Top News:
Daniel Victor / New York Times:
China's state broadcaster cancels NBA preseason games after a Houston Rockets exec tweets Hong Kong support; 21M watched Game 6 in 2019 in China vs. 18.3 in US — A tweet from the Houston Rockets general manager prompted a backlash in China, making things uncomfortable for a league used …
Discussion:
Joe Tsai, Bloomberg, New York Times, CNBC, @jyarow, Washington Post, Quartz, NPR, The Atlantic, TechCrunch, All - Kyodo News+, @drewharwell, @oneunderscore__, @hongsave, @cwarzel, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal, @sportsbybrooks, Ad Age, Scroll.in, The Week, The Wrap, Gothamist, NBC News, The Register, NetsDaily, Insider and Fast Company
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Bloomberg:
Blizzard Entertainment, part-owned by Tencent, bans player from competing for one year and rescinds prize money he won after pro-Hong Kong comments — - Expressing sympathy for Hong Kong democracy push proves costly — Hearthstone player won't be allowed to compete for a year
Discussion:
InvenGlobal, The Wrap, Business Insider, IGN, Variety, VICE, @deezus_walks, Blizzard News, @deezus_walks, @jaldous, @mollymckew and Kotaku, more at Techmeme »
Reuters:
South Park creators tweet mock apology to China: “We welcome the Chinese censors into our homes and into our hearts. We too love money more than freedom” — The creators of satirical animated series “South Park” issued a mocking “apology” to China after media reports that episodes …
Discussion:
@southpark, @onlyyoontv, New York Times, @becketadams, The Independent and Washington Free Beacon
Hollywood Reporter:
China's censors reportedly scrub South Park clips, episodes, and online discussions from streaming services, social media after critical “Band in China” episode
China's censors reportedly scrub South Park clips, episodes, and online discussions from streaming services, social media after critical “Band in China” episode
Discussion:
CNBC, The A.V. Club, VICE, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Fast Company, CNN, The Federalist, The Daily Caller, ScreenRant, @adammatthew, New York Times, Hong Kong Free Press HKFP, Deadline, The Guardian, @caroljsroth, Breitbart, ScreenRant, Fox News, Bloomberg, FOX59, Slate, Breitbart, /Film, Quartz, The Week, Los Angeles Times, The Week, ESPN, The Wrap, Outkick the Coverage, Variety, Rolling Stone, NME, Reason, Rolling Stone, VICE, The Hill, The Daily Caller, Business Insider, New York Post, Mediaite and Just Jared
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
European Commission makes a call for tenders to create the European Digital Media Observatory, the first core service of a platform to fight disinformation — The European Commission has taken the first step towards establishing a new digital platform to help coordinate the fight against disinformation.
Discussion:
Digital Single Market, @gabrielmariya, @pcunliffejones, @puzzlesthewill and @marklittlenews
Mike Allen / Axios:
Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg launch The Dispatch, a center-right digital media company with a site, newsletters, and podcasts, in partnership with Substack — Two of the biggest names in conservative journalism — Steve Hayes, formerly of the now-defunct Weekly Standard, and Jonah Goldberg …
Discussion:
Nieman Lab, @davidafrench, @stephenfhayes, Mediaite, The Dispatch, @stephenfhayes, @scottmgreer, Reason, @jayrosen_nyu, @xtrixcyclex, @mikeallen and @lachlan
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
60 Minutes plans to launch 60 in 6, an original 6-minute weekly program on Quibi in April — The newest edition of “60 Minutes” will have decidedly less time to make its point. — The venerable CBS newsmagazine plans to launch an original weekly program - just six minutes in length …
Discussion:
The Wrap, TVNewser, CBS Press Express, Broadcasting & Cable and Los Angeles Times
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Jason Gurwin / The Streamable:
Hulu enables downloading of shows and movies to watch offline on iOS for those on the $12 per month No Ads subscription; Android support coming soon — The Streamable is reader-supported and may earn an affiliate commission when you sign up with our links.
Discussion:
Adweek, TechCrunch, Adweek, Variety, Broadcasting & Cable, Engadget, Polygon, Fast Company and Just Jared, more at Techmeme », Thanks:@thestreamable
Wall Street Journal:
Group Nine has agreed to acquire women's lifestyle publisher PopSugar; sources say the all-stock deal is worth $300M and values Group Nine at more than $600M — All-stock deal values women-focused publisher PopSugar at $300 million; follows recent acquisitions involving Vox Media, Vice Media
Discussion:
Business Insider, Axios, The Drum, @benjlerer, @rafat, @kerrymflynn, @wsj, Adweek, The Wrap and TechCrunch
The Daily Beast:
RealClear Media, owner of “non-partisan” news site RealClearPolitics, secretly runs a conservative Facebook page with ~800K followers pushing far-right memes — RealClearPolitics has carefully cultivated a non-partisan image—while in the shadows its parent company pushes images …
Lucinda Southern / Digiday:
Facebook Journalism Project selects ~20 European publishers for a new three-month program on video programming with $300K in funding to be split among them — Facebook's latest gesture to news publishers is a three-month program to help them master video programming that comes with $300,000 in funding …
Discussion:
Nieman Lab
Erich Schwartzel / Wall Street Journal:
Users of the Disney+ trial in the Netherlands like the service but say it doesn't remember where they left off and that volume is low; Disney's working on fixes — Testers in Netherlands note flaws but like access to company's movie catalog. ‘I will probably be watching Netflix less’
Nellie Andreeva / Deadline:
NBC Entertainment co-chairman George Cheeks shifts to vice chairman of NBCUniversal Content Studios in major restructure, leaving Paul Telegdy as sole chairman — NBCUniversal is making sweeping changes, restructuring its broadcast, studio and digital operations and assigning new roles …
Discussion:
Variety, Observer and Broadcasting & Cable
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Lesley Goldberg / Hollywood Reporter:
Matt Strauss to run NBCU's Peacock, replacing Bonnie Hammer, who now oversees Content Studios, a consolidation of Universal TV and Universal Content Productions
Matt Strauss to run NBCU's Peacock, replacing Bonnie Hammer, who now oversees Content Studios, a consolidation of Universal TV and Universal Content Productions
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Adweek, @ballmatthew, @awallenstein, @lucas_shaw, The Wrap, MediaPost and The Wrap
Reuters:
Martin Sorrell's S4 Capital has finalized a $150M merger with Firewood, Silicon Valley's biggest independent agency, whose clients include Facebook and Google — (Reuters) - Martin Sorrell's S4 Capital has bought Silicon Valley's biggest independent agency, Firewood, for $150 million …
Discussion:
CNBC
Marc Tracy / New York Times:
Filings: Quartz lost more than $16M on $12M in revenue through the first six months of this year — Kevin Delaney co-founded the digital publication in 2012. — Kevin Delaney, the editor in chief of Quartz and one of the digital publication's co-founders is stepping down as part of a shake-up of the company's leadership.
Discussion:
@tomgara, @johngapper, @tomgara, @jbenton, @rafat and Talking Biz News
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Sara Jerde / Adweek:
Quartz to search for new editor-in-chief as Kevin Delaney steps down; co-founder Zach Seward to replace Delaney and Jay Lauf as CEO, Katie Weber named president
Quartz to search for new editor-in-chief as Kevin Delaney steps down; co-founder Zach Seward to replace Delaney and Jay Lauf as CEO, Katie Weber named president
Discussion:
Quartz, @raju, @emilybell, @pkafka, @zseward, @jbenton, @jbenton, bookforum.com, MediaPost and Talking Biz News