Top News:
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Elon Musk threatens to file a defamation suit against the ADL for “falsely accusing” X and him of being antisemitic, and blames the ADL for X's US ad sales drop — In the newest uproar you might have missed, Elon Musk says X, formerly Twitter, will file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League.
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Email: Spotify raises the listener threshold for creators in Ambassador Ads from 100 to 1,000 over 60 days, and plans to cut ad support for white noise podcasts — - Ambient sound shows will no longer be eligible for certain ads — Company raises listener threshold for ambassador ads program
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, CMU, Podnews, Engadget, The Verge, Insider, @bartona104, @ashleyrcarman and Music Ally, more at Techmeme »
Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:
WBD rebrands its preschool network Boomerang to Cartoonito, available as a pay TV channel, in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa — “Cartoonito is Warner Bros. Discovery's biggest commitment to programming for children aged 2 to 6.”
Discussion:
Broadband TV News
Max Tani / Semafor:
A look at Jay Penske's media empire, as he adds a Hollywood Reporter co-EIC and the Hollywood strikes hurt revenue; source: THR missed Q1 revenue goals by 20%+ — The Scoop — It's a hard detail to leave out of a profile of Hollywood's dominant publishing figure: In 2012 …
Discussion:
@sharonwaxman, @nbj914 and @richlightshed
Max Goldbart / Deadline:
The UK's Channel 4 plans to enter the US market by launching two FAST channels, 4 Adventure and 4 Emergency, on Tubi, Plex, and Xumo Play later in September — - ‘Bardot’ Series Sells After Netflix Launch; National Cinema Day Record; SkyShowtime's ‘Codename: Annika’ Trailer; BAFTA Wales Award — Global Briefs
Discussion:
Media Voices and Broadband TV News
Ben Werdmuller / Werd I/O:
Organizations like Tiny News Collective could help build a “wide news” commons of smaller specialized newsrooms and perspectives of individuals in a community — Doc Searls writes about what he calls wide news: … Doc's argument is that a local commons of publications can …
Discussion:
@ben@werd.social and Doc Searls Weblog
Financial Times:
A look at Sony India's merger with Zee Entertainment: creating a 74-channel media powerhouse and giving Sony a 24.8% market share, compared to Disney Star's 24% — In the late 1980s, Sony stunned the world with the $3bn acquisition of Columbia Pictures and a grand ambition to crack Hollywood.
Eva Hartog / Politico:
Politico Europe's reporter in Moscow, expelled after 10 years working in Russia, on how journalists from Western countries are being squeezed out of the country — Moscow is quietly cracking down on the country's last independent observers. — During my 10 years as a Moscow-based journalist …
Zoe Williams / The Guardian:
An interview with Marianna Spring, the BBC's first disinformation correspondent, on her Conspiracyland podcast, online abuse becoming offline action, and more — The broadcaster's first disinformation correspondent spends her time pursuing trolls and dismantling conspiracy theories.
Reuters:
Malaysia says the government is in talks with Google, Meta, and others over a regulatory framework to pay news outlets for their content on online platforms — Malaysia said on Tuesday it is considering regulations that will make internet giants Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) …
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Charter's demands on Disney that led to the blackout could soon pressure rivals like Fox, NBCU, Paramount, and WBD, raising the risk of more carriage disputes — Disney on Thursday yanked its popular TV networks, which include ESPN, ABC and Disney Channel, from Charter's Spectrum cable service …
Discussion:
The Hollywood Reporter, Reuters, Awful Announcing, The Verge, New York Times, The Desk, Bloomberg and Forbes
James Clayton / BBC:
EU study: social media companies have failed to stop pro-Russian disinformation and the “reach and influence of Kremlin-backed accounts” grew further in 2023 — Social media companies have failed to stop “large-scale” Russian disinformation campaigns since the invasion of Ukraine, the EU has said.