Mediagazer: Fox News takes down a six-part streaming series that staged a mock trial of Hunter Biden, a day after Biden's legal team threatened to sue the network (David Folkenflik/NPR)

8:00 AM ET, May 1, 2024

Top News:

Jacob Bryant / The Wrap:

Fubo cuts ties with WBD after renewal negotiations for their partnership fell through, citing WBD's “abuse of massive market power” as cause for the decision — The media company accuses WBD of refusing “to engage in good faith negotiations” — Fubo cut ties with Warner Bros. Discovery …

Discussion: The Verge, Yahoo Finance, The Desk, The Streamable, Awful Announcing, Variety, Deadline and MediaPost

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 …

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 …

Discussion: @simonjharris, @dcurtis, @christianhern, @benedictevans@threads.net, Media Play News, The Wrap, The Hollywood Reporter, Cord Cutters News and Deadline, more at Techmeme »

Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon reports Q1 revenue up 13% YoY to $143.3B, a $10.4B net income, vs. $3.2B YoY, $15.3B operating income, vs. $4.8B YoY, subscription sales up 11% to $10.7B

Discussion: Annie Palmer on LinkedIn, Richard King on LinkedIn, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »

Jake Kanter / Deadline:

Four female BBC News presenters start legal action against BBC, saying they were forced off air for a year and were victims of a “sham” hiring process in 2023 — Four female BBC News presenters have commenced legal action against the UK broadcaster, arguing they were forced off air …

Discussion: @jake_kanter and @jake_kanter

Christopher Palmeri / Bloomberg:

Comcast expects its cable TV customers to lose access to 15 Bally regional sports networks at midnight in a fee dispute with Diamond Sports Group — “We'd like to continue carrying their networks, but they have declined multiple offers and now we no longer have the rights to this programming …

Discussion: MLive.com, businesswire.com, The Desk, The Streamable, Awful Announcing, Cord Cutters News and Sportico

David Folkenflik / NPR:

Fox News takes down a six-part streaming series that staged a mock trial of Hunter Biden, a day after Biden's legal team threatened to sue the network — Fox News has pulled down a six-part series in which it staged a mock trial of hypothetical criminal charges against Hunter Biden …

Discussion: @hadas_gold, @davidfolkenflik, The Daily Beast, New Republic, New York Post, CNN, Washington Post, Mediaite, The Gateway Pundit, The Hill and Deadline

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

Sara Guaglione / Digiday:

The Athletic has ~2.95M newsletter subscribers, up nearly 20% YoY; Comscore: the outlet had 17.6M unique US visitors in March 2024, up from 6.6M in March 2023 — This article was provided as an exclusive preview for Digiday+ members, who were able to access it early.

Discussion: Inbox Collective, Awful Announcing, Chris Sprow on LinkedIn, Meg Linehan on LinkedIn and Claudio E. Cabrera on LinkedIn

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

Discussion: @sebsb, @nytimespr and @adamcrafton_

Bloomberg:

A look at potential Telegraph bidders after RedBird IMI walked: Daily Mail proprietor Jonathan Harmsworth, Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, Murdoch, and more — - Conservative-leaning UK newspaper is a coveted media asset — UAE-backed takeover was thwarted by British politicians

Discussion: Reuters, Telegraph, Al Jazeera, City A.M., The Wrap, Financial Times, The Guardian and Deadline

Natalie B. Compton / Washington Post:

A profile of Rick Steves, whose travel company makes $120M yearly, published 110 books, filmed 12 seasons of his travel show, and produced 750+ podcast episodes — Travel mogul. Philanthropist. Legal weed champion. The real Rick Steves is so much more complex than who you see on TV.

Discussion: @rodmickleburgh, @journalism_joe, @washingtonpost, @rr_edmonds, @greenmelinda, @mswaichingliu81, @sirlupin2, @natbco and @byerussell

Financial Times:

In tests run by executives in advertising, animation, and real estate, OpenAI's Sora generated people with more realistic facial features than Runway or Pika — The FT asked workers in animation, advertising and real estate to test rival AI systems that create short clips

Discussion: @cristinacriddle

BBC Studios:

The BBC launches BBC Verify US to combat disinformation, led by Analysis Editor Ros Atkins and based in DC, as part of its 2024 US elections coverage plans — Brand New Digital Experience Enables Up-to-the-Minute, 360-Content via All-New BBC.com, BBC app, Daily Live Pages, Podcasts, Newsletters, and More

Discussion: @leng_cath, @caitrionaperry, @ejhchess, @bbcstudiosuspr, @pressgazette, @back_the_bbc and Ros Atkins on LinkedIn

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

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 »

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Nielsen:
US audiences gave 67% of their daily ad-supported audio time to over-the-air radio in Q1, 20% to podcasts, and the rest to streaming audio or satellite radio

Discussion: Business Insider, RADIO ONLINE and Inside Radio

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

Discussion: Streaming Better

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”

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

Discussion: Reuters, MediaPost and Engadget

Earlier Picks:

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

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

Discussion: Media Voices, @rafat, Tubefilter, @beehiiv, @denk_tweets, @iamjasonlevin, The Information, Faraz Fatemi on LinkedIn, @ryansingel@writing.exchange, Jacob Wolf on LinkedIn, @simondowens@threads.net and Beehiiv

Alex Barinka / Bloomberg:
In its first TikTok Shop Safety Report, TikTok reports 500K+ sellers in the US and 15M+ sellers worldwide in December 2023, adding 6M+ in H2 2023

Discussion: The Independent

Mia Sato / The Verge:
Instagram updates its recommendation algorithms to remove aggregator accounts, hoping to promote original content and increase distribution to smaller accounts

Discussion: Wired, @liahaberman, @liahaberman, @howfxr, Spyglass, Engadget and TechCrunch

From Techmeme:

Qianer Liu / The Information:
Sources: Intel and TSMC have reached a preliminary agreement to form a joint venture that will operate Intel's chipmaking facilities; TSMC will take a 20% stake

Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
OpenAI makes ChatGPT Plus free for college students in the US and Canada until the end of May 2025, intensifying competition with Anthropic in higher education

Will Oremus / Washington Post:
An increasingly vocal contingent of GOP leaders, some of whom attended Y Combinator's Little Tech Competition Summit, call for antitrust action against Big Tech

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