Mediagazer: Rhoda Karpatkin, the former executive director and president of Consumer Union who doubled Consumer Reports subscriptions to 4.3M, died on August 4 at 93 (Sam Roberts/New York Times)

9:40 PM ET, August 8, 2023

Top News:

ESPN and Penn Entertainment unveil a deal to launch ESPN Bet, as Penn rebrands its sportsbook in the 16 US states where it is licensed; PENN up ~15% after hours — Sports betting deal to include a streamlined experience for sports fans — ESPN today announced an agreement with PENN Entertainment …

Axios:

Penn Entertainment is selling Barstool Sports back to founder Dave Portnoy, who has accepted certain noncompete agreements; Penn had bought Barstool for $551M — - Tim Baysinger- Kerry Flynn- Sara Fischer — ESPN on Tuesday announced a betting joint venture with casino operator PENN Entertainment …

Katherine Sayre / Wall Street Journal:
ESPN's deal allowing Penn to use its brand for ESPN Bet is worth $2B over 10 years: $1.5B in cash plus warrants worth about $500M to purchase shares in Penn

Discussion: CNN, The Streamable and Front Office Sports

Natalie Korach / The Wrap:

BuzzFeed misses with Q2 revenue down 27% YoY to $77.9M, ad revenue down 33% YoY to $35.4M, and a net loss of $27.8M vs. $23.6M in Q2 2022 — The struggling media company reports a net loss Tuesday for the second quarter of $27.8 million — BuzzFeed ended June with $41.3 million in cash …

Discussion: BuzzFeed Inc., @jordannovet, @ckrewson, @matthewkeyslive, The Hollywood Reporter, Business Wire and @baekdal

Luke Bouma / Cord Cutters News:

Dish reports Dish TV lost 197K subscribers in Q2, leaving 6.9M, Sling TV lost 97K subscribers, leaving 2M, and total pay TV subscribers fell 11% YoY to 8.9M — Today DISH announced its 2nd quarter 2023 earnings and reported that DISH and Sling TV lost 294,000 subscribers.

Discussion: TechCrunch, @tvgrimreaper, Media Play News, The Streamable and The Desk

Wall Street Journal:
Charlie Ergen strikes a deal to merge Dish and EchoStar, as he shifts away from the shrinking pay-TV network to compete with wireless giants like AT&T

Sara Fischer / Axios:

OpenAI plans to offer a $395K grant to fund a new initiative at New York University's journalism school that will provide workshops on journalism ethics issues — OpenAI, the parent company to ChatGPT, will fund a new journalism ethics initiative at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute …

Discussion: MediaPost, @tonyajoriley, Shelly Palmer, @_felixsimon_, @dicktofel, @jackmirkinson.bsky.social and @ingrid@everything …

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Puck raised a $10M+ Series B led by J Rothschild Capital Management and plans to hire 8 to 10 people in 2023; the outlet has 31 employees and is not profitable — Puck, the buzzy media startup that covers the intersection of Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Washington …

Discussion: The Wrap, @sarafischer and The Information

Sam Roberts / New York Times:

Rhoda Karpatkin, the former executive director and president of Consumer Union who doubled Consumer Reports subscriptions to 4.3M, died on August 4 at 93 — The first woman to be named executive director of Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, she expanded its readership and its influence in Washington.

Discussion: @mltellado, @jimshultz, TACD and @chrishendel

Jeff Kosseff / Wired:

Unlike in Gonzalez v. Google, SCOTUS in the next year can't just punt the NetChoice cases challenging social media content moderation laws in Texas and Florida — Forget Gonzalez v. Google. There's another dispute that will come before the justices in the next year and this time they will …

Discussion: @joeo10@mastodon.sdf.org and @PrivacyDigest@mas.to, more at Techmeme »

Mark Hicks / The Detroit News:

Bob Giles, who led two newsrooms to Pulitzers, oversaw Nieman Journalism Lab's launch, and selected and hosted hundreds of Nieman Fellows at Harvard, dies at 90 — Former Detroit News editor and publisher Bob Giles ― who led the paper to a Pulitzer Prize, the highest honor in journalism …

Discussion: @jodeet, @erniesuggs, Detroit Free Press, @tommytomlinson, @bethelmckenzie and Nieman Foundation

Sara Fischer / Axios:

The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson says the outlet hopes to be profitable in 2024, plans to seek higher-margin ad deals, and has 925K subscribers — The Atlantic has booked $19.5 million in advertising and events revenue so far this year, according to data shown to staff during …

Discussion: @sarafischer

Catherine Perloff / Adweek:

Google changes the name of one of its advertising video formats from “in-stream ads” to “skippable ads”, after a report accused YouTube of misleading buyers — What was once in-stream ads are now skippable ads — Google changed the name of one of its video formats …

more at Techmeme »

Agence France-Presse:

News Media Canada, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, CBC, and Radio-Canada ask Canada's competition watchdog to investigate Meta's news article blocking — Media on Tuesday asked Canada's competition watchdog to investigate Meta's blocking of news articles on Facebook and Instagram …

Discussion: Al Jazeera and Canadian Association …

Jane Friedman:

An author finds “garbage books”, most likely AI-generated, uploaded to Amazon under her name and added to Goodreads; both services have since removed the titles — Update (afternoon of Aug. 7): Hours after this post was published, my official Goodreads profile was cleaned of the offending titles.

