Mediagazer: Spotify Q2: revenue of €2.3B, up 23% YoY, ad revenue up 110% YoY to €275M; paying subscribers reached 165M, up 20% YoY, total MAUs reached 365M; stock down 6%+ (Todd Spangler/Variety)

12:40 PM ET, July 28, 2021

Top News:

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Spotify Q2: revenue of €2.3B, up 23% YoY, ad revenue up 110% YoY to €275M; paying subscribers reached 165M, up 20% YoY, total MAUs reached 365M; stock down 6%+ — Spotify, citing ongoing headwinds from the COVID pandemic, fell short of its total monthly user growth goal in the second quarter of 2021.

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:

NBA partners with iHeartMedia to develop a slate of daily and weekly podcasts using NBA's audio archives — - Basketball league will mine its archive for rare audio clips — Radio giant will handle sales, distribution and production — The National Basketball Association is developing …

Discussion: Variety, Awful Announcing, insideradio.com, @lucas_shaw and AllAccess.com

Erik Pedersen / Deadline:

PBS leads the nominations for the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, with 52 nominations; CNN is second with 41, CBS with 30, ABC with 22, and Vice with 20 — PBS leads the nominations for the 42nd annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards, as it usually does, this year scoring 52 noms over last year's 48.

K.J. Yossman / Variety:

Comcast-owned British broadcaster Sky announces a major rebrand of its channel portfolio, including the retirement of flagship channel Sky One after 30+ years — Comcast-owned British broadcaster Sky has announced a major rebrand of its channel portfolio, including the retirement of its flagship channel Sky One.

Discussion: NME, @sothcott, @vk_hm, @thebarrylad, @adammaguire, @scottygb, Hollywood Reporter, @grifftannen, @_jamieogrady, @mohammedali_93 and Deadline

Todd Spangler / Variety:

YouTube reports $7B in Q2 ad revenue, up 84% YoY from $3.81B, and says its Shorts feature now has 15B global daily views, up from 6.5B in March — YouTube accelerated back into high growth for the second quarter of 2021, as ad revenue hit a record $7.0 billion for the period.

Discussion: CNBC, Insider, The Wrap, @jowens510, @ashkan, @jasoncosta, @adamsinger, @kyleorl, MediaPost, insideradio.com, Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap and The Wrap, more at Techmeme »

Maria Sheahan / Reuters:

Swiss publisher Ringier buys out Axel Springer in Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; Ringier and Axel Springer's Poland JV will remain — BERLIN (Reuters) - Swiss publisher Ringier is buying out its partner Axel Springer in Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Estonia …

Discussion: @jeffjarvis

Katie Robertson / New York Times:

Internal email: WaPo will require all employees to show they are vaccinated against COVID-19, starting when workers return to the office, planned for Sept. 13 — The Washington Post will require all employees to show that they are vaccinated against the coronavirus, the newspaper's publisher said on Tuesday.

Discussion: @travislylesnews, American Press Institute, The Wrap, Breitbart, @alexanderrusso, @ericfidler, @katie_robertson, @stevegreenlee, @n_yang, @palafo, CNN, @dangillmor and The Hill

Sahil Patel / The Information:

Vox Media has sold 50 projects, including films and TV series, in the last 15 months to TV networks and to streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, and Apple — “Land of the Giants” is a podcast series from Vox Media's Recode covering the history of tech companies including Amazon and Netflix.

Discussion: New York Times, @edmundlee, @rachelysanders, @alexeheath, @davewiner, @chronotope, @jaycodon, @mylesudland, @digitalshields, @thekenyeung, @sizpatel, @loudmouthjulia, @kerrymflynn, @loudmouthjulia and @gabrielsnyder

Luppe B. Luppen / Pawprints:

Memo: Politico is naming its White House Correspondent Anita Kumar to the newly-created position of Senior Editor, Standards and Ethics, starting this fall — A quick bit of media news this morning: Politico is naming its White House Correspondent Anita Kumar to the newly-created position of …

Discussion: @nycsouthpaw and @nycsouthpaw

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Contentful, which offers APIs to let companies manage content, raises $175M Series F led by Tiger Global at a ~$3B valuation, after a $80M Series E in June 2020 — Contentful this morning announced a $175 million Series F round of capital, led by Tiger Global, valuing the unicorn at around $3 billion.

Discussion: @chiefmartec, more at Techmeme »

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

UK's ITV says its ad revenue grew 29% YoY in H1 2021, up 87% in May and 115% in June; ITV now has 3M global subs and BritBox International has 2M subs — CEO Carolyn McCall said the U.K. TV giant is “emerging from the worst effects of the pandemic.” — U.K. TV giant ITV reported …

Max Willens / Digiday:

Sources: LinkedIn is testing LinkedIn Premium News, which gives Premium members access to paywalled content published by sites that use Piano's paywall tech — LinkedIn would like to broaden the base of people shelling out money for its premium membership, and it's hoping that access …

more at Techmeme »

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