Top News:
Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
UK charities declare the Momo challenge a hoax after the media publishes hundreds of articles on it, causing a moral panic despite absence of evidence — Groups say no evidence yet of self-harm from craze, but resulting hysteria poses a risk — It is the most talked about viral scare story …
Discussion:
Nieman Lab, The Guardian, The Atlantic, One Man & His Blog, Fast Company, The Independent, Metro.co.uk, BBC, @zeynep, @mtrc, @dralangreene, @parkermolloy, @jimwaterson, @vickiturk, The Drum and TMZ.com
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Ev Williams announces that all Medium paywalled stories will be free for readers who come to the site from Twitter — If you're not the paying sort, Medium has a mile-wide new hole in its paywall that might interest you. (But really, you should be the paying sort.)
Discussion:
@ev, MediaPost, Adweek, Engadget, @ev, @bmccandless, @chronotope, @sdkstl and @sdkstl
Mike Allen / Axios:
Jonah Goldberg to leave the National Review and partner with ex-Weekly Standard EIC Steve Hayes to launch conservative media company, starting with newsletters — Jonah Goldberg is leaving National Review in the coming months to start a new conservative media company with Steve Hayes …
Discussion:
The Wrap, @jpodhoretz, @mattyglesias, @dankennedy_nu and @arkloster
University of California:
The University of California will not renew subscriptions with academic publisher Elsevier, saying Elsevier was unwilling to meet open access publishing goals — As a leader in the global movement toward open access to publicly funded research, the University of California is taking …
Discussion:
@cbahlai, @carlystrasser, STAT, @volcanodoc, @mchl_wolfe, @jselingo, @no_reply and @punctum_books
YouTube Creator Blog:
YouTube says it will disable comments on almost all videos featuring minors, improve classification of comments, and continue to ban harmful accounts — We know that many of you have been closely following the actions we're taking to protect young people on YouTube and are as deeply concerned as we are that we get this right.
Discussion:
Variety, @susanwojcicki, Mashable, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, 9to5Google, The Verge, Engadget, The Week and Vox, more at Techmeme »
Hollywood Reporter:
AMC Networks beats fourth quarter expectations with $773M in revenue and profit of $72M, down from $145M in Q4 2017; ad revenue rose 1.4% YoY — The cable networks company on an analyst call talked about an upcoming spin-off series for its flagship zombie drama now closing in on its tenth year.
Discussion:
The Wrap, Variety, Vanity Fair and Broadcasting & Cable
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
CNN launches an app on Magic Leap's AR headset, streaming live programming and on-demand videos for users who log in with TV Everywhere — CNN is coming to augmented reality: The news network launched an app on Magic Leap's AR headset Thursday, streaming live programming and on-demand videos on the device.
Discussion:
@jbenton
Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:
Cohen's testimony mostly vindicates BuzzFeed reporting on Trump “directing” him to lie, but saying Trump's directions were explicit was a self-inflicted wound — In mid-January, a BuzzFeed News report hit the news cycle like a mile-wide asteroid landing on Earth.
Discussion:
@rickhasen, Roll Call, Bloomberg and New York Times
Daniel Frankel / Multichannel News:
Ad-supported streaming service Tubi reaches a deal with NBCUniversal to acquire about 400 episodes of older TV shows, including Battlestar Galactica — Nearly 400 episodes of older shows including “Xena: Warrior Princess,” “The A-Team” and “Punky Brewster” will be licensed to Tubi's ad-supported streaming service
Discussion:
Deadline and Cord Cutters News
Jem Aswad / Variety:
RIAA: US revenue for recorded music grew 12% in 2018 to $9.8B largely due to a 30% surge in streaming revenue; subscriptions to services like Spotify topped 50M — The U.S. music industry posted its third consecutive year of double-digit growth, according to the RIAA's year-end revenue report issued today.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, @jank0, RIAA, Billboard and Music Business Worldwide
Luis Paez-Pumar / Deadspin:
SB Nation Editor-in-Chief Elena Bergeron is stepping down on March 15 with Executive Producer Ryan Nanni filling in in the interim — After almost two years as SB Nation editor-in-chief, Elena Bergeron is stepping down from the role, according to a company-wide email sent out on Wednesday by Vox Media publisher Melissa Bell.
Discussion:
Awful Announcing
A.J. Katz / TVNewser:
Greta Van Susteren joins Gray Television, a network of local TV stations in 91 markets, as chief national political analyst — You've seen Greta Van Susteren on cable news for decades, and now roughly 1/4 of U.S. TV households will be able to see her on local news.
James Mattone / Thinknum Media:
The NBA's G League boasted an average Twitch stream of 8,300+ concurrent viewers in first two weekends of its 2019 season, beating streams of NBA's videogames — For years, NBA's G League, the minor leagues of basketball, was lost in the shuffle of NBA's massive television deals.
Variety:
Brazil's antitrust regulators have approved Disney's purchase of 21st Century Fox assets on condition it sells the Fox Sports channel and related sports rights — Disney took a big step closer to completing its $71.3 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox with Brazil's conditional approval of the deal Wednesday.
Discussion:
ScreenRant, Bloomberg, Fantha Tracks, Hollywood Reporter, Comic Book, Reuters, Los Angeles Business Journal, Los Angeles Times, ScreenRant and Deadline
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