Mediagazer: GroupM forms New Majority Ready Coalition with media and tech companies, excluding Facebook, to help brands adapt to US's changing demographics in advertising (Katie Deighton/The Drum)

5:50 PM ET, September 19, 2019

Top News:

Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund makes first grants: $5.25M to three Philadelphia recipients to support new models for local journalism — Fund's first grants to support new local journalism models, advanced technology for newsrooms — The Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund …

Discussion: @lenfestinst, @pilhofer, Inquirer.com, @kimfox, @tylrfishr, @tylrfishr, @tylrfishr, @shanbow, @tylrfishr, @billy_penn, Talking Biz News, @lenfestinst and @jroxann

Patricia Nilsson / Financial Times:

Google is investing “several million dollars” in Project Neon, a three-year partnership with UK news publisher Archant, which will launch three local news sites — Google is investing “several million dollars” into a joint venture with a British local news publisher …

Discussion: Press Gazette, Nieman Lab, The Keyword, @mattlcapon, Talking Biz News and @updatesneon

Omar Sanchez / The Wrap:

Acorn TV, AMC's British film and TV show streaming service, has passed 1M subscribers in Canada and the US — Acorn TV, AMC's streaming service featuring British film and television programs, has passed one million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, the network has announced, calling it a …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Deadline and The Streamable

David Cohen / Adweek:

Nielsen Social Content Ratings, which measure talent's promotion of TV shows on social media, now include Instagram in addition to Twitter and Facebook — Facebook and Twitter were already being tracked — The Nielsen Social Content Ratings now measure talent's promotion …

Discussion: Variety, MediaPost, Broadcasting & Cable, Tubefilter and The Wrap

Katie Deighton / The Drum:

GroupM forms New Majority Ready Coalition with media and tech companies, excluding Facebook, to help brands adapt to US's changing demographics in advertising — The biggest players in US media - Facebook excluded - have formed a cross-industry coalition to better understand multicultural audiences …

Discussion: Adweek, MediaPost and Multichannel News

Marcela Kunova / Journalism.co.uk:

BBC tests a browser extension that blurs out text, images, and headlines of articles based on personalized trigger words that can prompt anxiety in readers — As one third of audience switches off from news, the public broadcaster is testing a tool that would allow readers to blur out stories that may impact their mental health

Discussion: Ad Age

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

YouTube to tighten creator verification in October, focusing on channels with a need for proof of authenticity and clarifying verification isn't an endorsement — YouTube's verification program is getting a massive overhaul, the company announced today, which will likely result in a number …

Discussion: Variety, Business Insider, @thetomska, @spiritawakennet, @joshscorcher, @rabbidluigi, @nathantbernard, YouTube Creator Blog, CNET, 9to5Google, @sarahintampa, The Verge, @caseyhall_ and Engadget, more at Techmeme »

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Roku OS 9.2 will feature Roku Zones, which aggregate content from particular genres, sorting it according to whether it's free, available for rental or purchase — The Ultra's remote can open whatever app you want with a single button press — Roku is unveiling its fall 2019 lineup …

Discussion: Roku Online Newsroom, Variety, TechCrunch, Multichannel News and The Streamable, more at Techmeme »

Timothy Libert / New York Times:

Study: news sites typically rely more on outside companies for advertising than non-news sites, promoting web tracking, more so in the US than in the EU — The same news organizations that do a great job of reporting on privacy problems — have privacy problems.

Seth Hettena / New Republic:

A look at The Epoch Times, a Chinese newspaper published in 35 nations and 21 languages, which won over fans in the far-right by pushing conspiracy theories — In 2017, Stefanie Albrecht, an investigative reporter for German broadcaster RTL, was in the midst of what would become …

Discussion: theepochtimes.com

Jon Lafayette / Broadcasting & Cable:

Hearst Television says its stations will sell ads based on audience impressions instead of ratings, a method NBCU/Telemundo local stations are using as well — Hearst Television said its stations will begin selling TV ads based on audience impressions, a shift away from traditional ratings.

Discussion: Radio & Television …

Christine Schmidt / Nieman Lab:

Survey of nonprofit outlets: foundations supplied under 50% of funding for the first time on record in 2018, as earned income and individual giving increases — “Nonprofit news organizations have much in common even if their scope or mission differs. Their journalistic missions …

Discussion: American Press Institute, @jcstearns, Talking Biz News, @wburbizlab and @spj_tweets

Hilary Russ / Reuters:

DAZN reaches distribution deal with Comcast, its first in North America; Xfinity Flex box users will have access to DAZN starting today — NEW YORK (Reuters) - Media and communications giant Comcast Corp has struck a distribution deal with digital global sports provider DAZN Group …

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Comcast will give internet-only customers free access to Xfinity Flex, its streaming platform with 10K+ movies and shows, which used to cost $5 per month

Discussion: Associated Press, Multichannel News, @xpangler, The Verge, corporate.comcast.com, The Wrap, Deadline, TechRadar.com, Fast Company, Engadget, Deadline, The Streamable, The Wrap and Broadcasting & Cable

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:

Tumblr and WordPress.com parent company Automattic raises $300M Series D from Salesforce Ventures at a post-money valuation of $3B — Automattic, the company best known for WordPress.com and its contributions to the open source, non-hosted WordPress alternative, has raised $300 million …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Matt Mullenweg and Axios, more at Techmeme »

Archived Page Info:

This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 5:50 PM ET, September 19, 2019.

