Top News:
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
Discussion:
Mediaite, @pressgazette and @jeremymbarr
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.
Discussion:
Reuters, Variety, @chandrarsrikant, The Hollywood Reporter, Bloomberg and Deadline, more at Techmeme »
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.
Discussion:
Sky News, Press Gazette, @alexcrawfordsky and @clarissaward
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
Jennifer Maas / Variety:
Nexstar Q4: $1.3B net revenue, down from $1.5B YoY, core ad revenue down 5.9% to $449M, with political ad sales down 88.7% to $30M, and a $52M loss for the CW — Nexstar reported its fourth-quarter 2023 earnings Wednesday, revealing its TV ad sales were down 36% from Oct. 1- Dec. 31.
Discussion:
The Desk, @matthewkeyslive, @matthewkeyslive and Business Wire
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.
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 — Tumblr and WordPress.com are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge …
Discussion:
Business Insider, The Verge, Automattic, @jasonkoebler@mastodon.social, Bhagyashree Pancholy on LinkedIn, Rafael Brown on LinkedIn, Simon Cox on LinkedIn, MediaNama, @wbm312, Art L. on LinkedIn, @wbm312, DOODLEMANCY, Morten Rand-Hendriksen on LinkedIn, Gizmodo, Dead Pasts, Dread Futures, Tumbling Like Alice, @michellemanafy@journa.host, Cyanide E., @rahaeli.bsky.social, @rahaeli.bsky.social, mutatis mutandis, @scottandrew@xoxo.zone, @wonkeythemonkey …, @proprietor@wandering.shop, @danilo@hachyderm.io, @theomegabit@infosec.exchange, @paulknightly@mstdn.social, @Thorin@mastodon.social, @ipstenu@tech.lgbt, @reillypascal@hachyderm.io, @bedirthan@dice.camp, @mitten@social.lol, @404mediaco@mastodon.social, h, PIXEL ART, Cassandraic and just like a centipede!, more at Techmeme »
Marina E. Franco / Axios:
Mexican President Obrador reading aloud an NYT reporter's cellphone number during his widely broadcast morning presser shows perils of reporting in the country — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's repeated claims that he has a “political right” …
Discussion:
New York Times, New York Times, Committee to Protect …, Fox News, The Hill, The Daily Beast and Fox News
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.”
Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:
Unionized editorial workers at LexisNexis-owned Law360 authorize a strike; the union says the vote is partly due to planned layoffs after record profits in 2023 — Unionized editorial workers at LexisNexis-owned Law360 voted to authorize a strike Monday. — The union says the strike …
Discussion:
@law360union and NewsGuild of New York
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 — OpenAI has asked a federal judge to dismiss parts of the New York Times (NYT.N) copyright lawsuit against it …
Discussion:
United States District Court, Shelly Palmer, WinBuzzer, MSPoweruser, @benjaminjriley, @eriqgardner, Quartz, Ars Technica, Forbes, The Verge, Business Insider, MediaPost, Jeff Jarvis on LinkedIn, CNBC, The Hill, @RinostarGames@mastodon …, @wtfismyip@gnu.gl and New York Times, more at Techmeme »
Antenna:
Among premium SVODs, US subscriber growth fell from 21.6% YoY in 2022 to 10.1% YoY in 2023; 140.5M cancelled their subscriptions in 2023 vs. 104.3M in 2022 — The headlines suggesting that the boom times are over for streaming video have been unavoidable.
Discussion:
Quartz, IndieWire, Media Play News, Reuters and MediaPost
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