Top News:
Reeves Wiedeman / New York Magazine:
Deep dive inside Condé Nast amid years of drama, downsizing, and shakeups sheds light on Anna Wintour and others' struggle to revert falling influence and sales — “It's dreadful,” Anna Wintour said in early October, looking out the south-facing windows of her 25th-floor office …
Dade Hayes / Deadline:
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson says the company forecasts that HBO Max will reach 50M US subscribers in its first five years after launching next spring — HBO Max will reach 50 million U.S. subscribers in its first five years after launching next spring, according to a forecast issued Monday …
Discussion:
CNBC, Variety, Variety and @dadehayes
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Wall Street Journal:
AT&T reaches a truce with activist investor Elliott Management, agrees to regular share buybacks, new directors, no more major M&A, and more in three year plan — Elliott had challenged telecom giant's strategy; AT&T commits to regular share buybacks, plans to avoid major acquisitions
Discussion:
Variety, The Drum, The Verge, Ars Technica, Fox Business, Reuters, CityAM, Business Insider, @xpangler, Bloomberg, Deadline, CNBC, New York Times and Variety, more at Techmeme »
Todd Spangler / Variety:
AT&T says it will spend $1.5B-$2B on HBO Max in 2020 and $1B per year in both 2021 and 2022, expects profitability in year four — AT&T is telling investors it has the intestinal fortitude to win in the streaming wars — even as its traditional TV business continues to crumble.
Maxwell Tani / The Daily Beast:
G/O Media memo to staff says “Deadspin will write only about sports” and to focus 100% of resources on sports; the site also covered politics, culture, and more — Sports—and sports alone—must be “the sole focus” of the website, new management said Monday in a memo obtained by The Daily Beast.
Discussion:
@russbengtson, @beyondreasdoubt, @revrrlewis, @icehockeystick, @_shireenahmed_, @passionweiss, @thescibabe and @ashleyfeinberg
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Kelsey Mckinney / @mckinneykelsey:
Deadspin writer says G/O Media management removed a letter to the readers from Deadspin staff that criticised the recent addition of autoplay videos to the site — Here is the post that G/O leadership has now removed from all of our sites without warning. Please continue to send emails to g-omediafeedback@googlegroups.com https://twitter.com/...
Discussion:
@gmgunion, Deadspin, @mckinneykelsey and @ashleyfeinberg
Judd Legum / Popular Information:
How Ben Shapiro's massively popular right-wing site The Daily Wire gets promoted in an inauthentic, coordinated manner by 14 Facebook pages followed by millions — This is the online version of the Popular Information newsletter. You can get independent accountability journalism in your inbox every week.
Discussion:
@juddlegum, @juddlegum, @aravosis, @kevinroose, @juddlegum, @oliverdarcy, @oliverdarcy and @zeynep, more at Techmeme »
Matthew De Silva / Quartz:
Spotify says 14% of MAUs listen to podcasts, podcast hours streamed grew 39% QoQ, and podcast engagement is driving increases in free to paid conversion — Spotify's stock price leaped 15% today (Oct. 28) as the music streaming service delivered a surprise profit for its third quarter.
Discussion:
CNBC and Complete Music Update
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Theodore Schleifer / Vox:
Spotify says its CFO Barry McCarthy, who pioneered the direct listing model for IPOs, is leaving in January and will rejoin Spotify's board
Discussion:
@teddyschleifer and New York Times
Spotify:
Spotify Q3: paid subs rose 31% YoY to 113M; MAUs grew 30% YoY to 248M; revenue up 28% YoY to €1.73B; net income of €241M, up from €43M YoY; stock closes up 16%
Discussion:
Variety, @ncsh, AdExchanger, @teddyschleifer, @claireatki, @brettbivens, @matt, Bloomberg, Reuters, VentureBeat, Engadget and Hollywood Reporter, more at Techmeme »
Piya Sinha-Roy / Hollywood Reporter:
Netflix says it's testing a feature to allow users to speed up or slow down content on their phones, attracting criticism from filmmakers including Judd Apatow — Viewers can increase or slow down the speed of Netflix shows and movies on their smartphones.
Discussion:
The Playlist, The Wrap, The Guardian, @bradbirda113 and @juddapatow
Ben Lindbergh / The Ringer:
With WaPo's new vertical Launcher, mainstream coverage of video games may finally overcome the “generational myopia” that excluded gaming from culture sections — With its new vertical Launcher, The Washington Post is the latest big outlet to dedicate resources to covering video games in a comprehensive manner.
Discussion:
@genepark and @latoyapeterson
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
NBCUniversal launches its ShoppableTV ad unit, which displays QR codes during TV shows that take viewers to ecommerce sites, across its unscripted programming — NBCUniversal has been testing out a new ad unit that allows viewers to buy — directly from their phone — products featured on the show they're watching.
Discussion:
Broadcasting & Cable and Editor & Publisher Magazine
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Nexstar, which owns the most US TV stations, says it will sell ads based on impressions instead of ratings, following similar announcements from NBCU and Hearst — The nation's largest owner of television stations said it intends to drop the use of traditional TV ratings as the basis for advertising deals …
Discussion:
MediaPost, Deadline, TVWeek.com and Nexstar Media Group, Inc.
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