Mediagazer: 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 (Gene Maddaus/Variety)

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

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

Discussion: Variety and Bloomberg

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 …

Discussion: Insider, @parismarx, @harrymccracken@sfba.social, @verge-poster.bsky.social, Fast Company, @ddsd.bsky.social, @ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org, @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social, @dclan@mstdn.ca, @corbin@toot.community, @fraying@xoxo.zone, @ianbetteridge@writing … and @the_verge@mastodon.social

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 …

more at Techmeme »

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

Discussion: Music Ally, @aotearoa_ben, @katienotopoulos@threads.net, @loudmouthjulia, @ashleyrcarman, @mylesudland, @muckymann, @cullend, @dada_drummer, The Verge, @cwarzel.bsky.social and SoundExchange, more at Techmeme »

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