Check out Mini-Mediagazer for simple mobiles or Mediagazer Mobile for modern smartphones.
9:20 AM ET, February 28, 2024

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
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
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 …
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.”
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 …
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.
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 9:20 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
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
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
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
 Earlier Picks: 
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
Dan Rys / Billboard:
UMG buys a majority stake in Nigeria-based record label Mavin Global in a deal expected to close by Q3; Mavin was reportedly valued at north of $125M in October
Alexandra Topping / The Guardian:
The BBC says it will bolster its procedures for dealing with non-editorial complaints, after finding shortcomings in dealing with a complaint about Huw Edwards
Inside Radio:
Kagan: in 2023, radio industry revenue totaled $15.15B, down 1.5% from $15.39B in 2022, and there were $212.5M worth of radio deals, down 35.6% YoY from $329.9M
Discussion: S&P Global
 

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

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