Top News:
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Disney has pulled ahead in its proxy battle against Trian with more than half of all shares voted; BlackRock and T. Rowe Price are backing Disney — BlackRock and T. Rowe Price among major investors backing Disney; voting continues through April 3 meeting
Discussion:
CNBC, The Wrap, Variety, Reuters, Puck, @xpangler, Quartz, Los Angeles Times, Barron's Online, Deadline, @rwhelanwsj, Reuters, @profpaulnary, @cararlombardo and MediaPost
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Alex Sherman / CNBC:
A profile of Dana Walden, who is in the running to be Bob Iger's successor as Disney CEO, as some colleagues and friends discuss her strengths and faults — Dana Walden, co-chair of Disney Entertainment — In 1994, a captain of the media and entertainment industry saw something in Dana Walden …
Discussion:
New York Post and @sherman4949
Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg:
Disney's streaming strategy and losses led to Nelson Peltz's proxy fight, but placating Peltz in April 3's vote to shuffle the board likely won't fix the issues
Disney's streaming strategy and losses led to Nelson Peltz's proxy fight, but placating Peltz in April 3's vote to shuffle the board likely won't fix the issues
Discussion:
CNN, Los Angeles Times, CNBC, @tvgrimreaper, Scott Bisang on LinkedIn, Quartz, Variety and Fox Business
Sara Fischer / Axios:
On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart says Apple asked him not to interview FTC chair Lina Khan on his Apple podcast by saying “please don't talk to her” — - “Apple's conduct extends beyond just monopoly profits and even affects the flow of speech.
Discussion:
Variety, The Daily Show on YouTube, The Wrap, The Hollywood Reporter, CNN, Business Insider, The Verge, New York Post, Vanity Fair, Quartz, Decider, @lutherlowe, @thedailyshow, @benremaly, @jason_kint, @nick_field90, @linakhanftc, UPROXX, @lutherlowe, @ashleygjovik, @jason_kint, @ddayen, @carlyshandle, @douglaslfarrar, @wbm312, @jason_kint, 9to5Mac and Deadline, more at Techmeme »
Reuters:
Israeli parliament approves a bill allowing the temporary closure of foreign broadcasters, like Al Jazeera, considered a national security threat — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revived moves on Monday to shut down Qatari satellite television station Al Jazeera in Israel …
Discussion:
Al Jazeera, Jerusalem Post, Reporters Without Borders, CNN, Reuters, The Guardian, Deadline, The Hill, Axios, The Daily Beast, @rmsalih, @rafat, Broadband TV News, @jewishwarrior13, Euractiv, Fox News, @ramabdu, @ashtonpittman, Financial Times, @susurros@kolektiva.social, Voice of America, The Wrap and @freakazoid@retro.social
David Pierce / The Verge:
Yahoo plans to acquire the tech behind news app Artifact, started by Instagram co-founders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom, for an undisclosed sum — Instagram's co-founders built a powerful and useful tool for recommending news to readers — but could never quite get it to scale.
Discussion:
The Wrap, TechCrunch, Yahoo, @mikeisaac, @carnage4life@threads.net, Andrew Machado on LinkedIn, @simondowens@threads.net, @eaustinj@threads.net, @parkerortolani@threads.net, @mcwm, @y_molodtsov, @mediaevan, @alex, @2ajit2tweet, @artifact_news, @mjburnsy, Sona Iliffe-Moon on LinkedIn, @yevp, @kerrymflynn, @imdavidpierce@threads.net, @jlanzone, @mgsiegler, @ryanspoon and @tomwarren, more at Techmeme »
Deepa Seetharaman / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: OpenAI discussed training GPT-5 on public YouTube video transcripts; AI companies struggle to find quality training data as publishers block access — Firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic are working to find enough information to train next-generation artificial-intelligence models
Discussion:
@alex, @dkobia, @davidclinchnews, @jeffjarvis, @carnage4life and @chronotope.aramzs.xyz
Elizabeth Lopatto / The Verge:
A look at the fall of Vice, thanks to wild expenses, shady deals, greed, “fanfiction finance”, and a lack of understanding of how newsrooms work — Vice was once promised to become the brash young voice of news. But wild expenses, shady deals, and greed turned it into ‘a fucking clown show.’
Kimberly Nordyke / The Hollywood Reporter:
CBS and the Golden Globes plan to air the 82nd annual ceremony on January 5, 2025, live on CBS and streaming on Paramount+ in the US — Organizers also finalized the timetable for submissions across the awards' film and TV categories. — CBS and the Golden Globes have set Jan. 5 as the date for the 82nd annual ceremony.
Discussion:
Billboard, The Wrap, The Ankler, Next TV and Deadline
Brett Martin / New York Times:
A profile of Matt Farley, who has released thousands of songs under ~80 pseudonyms on music streaming services with the goal of matching nearly any search query — Matt Farley has released thousands of songs with the goal of producing a result to match nearly anything anybody could think to search for.
Matthew Keys / The Desk:
MoffettNathanson forecasts YouTube TV will have ~12.4M US subscribers by 2026's end, passing Comcast and Charter to become the country's biggest pay TV provider — The service is expected to surpass Xfinity TV and Spectrum TV in subscriber count by 2026. — Google's streaming cable …
Discussion:
@tvgrimreaper, 9to5Google, Next TV, MediaPost, The Streamable and Cord Cutters News
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Steven Miron and Steven Newhouse resign from WBD board after the US DOJ informed them it launched an antitrust probe about serving on the boards of competitors — Miron, CEO of media company Advance/Newhouse Partnership and a senior executive officer at the Newhouse family's investment business Advance …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Q&A with Paramount Streaming CEO and Pluto TV co-founder Tom Ryan on Pluto's first decade, Viacom acquisition, Paramount+ being profitable by 2025's end, more — Tom Ryan co-founded the free, ad-supported streaming service Pluto TV, which launched 10 years ago with a linear TV-like grid and a cluster of …