Top News:
Max Willens / Digiday:
How BuzzFeed is reorganizing and charting a path to a sustainable business, according to sources and a memo CEO Jonah Peretti sent to employees Tuesday night — The next version of BuzzFeed is being whittled into focus. — Over the past week, the venture-backed publisher has been gripped by a very public multi-day round of layoffs.
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Madison Malone Kircher / New York Magazine:
Q&A with a Michigan college student who has made 692 quizzes for BuzzFeed as a hobby, becoming the 2nd-highest traffic driver for the site's quizzes worldwide — Rachel McMahon is a teen from Michigan you almost certainly haven't heard of before this week.
Discussion:
New York Magazine, Gizmodo, @choire, @willoremus, @reckless, @laurawags, @lrhogan, @mathewi, @4evrmalone, @4evrmalone, @mattdpearce, @auntbeckyrose, @sarahlkaufman, @nymag, @jakeswearingen, @austin_walker, @eleanorbate, @jeff__benjamin, @karaschlegl, @niemanlab, @conroyforreal, @robferdman, @kwameopam and Nieman Lab
Will Oremus / Slate:
The global layoffs at BuzzFeed, once a successful beacon in a shrinking industry, mark an end of innocence for the outlet and for staffers with big social reach — BuzzFeed's layoffs were painful for its staffers—and fatal to its self-mythology. — There's a phenomenon familiar …
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
Report: Apple told studios and networks to be ready for a launch of Apple's streaming service by mid-April, the same month investors see a Disney+ preview — Studios were reportedly told to be ready by mid-April — Little is known about Apple's standalone streaming service, aside from the mountain of original content that's coming.
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Fast Company, Recode, The Information, Tubefilter, @pkafka, @shiraovide, @jtoonkel, @shiraovide, @mcwm, PCMag India, The Wrap, Multichannel News, /Film, TechCrunch and Observer, more at Techmeme »
Joe Pompeo / Vanity Fair:
Axios made roughly $25M and nearly broke even in its second full year, and plans to launch a high-end subscription business in 2019 — The start-up, forged by former Politico all-pros, made $25 million in its second full year. What's next? Subscriptions, naturally.
Discussion:
@reedfrich, @patrickruffini, @dylanbyers, @rafat, @niubi and @vanityfair
Todd Spangler / Variety:
AT&T Q4: WarnerMedia revenue was up 5.9% YoY to $9.2B, but Entertainment Group revenue was down 4.8% YoY to $12B amid subscriber losses for DirecTV, DirecTV Now — AT&T posted healthy growth in wireless and WarnerMedia segments for the fourth quarter of 2018, but missed top-line revenue targets …
Ben Sisario / New York Times:
Documenting the R. Kelly case: interviews with Jim DeRogatis, who has reported on the case for almost 20 years, and Dream Hampton, who made Surviving R. Kelly — CHICAGO — For the journalists who have dug the deepest on R. Kelly, these should be satisfying days.
Discussion:
Daily Herald
Anthony Crupi / Ad Age:
Nielsen C3 primetime ratings for ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox dropped 11% YoY for Q4 2018 in the 18-49 age group, with a 27% drop in the same period since 2016 — The big four networks have seen many of their demographically desirable viewers disappear — As younger viewers continue …
Jon Lafayette / Broadcasting & Cable:
Conviva: streaming TV hours rose 89% YoY in 2018 with a 165% increase in Q4; connected TVs accounted for 56% of all streamed views in 2018, up from 47% in 2017 — Quality increases, but viewers are less patient — The amount of video being streamed showed strong growth in 2018 …
Discussion:
MediaPost
Maxwell Tani / The Daily Beast:
Sources describe how Donald Trump Jr.'s fixer Arthur Schwartz wages war against the media through information trading and social media agitation — When GOP operative Arthur Schwartz sees Bannon, Scaramucci, or Don Jr. as being wronged by the press, he goes into overdrive—and sometimes crosses the line.
Discussion:
@johncardillo, @maxwelltani, @maxwelltani and @maxwelltani
Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
Online women's magazine The Pool, which lost its co-founders last year, is fighting for survival as writers go unpaid — Company's director says it is ‘not over yet’ but staff say they are waiting for January wages — The online women's magazine The Pool, which was co-founded by Lauren Laverne …
Discussion:
@orbyn, @orbyn, @orbyn, @sianysianysiany, @claire_phipps and @eve_rebecca
Chris Brantner / Streaming Observer:
Study: of 3,839 movies on Netflix, 596 are “Certified Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes, more than Prime, Hulu, HBO combined, despite Prime having 17,461 movies total — Amazon Prime Video may have more than 4.5x as many movies as Netflix, but quantity isn't everything.
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PCMag India, Gizmodo and Fortune
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