Mediagazer: Netflix offers its rental-by-mail subscribers their final batch of DVD or Blu-ray discs and up to 10 movies to keep before closing the service on September 29 (Reggie Ugwu/New York Times)

4:30 PM ET, August 25, 2023

Top News:

Alex Griffing / Mediaite:

Nielsen: Fox News' first debate of the 2024 Republican presidential primary brought in 12.8M viewers; the 12 debates of the 2016 campaign averaged ~15M viewers — Fox News's first Republican debate of the 2024 presidential election exceeded expectations and brought in 12.8 million total viewers …

Lisa Richwine / Reuters:
X claims Tucker Carlson's interview with Donald Trump drew 74M+ views, but the number includes users who scrolled past the video or watched for a few seconds

Sherman Smith / Kansas Reflector:

Marion County Sheriff's Office agrees to destroy the digital files it copied from Marion County Record computers and illegally kept — Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn and Sheriff Jeff Soyez stand outside the evidence room where an undersheriff signs over newspaper property to a forensic expert.

Discussion: @black_intellect@mstdn.social, Columbia Journalism Review, @pressfreedom, Voice of America and The Daily Beast

Ariel Bogle / The Guardian:

The New York Times, CNN, Reuters, and other outlets block OpenAI's GPTBot web crawler from accessing their content; some have also blocked Common Crawl's CCBot — Chicago Tribune and Australian newspapers the Canberra Times and Newcastle Herald also appear to have disallowed web crawler from maker of Chat GPT

Discussion: MIT Technology Review, @carnage4life@mas.to and Insider, more at Techmeme »

Stephen King / The Atlantic:

Stephen King reflects on his books being used for AI training, arguing the sum is lesser than its parts, so far, as creativity can't happen without sentience — One prominent author responds to the revelation that his writing is being used to coach artificial intelligence. — Self-driving cars.

Discussion: Bloomberg, @catcheronthesly, @neilturkewitz, @bcmerchant and The Information

Reggie Ugwu / New York Times:

Netflix offers its rental-by-mail subscribers their final batch of DVD or Blu-ray discs and up to 10 movies to keep before closing the service on September 29 — The company is shuttering its rental-by-mail service in September, more than 25 years after it launched.

Discussion: Forbes, Media Play News and Collider

Washington Post:

How Meta and YouTube, battered by content moderation wars, are following X in retreating from policing political misinformation, raising US 2024 election fears — Facebook and YouTube are receding from their role as watchdogs against conspiracy theories ahead of the 2024 presidential election

Discussion: The Hill, @mimsical@mastodon.social, @jason_kint, @jason_kint, @_jonathanstein, @orpheuseu, @joshuafoust@appdot.net, @tchambers@indieweb.social, CBS News, @donmoyn.bsky.social, @Miro_Collas@masto.ai, @johnshirley2024 …, Quartz, The Guardian, TechCrunch, New York Post and Fox News, more at Techmeme »

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:

YouTube confirms plans to roll out support for RSS uploads for podcasters and make podcasts in YouTube Music available worldwide by the end of 2023 — YouTube Music just launched support for podcasts earlier this year, and that's going to only get better in the months to come as RSS support is apparently coming to the app.

Discussion: Podnews, Android Police, @simli.bsky.social, TechCrunch and Triton Digital

Katharine Trendacosta / Defector:

Hollywood trade publications have long been seen as PR tools for studios, but their stories during the WGA strike have absolutely shattered their credibility — If you were on the website-formally-known-as-Twitter last week, first of all, my condolences, we are in hell together, and second …

Discussion: Rolling Stone, @slack2thefuture, @k_trendacosta, @trevoremetcalfe, @k_trendacosta, @mikeisaac, @mikeisaac, The Wrap, Variety, New York Daily News, Bloomberg, Yahoo Entertainment and The Hollywood Reporter

Sharon Waxman / The Wrap:
Instead of calming strike tensions, CEOs who met with the WGA's negotiators riled things up, revealing ego-driven decision-making; the union responded angrily

Jimmy Vielkind / Wall Street Journal:

Sources: the FBI and German investigators are probing the possible poisonings of two Russian journalists and a Russian activist — Three women say they suffered a sudden onset of unusual symptoms; FBI and German investigators conducting probes — The FBI and German investigators are probing …

Discussion: The Daily Beast and Los Angeles Times

Kaya Yurieff / The Information:

The Creators Guild of America, a nonprofit advocacy group with YouTuber Justine Ezarik and lawyer Paige Kaplan on its board, debuts to back creators' interests — The Hollywood strike has highlighted the lack of a similar labor movement within the creator economy, but new efforts to change that are emerging.

