Top News:
Jennifer Maas / Variety:
Disney+ lost 1.3M subscribers in Q4 2023 to 111.3M, with Disney+ Hotstar adding 700K subscribers to 38.3M, and narrows its streaming business' losses by $300M — In its financials, which cover the Mouse House's first quarter for its fiscal year 2024, Disney projects adding between 5.5 million …
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Sarah Whitten / CNBC:
Disney plans to invest $1.5B for a stake in Epic Games and work with the gaming studio to create new games with content from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and more — - Disney is investing $1.5 billion for an equity stake in Epic Games in its biggest jump yet into the gaming world.
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Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Disney says it plans to launch ESPN's D2C service in August or the fall of 2025, and include integration with ESPN's fantasy platforms and ESPN Bet — - ESPN will launch its flagship direct-to-consumer streaming service in the fall of 2025, Disney CEO Bob Iger said Wednesday.
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Sarah Whitten / CNBC:
Disney reports Q1 revenue of $23.55B, about the same from a year ago, operating income up 27% YoY to $3.9B, and raises its guidance; $DIS up 5%+ — - Disney beat quarterly earnings estimates and raised its guidance, as it saw progress in its effort to cut costs. — The company slashed its streaming business losses.
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Claudia Chiappa / Politico:
Tucker Carlson faces backlash from American and Russian journalists after claiming that Western media is not making an effort to hear Putin's side of the story — The controversial pundit is interviewing the Russian leader. Now other journalists are raging at “this SoB.”
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Meduza.io:
Russia says Tucker Carlson is “not correct” to say no Western reporter tried to interview Putin, and Carlson is different from “traditional Anglo-Saxon media”
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Dave Lawler / Axios:
Former Fox host Tucker Carlson says he has traveled to Moscow to interview Vladimir Putin and will air the interview “unedited” on his website and on X
Discussion:
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Jem Aswad / Variety:
Memo: Warner Music plans to lay off 10% of its staff, or 600 people, wind down its podcast network Interval Presents, and sell the websites Uproxx and HipHopDX — The tough news continues for the music industry as Warner Music announced that it will lay off 10% of its staff, or 600 people, in the coming weeks.
Dade Hayes / Deadline:
Fubo says it is concerned about the “impact on fair market competition” after Disney, Fox, and WBD announced a sports streaming platform; FUBO closed down 20%+ — Streaming pay-TV operator Fubo, after its stock plunged 23%, issued a statement blasting the new sports streaming …
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The New York Times Company:
The NYT reports Q4 revenue up 1.3% YoY to $676M, subscription revenue up 3.3% YoY to $404M, and a $129M operating profit; Athletic revenue grew 31.3% to $38.5M — NEW YORK, February 7, 2024 - The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) announced today fourth- quarter and full-year 2023 results.
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Katie Robertson / New York Times:
The NYT finished 2023 with 10.36M subscribers, 9.7M of them digital-only, helping push annual revenue for digital subscriptions above $1B for the first time
Discussion:
Nieman Lab, @benjstrauss, @katie_robertson, @palewire, @thestalwart, @thestalwart and The Information
Kate Knibbs / Wired:
An interview with Nebojša Vujinović Vujo, who runs 2,000+ AI-generated news sites, often hosted on once-popular domains, and claims to have ~12 human editors — Serbian DJ turned internet entrepreneur Nebojša Vujinović Vujo floods abandoned news sites with AI-generated articles.
Natalie Korach / The Wrap:
News Corp Q2: revenue up 3% YoY to $2.59B, vs. $2.58B est., net income up 95% to $183M, Dow Jones with its highest quarterly revenue since its 2007 acquisition — The second quarter of 2024 marked the highest quarterly Dow Jones revenues since its acquisition in 2007
Discussion:
Billboard, Reuters, @katie_robertson, @katie_robertson and News Corp
Ted Lipien / The Hill:
Current and ex-VOA journalists criticize the US agency for uploading propaganda messages from Putin and Alexander Lukashenko on its YouTube without any context — Voice of America (VOA), the U.S. government-funded media agency, created and uploaded to its YouTube channel a video …
Kara Swisher / New York Magazine:
An excerpt from Kara Swisher's upcoming book, Burn Book: covering digital media in the '90s, Facebook and Google becoming information gatekeepers, and more — My front-row seat to a slow-moving catastrophe. — In the early 1990s, I was a reporter at the Washington Post.
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