Mediagazer: Disney Advertising strikes a deal with Walmart Connect to let advertisers target Disney's streamers, including Disney+ and Hulu, using Walmart's shopper data (Kathryn Lundstrom/Adweek)

11:40 AM ET, May 8, 2024

Top News:

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:

The NYT added 210,000 digital subscribers in Q1, for 10.5M subscribers in total, up 8% YoY, and ad revenue fell 2.4% YoY to $103.7M; the OpenAI lawsuit cost $1M — Adjusted operating profit was $76.1 million, an increase of about 41 percent from a year earlier.

Discussion: The Wrap, Engadget and @benmullin

The New York Times Company:

The NYT reports Q1 revenue up 6% YoY to $594M, subscription revenue up 13% YoY to $293M, operating profit up 73% YoY to $48.3M, Athletic revenue up 33% to $37M — NEW YORK, May 8, 2024 - The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) announced today first-quarter 2024 results. Key Highlights

Austin Fuller / Current:

NPR CEO Katherine Maher will not attend a US House committee hearing on May 8 looking at alleged NPR bias due to a schedule conflict, but offers to appear later — NPR CEO Katherine Maher will not attend a U.S. House committee hearing Wednesday aimed at looking into alleged ideological bias at the organization.

Discussion: Free Press, @davidfolkenflik, @brandyzadrozny@threads.net, Fox News, @davidfolkenflik, @renee.diresta@threads.net, @davidfolkenflik and Fox News

Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:

A historical look at Pulitzer winners shows the decline of local and regional newspapers and the growth in online news outlets, especially at the local level — For the first time ever, more online news sites produced Pulitzer finalists than newspapers did.

Discussion: @roypeterclark, Poynter, Poynter, @michaelluo, @jbenton, Michael A. Riepe, Ph.D. on LinkedIn, Rich Jaroslovsky on LinkedIn, @kottke@mastodon.social, artofneed, @niemanlab@mastodon.social, The New York Times Company and Axios

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
A look at Chicago's Invisible Institute, a nonprofit newsroom with about a dozen journalists incorporated in 2015 that won two 2024 Pulitzers

Discussion: @chrisahowell@threads.net, Poynter and Chicago Tribune

Kathryn Lundstrom / Adweek:

Disney Advertising strikes a deal with Walmart Connect to let advertisers target Disney's streamers, including Disney+ and Hulu, using Walmart's shopper data — The new retailer-CTV partnership promises detailed sales attribution data — Disney Advertising struck a deal with Walmart Connect …

Discussion: AdExchanger

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Source: last month, Sundial Media bought Refinery29 for ~$30M, or roughly its 2023 revenue; Refinery29 buys trade beauty show Beautycon to move away from ads — - The company bought Refinery29 for roughly the same amount that the publisher made in top-line revenue in 2023, which was $30 million, a source told Axios.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

Todd Spangler / Variety:

NBCUniversal signs deal to make iHeartMedia the exclusive audio partner for the 2024 Paris Olympics; iHeartMedia will create an original iHeartPodcast — Pact includes new podcast from ‘Las Culturistas’ hosts Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers — NBCUniversal inked a deal with iHeartMedia making …

Discussion: Barrett Media, @xpangler and Next TV

Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:

EchoStar reports losing ~348K net pay TV subscribers in Q1, vs. a 552K drop in Q1 2023, and revenue down 8% YoY to $2.7B; Sling TV subscribers fell 135K to 1.9M — Telecom mogul Charlie Ergen's EchoStar is led by Hamid Akhavan as president and CEO, with Ergen serving as executive chairman.

Discussion: The Streamable and Streaming Better

Reuters:

A Moscow court places veteran Russian journalist Nadezhda Kevorkova in pre-trial detention for two months on suspicion of “justifying terrorism”, per her son — Veteran Russian journalist Nadezhda Kevorkova was placed in pre-trial detention for two months by a Moscow court …

Discussion: Fox News

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:

Fox Corp reports Q3 revenue down 15% YoY to $3.4B, ad revenue down 33% YoY to $1.2B, a $704M net income, up from a $50M loss YoY, $1.9B affiliate fee revenue — The owner of Fox, Fox News and Fox Sports hosted the Super Bowl a year ago, leading to the advertising decline.

