Mediagazer: Sources: under Skydance's deal with Apple Studios, Apple guarantees Skydance at least two fully financed feature films per year, with budgets of up to ~$125M (Variety)

5:25 PM ET, February 24, 2022

Top News:

Jon Lafayette / Next TV:

Sinclair says a 2021 cyberattack cost $63M in lost Q4 ad revenue, reports an $89M loss, down from $467M net income in Q4 2020, on $1.47B revenue, down 2% YoY — Company reports $89 million net loss for fourth quarter — Sinclair Broadcast Group said that the cyber attack the company faced …

Discussion: insideradio.com, Dow Jones Newswires, TV Technology and TVNewsCheck

Alexander Marrow / Reuters:

Russia's communications regulator says media outlets can only publish Ukraine info from official Russian sources and failing to do so will lead to restrictions — Russian communications regulator Roskomnadzor on Thursday said media outlets must check the veracity of their reports …

Discussion: @biannagolodryga and @globalfreemedia

Financial Times:

Media Partners Asia: Netflix has just 5.5M subscribers in India, far below its 100M goal from 2016, behind Amazon Prime Video's 16M and Disney+ Hotstar's 50M — Streaming juggernaut wanted 100mn subscribers in the country but has managed just 5.5mn — Back in 2016, when Netflix launched in India …

Discussion: @praval, @harneetsin, @lakshmishaks and @counternotions, more at Techmeme »

Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:

Sources: BlackRock and Warner Music invest $750M in a fund to buy music-rights catalogs from female and diverse artists, and already spent $300M on 20 catalogs — The companies seek stakes in newer music copyrights in partnership with Influence Media — BlackRock Inc. and Warner Music Group Corp …

Discussion: Fast Company, PR Newswire, Digital Music News, Music Business Worldwide and Variety

Jill Goldsmith / Deadline:

Discovery reports Q4: 22M streaming subscribers, up from 20M in Q3; net income of $38M, down 86% YoY, on $3.2B revenue, up 10% YoY; US ad revenue rose 5% YoY — Discovery said it ended the fourth quarter with 22 million DTC subscribers, up from 20 million for Q3. The bulk of subs are from Discovery+.

Discussion: The Wrap, Digital TV Europe, PR Newswire, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and MediaPost

Randall Chase / Associated Press:

Delaware's Supreme Court upholds a judge's dismissal of a lawsuit by Candace Owens against Facebook fact-checking media organizations USA Today and Lead Stories — DOVER, Del. (AP) — Delaware's Supreme Court has upheld a judge's dismissal of a lawsuit filed by conservative political …

Discussion: American Press Institute

Larry Edelman / The Boston Globe:

Jonathan Abbott, CEO of public media outlet GBH, is stepping down in December after 15 years, during which he grew the newsroom from a dozen journalists to 110 — During his 15 years in the top job, Abbott has guided the public media pioneer's shift to digital platforms, expanded local news, and boosted its endowment by 800 percent.

Discussion: @bostonfdn

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Spotify removes several recently uploaded episodes of The Alex Jones Show, which it banned in 2018, after Media Matters for America discovered the episodes — Spotify appears to have quietly pulled several episodes “The Alex Jones Show,” hosted by the notorious right-wing conspiracy firebrand …

Discussion: Engadget and Media Matters for America

Richard Lawler / The Verge:

Tumblr launches an ad-free tier for $4.99/month or $39.99/year on desktop and in its mobile apps; Tumblr was once opposed to displaying ads, but caved in 2012 — You can fix one of Tumblr's problems, for a fee — Tumblr announced today that users can opt out of ads (on the desktop and in its mobile apps) …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Engadget, Tumblr Staff and @quinnypig, more at Techmeme »

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Dish lost ~273K net pay TV subscribers in Q4, including ~70K Sling TV subscribers; Dish ended 2021 with 8.22M Dish TV subscribers and 2.49M Sling TV subscribers — The company, led by chairman Charlie Ergen and CEO Erik Carlson, lost satellite TV and Sling TV customers.

