Check out Mini-Mediagazer for simple mobiles or Mediagazer Mobile for modern smartphones.
11:35 AM ET, February 28, 2024

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Reliance and Disney merge their media businesses in India, creating the country's largest media conglomerate; Reliance values it at $8.5B and will invest $1.4B  —  Reliance, its portfolio Viacom18 and Disney are merging their media businesses in India, creating the largest media entity in the South Asian market.
RELATED:
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Filing: Disney will take non-cash pre-tax impairment charges of $1.8B to $2.4B related to Reliance JV; Disney will be a minority shareholder with a 36.8% stake  —  Reliance will invest $1.4 billion into the joint venture, which is valued at $8.5 billion, while Disney will provide a content license.
Discussion: Reuters and Deadline
Jeremy Barr / Washington Post:
Mehdi Hasan raises $4M to launch Zeteo, a digital media company on Substack, offering a weekly streaming show he hosts, contributor pieces, a podcast, and more  —  Hasan, whose MSNBC cancellation triggered an outpouring from fans, follows other political pundits who have struck out on their own
Jake Kanter / Deadline:
A group of top journalists, including from CNN, BBC, and CBS, sign an open letter asking Israel and Egypt to provide foreign media “unfettered access” to Gaza  —  A group of top international journalists have joined forces to demand that Israel and Egypt provide foreign media with “unfettered access” to Gaza.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: TikTok reached out to Universal with a proposal the music company felt didn't address its concerns on compensation, platform safety, or AI protections  —  Universal's showdown with the platform is testing the value of the seconds-long song snippet—and who has the most power in today's music economy
RELATED:
Jem Aswad / Variety:
TikTok removes all songs published by Universal Music Publishing Group, expanding a licensing spat; at first only songs owned or distributed by UMG were removed
Angelique Jackson / Variety:
Study: 77 of the top 100 top-grossing domestic films in the US in 2023 featured more male characters than female characters in speaking roles  —  The latest 'It's a Man's (Celluloid) World' report shows 77% of movies had more male than female characters  —  A new study indicates that the tenets …
Discussion: Screen Rant, IndieWire and Deadline
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Axel Springer and 31 other media groups in Europe file a $2.3B lawsuit against Google, alleging that they suffered losses due to its digital ad practices  —  Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google was hit with a 2.1-billion-euro ($2.3 billion) lawsuit by 32 media groups including Axel Springer and Schibsted …
more at Techmeme »
Newshub:
WBD proposes shutting down Newshub, one of New Zealand's major newsrooms, on June 30, as part of which ~200 journalists and other staff could lose their jobs  —  One of the country's major newsrooms could close, thanks to a collapse in TV advertising revenue and changes in viewing habits.
Byron Tau / Wired:
A look at some government contractors that are helping US intelligence agencies and others use targeted mobile ads to track down people  —  Meet the guy who taught US intelligence agencies how to make the most of the ad tech ecosystem, “the largest information-gathering enterprise ever conceived by man.”
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 11:35 AM ET, February 28, 2024.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 See Also: 
Mediagazer: site main
Mediagazer River: reverse chronological Mediagazer
Mediagazer Mobile: for phones
Mediagazer Leaderboard: Mediagazer's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Mediagazer RSS feed
Mediagazer on X
Mediagazer on Mastodon
 
 
 More News: 
Alexis Ong / The Verge:
A look at the underground floppy disk music scene; Discogs data shows 500+ floppy music releases in the 2020s, more than in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s combined
Ben Strauss / Washington Post:
Authentic says it has recouped its ~$90M SI purchase via licensing; sources: SI has 1M print subs, breaks even, and Minute Media is a potential new publisher
Samantha Cole / 404 Media:
Internal docs: Tumblr staff compiled users' data in preparation for deals where Automattic would sell the data to OpenAI and Midjourney to train AI tools
 Earlier Picks: 
Mark Stenberg / Adweek:
Docs: Google is paying a handful of independent publishers a five-figure sum for one year to use an unreleased suite of generative AI tools to post stories
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
Filing: OpenAI asks a US federal judge to dismiss parts of NYT's copyright suit, alleging it “paid someone to hack OpenAI's products” and violated OpenAI's TOS
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Sources: WBD is no longer pursuing a merger with Paramount, Skydance is doing due diligence, and Comcast is exploring commercial partnerships with Paramount
 

 
From Techmeme:

Gavin Anderegg / anderegg.ca:
Bluesky is working to become fully decentralized but it could take years amid financial concerns as it makes money only by selling domains for usernames

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: ByteDance is valuing itself at about $300B as part of a recent buyback offer, one of its highest valuations ever

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: T-Mobile's network was among the systems hacked by the China-linked Salt Typhoon group, and some foreign telecommunications firms were also compromised
 
Sister Sites:

Techmeme
 Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web
memeorandum
 What US political commentators are discussing online right now
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page