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, Reuters, Variety, Puck, @xpangler, Quartz, Los Angeles Times, Barron's Online, Deadline, @rwhelanwsj, Reuters, @profpaulnary, @cararlombardo and MediaPost
RELATED:
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
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, Business Insider, CNN, The Verge, New York Post, Vanity Fair, Gizmodo, 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 Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom's Artifact for an undisclosed sum; Yahoo is buying the news app's tech, not the team — 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, @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:
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.
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg:
Flip, a marketplace with product review videos by shoppers, raised a $144M Series C led by Streamlined at a $1.05B valuation, including $50M from AppLovin — - Ad software firm AppLovin invested $50 million in commerce app — App features video reviews of products made by other shoppers
Discussion:
AppLovin Corp.
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 …