DirecTV Now customers in Q1 to reach 1.46M subscribers as it reports revenues of $38B, down 3.4% YoY, missing targets — AT&T added 312,000 DirecTV Now net new customers in the first three months of 2018 to reach 1.46 million subscribers — offsetting losses on the traditional pay-TV front.

Discussion: The Wrap, TechCrunch, AT&T, CNET and Hollywood Reporter, more at Techmeme »

Michael E. Kanell / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Pandora says it plans to add about 250 jobs in Atlanta over the next three years in engineering, sales, legal, and human resources — Pandora, the largest music streaming service in the U.S., has announced plans to add 250 jobs in Atlanta during the next three years.

Discussion: Atlanta Business Journal and Associated Press

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Ali Kucukgocmen / Reuters:
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Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
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Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
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Jon Lafayette / Multichannel News:
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Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
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Earlier Picks:

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:
Memo: staff in The Wall Street Journal's editing operation have been asked to reapply for their jobs following reorganization

Discussion: @dabeard, @michellemanafy and @moorehn

Chronicle of Higher Education:
Drew Cloud, an “expert” on student loans quoted by WaPo, CNBC, and The Boston Globe, is a fictitious persona created by a student finance company

Discussion: @chronicle, UPROXX, @kasie, @danprimack, @barrettbrown_, @muckrakery, @bencasselman, @mollyhc, @zittrain, @edpolicyhabash, @ralphehanson, @trace_urdan, @dynarski and Talking Biz News

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Comcast Q1 earnings: $22.8B in revenue, boosted by a 21.3% increase in revenue at NBCUniversal, but lost 93K cable customers while gaining 351K broadband subs

Discussion: Multichannel News, MediaPost and Broadcasting & Cable

Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
The Guardian halves its losses to £19M in the year to the end of March and is on track to break even in 2018

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New York Times:
Danish inventor Peter Madsen convicted of murdering journalist Kim Wall; court heard how he invited her on to his submarine with the intention of killing her

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Justin Baragona / Contemptor:
Infosec expert for Joy Reid says significant evidence exists that her old blog was compromised and some recently circulated posts were not on site at any time

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From Techmeme:

Wall Street Journal:
The FTC bans noncompete clauses that restrict job switching, the first time in 50+ years that the FTC has issued a regulation mandating an economy-wide change

Victoria Song / The Verge:
Meta rolls out multimodal AI in early access for the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, mainly to help identify objects, translate signs, and write Instagram captions

Emilia David / The Verge:
Microsoft debuts Phi-3 Mini, a small 3.8B-parameter model about as capable as GPT-3.5, and plans Phi-3 Small and Phi-3 Medium models with 7B and 14B parameters

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