View the current page or another snapshot:

Who's Hiring in Media?

Senior Data Journalist, NY — WSJ

Manager - Publishing Editorial, Manila — Reuters

Oil Reporter, Singapore — Bloomberg

Newsperson - State Govt. & Politics, CA — AP

Business Reporter, SC — Post & Courier

State Government Reporter, WA — Seattle Times

Climate Crisis Columnist — Prospect UK

Multimedia Journalist, CA — Paramount

Community Engagement Mgr., DC — Freedom Forum

Senior California Politics Reporter, CA — SFGATE

Staff Writer - Business, NY — WIRED

Team Editor - Opinion, ON — Toronto Star

Assistant Correspondent, DC — Kyodo News

Climate & Weather Reporter, MN — Star Tribune

Senior Tech Editor, Remote US — The Verge

Lead Business Reporter, TN — Daily Memphian

Managing Editor, WA — Everett Herald

Private Credit Reporter, NY — Debtwire

City Correspondent, London — Financial News

Legislative Reporter, CA — Sacramento Bee

Reporter, PA — Tribune-Review

Visual Editor, Remote — Rest of World

Staff Writer, MI — Watershed Voice

Senior Political Reporter, DC — The Lever

California Playbook Writer, CA — Politico

National Investigative Reporter, NY — HuffPost

Business & Gaming Reporter, NV — Las Vegas Sun

Coastal Climate Reporter, SC — Island Packet

Environment & Energy Reporter, CT — CT Mirror

Coordinating Editor, OR — OPB

Editor, Remote US — Daily Kos

Business Reporter, WA — Longview Daily News

Editor-in-Chief, AZ — Phoenix New Times

Add your company here

See Also:

Mediagazer: site main

Mediagazer River: reverse chronological Mediagazer

Mediagazer Mobile: for phones

Mediagazer Leaderboard: Mediagazer's top sources

Subscribe:

Mediagazer RSS feed

Mediagazer on X

Mediagazer on Mastodon

More News:

Dylan Byers / NBC News:
HBO's five-year deal for The Big Bang Theory is the clearest sign yet of AT&T's intention to transition HBO from a premium brand to a mass-market broadcaster

Discussion: Business Insider

Megan Graham / CNBC:
CBS, Viacom, and WarnerMedia say they will no longer run e-cigarette advertising on their networks, a week after WarnerMedia's CNN announced a similar ban

Discussion: The Wrap, Times of India, New York Times, The Verge, The Hill and USA Today

Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:
Researchers: many smart TVs and streaming dongles from Roku, Samsung, Amazon and others are sending user data to companies like Netflix, Microsoft, and Facebook

Discussion: ZDNet, @ilvestoomas, @geoffreyfowler, @dhh, @mmnjug, Washington Post, @justinbrookman, @geoffreyfowler, @faizsays, @upma23, @hoofnagle, @valaafshar, Wired, The Mac Observer and Slashdot, more at Techmeme »

Sahil Patel / Wall Street Journal:
Nielsen acquires a minority stake in OpenSlate, which evaluates brand safety of video content on YouTube and Facebook; source: deal values OpenSlate at $100M+

Discussion: Tubefilter, @bjqool, @roomnoise, @nielsen and @digitalshields

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Medium adds a “Save to Medium” bookmarking feature that lets users save articles to a reading list via sharing extensions on mobile and in Chrome

Discussion: @medium, @ckrewson, @caseynewton, blog.medium.com and Medium Help Center

Earlier Picks:

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: AT&T is considering parting ways with its DirecTV unit, including spinning it off into a separate public company or combining assets with Dish

Discussion: CNBC, NBC News, CNN, New York Post, The Daily Beast, Talking New Media, Ad Age, Light Reading, @brianstelter, @the___spy, Ars Technica, Los Angeles Times, Multichannel News, The Wrap, Engadget, The Streamable, CNBC and CNET

Aaron Rupar / Vox:
CNN booked Corey Lewandowski for an interview just hours after telling Congress he has “no obligation to be honest with the media”

Casey Newton / The Verge:
Facebook debuts $149 Portal TV, a streaming box supporting Prime Video, Showtime, and CBS All Access that can also make video calls while viewing Facebook Watch

Discussion: CNET, Vox, Morning Brew, @auchenberg, 9to5Google, @davezatz, @mikedrucker, @ow, @amahnke, Facebook, Fast Company, Fortune, CNET and Financial Times, more at Techmeme »

Tal Axelrod / The Hill:
NYT announced Tuesday that it is shutting down its Spanish-language platform, NYT en Español, which debuted in 2016, saying it was not financially successful

Discussion: Nieman Lab, Vox, @niemanlab, @raju, The Wrap, American Press Institute, @hshaban, @hugobalta, @hechaenchicago, New York Times, The Hill and RealClearPolitics

From Techmeme:

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Anthropic raised another $4B from Amazon, will make AWS its primary training partner, and is working with Annapurna Labs to develop new Trainium accelerators

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft releases the first beta preview of its Recall AI feature for Copilot Plus PCs, including Click to Do, a feature similar to Google's Circle to Search

Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Researchers detail a “nearest neighbor attack” by Russia's APT28, which remotely breached a target's Wi-Fi by hijacking a laptop in a building across the street

Sister Sites:

Techmeme
Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web

memeorandum
What US political commentators are discussing online right now

WeSmirch
The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page