Discussion: Light Reading and Next TV

Rachel Treisman / NPR:

Study: since May, Facebook labeled only about half the posts promoting 184 climate change denial articles from publishers like Breitbart and Newsmax — Facebook is falling short on its pledge to crack down on climate misinformation, according to a new analysis from a British watchdog group.

Discussion: Input, Press Gazette, Climate Monitor, EXXONKNEWS, Center for Countering …, @reuterslegal, @foe_us, Engadget, Nieman Lab and The Independent

Variety:

Sources: under Skydance's deal with Apple Studios, Apple guarantees Skydance at least two fully financed feature films per year, with budgets of up to ~$125M — Nearly a month after it was announced that Apple had landed a slate of live action films from longtime Paramount Pictures partner Skydance …

Discussion: @mattdonnelly and AppleInsider

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More News:

Andy Maxwell / TorrentFreak:
Reddit publishes its 2021 transparency report: 665K pieces of copyright-infringing content were removed, up 104%; 2,813 users and 2,625 subreddits were banned

more at Techmeme »

Ed Z / Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At:
Some journalists, guilted by crypto zealots into “being open-minded”, fail their readers by giving the scam-filled crypto industry the benefit of the doubt

Discussion: @michellemanafy, @cnyari, @dgolumbia, @walthickey, @dgolumbia, @chronotope, @edzitron, @edzitron, @edzitron and @edzitron

Ash Parrish / The Verge:
Twitch launches the Ad Incentive Program to pay select streamers a guaranteed monthly minimum ad revenue based on amount of ads run per hour and hours streamed

Discussion: Protocol and Engadget

The Nation:
The Nation names Jacobin founder and publisher Bhaskar Sunkara as president, succeeding Erin O'Mara, who will stay on as a strategic consultant

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
GB News will join the BBC, Sky News, and ITN's broadcast pool for political coverage in April; GB News currently receives footage later than other broadcasters

Discussion: @mediaguido, @mike_fabricant and @tomhfh

Judd Legum / Popular Information:
Conservative Brief, which has three writers, passed The Washington Post and The New York Times on Facebook, seemingly by paying large Pages to share its content

Earlier Picks:

Kris Holt / Engadget:
LinkedIn launches the LinkedIn Podcast Network as a pilot, which includes ad-supported shows available on LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other platforms

Discussion: What's New in Publishing, @marshallk, @kantrowitz and Axios

Brian Steinberg / Variety:
AT&T, State Farm, and others join Discovery and Omnicom in testing alternatives for measuring linear TV audiences using Comscore and VideoAmp data

Discussion: Next TV, Ad Age, @bristei, @bristei, MediaPost, The Wrap, Adweek and Next TV

Wayne Friedman / MediaPost:
Roku launches the Advertising Watermark to help advertisers and publishers verify the authenticity of their video ads and defend against “device spoofing”

Discussion: Ad Age

Mark Stenberg / Adweek:
A Google Ad Manager and The Wall Street Journal study finds that advertisers whose campaigns used first-party data were 37% more likely to run another campaign

Discussion: @markstenberg3

Rick Porter / The Hollywood Reporter:
Nielsen expands its Media Impact planning tools, adding streaming services ratings to help advertisers and media buyers plan cross-platform campaigns

Discussion: Variety and SlashFilm

From Techmeme:

Bloomberg:
The Trump administration exempts smartphones, laptops, hard drives, processors, memory chips, and machines used to make semiconductors from reciprocal tariffs

Martine Paris / Forbes:
Sam Altman says ChatGPT users had doubled in the past few weeks and that “10% of the world uses our systems”, which would peg the number closer to 800M users

Kate Pickert / Bloomberg:
AI could transform medicine by helping doctors and medical students improve their empathy and bedside manner before they interact with real patients

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