Mediagazer: Interview with Jeremy Erlich, Spotify's new co-head of music strategy, about its 3,000 curated playlists, Spotify's role in playlisting and editorial, and more (Danny Ross/Forbes)

3:20 PM ET, March 5, 2020

Top News:

Negotiations break down as YouTube TV drops the YES Network along with some, but not all, Sinclair RSNs — YES Network said it is no longer on YouTube TV, which might signal a breakdown in talks between Sinclair Broadcast Group, which acquired a group of regional sports networks …

Discussion: @yesnetwork, The Streamable, The Wrap, Fast Company, Multichannel News, @alexweprin, @yankeesopranooo, @falling_nova, @lindseyadler, @alexmsilverman, 9to5Google, The Verge, The Desk and NextTV

Todd Spangler / Variety:

YouTube TV and Sinclair sign a deal for 19 RSNs, but the streamer won't carry the YES Network, Fox Sports Prime Ticket, and Fox Sports West, which airs LA games — YouTube TV and Sinclair Broadcast Group reached a deal covering most of the Fox regional sports networks …

Discussion: sbgi.net, Awful Announcing, Tubefilter, Engadget, @xpangler and @randball

Financial Times:

UK's Independent is profitable for a third consecutive year with profit of £2.3M on revenue of £27M, up 9% YoY; it ended its print edition four years ago — Digital-only strategy pays off for first major UK newspaper publisher to close printing presses

Discussion: Press Gazette, @jbenton, @tiagodf, @paulwrblanchard, @jeffjarvis, @jamesrbuk, @markdistef, @rasmus_kleis and @stevejonespa

Ryan Lillis / Sacramento Bee:

Sacramento's mayor is recruiting a group to try to buy McClatchy's Sacramento Bee, convening a forum March 27 to discuss structure with a goal of raising $20M+ — Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg is working to form a local ownership group that could purchase The Sacramento Bee …

Discussion: American Press Institute, @mayor_steinberg, @sacbeeguild, @jayrosen_nyu, @greenwombat, @seth_prince, @sammy_roth, @jboren4507, @mareevs, @amandakrhoades, @suelmorrow, @mattsebastian, @webjournalist, @media_evan and @media_evan

Kevin G. Hall / McClatchy Washington Bureau:
A group of McClatchy's least-protected creditors join the federal pension agency in questioning company deals with Chatham Asset Management and Leon Cooperman

Discussion: @cltledger and US Bankruptcy Court Southern District of New York

Mark Wilson / Fast Company:

MIT study: when some news stories are labeled as fact-checked and disputed, stories with the same design but no labels are validated and seen as more accurate — In 2016, after coordinated propaganda on Facebook helped Trump win the election, the social media giant introduced a program …

Discussion: @baybarsorsek, @baybarsorsek, @baybarsorsek, @baybarsorsek, @mit_quest, @baybarsorsek, One Man & His Blog, researchgate.net and Fortune

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Daily Caller's Check Your Fact, a Facebook fact-check partner, faces criticism for labeling two stories on Trump, COVID-19 as “false”, raising process concerns

Elaine Low / Variety:

Source: Netflix cancels five film screenings and a panel planned for SXSW, joining others who have canceled screenings, including Apple and Amazon Studios — Netflix is the latest company to pull out of SXSW 2020, a source familiar with the situation tells Variety, canceling five film screenings and a panel for #BlackExcellence.

Casey Michel / The Daily Beast:

Portable.TV, a news streaming app available in the App Store, masks its ties to RT, whose content it runs exclusively and with which it shares a parent company — The app bills itself as a “one-of-a-kind free streaming service & TV library of news programs.” But every single show is from Kremlin-backed TV channel.

Discussion: @noahshachtman, @walker_ct and Raw Story

Joe Otterson / Variety:

Pop TV cancels three original TV shows that were produced by outside studios as ViacomCBS prioritizes IP owned by the company — Pop TV is paring down its scripted programming commitments as dust continues to settle from the Viacom-CBS merger. Variety has learned exclusively that three original series …

Discussion: TV Insider, @brianstelter, The Wrap and Variety

MediaPost:

Patch Media, which publishes 1,200+ hyper-local news sites, says its sites now have a total of 32M MAU and newsletters have 2M subscribers — Patch Media, the publisher of more than 1,200 hyper-local news sites, is a comparable bright spot among publishers of local news; it's having been profitable for the past four years.

Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times:

James Murdoch's Lupa Systems and Betaworks to fund an accelerator for start-ups to tackle disinfo; they plan to invest $100K in 10-20 projects in the first year — The former Fox CEO commits millions to battle against disinformation — James Murdoch, the younger son of Rupert Murdoch …

Discussion: @lisatozzi, @k8em0, @brooklynmarie, @christinemc6, @melissameehanau, @markdistef, @moorehn, @yashar and @tiagodf

Danny Ross / Forbes:

Interview with Jeremy Erlich, Spotify's new co-head of music strategy, about its 3,000 curated playlists, Spotify's role in playlisting and editorial, and more — Whether it's New Music Friday or Ultimate Indie, a Spotify playlist selection can quite literally change an artist's career overnight and reel in significant revenue.

