Mediagazer: Lyft begins serving in-app ads to riders when they match with a driver, as they wait for rides, and during their trips, and plans to add video ads later in 2023 (Patrick Coffee/Wall Street Journal)

1:15 PM ET, August 10, 2023

Top News:

Rohan Goswami / CNBC:

In an interview, Linda Yaccarino says X is “close” to break-even and that advertisers including Coca-Cola and Visa have returned under her leadership — WATCH NOW — X Corp. CEO Linda Yaccarino told CNBC that she has “autonomy” under owner Elon Musk in an interview Thursday …

Discussion: Insider, The Wrap, TechCrunch, New York Post, @oneunderscore__, @atrupar, @jyarow, @w7voa, @justinbaragona, @junlper and @librarianshipwreck …, more at Techmeme »

Nicola Agius / Search Engine Land:

X unveils Sensitivity Settings and Enhanced Blocklist to boost brand safety and control for advertisers, rolling out over the next few weeks in the Ads Manager — The new tools give marketers more say over ad placement. — X, formerly known as Twitter, has launched two new features …

Discussion: X for Business, Engadget, @elyanathierry, The Register, @xbusiness, MobileSyrup, @lindayax, Social Media Today, TechCrunch, Forbes and Mashable, more at Techmeme »

Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:

X CEO Linda Yaccarino reinstates the company's “client council”, an invite-only group of marketing and ad executives whose members have not yet been decided — New CEO tries to mend fences with brands after Elon Musk took over platform formerly known as Twitter

Discussion: CNN, TechCrunch, The Wrap, Mediaite, Engadget, The Daily Beast, @lindayax, Fortune, Wired and Mashable, more at Techmeme »

Lucas Manfredi / The Wrap:

Bob Iger says “anyone who wanted to speculate about” potential Disney sale “would have to immediately consider the global regulatory environment” — “Obviously anyone who wanted to speculate about such things would have to immediately consider the global regulatory environment …

Discussion: AppleInsider and @carlquintanilla

Scott Mendelson / The Wrap:

Bob Iger says Disney is expecting content spending in 2023 to be $27B, about $3B lower than previously guided, in part due to the Hollywood strikes — The company had previously expected to spend $30 billion this year — Walt Disney is cutting its content budget for the year by $3 billion …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Reuters, Awful Announcing and The Hollywood Reporter

Kayla Cobb / The Wrap:
Bob Iger says cord-cutting trends are “unmistakable” and Disney is considering “a variety of strategic options” for its linear TV assets such as ABC

Discussion: The Streamable, The Hollywood Reporter, TVNewsCheck, @zdarsky.bsky.social, The Hollywood Reporter and CNN

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Disney plans to raise US prices of Disney+ Premium, Hulu without ads, and ESPN+, and to expand Disney+ ad-supported plans to Canada and nine European countries

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:
Disney reports Q3 revenue up 4% YoY to $22.3B, a $460M net loss, down from a $1.41B net income YoY, and India's Disney+ Hotstar service losing 12.5M subscribers

Discussion: TechCrunch, Forbes, SlashFilm, CNBC, Axios, The Wrap, The Walt Disney Company and IndieWire

Adam Chitwood / The Wrap:
Bob Iger says Disney is “actively exploring ways” to crack down on password sharing and “will roll out tactics to drive monetization sometime in 2024”

Katie Robertson / New York Times:

Condé Nast names Katie Drummond, Vice Media's senior VP of global news and entertainment, as Wired's global editor; Drummond will be Wired's first female editor — Ms. Drummond will be the first woman to lead the technology magazine in its 30-year history.

Discussion: @michaelroston, @zachsdorfman, @lmatsakis, @sokane1, @kashhill.bsky.social, @kashhill and @mat

Michael Schneider / Variety:

Fox and the Television Academy push back the Emmy Awards to January 15, 2024 from September 18, 2023 in response to the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes — The Emmys officially have a new date: Fox and the Television Academy were set to announce this morning that the 75th Emmy Awards will shift to Monday …

Discussion: The Wrap, The Verge, New York Times, IndieWire, SlashFilm, Next TV, ComingSoon.net, New York Daily News, The Hollywood Reporter, The A.V. Club and Media Play News

Etan Vlessing / The Hollywood Reporter:

Lionsgate delays the planned split of Lionsgate and Starz to the first quarter of 2024, citing the eOne deal, Hollywood strikes, and a “disruptive marketplace” — The Hollywood giant, led by CEO Jon Feltheimer, has pushed the timing for a spin off of its studio business …

Discussion: The Streamable, The Wrap and Deadline

Scott Mendelson / The Wrap:
Lionsgate reports Q1 revenue up 1.6% YoY to $909M vs. $893M est., a $70.7M net loss, and Motion Picture revenue up 46% to $406.5M driven by John Wick: Chapter 4

Discussion: Media Play News, Lionsgate, Variety and Deadline

David Hellier / Bloomberg:

Source: Saudi Pro Football League has made TV deals in 130 territories, including with Fox and DAZN, which paid ~$500K/year; 2022/23 global rights made $710K — The Saudi Pro Football League has secured a network of deals to broadcast games featuring superstars such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema around the world.

