Mediagazer: As digital ad revenue declines, Evgeny Lebedev's The Independent puts 52 roles at risk of redundancy in the UK, 30 of which are in editorial, out of ~240 staff (The Guardian)

11:45 AM ET, November 3, 2022

Top News:

Hamish McKenzie / On Substack:

Substack co-founder says it's time for a “real alternative” to Twitter, and plans features to let writers and readers “hang out”, show their status, and more — It's time you had your own private social network — If you're into writing and reading …

Washington Post:

Internal email: Twitter appears to be rushing out a “high”-risk “Paywalled Video” feature, letting users charge to view their videos, with Twitter taking a cut — The tool would let video creators charge users for access. The team working on it flagged big potential pitfalls.

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:

Facebook expands professional mode, letting all creators globally earn money from various monetization programs, including Reels Play bonuses and subscriptions — Meta has announced the global expansion of its professional mode profile setting on Facebook to all creators.

Discussion: Facebook, @helnzhou, Search Engine Journal, Meta and Decrypt

Kate Irwin / Decrypt:
Meta lets select Instagram creators in the US test a toolkit for minting NFTs and selling them on and off the platform, and says it won't charge fees until 2024

Discussion: @dangillmor, Crypto Blurt, @pbump, The New Age, Search Engine Journal, The Verge, Music Ally, CoinDesk, 9to5Mac, Engadget and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Reuters:

Sources: Murdoch is pursuing the Fox/News Corp merger because combining live game broadcasts and sports coverage would help with Fox's sports betting foray — Rupert Murdoch's proposal to recombine News Corp (NWSA.O) and Fox Corp (FOXA.O) and capitalize on sports betting has yet …

Alexandra Bruell / Wall Street Journal:

Advance Publications, owner of 24 newspapers and Condé Nast, plans to stop printing Alabama's three largest newspapers and make them digital-only in February — Advance Publications to make Birmingham News, Huntsville Times and Press-Register digital-only

Discussion: al.com, al.com and @maghielse

Sara Guaglione / Digiday:

How The Washington Post, NBC News, and SmartNews are preparing for the 2022 US midterms with personalized local news, better content packages, visuals, and more — News apps and aggregators are gearing up for the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 8 by rolling out new features to help readers …

Discussion: livewire.io

Stephanie Lai / New York Times:

A look at how political campaigns are using influencers, a practice the FEC's campaign finance laws do not regulate; the practice is bound by the honor system — Campaigns are using social media influencers as a way to reach young and diverse voters, a novel and mostly unregulated strategy.

Discussion: @juliammccarthy, @stephaniealai and OpenSecrets.org

Matthew Keys / The Desk:

Dish raises Sling TV prices to $40/month, double the price it charged when it launched the base package seven years ago — Dish Network's streaming television service Sling TV says it is rolling out a price increase on its base plans. — The price increase comes more than a month …

Discussion: MediaPost, The Streamable, @sportstvratings, The Hollywood Reporter, 9to5Google and Cord Cutters News, Thanks:@matthewkeyslive

Alex Ritman / The Hollywood Reporter:

Q&A with Bradley Hope and Tom Wright, former WSJ reporters who wrote Billion Dollar Whale, created the podcast Fat Leonard, which was adapted for TV, and more — Bradley Hope and Tom Wright discuss their “global journalism studio and production company” and fast-tracking podcasts to scripted TV.

The Guardian:

As digital ad revenue declines, Evgeny Lebedev's The Independent puts 52 roles at risk of redundancy in the UK, 30 of which are in editorial, out of ~240 staff — The online-only publisher saw a fifth consecutive year of profitability in 2021, but said it now needs to cut costs

Discussion: Press Gazette, @lorumipsum, @adampayne26, @frasermatthew and @kierang77

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Roku reports Q3 revenue up 12% YoY to $761.4M, vs. $694M est., 21.9B streaming hours, and 2.3M active accounts added; the stock drops 18%+ on weak Q4 guidance — Roku handily topped Wall Street estimates for the third quarter of 2022, as the streaming platform and media company packed …

Discussion: Roku, @xpangler, Wall Street Journal, @jtoonkel, Digiday, MediaPost, Adweek, TechCrunch, Media Play News, Next TV, Deadline, The Wrap, The Streamable and The Hollywood Reporter, more at Techmeme »

Mia Sato / The Verge:

Patreon launches a native ad-free video hosting tool for creators, expanding on support for third-party players, available to a select group in beta — The update marks a major shift in how creators on Patreon can share video content with fans. Previously, creators had to upload videos …

Discussion: CNET, Observer, Patreon Blog, Insider and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

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Ashley Cullins / The Hollywood Reporter:
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Earlier Picks:

Mark Stenberg / Adweek:
Source: Puck has nearly 200K subscribers, a ~72% paid subscriber open rate, and its ad revenue grew 500% over 2021, when the outlet operated for three months

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Sarah Scire / Nieman Lab:
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Discussion: @gbrumfiel, @robenfarzad, @sarahscire and @jljacobson

Jennifer Maas / Variety:
Source: Nexstar laid off 30 to 40 employees at The CW on November 1, its first staffing overhaul since acquiring the network from WBD and Paramount on October 3

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New York Times:
A US judge blocking the Penguin-Simon & Schuster deal thwarts further consolidation and offers little clarity about the future of the companies or publishing

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The New York Times Company:
The New York Times reports $24.1M in Q3 revenue for The Athletic on a $9.6M loss; the sports outlet has lost nearly $29M in the three quarters post acquisition

Discussion: Press Gazette, @randomblackrain, @tvgrimreaper, @peterbakernyt, @viv_bernstein, @ekmokaya, @mccanner, AdExchanger, Poynter and New York Times

From Techmeme:

Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Sources: Google laid off at least 200 employees from its “Core” teams, including its Python developer team, and plans to move some roles to Mexico and India

Hayden Field / CNBC:
Anthropic launches a free iOS app and Team, its first enterprise plan, which offers access to its Claude 3 Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku models for $30/user/month

Asa Fitch / Wall Street Journal:
New Jersey-based CoreWeave, which offers GPUs in the cloud, raised $1.1B led by Coatue at a $19B valuation, up from $7B after raising $642M in December 2023

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