Discussion: Tubefilter, @kyurieff and @ericnewcomer

Nathan McAlone / Insider:
OnlyFans reports revenue up 17% YoY to $1.1B in the FY to November 30, 2022, profit up 24% YoY to $404M, creators up 47% YoY to 3.2M, and users spent $5.6B

Discussion: TechCrunch, New York Post, Music Ally, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Variety and The Information

Sahil Patel / The Information:

Sources: Amazon has had early talks with Disney about working on a streaming version of ESPN, possibly helping with distribution while taking a minority stake — Amazon has had early talks with Disney about working on the streaming version of ESPN it is developing, said people familiar with the matter.

Discussion: MediaPost, The Streamable, Cord Cutters News, Awful Announcing, @rawkuz99, @aagave, Barrett Media and Reuters, more at Techmeme »

David Pierce / The Verge:

For Amazon's second season streaming Thursday Night Football, the company plans more AI tools in Prime Vision, more Black Friday shopping integrations, and HDR — This NFL season, if you watch a Thursday Night Football game on Amazon Prime Video, you're likely to see all sorts of new on-screen stuff.

Discussion: CNET, TechCrunch, Shelly Palmer, @reckless1280@threads.net, The Streamable and Wall Street Journal

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More News:

Ainsley Harris / Fast Company:
How YouTube plans to integrate creators into its NFL Sunday Ticket programming, as the company looks to be a “one-stop shop for multiple types of video content”

Discussion: MediaPost, Variety, TechCrunch, Social Media Today, Barrett Media, Tubefilter, @afarles, CNET and The Desk, more at Techmeme »

@futuromedia:
Futuro Media, a nonprofit that produces the radio show Latino USA and other Latino-focused content, announces layoffs, citing “months of economic uncertainty”

Discussion: @lourdesgnavarro, @byfernandas, @carloseats, @lopezcruzado, @sylvesterd, @madisonmcvan, @juandr47, @whosworld and @reynaldoleanos

Peter White / Deadline:
Memo: Fifth Season, formerly known as Endeavor Content, cuts 30 jobs, or ~12% of its staff, citing “the ongoing dispute between the AMPTP and WGA & SAG-AFTRA”

Discussion: The Wrap, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter

Nicola Agius / Search Engine Land:
Reddit increases the number of interest categories that advertisers can target from 66 to 152 and plans to add even more topics and subjects in the coming weeks

Discussion: Social Media Today and Google Help Center, more at Techmeme »

Earlier Picks:

Gerry Smith / Bloomberg:
Memo: Vice Media is moving out of its Brooklyn offices to save on costs after bankruptcy; most of the staff will work remotely until Vice finds a new NYC office

Discussion: @pkafka, @benmullin and @maxwelltani

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Barbie becomes 2023's top-grossing movie in North America, grossing $575.4M in 34 days; The Super Mario Bros. Movie grossed $574.3M in 140 days in North America

Discussion: The Wrap, Gizmodo, Deadline, Observer, Billboard, Variety, ET Canada, The Playlist, The A.V. Club, ComingSoon.net, Screen Rant, CNN, Collider, TIME and Comic Book

Robert D. McFadden / New York Times:
New York Times correspondent Warren Hoge, who reported from 80+ countries and served as bureau chief, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor, dies at 82

Discussion: @clydehaberman, @nickkristof and @jeffrey_cane

From Techmeme:

Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Okta fixes a flaw present since July 23, 2024, that let users log in under specific circumstances with any password if the account's username had 52+ characters

David Pierce / The Verge:
Amazon's plan to rearchitect Alexa around LLMs could finally help Alexa understand what users actually want and reduce the awkward syntax needed to use Skills

Stephen Groves / Associated Press:
US House Speaker Mike Johnson says the GOP “probably will” try to repeal the CHIPS Act, but then walks it back, saying the GOP may “further streamline” the bill

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