Top News:


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 …


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 »

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:
Poynter, ledger-enquirer, Media Nation, Editor & Publisher, The Rural Blog and Dan Kennedy
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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
Discussion:
Radio & Television …, Raycom Media, Poynter, Atlanta Business Journal, Fox Business, TVWeek.com, WTOL-TV, Variety, Deadline and Wall Street Journal


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 and The Guardian
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James and Deborah Fallows have signed a deal with HBO to turn their new book “Our Towns” into a TV series, with plans to broadcast it in 2019 — THE HOUSE is likely to vote on its new immigration bill as soon TOMORROW or Wednesday, sources tell us.
Discussion:
Bloomberg and New York Times


Russell Crowe will star as Roger Ailes in the forthcoming television series about the ex-Fox News CEO, based on Gabriel Sherman's book — Showtime has given an eight-episode order to a limited series about Roger Ailes, with Oscar winner Russell Crowe set to star as the controversial Fox News founder in his US television debut.
Discussion:
@gretchencarlson, @sethamandel, @xeni, @xeni, Fortune and Mediaite


Inside a fact-checking conference highlighting selection bias, automating searches, using video to reach a larger audience, and dealing with online hoaxes — ROME — Political fact-checkers from more than 50 countries gathered here to take stock of a fast-growing journalistic movement …


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:
Engadget, Ad Age, MediaPost, Multichannel News, 9to5Mac, Deadline, TechCrunch and Reuters


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 …

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 »


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.


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


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.