Mediagazer: Moonbug, a London-based startup that recently acquired YouTube channel Little Baby Bum, raises $145M to buy and develop more programming for kids (Juliet Chung/Wall Street Journal)

2:05 PM ET, December 21, 2018

Top News:

Moonbug, a London-based startup that recently acquired YouTube channel Little Baby Bum, raises $145M to buy and develop more programming for kids — Entertainment company wants to acquire popular shows, invest in production — Children's entertainment company Moonbug Entertainment …

Discussion: TechCrunch and Deadline

Vox Media:

Vox Media launches Vox Video Lab on YouTube, a two-tiered video subscription program starting at $4.99 with access to extended interviews, Q&As, and more — New Membership Program Launched with Support from Google News Initiative — Today we're happy to introduce the latest project …

Discussion: Business Insider

Sahil Patel / Digiday:

Forbes Media CEO says overall revenue and profit are up 18% and 42% YoY, respectively, and that it plans to invest in or acquire one of two companies per year — Forbes said it just had its most profitable year since it became Forbes Media in 2006. And now, the company …

Thanks:@steverubel

Tara John / CNN:

UK's Advertising Standards Authority announces companies will be banned from including gender stereotypes that could cause offense in ads beginning June 2019 — London (CNN)Depictions of girls as less academic than boys or men being belittled for “unmanly” behavior will be soon be a thing of the past in British commercials.

Discussion: The Guardian, The Independent and The Week

Jon Russell / TechCrunch:

iflix, a Netflix-like streaming service targeting emerging markets, is selling its Africa business to concentrate on Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines — Iflix, the emerging market Netflix competitor that's backed by Sky, is leaving Africa to double down on its business in Asia.

The Guardian:

Russia's media regulator says it will review whether the BBC is in compliance with Russian law in a retaliatory move after Ofcom in the UK censured Russia's RT — Retaliatory move comes after UK watchdog found network RT broke impartiality rules — Russia's media regulator has said it will carry …

Discussion: BBC, Telegraph, BBC, The Guardian and Ofcom

Lucinda Southern / Digiday:

Schibsted says its video platform Stream, now used in 40 newsrooms and 30 newspapers in Norway, had 2.6B views across its videos in 2018 — Nordic media giant Schibsted has a heritage of developing core products in one newsroom and spinning them out to dozens of its own titles and beyond.

Lucinda Southern / Digiday:

Three French broadcasters, France Télévisions, M6, and TF1, have created Sygma, a common standard for buyers to access VOD inventory in hopes of reducing fraud — In France three broadcasters, France Télévisions, M6 and TF1, have created a common standard …

Jessica Davies / Digiday:

Q&A with Guardian CRO Hamish Nicklin on Martin Sorrell's S4, long-term effects of GDPR, the Rubicon settlement, and the growth of premium programmatic ads — As we close out 2018, the Guardian is just over three months away from the deadline of its three-year plan to break even.

Ilana Kaplan / Digiday:

Q&A with NYT CEO Mark Thompson on podcasting plans, subscription strategy for 2019 after reaching 4M subs in 2018, and its “cordial” relationship with Facebook — This article appears in the latest issue of Digiday magazine, a quarterly publication that is part of Digiday+.

Discussion: @filip_struharik and @geninnovate, Thanks:@steverubel

Washington Post:

Ex-Senate staffer James Wolfe gets two months in prison for lying to FBI; he had been linked to a NYT reporter after DOJ seized her phone and email records — A longtime aide to the Senate Intelligence Committee was sentenced Thursday to two months in prison for lying to FBI agents …

Discussion: BuzzFeed News, @rachelweinerwp, @mattzap, emptywheel, CBS News and Fox News

John Eggerton / Broadcasting & Cable:

Times Square News Year's Eve will officially celebrate journalists and press freedom; the event's official charity will be the Committee to Protect Journalists — News media figures will trigger iconic ball-drop — When the ball drops in Times Square New Year's Eve, it will be aimed …

Discussion: @jrezaian, @pressfreedom, @senatormenendez and @pressfreedom

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From Techmeme:

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