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7:25 AM ET, August 29, 2020

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: AT&T is again exploring a DirecTV sale and is in talks with PE firms for a deal that could value it below $20B; AT&T bought DirecTV for $49B in 2015  —  Telephone giant in discussions with private-equity bidders for satellite-TV business wounded by shift to streaming services
Brian Stelter / CNN:
Nielsen: ~23.8M viewers watched Trump's speech for the Republican National Convention across 13 networks, versus 24.6M who watched Biden's speech on 12 networks  —  New York (CNN Business)President Trump's Thursday night convention speech making the case for his reelection was lower-rated …
Dave McNary / Variety:
California sets rules for slowly opening indoor movie theaters with limited capacity based on coronavirus prevalence and positive test rates in counties  —  Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced strict guidelines for indoor movie theaters in California to reopen in the coming months.
RELATED:
Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
As movie theaters slowly reopen across the US, studio research suggests most Americans aren't ready to return to cinemas despite new safety procedures  —  Big-budget films are being released for the first time since March, but the willingness of people to sit inside a closed room with strangers for several hours is still uncertain.
Discussion: Variety
William Turvill / Press Gazette:
DMG Media says Mail Online's iOS revenue could fall by 75% due to Apple's privacy changes but some publishers see upside in ending Google and Facebook dominance  —  Mail Online has threatened to delete its iPhone app because of a new privacy policy from Apple that threatens to eat into its advertising revenues.
Tim Peterson / Digiday:
TikTok confirms publishers can apply for Creator Fund payments; sources: pubs need to have at least 10K followers and 10K views over the last 30 days  —  TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer may be jumping ship three months after joining the company, but some publishers are preparing to hop aboard …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Roku, approaching ~40% of broadband household penetration in the US, now often holds an upper hand in negotiations with streamers like HBO Max and Peacock  —  In virtual deal talks over the past several months, Roku execs have delivered a basic message — in not so many words …
Louise Matsakis / Wired:
Citizen Lab: between January and May 2020, China censored over 2,000 terms related to coronavirus on WeChat to control the narrative about China and the disease  —  In China, the messaging platform blocked thousands of keywords related to the virus, a new report reveals.
Discussion: Memex 1.1
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
Sources: Comcast is pitching X1 software powering its set-top boxes and Flex streaming hardware as a potential operating system to smart TV manufacturers  —  Comcast wants to turn the software running on its set-top boxes into an operating system for smart TVs, Protocol has learned …
Isaac Stanley-Becker / Washington Post:
Voting rights advocates say Google declined to remove ads with “active and blatant disinformation” about voting by mail; Facebook removed similar ads last week  —  Google has declined to remove ads from a shadowy group echoing President Trump's misleading claim …
Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
A federal judge allows Sarah Palin's defamation lawsuit against NYT and former Opinion Editor James Bennet to go forward; the suit stems from a 2017 editorial  —  A federal judge rejects the paper's summary judgment motion and sets a trial for February.  —  Sarah Palin will proceed to trial …
Chico Felitti / BuzzFeed News:
Over 20 former staffers and contractors of Globo Condé Nast in Brazil say Daniela Falcão, managing director of Edições Globo Condé Nast, created a toxic culture  —  “Humiliation was a constant,” one employee said.  “Someone was always coming out of the bathroom with their face puffy from crying.”
 
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 More News: 
Bernard Keane / Crikey:
The Australian government's proposal for Google and Facebook, at the behest of News Corp, is a rejection of law and a classic example of “sovereign risk”
Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
Profile of BBC's new director general Tim Davie, who has no hands-on experience with journalism or program-making and joined BBC 15 years ago to run marketing
Freddy Mayhew / Press Gazette:
UK's fourth biggest local newspaper publisher Archant, which publishes the The New European, has been bought out by the private equity firm Rcapital Partners
 Earlier Picks: 
Kayleigh Barber / Digiday:
A look at newsletters designed as short courses, like WSJ's Six-Week Money Challenge and CNN's Sleep But Better, often built with affiliate revenue in mind
Jessica Jerreat / Voice of America:
15+ VOA language service staffers are due to return to their countries soon as USAGM fails to renew visas; visas for 20 other journalists expire by year's end
Oliver Darcy / CNN:
The White House is compiling a “very large” dossier on WaPo's David Fahrenthold and others, a spokesperson responded when asked for comment on a WaPo story
Kerry Flynn / CNN:
Condé Nast appoints publishing exec Dawn Davis as Bon Appétit EIC following Adam Rapoport's resignation in June over claims of bias and a discriminatory culture
 

 
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

 
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