Top News:
Daniel Bernhard / Toronto Star:
Canadian media, starved of ad revenues for years, is on the brink of mass extinction due to the pandemic; CBC cancelled all local TV news broadcasts last week — By some industry estimates, many of our major media outlets will fail within weeks. Starved of advertising revenues for years …
Discussion:
Columbia Journalism Review, @robshaw_vansun, @akurjata, @sulemaan and @rosajsaba
Tony Maglio / The Wrap:
Fox withdraws financial guidance, citing delayed productions and sports cancellations and postponements, and says it plans to amend agreements with lenders — Fox is the latest major media corporation to walk back its prior financial guidance due to the impact of the continuing coronavirus pandemic.
Discussion:
Multichannel News, Broadcasting & Cable and Hollywood Reporter
Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:
Free alt-weekly Chicago Reader lost 90% of its ad revenue and is turning to ideas like a fundraising colouring book and a souvenir issue to fill the funding gap — Considering the regimentation of pre-digital publishing — repeating the same workflows day after day, week after week — journalists are very adaptable animals.
Discussion:
@mdoukmas, @briannawellen and @niemanlab
Maxwell Tani / The Daily Beast:
Vice will no longer match 401k contributions, freezes promotions through July, cuts salaries for top staff including the CEO, and will furlough some top execs — STAY AFLOAT — Vice Media will cut salaries for top staff and halt retirement benefit-matching following the economic downturn spurred by the coronavirus pandemic.
Discussion:
Digiday and @maxwelltani
Variety:
Memo: iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman waives salary, other execs take pay cuts, as an unknown number of staff receive 90-day furloughs without pay due to pandemic — iHeartMedia has joined the growing list of companies implementing sizable pay cuts for senior executives amid the upheaval caused by the coronavirus crisis.
Discussion:
RAMP
Marc Tracy / New York Times:
Profile of STAT, a science and medical news site that was early to cover COVID-19 and has attracted ~30M unique visitors this year, 4x to 5x its usual traffic — Stat, started in 2015 by the Red Sox owner John Henry, is drawing four to five times its normal audience. “We were built for this,” one of its editors said.
The Guardian:
Hungary passes a draconian coronavirus law that allows PM Orbán to rule by decree and includes jail terms of up to five years for spreading “misinformation” — Fears over coronavirus legislation that gives no time limit for state of emergency
Discussion:
@balazscseko, New Statesman, Washington Post, Boing Boing, @melissajpeltier, @shaunwalker7, @michaeldweiss, @davidfrum, Yahoo News and The Week
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Spotify for Kids launches in the US, Canada, and France on the $14.99/month Spotify Premium Family tier with 8,000 songs, of which 50% is localized — Spotify is giving more housebound parents — and their cooped-up kids — a new tool to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Discussion:
Spotify, TechCrunch and The Verge, more at Techmeme »
Chris Best / Substack Blog:
Substack donates $100K in grants to writers struggling due to pandemic, drops its cut of subscription revenue for pubs donating earnings to COVID-19 causes — We started Substack because we believe that what you read matters and good writing is valuable. We believe that writers, bloggers …
Discussion:
TechCrunch
Kayleigh Barber / Digiday:
How entertainment and lifestyle publishers like Bustle, BuzzFeed, and People are adapting to coronavirus disrupting events and upending planned content — As coronavirus continues to interrupt events and dominate the news cycle, entertainment and lifestyle publishers are seeing their planned content get upended.
Michael Luo / New Yorker:
An in-depth look at the macroeconomic picture for US newsrooms since 2008: fights over paywalls, non-profit startups, the death of local news, and now COVID-19 — Can a fragile media ecosystem survive the pandemic? — In 2009, as the economy struggled to rebound from the Great Recession …
Discussion:
@newspapernovel, @newyorker, Streets of Your Town, @reporterdriver, @arusbridger and @michaelluo
TheStreet:
Maven anticipates revenue to drop by $30M in 2020 and will lay off some staff, with Sports Illustrated journalists representing 6% of the overall cost reduction — Maven Media Brands (MVEN) said Monday it will be laying off employees and senior management will see a 30% reduction …
Discussion:
Washington Post, @baileycarlin, @kerrymflynn, @jaseidler, @kevinmdraper, @mavencoalition, @readdanwrite, @benjstrauss and @pkafka
Maxwell Tani / The Daily Beast:
Sources: on an internal call, Jeff Zucker defended airing Trump briefings live, arguing that viewers need to hear Trump answer tough questions from journalists — Zucker said on an internal staff call that he has “probably spent more time on this topic than anything else,” …
Discussion:
@davidakaye, @joshuahol, @lukebrussel, @juliemason, @thedailybeast, @atlanticmovpic, @dangillmor, @levinejonathan, @parkermolloy, @esaagar, @daviddtss, @soledadobrien, @robbysoave, @rolandsmartin, @froomkin, @jayrosen_nyu, @maxwelltani, New York Times, Mediaite, MediaFile, Vanity Fair and The Week
RELATED:
James Poniewozik / New York Times:
Trump has turned his coronavirus briefings into create-your-own-reality TV with the structure, intrigue, drama, rhythm, and characters of a weekly reality show
Discussion:
@realdonaldtrump, @jayrosen_nyu, @poniewozik, @klr_editor, @froomkin, @ericschultz, @kimmasters, @brianstelter, @oliverdarcy, @maggienyt, @pkafka, @jaketapper, Press Watch, Vanity Fair, Reason, New York Times and Slate
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