Check out Mini-Mediagazer for simple mobiles or Mediagazer Mobile for modern smartphones.
2:55 PM ET, December 20, 2019

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:
ViacomCBS acquires 49% stake in Miramax, which is owned by BeIN, for $375M  —  The L.A.-based company, which has been owned by Doha-based BeIN Media Group and run by CEO Bill Block, has a library with 700-plus titles, including such Oscar winners as ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Chicago.’
Deanna Ting / Digiday:
Small publishers see more traffic from mobile news aggregators like TopBuzz, News Break, and Flipboard, than Facebook and Google  —  This November, Inquisitr CEO Dominick Miserandino noticed that TopBuzz News, the news aggregator app from ByteDance, the same company behind wildly popular …
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Sources: NBC's Peacock to integrate NBC News Now, have a free, limited-content tier, a limited-ads tier for $5/month, and an ad-free tier for $10/month  —  - NBCUniversal is looking to differentiate its streaming service Peacock from rivals through its pricing structure and user interface.
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
NY judge dismisses appeal by Michael Leidig of Central European News in libel case against BuzzFeed, saying he failed to prove BuzzFeed's reporting was false  —  News agency boss Michael Liedig has had his appeal against a libel judgment that backed Buzzfeed's 2015 story dubbing him the “king of bullshit news” thrown out.
Discussion: @craigsilverman
Keida Kostreci / Voice of America:
Albania approves a set of anti-defamation laws which critics see as an attempt to muzzle the media and give the nation's top media regulator too much power  —  Albania's Parliament approved a controversial set of government-proposed anti-defamation laws on Wednesday, which critics say grant …
Omar Rashid / The Hindu:
The Hindu's Omar Rashid recalls how police detained and threatened him before letting him go, amid a crackdown in India on protests against a citizenship bill  —  At the very first instance, I revealed my identity as a journalist and asked them what the matter was all about.
Business Wire:
Triton to start publishing monthly reports on top networks and podcasts ranked by weekly downloads; NPR, Stitcher, Radio.com, and Cumulus have signed on  —  NEW YORK—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Triton Digital®, the global technology and services provider to the digital audio and podcast industry …
Discussion: @nwquah and Radio Ink
Sara Guaglione / MediaPost:
The Atlantic's feature on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which was read for 30M+ “total engaged minutes”, is #1 in Chartbeat's Most Engaging Stories of 2019  —  Chartbeat, the digital publisher data and analytics company, has revealed its annual list of most engaging stories of the year.
Discussion: Chartbeat Blog
Stanford Internet Observatory:
Microsoft's Bing appears to return an alarming amount of disinformation for user queries, far more than Google does, based on a test of 13 queries  —  Bing's importance in the information landscape of the U.S. shouldn't be overlooked.  While its share of the search market in the U.S. might …
Megan Graham / CNBC:
Ad exchange Rubicon Project agrees to merge with video advertising management platform Telaria, to better compete with Google and Facebook  —  - Public ad tech companies Telaria and Rubicon Project have agreed to merge as they try to make a stronger play in the growth of connected television …
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 2:55 PM ET, December 20, 2019.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Who's Hiring in Media? 
 
 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: 
Chris Eggertsen / Billboard:
Jury finds Cox Communications liable for its customers' piracy of 10,000+ musical works, awards $1B to Sony Music, EMI, Universal, and Warner Music
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Sources: Facebook is pursuing rights to music videos from record labels to boost interest in Watch, has already begun testing music videos in Thailand and India
Discussion: CNET and Engadget
 Earlier Picks: 
Sara Fischer / Axios:
NBC News forms a team to report on US election security issues, led by SVP Janelle Rodriguez, and has created a dedicated landing page called Vote Watch
Gavin Bridge / Variety:
Analysis: Netflix has released 371 original TV shows and movies in the US in 2019, a 54.6% increase over 2018 and more than the entire US TV industry in 2005
 

 
From Techmeme:

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority:
Source: Google has canceled the development of a second-generation Pixel Tablet, planned for release in 2025, due to concerns that it wouldn't sell very well

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is testing a more conversational version of Siri, dubbed “LLM Siri”, with plans to release it in spring 2026 as part of iOS 19 and macOS 16

Hannah Lang / Reuters:
Sources: a16z, Ripple, Kraken, and Circle are jostling for a seat on Trump's promised crypto advisory council, which is expected to set up a bitcoin reserve

 
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