Mediagazer: Ad agency Dentsu has created a division aimed at helping minority-owned media businesses grow and connect with ad buyers (Alexandra Bruell/Wall Street Journal)

7:50 AM ET, May 14, 2021

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Brian Welk / The Wrap:

Sundance Film Festival will return to Utah in January 2022 for in-person events but will also remain online, after 2021's online festival saw record attendance — The Sundance Film Festival will return to Park City for 2022, setting Jan. 20-30 as the dates for next year's in-person event.

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Alexandra Bruell / Wall Street Journal:

Ad agency Dentsu has created a division aimed at helping minority-owned media businesses grow and connect with ad buyers — Veteran ad buyer Mark Prince to lead division that will consult with minority-owned media businesses and marketers seeking increasingly diverse audiences

CNBC:

Disney misses on subscriber estimates for Disney+, reaching 103.6M subscribers, below the expected 109M; revenue was $15.61B vs. $15.87B expected, down 13% YoY — - Disney reported second quarter results Thursday, posting lower-than-expected revenue and subscriber counts for its streaming service.

RTDNA:

Among 1,762 non-satellite TV stations, a record 1,116 aired local news in 2020, up 18 from the 2019 high; 29.3% report budget cuts vs. 9.1% in 2019 — Graphics credits: Talia Nikole Trackim / Syracuse University … TV — Despite facing revenue shortfalls, budget cuts …

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Benjamin Wallace / New York Magazine:

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Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:

Discord announces Stage Discovery, a tool to help people find communities through live audio events, and says it will soon test paid, ticketed audio events — If you're new to Discord, you might be thrown off by the lack of an endless feed peppered with ads.

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Paul Cheung / Knight Foundation:

Knight Foundation announces $3M initiative to help local news outlets expand AI use; it will initially fund four projects to address knowledge and skill gaps — A new, $3 million Knight initiative will help local news organizations harness the power of artificial intelligence to drive success.

Discussion: @jenniferpreston, @partnershipai, @pcheung630, @browninstitute, @knightfdn, @dankennedy_nu and Knight Foundation

Peter Guest / Rest of World:

After sweeping up politicians and dissidents, Myanmar's junta is targeting digital media figures and online creators, many of whom have fled or been jailed — The day after Thingyan, the festival of water that marks the Burmese New Year, Win Ko Ko Aung slipped across the Burmese border into Thailand …

Discussion: @kyawhsanhlaing1, @kenroth, @womenofburma and @restofworld

Hamish McKenzie / Substack Blog:

Substack acquires People & Company, which focuses on community building, to expand its support infrastructure for writers, including workshops and legal support — In 2014, journalist Anna Codrea-Rado, publisher of Lance, pitched a story to editors at a major news outlet …

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Reuters:
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From Techmeme:

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Jibin Joseph / PCMag:
UK mobile operator Virgin Media O2 creates Daisy, an AI-generated “scambaiter” tool that mimics the voice of an elderly woman to waste scammers' time

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