Patrick Coffee / Wall Street Journal:

Lyft begins serving in-app ads to riders when they match with a driver, as they wait for rides, and during their trips, and plans to add video ads later in 2023 — The ride-sharing company and its larger rival, Uber, are racing to build significant ad operations

Discussion: Search Engine Land, Ad Age and Slate, more at Techmeme »

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Indian regulators approve the proposed merger between Sony India and Zee Entertainment, first unveiled in 2021, which will create a media powerhouse — The mega-deal has run into various hurdles since being unveiled in 2021. … It would bring together linear TV networks, digital businesses …

Discussion: Bloomberg, Variety, Zee News and Deadline

Bron Maher / Press Gazette:

BBC News and BBC Sounds launched a Discord server in late June for the Newscast podcast, letting the audience influence the news; the server has 3,700 members — It's now over a month since BBC News' flagship podcast, Newscast, launched a server on Discord.

David Folkenflik / NPR:

Former Fox exec Preston Padden has joined a small band of vocal critics urging the FCC to deny Fox's renewal of its license to operate Fox 29 in Philadelphia — Preston Padden joined the Fox broadcast network a few years after its launch and helped founder Rupert Murdoch make it viable.

Discussion: Poynter, @edourdoo, @boulderpreston, @newscorpse, @davidfolkenflik, @boulderpreston, Columbia Journalism Review, @farhip, Washington Post and The Wrap

Alex Weprin / Hollywood Reporter:

Filing: Dave Portnoy acquired Barstool Sports for $1 from Penn Entertainment, which says it expects to record a loss of between $800M and $850M on the deal — Penn Entertainment estimates that it will take a loss of as much as $850 million on Barstool. — Just how much did Dave Portnoy pay …

Discussion: The Ankler, Fortune, New York Post, Deadline, Awful Announcing, Sportico, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Bloomberg and Barrett Media

Matt Levine / Bloomberg:
The Penn-Barstool deal made sense for Penn and Dave Portnoy when he sold Barstool in 2020, and the Penn-Disney deal makes sense now as Portnoy regains Barstool

Discussion: The Rebooting, @theuncharles, Vox, The Atlantic, Axios, Insider, Variety and The Athletic

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More News:

Reuters:
PE firm Symphony Technology Group agrees to acquire media editing software maker Avid for ~$1.4B; Avid's products were used in Top Gun: Maverick and other films

Discussion: Broadband TV News, The Hollywood Reporter and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »

Sara Guaglione / Digiday:
Podcast revenue at iHeartMedia, Spotify, and Acast grew between 12% and 31% YoY in Q2; PwC projects total podcast ad revenue to grow 25% YoY to $2.28B in 2023

Discussion: Adweek and Podnews

Thomas Germain / Gizmodo:
CNET is deleting older posts, calling such cuts a best practice for sites “primarily driven by SEO traffic”; Google says purging to improve SEO is “not a thing”

Discussion: @flargh@mastodon.social, The Verge, Search Engine Land, The Overspill, @searchliaison, @searchliaison and @dannyjpalmer@infosec.exchange

Earlier Picks:

Mathew Ingram / Columbia Journalism Review:
Q&A with Mark Rasch, a lawyer for Tim Burke, whose PCs and equipment were seized in a probe of Fox News video leaks, on the case's implications for journalists

Discussion: @mathewi, @matthewkeyslive, @aaschapiro, @aaschapiro, @urbanachievr, @aaschapiro, @sally_yachts, @matthewkeyslive, Mediaite and @bubbaprog.ilovecitr.us

Yuvraj Malik / Reuters:
The world's largest news media organizations sign an open letter calling for a framework to “collectively negotiate” use of their IP with AI model operators

Discussion: The Verge

Steven Waldman / The Atlantic:
Funding US local news, which could mean ~$1.5B per year to sustain 25K local reporter positions, would more than pay for itself and “save American democracy”

Discussion: @jrussellmi, @dlberes, @bykenarmstrong, @mckaycoppins, @stevenwaldman, Media Nation and American Press Institute

From Techmeme:

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority:
Source: Google has canceled the development of a second-generation Pixel Tablet, planned for release in 2025, due to concerns that it wouldn't sell very well

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is testing a more conversational version of Siri, dubbed “LLM Siri”, with plans to release it in spring 2026 as part of iOS 19 and macOS 16

The Information:
Sources: OpenAI considered making a browser, discussed deals to power AI features on Samsung devices and search on sites and apps from Condé Nast and others

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