Mediagazer: In a lawsuit, a Disney employee claims she was sexually assaulted by former VP of distribution Nolan Gonzales and that management didn't escalate concerns to HR (Winston Cho/The Hollywood Reporter)

11:40 PM ET, January 3, 2024

Top News:

A look at the men allied with Nelson Peltz and their histories with Disney: Ike Perlmutter, the ousted Marvel chairman, and former Disney CFO Jay Rasulo — As ousted Marvel mogul Ike Perlmutter and activist investor Nelson Peltz enlist former Disney exec Jay Rasulo in their quest to reshape the studio …

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Variety:

Blackwells nominates three candidates to Disney's board to rival Nelson Peltz's proxy fight, and says Disney's ValueAct deal is “a disappointing defensive move” — Disney and CEO Bob Iger have secured votes of confidence from two key allies in the company's proxy fight with Nelson Peltz.

Discussion: GlobeNewswire News Room, @xpangler, Radio & Television … and Reuters

Michael Flaherty / Axios:

Hedge funds vie for power at Disney: ValueAct supports Disney's board slate, Trian and Ancora support Nelson Peltz, and Blackwells pushes other board candidates — Trian, ValueAct, Ancora and Blackwells — it's a fight within a fight. … ValueAct, in turn, said it would support Disney's slate of directors.

Discussion: IndieWire, Los Angeles Times, UPI, The A.V. Club, Reuters, New York Post, Wall Street Journal, The Information, The Wrap and Bloomberg

Ben Scent / Bloomberg:
Disney signs a confidentiality agreement to share information with shareholder ValueAct, which will support Disney's board nominees and consult with the company

Discussion: The Information, The Walt Disney Company, Next TV, Variety, Deadline, Reuters, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and The Hollywood Reporter, more at Techmeme »

Oliver Darcy:

Internal note: Alex MacCallum, who became The Washington Post's chief revenue officer in July 2023, is leaving; sources: she's in talks to join CNN — News: Alex MacCallum, the digital product whiz who I've confirmed is in discussions with CNN about joining the org under network chief Mark Thompson …

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Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Athan Stephanopoulos plans to leave as CNN's chief digital officer at the end of January, the second turnover of digital executives at CNN since WBD took over

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Advanced Television:

Nielsen: Prime Video's Thursday Night Football averaged 11.86M viewers per game in the US during the 2023 season, up 24% from 2022 season's 9.58M viewers — Prime Video's second season of exclusive Thursday Night Football (TNF) in the US saw substantial viewership gains and set multiple …

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Marc Schneider / Billboard:

UMG and Tencent Music Entertainment renew their licensing agreement, allowing Tencent to distribute UMG content on QQ Music, Kogou Music, Kuwo Music, and WeSing — “UMG will continue to work with TME to bring the very best in music to these passionate music consumers.”

Discussion: Variety, Tencent Music Entertainment … and Music Business Worldwide

Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter:

In a lawsuit, a Disney employee claims she was sexually assaulted by former VP of distribution Nolan Gonzales and that management didn't escalate concerns to HR — The plaintiff, suing as a Jane Doe, claims she was assaulted by former vice president of distribution Nolan Gonzales …

Discussion: The Wrap, Deadline and Bloomberg Law

Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:

MPA: the Asia Pacific video industry grew 5.5% in 2023 to hit $145B in revenue, with a 13% jump in online video sales to $57B; TV revenue grew under 1% to $98B — The video industry in the region grew by 5.5 percent in 2023 to hit $145 billion in revenue, says research firm MPA.

Discussion: Livemint, @livemint and WORLD SCREEN

Max Tani / Semafor:

Sources: The Messenger's board weighed shutting the site down, at a December 29 meeting, and Jimmy Finkelstein has expressed a willingness to sell the site — The Scoop — The board of the startup news organization The Messenger weighed shutting the publication down at a meeting on Friday …

Michael Schneider / Variety:

After a WGA protest, the Television Academy and Fox reverse an earlier plan and return the Emmy for variety series outstanding writing to the Emmys telecast — In a joint release sent out today, the Television Academy, Fox and the WGA said they were “happy to announce they have reached …

Discussion: IndieWire, The Wrap, The Hollywood Reporter and @wgawest

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Twitch changes its sexual content policies again and says the platform won't allow streamers to “imply or suggest that they are fully or partially nude” — Twitch is changing its sexual content policies again, this time to prohibit implied nudity on the platform.

Discussion: safety.twitch.tv, Gizmodo, @MikeElgan@mastodon.social, TechCrunch, ClutchPoints, @carnage4life@mas.to and Forbes, more at Techmeme »

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:

T-Mobile plans to bundle Hulu's ad-supported tier with its Go5G Next plan from January 24; Netflix and Apple TV+ are already free on the Go5G Next plan — The mobile carrier already offers complimentary Netflix and Apple TV+ on its Go5G Next plan. … The telecom giant says that it is …

Discussion: The Desk, The Streamable, BGR, The Information, 9to5Mac, Variety, MediaPost and Cord Cutters News

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Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
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Christopher Williams / Telegraph:
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Ray Schultz / MediaPost:
Quebec City's Le Soleil newspaper, founded in 1896, ends its print edition, going fully digital; the newspaper started printing on Saturdays only in March 2020

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Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:
BPI: UK consumers streamed 179.6B audio tracks in 2023, up 12.8% YoY; women artists topped the UK's official singles chart for a record 31 of the 52 chart-weeks

Discussion: BPI, CMU, BPI, Music Week, The Guardian, Financial Times and Music Ally

Jay Peters / The Verge:
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Casey Newton says Platformer will meet with Substack, hoping Substack will remove pro-Nazi content, and Platformer plans to leave if Substack fails to do so

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Sarah Krouse / Wall Street Journal:
Antenna: 6.3% of US customers cancelled major streaming services in November 2023, up from 5.1% YoY; 24% canceled three or more services over the past two years

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Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
In an email, Cheddar furloughs at least some employees, effective immediately, and bars them from further work, blaming unforeseen internal and external factors

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From Techmeme:

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority:
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Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is testing a more conversational version of Siri, dubbed “LLM Siri”, with plans to release it in spring 2026 as part of iOS 19 and macOS 16

The Information:
Sources: OpenAI considered making a browser, discussed deals to power AI features on Samsung devices and search on sites and apps from Condé Nast and others

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