Mediagazer: Music rights investor Concord agrees to buy Hipgnosis Songs Fund in a deal valuing the song catalog company at ~$1.4B, capping a period of turmoil for Hipgnosis (Amy Thomson/Bloomberg)

10:50 AM ET, April 18, 2024

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Gene Maddaus / Variety:

A Los Angeles ethics agency fines former CBS CEO Les Moonves $15K for misconduct in obtaining confidential police info about a sexual assault claim against him — Leslie Moonves, the former CEO of CBS, was fined $15,000 on Wednesday by the L.A. City Ethics Commission for obtaining secret information …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, The Wrap, @mhanson101@union.place, @iamiysha.bsky.social, @pppatticake.bsky.social, The Hollywood Reporter, @parsnip.bsky.social, @arunadsouza.bsky.social and Deadline

Souhail Karam / Bloomberg:

A Tunisian court sentences prominent government critic and journalist Mohamed Boughalleb to six months in prison for defamation, renewing press freedom concerns — A Tunisian court jailed for defamation a reporter who's one of President Kais Saied's most prominent critics …

Oliver Darcy / CNN:

Uri Berliner says he is resigning from NPR as he “cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm” NPR's problems — Uri Berliner, a National Public Radio senior editor who wrote a scathing online essay accusing the public radio network …

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Ben Mullin / @benmullin:
About 50 NPR staffers sign a letter to NPR leadership calling for a public rebuke of the “factual inaccuracies and elisions” in Uri Berliner's essay

Discussion: Fox News, The Guardian, New York Post, NPR, MediaPost, Inside Radio, JONATHAN TURLEY, The Wrap and The Daily Beast

Emma Roth / The Verge:

Twitch plans to roll out its TikTok-style discovery feed later in April, letting users scroll clips and livestreams, after testing the feature for a year — After nearly a year of testing, Twitch's new TikTok-style discovery feed will finally roll out to all users later this month.

more at Techmeme »

Jonathan Barrett / The Guardian:

James Warburton, the CEO of Australia's Seven West Media since 2019, steps down; CFO Jeff Howard will take over as CEO starting on April 19 — Media executive's exit comes as broadcaster faces a number of controversies — Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Discussion: Mumbrella, Variety and Deadline

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

An analysis of the gender pay gap in UK media: 76% of the biggest media organizations increased the proportion of women in their top pay tier from 2022 to 2023 — Average gender pay gap across major UK media organisations now stands at 11%. — Three-quarters of the UK's biggest media …

Discussion: @pressgazette

Amy Thomson / Bloomberg:

Music rights investor Concord agrees to buy Hipgnosis Songs Fund in a deal valuing the song catalog company at ~$1.4B, capping a period of turmoil for Hipgnosis — - Concord's long term backer Apollo will provide financing — Hipgnosis struggled to recoup its investment on music rights

Discussion: The Wrap, Variety, Billboard, Financial Times, Reuters, The Guardian, City A.M. and Digital Music News

The Economic Times:

VerSe Innovation, the parent of Indian news aggregator Dailyhunt, acquires New York-based digital magazine store Magzter in an undisclosed cash and stock deal — Homegrown digital newsstand Magzter, founded in 2011 and offering a cross-platform, self-service experience, has been acquired by Dailyhunt.

Discussion: Moneycontrol, YourStory, TechCrunch, Financial Express and Storyboard18

Russell Brandom / Rest of World:

How Oscar winner RRR's success brought a wave of Telugu-language movies to Netflix's US catalog, about 50% of which is now made up of non-English content — Netflix's U.S. catalog has more content in Telugu than in German, Russian, or any dialect of Chinese.

Discussion: @restofworld@restof.social

Kate Knibbs / Wired:

How one author gained a limited copyright for the “selection, coordination, and arrangement of text” from AI, as the US Copyright Office wrestles with AI law — Elisa Shupe was initially rebuffed when she tried to copyright a book she wrote with help from ChatGPT.

Discussion: The Information, @brooklynlaw, @knibbs, @ai_machinations, @magdaromanska, @peterhndrsn, @ai_machinations, @blipclinic, @mahendra.bsky.social and Variety, more at Techmeme »

Sheena Vasani / The Verge:

TikTok starts rolling out TikTok Notes, its Instagram rival for sharing photo and text content, for limited testing in Australia and Canada on Android and iOS — TikTok has started rolling out its Instagram rival, TikTok Notes, to select Android and iOS users “for download and limited testing in Australia and Canada.”

Discussion: @tiktokcomms, Music Ally, The Guardian, @tiktokcomms and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Andrew Deck / Nieman Lab:

A look at Newsweek's use of AI, including in video production, an AI-focused Live News desk for breaking stories, and letting the tech write some first drafts — The legacy publication is leaning on AI for video production, a new breaking news team, and first drafts of some stories.

Discussion: @decka227

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More News:

James Careless / TV Tech:
Parks Associates: US households with internet now consume an average 43.5 hours of video per week across all viewing devices, up from 37.2 hours in 2020

Discussion: The Desk

Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
After Forbes found 120+ YouTube videos and 27 Google ads promoting AI deepfake porn tools and “nudifier” Telegram bots, Google took them down

Discussion: @rashishrivast18, @ttp_updates and @iblametom

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
The European Data Protection Board says large online platforms like Meta should give users an option to use their services for free without behavioral ads

Discussion: The Register, Gadgets 360, @jason_kint, @jason_kint, The Information, Daniel Tunkelang on LinkedIn, @intergalacticdesign …, Christos Zanganas on LinkedIn, Maria Lobato on LinkedIn, @parkert@threads.net, @documentingmeta@threads.net, @daveleebbg@threads.net, edpb.europa.eu and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Steven Kurutz / New York Times:
A profile of Rusty Foster, whose Today in Tabs daily media industry newsletter has 36,000 subscribers, of which ~10% pay $6 per month or $50 per year

Discussion: @anildash@threads.net, The Information and @waxy@xoxo.zone

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Jesse Whittock / Deadline:
Swedish streaming service Viaplay, which shut down its US app in February, launches a $5.99 per month subscription channel on Prime Video Channels

Discussion: Broadband TV News, Advanced Television, Media Play News and Variety

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Snap plans to add watermarks to AI-generated images exported from Snapchat; the watermarks appear as a translucent version of the Snap logo with a sparkle emoji

Discussion: Snapchat

Sam Tobin / Reuters:
UK court documents: actor Hugh Grant settled a lawsuit against The Sun publisher News Group Newspapers over claims of using private investigators to phone tap

From Techmeme:

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Nintendo shares Switch 2 details: a 7.9", 120fps, 1080p display, 4K at 60fps when docked, a custom Nvidia processor, 256GB of storage, and a new Pro Controller

New York Times:
Sources: Amazon has put in a bid to acquire all of TikTok, but various parties involved do not appear to be taking it seriously, ahead of the April 5 deadline

Rachael Bade / Politico:
Sources: President Trump told his inner circle, including Cabinet members, that Elon Musk will step back in the coming weeks; Trump remains pleased with DOGE

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