Mediagazer: Five suggestions to US media to improve COVID-19 coverage: end duplication, collaborate, and publish at the same time, dislodge Trump as “protagonist”, and more (Jay Rosen/PressThink)

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

Michael Jordan docuseries “The Last Dance” debuts to an average 6.1M viewers across ESPN and ESPN 2, the most-viewed original content on the network since 2004 — An average of 6.1 million viewers tuned in to watch the first two episodes of the much-anticipated documentary series …

Hollywood Reporter:

HBO Max to launch on May 27 for $15 per month and 10,000 hours of programming — The streaming service is set to debut amid the shutdown brought about by the novel coronavirus outbreaking, bringing with it 10,000 hours of library programming from across the WarnerMedia catalog.

Discussion: Variety, CNN, MediaPost and Wall Street Journal, more at Techmeme »

Seb Joseph / Digiday:

YouTube says it's working on letting advertisers use keyword or contextual targeting to decide what posts their ads will appear on before running them — YouTube is making it easier for advertisers to block videos that are risky to their reputations, but in doing so could inadvertently push targeting without any proper context.

Discussion: AdExchanger

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, @keachhagey, @jason_kint, @lopezgovlaw, Beyond Search and MediaPost

Jay Rosen / PressThink:

Five suggestions to US media to improve COVID-19 coverage: end duplication, collaborate, and publish at the same time, dislodge Trump as “protagonist”, and more — Our news system is designed for daily content production, not for public understanding. In our current crisis we cannot afford that.

Discussion: @froomkin, @piscitelli, @michaelsocolow and @jayrosen_nyu

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

NBCUniversal's movie ticketing company Fandango has agreed to buy Walmart's on-demand video streaming service Vudu for an undisclosed sum — Movie ticketing company Fandango has agreed to buy Walmart's on-demand video streaming service, Vudu, for an undisclosed sum.

Reporters Without Borders:

RSF's 2020 World Press Freedom Index shows correlation between COVID-19 news suppression and ranking; global indicator rose 0.9% YoY, but is down 12% since 2013 — The 2020 World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), shows that the coming decade will be decisive …

Discussion: Reporters Without Borders, Press Gazette, IJR, Hong Kong Free Press HKFP, @johnobrennan2, RAPPLER, @rasmus_kleis, @rsf_inter and The Guardian

Frederic Filloux / Monday Note:

The media outlets that will emerge from the COVID-19 crisis will be lightweight, decentralized, less reliant on ads, and will bring more expertise to the table — The media outlets that will emerge from the global crisis will be lightweight, decentralized, less reliant on advertising …

Discussion: @mariaramirezny and @raju

Alex Sherman / CNBC:

Meredith cuts pay for ~2,000 employees by 15% and moves them to four-day weeks from May 4 to Sept. 4; 750 staff, including top execs, to take cuts of 20% to 40% — - Meredith is temporarily cutting pay for about 60% of its employees as advertising slumps. — Meredith also said it is suspending …

Discussion: New York Post, Broadcasting & Cable, @gregdool, TVSpy, @kerrymflynn, @sherman4949, The Wrap, @kerrymflynn, Adweek, Folio, MediaPost and PR Newswire

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Sonos launches Sonos Radio, a free streaming radio service preloaded in the Sonos app, with 60K+ stations from multiple partners alongside original programming — Sonos Radio will now be the default service available for the company's speakers — Sonos has always been the neutral manager …

Discussion: TechCrunch and Fortune, more at Techmeme »

Tim Dams / Variety:

Apple Music expands to 52 new countries, for a total of 167 countries, while Spotify operates in 79; Apple Podcasts becomes available in 20 more countries — Apple has expanded the reach of its Apple Music platform to an additional 52 countries as part of the biggest geographical expansion of its services in almost a decade.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Apple, MacRumors and The Verge, more at Techmeme »

Columbia Journalism Review:

Journalists should extract lessons from the COVID-19 crisis that they can apply to covering climate change, which has eerily similar dynamics — This story was originally co-published by Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalistic collaboration …

Discussion: @cjr, @cjr and The Nation

New York Times:

As movie production isn't expected to resume until August, a look at how Hollywood's creatives, many of them freelance, are handling the pandemic — Production has ground to a halt, leaving a vast number of people without work and others trying to figure out how to finish projects remotely.

Discussion: @ennisnyt