Mediagazer: Nexstar settles with DOJ over the sharing of ad price rates among TV station owners that let them manipulate prices; six other groups settled last month (Ted Johnson/Variety)

8:20 AM ET, December 15, 2018

Top News:

John Podhoretz / Commentary:

Shutting down the Weekly Standard is an intellectual and political crime that enables its parent company to harvest its subscriber base for another publication — The Weekly Standard will be no more. There is no real reason we are witnessing the magazine's demise other than deep pettiness …

Oliver Darcy / CNN:

The Weekly Standard will publish its last edition on December 17 and shut down after 23 years — New York (CNN Business)The Weekly Standard, the magazine that espouses traditional conservatism and which has remained deeply critical of President Donald Trump, will shutter after 23 years …

Discussion: @oliverdarcy, @oliverdarcy, @oliverdarcy, PR Newswire, Breitbart, @jpodhoretz, The Wrap, @farhip, @stephengutowski, @oliverdarcy, @maxboot, @dhume, @edegnan, @mckaycoppins, @thehowie, @rachaelbl, @jpodhoretz, @dylanbyers, @sykescharlie, HuffPost, @cjane87, Fortune, Newser and The Hill

Jeanine Poggi / Ad Age:

Hulu is launching a new private programmatic marketplace for advertisers to buy its on-demand and TV inventory; the marketplace won't replace upfront deals — Hulu is further automating advertising on the streaming platform with a new private programmatic marketplace.

Discussion: Forbes, Marketing Land, Digiday, @jonholm and AdExchanger

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline:

WarnerMedia names Kevin Reilly head of content and strategy for its streaming service; he will remain president of TBS, TNT, and CCO of Turner Entertainment — Kevin Reilly, President of TBS and TNT and Chief Creative Officer for Turner Entertainment, is expanding his role at WarnerMedia …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Variety, The Wrap, @jasonhirschhorn, @richbtig, Broadcasting & Cable and Fast Company

Mike Farrell / Multichannel News:

CBS launches local news streaming service, CBSN, which will stream coverage from major markets served by CBS's owned and operated stations, starting in New York — CBSN New York offers local news from CBS 2 and WLNY — CBS Television Stations and CBS Interactive have launched …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and TVSpy

Washington Post:

As digital media faces bigger hurdles, PitchBook numbers show investors on track to close 19 deals worth $130M in 2018; they closed 27 deals worth $206M in 2014 — Sites' reliance on Facebook, Google seen as a contributing factor. — As legacy news companies suffered tremors over the past decade …

Dominic Patten / Deadline:

FX study: 2018 saw the release of 495 scripted original TV shows, with online streamers like Netflix accounting for the majority of them with 160 shows — Though down by a notch from FX boss John Landgraf's prediction earlier this year that there would be 520 scripted original shows in 2018 …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, @awolk, Vanity Fair and Observer

Ken Doctor / Nieman Lab:

Sources say that negotiations between Tribune and McClatchy ended mainly because McClatchy was offering $16.50/share and Tribune wants at least $18/share — What stopped the almost-done McClatchy purchase of Tribune Publishing? Two familiar words: Michael Ferro.

Discussion: @niemanlab, @ckrewson, @megjameslat, Ad Age, The Wrap, @smmills1960 and @laura_nelson

Robert Channick / Chicago Tribune:
Source: Tribune Publishing ends talks to sell the company to McClatchy, with potential antitrust issues in Florida derailing a deal

Discussion: Bloomberg, New York Post and BloombergQuint

New York Times:

Behind the secret $9.5M CBS settlement with actress Eliza Dushku, who was written off the show Bull after her complaints about star Michael Weatherly's comments — In March 2017, Eliza Dushku, an actress known for her work on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” signed on to play a major role …

