Top News:
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.”
Discussion:
@amanpour, The Hill, Washington Post, The Daily Caller, @anders_aslund, Mediaite, @albats, Newser, @darthputinkgb, @billbrowder, @kasparov63, @bbcstever, @maxseddon, @ianbremmer, @iaponomarenko, THE DC PATRIOT, @sarahrainsford, @yarotrof, El País, @anneapplebaum, Newsweek, @walshfreedom, @radiofreetom, @repdonbeyer, @jaketapper, The Hollywood Reporter, @anthony, @adamscochran, @dszeligowski, @decodingfoxnews, @edwardgluce, @abbydphillip, @ggreenwald, @shayan86, @jakluge, @shteyngart, @phillipspobrien, @fermerzpolissia, @john_mcguirk, @2russophobic4u, @elonmusk, @p_kallioniemi, @oalexanderdk, @saintjavelin, @dkaleniuk, @jimmysecuk, @florida_sophia, @eliothiggins, @gretagrace20, @growing_daniel, @maxseddon, @ianbremmer, The Wrap, inews.co.uk, New York Post, Bloomberg, Rolling Stone, The Guardian and Reuters
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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” — Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Wednesday that Vladimir Putin gave an interview …
Discussion:
Mediaite, Telegraph, TechCrunch, @dylanburns1776, @meduza_en, Associated Press, Barrett News Media, VICE, @maxseddon, @ronfilipkowski, @michaeldweiss, Reuters, Rolling Stone, Washington Post, @apocalypticanow.bsky.social, The Daily Caller, Reason, Poynter, The Daily Beast, KEYT-TV, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, HuffPost, Media Matters for America, New Republic, Variety, CBS News and New York Times
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 — Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said in a video posted to X on Tuesday that he is in Moscow to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Discussion:
@tuckercarlson, BBC, New York Times, Mediaite, THE DC PATRIOT, Reuters, Politico, BBC, The Guardian, @ozkaterji, @maxseddon, @ianbremmer, Barrett News Media, @rferl, @jason, @jonathanlanday, @justinbaragona, @maxseddon, @karaswisher@threads.net, @karaswisher@threads.net, Radio Free Europe/Radio …, @mediaite@threads.net, The Daily Beast, Deadline, @warrenterra.bsky.social, @everythingism.bsky.social, New York Times, The Kyiv Independent, The Kyiv Independent, The Hill, The Daily Caller, The Wrap, @kevinrothrock@infosec …, The Daily Beast, The Hollywood Reporter, Daily Kos and Columbia Journalism Review
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.
Discussion:
@jaguaranalytics, The Wrap, @nataliekorach and @pressgazette
RELATED:
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 — At the end of the year, The Times had 10.36 million subscribers, 9.7 million of them digital-only.
Discussion:
Nieman Lab, @benjstrauss, @palewire, @katie_robertson, @thestalwart, @thestalwart and The Information
Wall Street Journal:
Fox, ESPN, and WBD announce a new joint venture to launch a streaming sports service in the US in the fall of 2024; each entity will own a third of the JV — The service will be available to ESPN+, Hulu and Max subscribers.
Discussion:
CNBC, The Streamable, Business Insider, Awful Announcing, Radio & Television …, Gizmodo, ESPN Press Room U.S., Axios, Cord Cutters News, Next TV, @sherman4949, @sherman4949, Poynter, @sdkstl, Sports Media Watch, Charlie Boss on LinkedIn, Andrew Wamugi on LinkedIn, AllEars.Net, @sherman4949, masslive.com, 9to5Mac, @michaelsaves, The Hill, @jbflint, Tom Burke on LinkedIn, @jeffjarvis, @fiddleelphier, @jacobfeldman4, @sherman4949, @jacobfeldman4, @tvmojoe, @tvmojoe, @tim_bays, @novy_williams, @jtoonkel, @mattbelloni, @lucas_shaw, @sherman4949, @eriqgardner, @bristei, @loudmouthjulia, Newser, Reuters, Deadline, Associated Press, Sportico, The Hollywood Reporter, Dan Rayburn on LinkedIn, The Daily Caller, The Verge, Adweek, Engadget, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, MediaPost, New York Times, Dakotah Rice on LinkedIn, @pkafka@threads.net, USA Today, Barrett Media, @blackamazon.bsky.social, Bloomberg, UPROXX, The Desk, New York Daily News, Ad Age, Digital Trends and Forbes, more at Techmeme »
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / Business Insider:
A sports streaming platform jointly owned by Disney, WBD, and Fox could reshape the TV industry but could also anger pay TV distributors and sports leagues — - A new sports-focused streaming platform could anger pay TV distributors and sports leagues. — Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery …
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.
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.
Jared Holt / The Daily Beast:
How the author of notorious Hollywood gossip blog Crazy Days and Nights inadvertently revealed his identity to a Florida court following an extramarital affair — The story of how his identity was revealed could have been ripped from his own blind-items gossip site.
Discussion:
@eriqgardner and @katienotopoulos
HEATED:
The New York Times' The Daily ran a greenwashing BP ad on its January 31 podcast, despite a 2021 pledge by the NYT to ban sponsorships by oil and gas companies — The Daily promised to end fossil fuel sponsorships in 2021. BP promised to stop “corporate reputation advertising” in 2020.
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Fox Corp reports Q2 revenue down 8.7% YoY to $4.2B, net income down 64% YoY to $115M, affiliate fee revenue up 4% YoY to $1.8B, and ad revenue down 20% to $2B — The owner of Fox and Fox News saw affiliate fees rise, but ad revenue fall. — Fox met Wall Street earnings expectations …
Discussion:
The Desk, MediaPost, Fox Corp, WORLD SCREEN, @tvgrimreaper, Deadline, Variety and The Wrap
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Plex launches a movie rentals storefront offering movies from top studios, including WB, Paramount, MGM, Lionsgate, and A24, initially in the US — Fresh on the heels of its $40 million fundraise, streaming media company Plex is today announcing its expansion into a new business: a movie rentals storefront.
Discussion:
The Streamable, Media Play News and 9to5Mac
Patrick Frater / Variety:
Alibaba takes a ~$1.2B impairment charge against its video streaming service Youku, acquired in November 2015 and attributed a $5.5B valuation at the time — Chinese e-commerce and entertainment giant Alibaba has taken a $1.2 billion goodwill impairment charge against its video-streaming operation Youku.
Discussion:
The Information and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »