Top News:
Lara O'Reilly / Wall Street Journal:
AT&T confirms it will buy AppNexus, which operates one of the largest independent ad exchanges; sources last week said the price was expected to be around $1.6B — Following acquisitions of AppNexus and Time Warner, telecom giant wants to do more than capitalize on its own content
Discussion:
Business Wire, USA Today, Adweek, VentureBeat and Fortune, more at Techmeme »
New York Times:
Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer to film a pilot episode of a talk show tentatively titled Sean Spicer's Common Ground, no network is attached — Ellen. Oprah. — ... Sean? — Sean Spicer, arguably the world's most famous White House press secretary …
Discussion:
Variety, Associated Press, @nytimesbusiness, Mediaite, @isaacdovere, Broadcasting & Cable, @maggienyt, Slate, @michaelavenatti, The Wrap, HuffPost and TV Tattle
CNHI:
Raycom Media-owned local newspaper chain CNHI to explore sale of newspapers in 22 states after Raycom agreed to Gray Television group acquisition — MONTGOMERY, Ala. - CNHI, LLC, one of the country's leading providers of local news and information, said Monday it is exploring the sale of its newspaper properties in 22 states.
Discussion:
Media Nation, ledger-enquirer, Editor & Publisher, The Rural Blog and Dan Kennedy
RELATED:
Munsif Vengattil / Reuters:
Gray Television to buy Raycom Media in a cash and stock deal worth $3.65B; combined company will have 142 stations in 92 markets and reach ~24% of US households — (Reuters) - Gray Television Inc (GTN.N) said on Monday it would buy privately held rival broadcaster Raycom Media Inc in a cash …
Discussion:
Radio & Television …, Poynter, Raycom Media, Atlanta Business Journal, Fox Business, TVWeek.com, WTOL-TV, Variety, Deadline and Wall Street Journal
Apple:
Apple is launching a new 2018 Midterm Elections section in Apple News, offering exclusive features from Washington Post, Axios, and Politico — An Easy Way to Follow the Elections, With Reporting From Trusted Sources Curated by Apple News Editors — Cupertino, California …
Discussion:
Nieman Lab, MacRumors, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, Mashable, The Daily Caller, Lifehacker, BGR, MarketWatch, CNBC, AppleInsider, CNET, Business Insider, @dangillmor, Fortune, Fast Company, @anildash, @reneritchie, @pkafka, TechCrunch, MacRumors and 9to5Mac
The Daily Beast:
Sources: Fox News suspends contributor and former Trump aide David Bossie for two weeks after Bossie made a racist comment on Fox & Friends Weekend — David Bossie, the former deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump and current outside adviser to the president, has been suspended …
Discussion:
TVLine, Contemptor, HuffPost, Fortune, Variety, Mediaite, New York Times, iMediaEthics, The Guardian and Deadline
RELATED:
Daniel Holloway / Variety:
CBS extends streaming rights deal with NFL to allow the network to stream Sunday games on CBS All Access to mobile, computers, and connected TVs through 2022 — CBS has reached an extension of its NFL media-rights deal that will allow the network to stream games on mobile devices.
Discussion:
Ad Age, Engadget, MediaPost, Multichannel News, Deadline, TechCrunch, Reuters and 9to5Mac
Patrick Brzeski / Hollywood Reporter:
Wanda Film to acquire 96.8% stake in Wanda Media for $1.78B as part of restructuring plan, will invest in content production and online games — Wanda's U.S. film companies — AMC Entertainment and Legendary Entertainment — aren't included in the proposed deal, which aims to bring …
Discussion:
China Film Insider and Asia Times
Seb Joseph / Digiday:
Sources: programmatic ad spending, which saw steep declines after GDPR, has started to recover with some publishers' audience opt-in consent rates hitting 75% — Programmatic ad spending has started to recover a month after the arrival of the General Data Protection Regulation caused it to nosedive.
Discussion:
Beet.TV, more at Techmeme »
Sahil Patel / Digiday:
In August, local Fox stations to air Phone Swap, a Vertical Networks dating show launched on Snapchat and averaging 10M viewers per episode across two seasons — Elisabeth Murdoch's digital media company Vertical Networks is best known for producing video shows for Snapchat and Facebook.
Marlee Baldridge / Nieman Lab:
The Sacramento Bee is trying to increase its subscriptions from 15K to 60K within the next few years, to become completely sustained by reader revenue — “We're looking hard at what types of stories drive digital-only subscriptions. We know the last story someone read before they hit the meter …
TIME:
A look at the journalists fighting for press freedom across Southeast Asia, in the Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar, Singapore, Vietnam, and Malaysia — Southeast Asia may never have been a paragon of the free press, but the democratic strides it made in the late '80s and '90s are rapidly unraveling.