Discussion: TVLine, CBS News, NPR, @koblin, Slate, The Wrap, Vox, Multichannel News, BloombergQuint, Vanity Fair, TVWeek.com, Jezebel, Fast Company, @kazweida, @moryan, @markberman, The Week, @ditzkoff, @rachelabramsny, @cadlymack, @jimrutenberg, @richbtig, @koblin, @dylanbyers, @dylanbyers, @jimwindolf, Mashable, Broadcasting & Cable, The A.V. Club, IndieWire and Variety

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

CBS will award $20M of the $120M earmarked for Les Moonves's severance package to 18 organizations that work to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace — CBS Corp. said Friday it would award $20 million that was originally earmarked for severance for its former CEO, Leslie Moonves …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and Fast Company

Jon Lafayette / Broadcasting & Cable:

Amazon makes NBA League Pass package available through Amazon's Prime Video Channels, offering regular-season out-of-market games for $29/month or $169 a season — Amazon has struck a deal to make the NBA League Pass package available through Amazon's Prime Video Channels.

Discussion: Multichannel News

Nick Romano / EW.com:

The lengthy copyright lawsuit over the Blurred Lines song ends, with an appeals court awarding Marvin Gaye's family ~$5M from Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams — The lengthy legal battle over Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams' “Blurred Lines” finally came to an end this week with a payday for the Marvin Gaye family.

Discussion: Music Business Worldwide, CNN, BBC, The A.V. Club, Variety, Bloomberg Law, The FADER and Observer

Ryan Faughnder / Los Angeles Times:

The LA Times to produce a one hour prime-time news TV series for Charter's Spectrum News 1 channel, starting in February and airing Monday through Thursday — The Los Angeles Times will produce a prime-time news magazine television series for Charter Communications' recently launched Spectrum News 1 channel …

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More News:

Literary Hub:
Literary magazine Tin House will cease print publication in June 2019, but online edition will remain

Ted Johnson / Variety:
Nexstar settles with DOJ over the sharing of ad price rates among TV station owners that let them manipulate prices; six other groups settled last month

Discussion: Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable

link.nbcnews.com:
Sources: Verizon's Oath division will be laying off employees starting in Q1 2019; cuts will be 10% of Oath's 11.5K-person workforce

Discussion: @dylanbyers

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
In a case that could serve as a warning to media, a district court judge rules Esquire's use of a photo of Trump crashing a wedding party was not fair use

Discussion: @lucas_jackson_, @ruikaneya and @editrixjen

Earlier Picks:

Cecilia D'Anastasio / Kotaku:
Wiki site Fandom says it will acquire Curse Media, which runs gaming wiki site Gamepedia, from Twitch, which bought Curse Media parent Curse in Aug. 2016

Discussion: @slasher, @heronymus, @rdonoghue, Gamasutra and Neowin

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:
Mixed results follow Australian gag order on Vatican official's conviction: AP, Reuters didn't report, Apple News took down WaPo story, social posts circulated

Discussion: @lauriegnyt, Techdirt, @fionaba47662575, @meslackman and @sulliview

Ernst Pfauth / The Correspondent:
The Correspondent meets its crowdfunding goal of $2.5M and will launch a newsletter in January, hire staff starting in February, and launch site in mid-2019

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu, @robwijnberg, @ejpfauth and HuffPost

Tom Winter / NBC News:
Source: Trump was present in August 2015 when National Enquirer's David Pecker met with Michael Cohen and offered to help suppress stories about Trump and women

Discussion: ABC News, The Guardian, ABC News, New York Times, @rgoodlaw, Mediaite, Vanity Fair, @peterstris, Fox News Insider, @ronanfarrow, @dafnalinzer, @tom_winter, The Week, Slate and Business Insider

From Techmeme:

Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta details Llama 3: 8B- and 70B-parameter models, a focus on reducing false refusals, and an upcoming model trained on 15T+ tokens that has 400B+ parameters

Raffaele Huang / Wall Street Journal:
Apple removes WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China, saying it was ordered to do so by China's cyberspace officials citing national security concerns

Ryan Morrison / Tom's Guide:
Microsoft researchers introduce VASA-1, an AI model that creates a realistic talking face video from a portrait photo and an audio file, in research preview

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