Top News:
Gene Maddaus / Variety:
The WGA urges antitrust regulators to stop M&A in streaming, saying that Netflix, Amazon, and Disney amassed market power that depresses wages and limits choice — The Writers Guild of America issued a report on Thursday calling Netflix, Amazon and Disney the “new gatekeepers” …
Discussion:
@jbflint, Los Angeles Times, @wgawest, @slack2thefuture, IGN, IndieWire, The Wrap, Writers Guild of America West, The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline
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Richard Rushfield / The Ankler:
Q&A with FTC Chair Lina Khan on visiting a WGA picket in NYC to hear from “people on the ground”, plus other Hollywood issues like M&A regulation and new tech — The FTC chair and Biden breakout star on her WGA meetings, A.I. and why the agency's keeping an eye on entertainment
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Microsoft's Start, which uses AI to summarize news and other content, lists the Ottawa Food Bank as a tourist site and suggests visiting on “an empty stomach” — Microsoft published an AI-generated travel article about Ottawa, Canada that prominently recommended tourists visit …
Hanaa' Tameez / Nieman Lab:
Columbia's journalism school begins offering graduates in nonprofit news $5K to $10K forgivable loans each year, with a max total of $50K, to pay student loans — “It takes away a little bit of anxiety about pursuing a degree in journalism if you know that there is a path through which the cost can be covered.”
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Netflix partners with Jio Platforms, India's largest telecom operator, to bundle its streaming service with two pay-as-you-go carrier plans — Netflix has inked a “first-of-its-kind” deal with Jio Platforms, India's largest telecom operator, to bundle the streaming service with the carrier's …
Kim Zetter / Zero Day:
How Timothy Burke accessed video from Fox News and why his lawyer says Florida prosecutors are using a “novel and unsupported” interpretation of the CFAA — But attorneys for Timothy Burke say a raid on his home and office exhibit government over-reach and misuse of the federal hacking law …
Discussion:
@snlyngaas, @bubbaprog, @kimzetter, @kimzetter, @kimzetter@infosec.exchange and @steve@s.yelvington.com
Oliver Darcy / CNN:
Sources: news publishers in the US say Meta made changes that cut their Facebook referral traffic; one publisher said traffic fell by 30%+ YoY, another by ~40% — Editor's Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.
Discussion:
Pugpig, @johnbuckley.bsky.social, @davidclinchnews, @blackamazon and @johnbattelle@threads.net
Lucas Manfredi / The Wrap:
Trustees of NYC's pension funds send letters to the CEOs of Disney, Comcast, and Paramount Global, calling on them to negotiate and end the Hollywood strikes — Brad Lander and five pension fund trustees call on Paramount, Comcast and Disney executives to “end the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes promptly”
Discussion:
Deadline
Brian X. Chen / New York Times:
Surveys: ~50% of Americans watch TV with subtitles on most of the time, as sound quality suffers from compressed audio and tiny, relatively weak TV speakers — Many of us stream shows and movies with the subtitles on all the time — and not because it's cool.
Discussion:
@jalefkowit@octodon.social, @michellemanafy@journa.host and @voron@mstdn.party
ACA Blog:
Nine, which owns The Sydney Morning Herald and others, plans to stop publishing comic strips, after News Corp and Australia Community Media did the same in 2022 — The Australian Cartoonists Association notes with disappointment that the Nine newspapers (including The Age, the Sunday Age …
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Internal doc: Spotify weighed removing white noise podcasts and redirecting users to “talk” content, which would boost the company's annual gross profit by €35M — An internal document shows that white noise podcasts account for 3 million daily consumption hours on the platform
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Apple says the company removed all episodes of The Glenn Beck Program from Apple Podcasts because of a trademark dispute that has since been resolved — Reached for comment, an Apple spokesman told Variety that “The Glenn Beck Program” was removed from Apple Podcasts because of a trademark …
Discussion:
AppleInsider, The Desk, @glennbeck, Mediaite, Inside Radio, TheBlaze, The Post Millennial, Podnews, Deadline, Reclaim The Net and Mediaite
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