Mediagazer: Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl and singer FKA twigs testify before a US Senate committee to support a plan to defend people from nonconsensual AI deepfakes (Thania Garcia/Variety)

8:20 PM ET, April 30, 2024

Top News:

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Amazon reports Q1 ad revenue up 24% YoY to $11.8B, vs. $11.7B est., driven by the growth of its Stores and Prime Video businesses — Amazon raked in $11.82 billion in advertising revenue for the first quarter of 2024, topping analyst expectations, fueled by the ecommerce giant's move …

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Annie Palmer / CNBC:

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Sara Guaglione / Digiday:

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The New York Times Company: The Athletic names Laura Williamson as its editor-in-chief for the UK and Europe, making her the first female EIC of a daily sports publication in the UK

Katie Robertson / New York Times:

Eight daily newspapers owned by Alden sue OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of using copyrighted articles without permission to train generative AI products — The suit, which accuses the tech companies of copyright infringement, adds to the fight over the online data used to power artificial intelligence.

Thania Garcia / Variety:

Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl and singer FKA twigs testify before a US Senate committee to support a plan to defend people from nonconsensual AI deepfakes — ‘We must enact regulation now to safeguard our authenticity and protect against misappropriation of our inalienable rights,’ FKA Twigs said.

Discussion: Billboard, The Hill, Senate Judiciary Committee, @rkyncl, The Hill, Tech Policy Press, Rolling Stone, Music Business Worldwide, Consequence, Music Ally and Digital Music News

Ken Klippenstein:

The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein resigns, citing the outlet's corporatization and saying its “fear of funders is more important than journalism itself” — I resigned from The Intercept today in order to pursue a new kind of journalism here on Substack, one more hard-hitting than what's possible in the corporate world.

Sahil Patel / The Information:

Sources: Google has agreed to pay News Corp $5M to $6M annually to develop new AI-related content and products, as part of the Google News Initiative — Google has agreed to pay Wall Street Journal owner News Corp between $5 million and $6 million annually to fund the news organization's development …

Discussion: Reuters, Engadget and MediaPost, more at Techmeme »

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:

Twitch rolls out its TikTok-like discovery feed, launching as a tab within the Twitch iOS and Android apps showing live streams and clips — Twitch is officially rolling out its new TikTok-like discovery feed to all users this week, the company announced on Tuesday.

Discussion: Bloomberg and Traackr, more at Techmeme »

Melvin Backman / Quartz:

WBD shares hit a 52-week low after a WSJ report suggested WBD could lose rights to NBA games, as NBCUniversal is prepared to bid about $2.5B per year for rights — The stock hit a 52-week low and was one of the S&P 500's worst performers of the day — Warner Bros Discovery stock hit …

Tyler Aquilina / Variety:

Survey: 33% of Peacock users were still using the free tier in Q1 2024, though new sign-ups ended in January 2023; 24% of Peacock Premium users stream it daily — As the ever-shifting SVOD business continues to evolve, one key challenge now confronting streamers is how to handle subscription plans that no longer exist.

Discussion: Streaming Better and Adweek

Jennifer Maas / Variety:

Source: Paramount and Charter extend contract renewal talks; the contract, which affects Paramount's cash flow amid buyout talks, was set to expire on April 30 — Paramount Global and Charter Communications agreed to extend their talks on a deal renewal, which — for now …

Discussion: The Wrap, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

NYC-based newsletter platform beehiiv raised a $33M Series B led by NEA, taking its total raised to $46.5M, and says the service has ~20K active newsletters — With the number of people using e-mail globally approaching 5 billion, newsletters delivered regularly into people's inboxes continue …

Discussion: The Information, @iamjasonlevin, @beehiiv, @ryansingel@writing.exchange, Faraz Fatemi on LinkedIn, @simondowens@threads.net, @rafat, @denk_tweets, Beehiiv and Jacob Wolf on LinkedIn, more at Techmeme »

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