Top News:
Leo Schwartz / Fortune:
In a first, the SEC charges Impact Theory with offering unregistered securities by selling NFTs; the LA-based entertainment company agreed to pay a $6.1M fine — Gary Gensler, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission — In an enforcement action announced on Monday …
Discussion:
US Securities …, Music Ally, crypto.news, Cryptonews, CryptoGlobe, @iampaulgrewal, @colethereum, The Block, 24/7 Wall St., @grady_booch, @collins_belton, Decrypt, Cryptopolitan, The Daily Hodl, Web3 is Going Just Great, SiliconANGLE, PYMNTS.com, Cointelegraph, Axios, @hesterpeirce, CryptoSlate, Anand Sithian on LinkedIn, @jason, @carnage4life@mas.to, Reuters, Cryptonews, @punk9059, Crowdfund Insider, Cointelegraph, CoinDesk, Blockworks, Inside Bitcoins, Bitcoin News, @secgov, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Quartz, The Information, The Verge, US Securities … and Digital Music News, more at Techmeme »
Elizabeth Wellington / The Philadelphia Inquirer:
Condé Nast names Jamila Robinson, the assistant managing editor for food and culture at The Philadelphia Inquirer, as the EIC of Bon Appétit and Epicurious — Jamila Robinson, assistant managing editor for food and culture at The Inquirer, is leaving to become the editor …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
TechCrunch acquires Connie Loizos' media startup StrictlyVC, which has 60K newsletter subscribers, and appoints Loizos as editor-in-chief and general manager — TechCrunch, the digital tech and business publication owned by Yahoo, has acquired StrictlyVC, a media startup, from longtime Silicon Valley journalist Connie Lozois.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Talking Biz News, @alexrkonrad, @cookie, @arrington, @panzer, @sarafischer, @thekenyeung, @propllrhead, @danprimack, Business Wire and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »
Charlotte Klein / Vanity Fair:
MSNBC is drawing in major ratings, having emerged as the go-to network for coverage of Donald Trump's criminal charges just as Fox News and CNN face instability — The network's mix of weighty reflection, analysis, and schadenfreude is drawing in major ratings, surpassing Fox News and CNN …
Discussion:
Adweek, @dannygroner, @wajahatali, @charlottetklein, @jayrosen_nyu and The Wrap
Joe Pompeo / Vanity Fair:
An interview with Columbia Journalism School Dean Jelani Cobb about tuition reform, including his goal of paying the full cost for low-income students, and more — The celebrated New Yorker staff writer sat for a wide-ranging interview to kick off his second year as Columbia Journalism School's first Black dean.
Discussion:
@mlcalderone, @michaelkruse, @j_fassler, @annaivey, @joepompeo and @jeffjohnroberts
Oliver Darcy / CNN:
Disney, Bloomberg, WaPo, The Atlantic, Axios, ABC, ESPN, Condé Nast, Hearst, Vox, and others join the NYT and Reuters in blocking OpenAI's GPTBot web crawler — Editor's Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter.
Max Tani / Semafor:
Source: the Washington Post has quietly laid off top marketing staffers, program managers, and product designers at Arc XP, its technology arm — The Scoop — The Washington Post has quietly laid off staff from Arc XP, the technology arm of the paper that Post leadership had previously considered selling or spinning off.
Discussion:
@semaforben
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Fox Sports signs a deal to use Google Cloud's generative AI to search footage from 1.9M videos and produce new TV, social, and marketing content quickly — Fox Corp.'s Fox Sports is turning to generative artificial-intelligence to help its staffers more rapidly generate content from millions of hours of its archived games footage.
Discussion:
Google Cloud and SiliconANGLE, more at Techmeme »
Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
US National Cinema Day on August 27, when tickets cost $4 at 3,000+ theaters, resulted in 8.5M tickets sold and $34M in sales, up 16% from August 20 — Thousands of theater owners across the U.S. and Canada slashed their ticket prices to $4 on Aug. 27 in honor of the second annual National Cinema Day.
Discussion:
Variety, Media Play News, The Wrap and CNN
Reuters:
A look at Disney shifting its India strategy to free cricket on mobile, hoping to boost ads, after the unit reported a $41.5M loss on $390M revenue in FY 2022 — Walt Disney (DIS.N) is attempting to revive the fortunes of its streaming business in India by offering free cricket on smartphones …
Discussion:
The Streamable and Deadline, more at Techmeme »
Olivia Balsamo / NBC News:
A look at Kick, a Twitch rival launched in 2022 that is attracting top creators with lucrative contracts, looser moderation policies, and a 95/5 revenue split — Kick has quickly become a major threat to Amazon's Twitch streaming platform. — Amazon's Twitch has helped build the careers …
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
LGBTQ+ outlet Pink News shifts towards ad agency partnerships, after its social media revenue fell 50%+ from 2022, when social accounted for ~80% of its revenue — Pink News has seen “hockey-stick-like growth” in its direct sales activity this year. — LGBTQ+-led brand Pink News has carried out a …