Discussion: Gizmodo, The Daily Beast, @erikbryn, @janefriedman, @thesarahrose, @janefriedman, @mariavalewrites.bsky.social, @tylerking.bsky.social, @jenhoward.bsky.social, @lilithsaintcrow …, @edsermark.bsky.social, @jasonsanford.bsky.social and Decrypt, more at Techmeme »

Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Prosecraft, which compiled 27K+ books to compare their language's “vividness”, shuts down after a writer backlash over the site's potential generative AI uses

Discussion: @pronounced_ing, @benji_smith, @kaylaancrum, @zachrosewriter, @bibliogato, @pronounced_ing, @lindaholmes, @harikunzru, @pronounced_ing, Philosophy bear, CityLife, The Shaxpir Blog, The A.V. Club and Gizmodo

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More News:

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
YouTube will stop showing users recommended videos in some places, including the homepage, when watch history is turned off entirely

Discussion: The Verge, Engadget, @carnage4life@mas.to, TechCrunch and @sportstvratings, more at Techmeme »

Financial Times:
Sources: Google and UMG are in talks to license artists' melodies and voices for AI-made songs; goals include making a tool for fans and paying copyright owners

Discussion: MediaPost, more at Techmeme »

Max Kim / Los Angeles Times:
The Korea Broadcasting Actors Union says Netflix is not responding to calls to meet, as the union asks for the same residuals that US actors get under SAG-AFTRA

Discussion: Rolling Stone, New York Post, @aliciadcarroll, @wgawest, @sev___, @ingloriousgigi.bsky.social, @oriana_banana, @carriecnh12, @judyberman.bsky.social, @elisewho, @lawoftd, Inverse, @dasgoot1, Screen Rant and Collider

Jon Lafayette / Next TV:
Nexstar reports Q2 net revenue down 0.4% YoY to $1.24B, adjusted EBITDA down 32% YoY to $331M, a $78M loss for the CW, and core TV ad revenue down 2.2% to $404M

Discussion: MediaPost, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, TVNewsCheck, Nexstar Media Group, Inc., The Desk and The Wrap

Reuters:
Sources: earlier in 2023, before the writers' strike, Disney created a task force to study how to apply AI, develop AI apps in-house, and partner with startups

Discussion: Breitbart, IndieWire, New York Post, Gizmodo, @chris@mastodon …, Fortune and Collider

Wesley Hilliard / AppleInsider:
Apple Music launches Discovery Station, akin to Spotify's algorithmic track recommendations, available via the Listen Now tab in the Stations for You category

Discussion: ZDNet, Android Police, Music Ally, @HilliTech@techhub.social, TechCrunch and The Verge

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch:
Spotify expands its AI-powered DJ beta, available in the app's Music feed, to ~50 markets, six months after debuting the English-only feature in North America

Discussion: Spotify, Engadget, Gizmodo, @eldsjal, AppleInsider, Bloomberg and Digital Music News, more at Techmeme »

Earlier Picks:

Natalie Korach / The Wrap:
Fox Corp reports Q4 revenue flat at $3.03B and net income up 20% YoY to $369M; FY 2023 revenue rose 7% YoY to $14.91B and net income rose 2% YoY to $1.25B

Discussion: @bristei, New York Post, @bristei, @bristei, The Desk, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, PR Newswire and Deadline

Katie Robertson / New York Times:
The New York Times reports Q2 revenue up 6% YoY to $590.9M, $92.2M adjusted operating profit, 9.88M subscribers, and subscription revenue up 7% YoY to $409.6M

Discussion: The Wrap, @loudmouthjulia, @newspaperworld, Front Office Sports, @loudmouthjulia, Poynter, @azagata.bsky.social and Yahoo Finance

Casey Newton / Platformer:
Given the countless times Elon Musk has walked back announcements, the business media must rethink its coverage of X, Musk, and the fight with Mark Zuckerberg

Killian Faith-Kelly / Press Gazette:
An interview with The Times obituary writer Damian Arnold on his workday, stock obituaries, the right way to die, writing his first obituary in 2008, and more

Alex Webb / Bloomberg:
How Lionel Messi coming to MLS may help Apple attract international TV+ subscribers, as the service has almost no content made for non-English-speaking markets

Discussion: @karissabe, @fos, @messiquote, @pkedrosky, Awful Announcing and The Ringer

Sapna Maheshwari / New York Times:
After social media upended the fashion, beauty, and lifestyle magazine industries, some women turn to Facebook Groups and Substack for curated recommendations

Discussion: The Information

From Techmeme:

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Anthropic raised another $4B from Amazon, will make AWS its primary training partner, and is working with Annapurna Labs to develop new Trainium accelerators

Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
A UK CMA report finds that Apple's policies hold back innovation in mobile browsers and recommends investigating Apple and Google's mobile ecosystem activities

Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Researchers detail a “nearest neighbor attack” by Russia's APT28, which remotely breached a target's Wi-Fi by hijacking a laptop in a building across the street

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