Peter White / Deadline:

Disney strikes an exclusive multiyear deal with Italy's Telecom Italia Mobile to distribute Disney+ via an internet bundle, starting March 24 — The Walt Disney Company has struck its second European distribution deal for Disney+ in a week - this time with Italy's Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM).

Discussion: The Streamable and Variety

Michael H. Keller / New York Times:

Five Eyes nations release guidelines for platforms to fight child porn; two US senators float bill to remove Section 230 for failure to police such content — Legislation announced on Thursday aimed at curbing the spread of online child sexual abuse imagery would take the extraordinary step …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Decipher, more at Techmeme »

Brian Stelter / CNN:

Chris Matthews abruptly announces his retirement amid his MSNBC talk show Hardball, after a string of recent controversies — (CNN Business)Chris Matthews, one of the country's best-known political talk show hosts, is retiring from MSNBC, effective immediately, after a string of recent controversies on and off the air.

Discussion: Vox, The Hill, Vogue, Vulture, @juliezebrak, Vox, New York Post, @sarahellison, Variety, Reason, @howardfineman, @amandamarcotte, Breitbart, @martina, @nprinskeep, @digiphile, @stevesilberman, Understandably and @jayrosen_nyu

Washington Post:
Sources: Chris Matthews planned to retire after the 2020 election but was forced out of MSNBC following weeks of embarrassments

Discussion: Poynter, The Daily Beast, @ericmgarcia, @lisang, bookforum.com, @gerryconway, @sarahposner, @revmusicny and Raw Story

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More News:

Tribune Publishing Company:
Tribune Q4: earnings of $30.8M, down from $46.5M a year ago, on revenue of $252.3M, down 11% YoY; digital-only subscribers in 2019 grew 33.6% YoY to 334K

Discussion: @jones_mattryan, @jones_mattryan, @jones_mattryan, @jones_mattryan, @jones_mattryan and @johnrussell99

Marty Swant / Forbes:
Mailchimp has acquired Courier, a London-based media company focused on entrepreneurs and small businesses, which produces a magazine, newsletter, and more

Discussion: @danielgiaco, @benchestnut, @lukesbeard, @marcallera, @markdicristina, @jeffxcourier, @matthorrocks, @jamiebrooker, @martyswant, @newconsumer and @rafat

Mike Jaccarino / Vanity Fair:
A look at the decline of the New York Daily News, which once competed with the New York Post for NYC tabloid supremacy but is now propped up by a skeleton crew

Discussion: @vanityfair and @arappeport

Benjamin Goggin / Business Insider:
American Media, owner of celebrity and fitness magazines, continued cuts this week, laying off at least 23 editorial staffers in its Celebrity Digital Group

Discussion: @tabiegermain, @michellemanafy and MediaPost, Thanks:@benjamingoggin

Brian Stelter / CNN:
Michael Bloomberg's run coming to a close ends a tricky time for Bloomberg News staff, but his political spending and Joe Biden endorsement may usher in another

Discussion: @dlippman, @jackshafer, Forbes and The Mary Sue

Earlier Picks:

Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed News:
Twitter will begin testing “Fleets”, letting iOS and Android users make posts that disappear after 24 hours, in Brazil, finally using a Stories-like format

Gene Maddaus / Variety:
Jury rules that PBS host Tavis Smiley violated the morals clause of his contract by having affairs with subordinates; PBS will be awarded at least $1.5M

Discussion: NPR, @alexheuer, @keithlalexander, The Wrap and Hollywood Reporter

R.T. Watson / Wall Street Journal:
Quibi says it has closed a second round of financing worth $750M that includes about $400M raised at the end of 2019, bringing its total raised to $1.75B

Discussion: NBC News, Fortune, Variety, FierceVideo, @devindra, @walthickey, @shahrzadrafati, @sub8u, @polina_marinova, @robertandrews, The Verge, TechCrunch, Tubefilter, Multichannel News, The Streamable and Broadcasting & Cable

Dan Mangan / CNBC:
The Trump campaign sues The Washington Post for defamation, citing two opinion posts about the campaign and Russia; the suit follows a similar suit against NYT

Discussion: Washington Post, @davidfolkenflik, @davidakaye, @boutrousted, New York Times, @paleofuture, @mehdirhasan, @helenkennedy, @ddayen, @sbg1, @eriqgardner, @timothynoah1 and iMediaEthics

From Techmeme:

Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta details Llama 3: 8B- and 70B-parameter models, a focus on reducing false refusals, and an upcoming model trained on 15T+ tokens that has 400B+ parameters

Raffaele Huang / Wall Street Journal:
Apple removes WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China, saying it was ordered to do so by China's cyberspace officials citing national security concerns

Ryan Morrison / Tom's Guide:
Microsoft researchers introduce VASA-1, an AI model that creates a realistic talking face video from a portrait photo and an audio file, in research preview

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