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:
@profpaulnary, @cararlombardo, @rwhelanwsj, Scott Bisang on LinkedIn, MediaPost and Reuters
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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 — Who's the hero and who's the villain in this tale of Walt Disney Co.'s battle with activist investors?
Discussion:
Los Angeles Times, Deadline, @tvgrimreaper, Reuters, 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.
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:
@jeffjarvis, @dkobia, @carnage4life, @davidclinchnews, @alex and @chronotope.aramzs.xyz, 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 …
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.’
Discussion:
@reckless1280@threads.net, @alexeheath, @alexyablon and The Guardian
Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:
Amazon strikes a deal to offer Lionsgate and Starz content to MGM+ customers in the UK, following similar deals for other European countries and Latin America — The service will offer series and movies from Lionsgate and Starz in the U.K., including ‘Outlander,’ giving customers access to more hit series and movies.
Discussion:
Variety, Deadline and Advanced Television
Reuters:
Trump Media & Technology Group closed down 21% on April 1, wiping out the gains from last week, after disclosing a $58M+ loss on $4.1M in revenue in 2023 — Shares of Donald Trump's social media company plunged 21% on Monday, wiping out the gains from its debut last week …
Discussion:
CNN, Business Insider, New York Times, Associated Press, Forbes, Axios, TechCrunch, @danprimack, Wccftech, Washington Post, Boing Boing, PCMag, @teroterotero, The Hill, @bgrueskin, New York Post, @jeffjarvis, @drewharwell@threads.net, Quartz, Associated Press, New York Magazine, @bradmunchen, MarketWatch, @turnernovak, @danprimack, Fox Business, @alex, @tomablogger.bsky.social, @austen, The Guardian, @danprimack, Al Jazeera, CBS News, @moskov@threads.net, Mediaite, Deadline, @joshtpm, @nycjim, @mattsheffield@mastodon.social, @datadrivenmd@threads.net, The Daily Beast, Financial Times, @juddlegum, The Daily Beast, @morningbrew, @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social, @lolgop.bsky.social, @toobigtofail.bsky.social, @edbott.com, CNN, Bloomberg, US Securities and Exchange Commission, Fortune, The Wrap, r/Law_and_Politics, r/Trumpvirus and r/technology, more at Techmeme »
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 …
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.
David Bauder / Associated Press:
NBC News' controversy around Ronna McDaniel sparks debate over political contributors' role in TV news and the challenges in representing diverse viewpoints — One of the nation's most prominent news outlets has found itself in an embarrassing mess over the hiring — and quick firing …
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