Mediagazer: Federal judge indicates he'll let a trial proceed in an antitrust complaint by three major Hollywood agencies against the Writers Guild of America (Gene Maddaus/Variety)

wellcome.ac.uk:

Charity-funded online science and health magazine Mosaic is shutting down on December 10 after five years — Mosaic, Wellcome's digital platform dedicated to long-form journalism about science and health, will be closing next week. It will publish its final stories on 10 December.

Discussion: Press Gazette, @jeffdelviscio, @beebrookshire, @lindanordling, @teh_woo, @joanna_haugen and @laurahelmuth

Max Willens / Digiday:

WSJ had its biggest day of subscription sales ever Black Friday, Wired and Barron's on Cyber Monday; New York had its best four-day sales stretch that weekend — Cyber Monday and Black Friday have long been make-or-break days of the year for retailers. They have recently become important …

Ken Doctor / Nieman Lab:

By the end of summer 2020, five big newspaper chains could roll up into two, run by investment companies with little attachment to the newspaper business — Is an end in sight? — The first half of 2020 “will be the final dance of the newspaper industry,” one of my savviest financial sources told …

Discussion: @jbenton, @newsbyschmidt, @jbenton, @rosental, @byjonharris, @benyankee, @jbenton, @jbenton, @jbenton, @jbenton, @jbenton, @jbenton, @jbenton, @dlboardman, @cforman, @opinion_joe, @scribeguy, @dfmworkers, @crainschicago and Chicago Business

Dan Kennedy / Media Nation:

Internal memo: after the recent cuts, Gannett CEO Paul Bascobert expects more layoffs, and says “it will take a few months to work through this process” — Paul Bascobert, chief executive officer of Gannett Media Corp. (apparently number two to Mike Reed in the reconfigured …

Discussion: Poynter, @ashevegas, @ashevegas and Dan Kennedy

Andrew Pantazi / @apantazi:
[Thread] Reporter starts Google Doc to track Gannett layoffs, says it's forcing people to sign NDAs to get severance, telling journalists not to tweet about it

Discussion: @beerguytk, @sammy_roth, @paythewriter, @apantazi, @brianheinemann and @apantazi

Mark Di Stefano / BuzzFeed:

Conde Nast removes China's president and Thailand's king from the online version of UK GQ's 10 worst-dressed men list, says it could cause “unintended offence” — The magazine's parent company confirmed to BuzzFeed News they'd been removed over concerns of causing “unintended offence”.

Discussion: Mediaite and @jerometaylor

Gene Maddaus / Variety:

Federal judge indicates he'll let a trial proceed in an antitrust complaint by three major Hollywood agencies against the Writers Guild of America — A federal judge indicated on Friday that he will rule in favor of the three major agencies in their antitrust lawsuit against the Writers Guild of America.

Discussion: Deadline, The Wrap and Los Angeles Times

Kelsey Sutton / Adweek:

Survey: 50% plan to subscribe to new OTT services, of which 64% intend to downgrade or cancel existing subs; users say they spend ~$76/month on average on video — Key insights: — Half of those polled intend on subscribing to new OTT services—but many of them will downgrade or cancel existing video services to do so.

David Bauder / Associated Press:

Michael Bloomberg says Bloomberg News reporters need to accept restrictions along with their paycheck, including the ban on investigating their boss — NEW YORK (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg says employees at his news organization need to accept restrictions …

Discussion: @dloesch

Khari Johnson / VentureBeat:

Google Assistant now allows users to search for podcasts by topic, available in English worldwide — Google Assistant on smartphones, smart displays, and smart speakers is getting a series of upgrades today, like the ability to create notes and lists with third-party apps and search podcasts by topic.

Discussion: The Keyword, Fast Company and 9to5Google

Steven Kurutz / New York Times:

A look at Conde Nast's successful, frugally run, niche magazine The World of Interiors, which has largely eschewed digital and focused on the print product — The gold-standard shelter magazine runs on a brass-tacks budget and refuses to kowtow to the internet.

Discussion: @condelibrary, @skurutz and @katerinareports

John McCarthy / The Drum:

Spotify says it now has 500K+ podcasts, podcast listeners are up more than 50% since the start of 2019 and podcast hours consumed by listeners grew 39% QoQ — Spotify, the global music audio streaming service, each year unpacks the listening habits of users and unveils the artists …

Discussion: The Independent, more at Techmeme »

Variety:

Netflix exec says the company is working on a system for providing transparent audience metrics for its films that give context for the numbers — Netflix is closer to getting into the numbers game than it's ever been. — Scott Stuber, the head of original films at Netflix …

Discussion: Observer and The Streamable