Discussion: Variety, The Wrap, @brianstelter, @jbflint, @jbflint, @jbflint, @jbflint, Fox and WORLD SCREEN

Hanaa' Tameez / Nieman Lab:

Internews survey of 25 exiled news outlets: all but two are financially dependent on philanthropic or institutional funding, 28% are fully funded by donors — On World Press Freedom Day last week, the International Consortium of Investigative Reporters said in a statement that …

Discussion: @internews, @niemanlab and Internews

Natalie Korach / The Wrap:

Dotdash Meredith unionized workers ratify contracts with management after negotiating since 2021; the deal covers ~160 staffers at People and other magazines — The three-year deal covers approximately 160 staffers at People, Entertainment Weekly and Martha Stewart Living

Discussion: @meredithunion and @nyguild

Kate Knibbs / Wired:

A look at Musi, a free music streaming app popular among high schoolers that uses YouTube to source music, opening Musi up to legal action from record labels — Musi's free music streaming app is a hit with thrifty teens. The app claims to tap content on YouTube, but some in the music industry question the legitimacy of that model.

Discussion: Business Insider, @jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org, @knibbs, @extremeknibbs@threads.net and 9to5Mac

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Nellie Andreeva / Deadline:
Ricky Strauss, who has been head of marketing at Apple TV+ for 16 months, is leaving; he earlier was president of content and marketing at Disney+ at its launch

Discussion: Variety, @rarebre3d, The Wrap, Puck and 9to5Mac

Pew Research Center:
Survey: 48% of US adults prefer websites or social media for local news; 15% paid for local news in the last year; 63% believe local outlets do well financially

Discussion: @knightfdn, @mattdpearce, @pewresearch, @pewresearch, Press Gazette, Sarabeth Berman on LinkedIn, @jackshafer, @jenrubin9@threads.net, @dustysneakers_@threads.net, @iohn.bsky.social, Nieman Lab and Poynter

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
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Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Reddit reports Q1 revenue up 48% YoY to $243M, vs. $212.8M est., net loss of $575.1M, driven by IPO expenses, and DAUq total up 37% to 82.7M; RDDT jumps 15%+

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Earlier Picks:

New York Times:
TikTok sues the US government over the law forcing a sale or ban, saying it violates users' First Amendment rights and divestiture is “simply not possible”

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI is developing a Media Manager tool, slated for release by 2025, to let content owners identify their works to OpenAI and control how they are used

Discussion: TOOLKITS, Android Headlines, The Information, Ars Technica, Social Media Today, Neowin, Wired, VentureBeat and Wall Street Journal

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Amazon announces three new interactive ad formats for Prime Video: shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive brand trivia ads

Discussion: The Verge, Quartz, Gizmodo, Streaming Better, Digiday, Ars Technica, The Streamable, Amazon Ads, AdExchanger, Variety, Adweek, Next TV, Ad Age, Deadline and MediaPost

Jennifer Maas / Variety:
Disney CEO Bob Iger says Marvel is going to reduce output and focus on quality by releasing “about two TV series a year” and a “maximum of three” films per year

Discussion: Empire, Screen Rant, ComingSoon.net, IGN, @ballmatthew, The Hollywood Reporter, @tvgrimreaper, The Playlist, Deadline, Business Insider, The Wrap, Quartz, Jackie Szymanski on LinkedIn, SlashFilm, TVLine, The A.V. Club and CNBC

Max Tani / Semafor:
Memo: Business Insider Global Editor-in-Chief Nich Carlson is stepping down and will become an editor-at-large focused on longer-term projects

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From Techmeme:

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple and OpenAI are preparing a major announcement of their partnership at WWDC; the new AirTag with a better chip is scheduled to arrive by mid-2025

Sam Altman / @sama:
Sam Altman says he is embarrassed that there was a provision about potential equity cancellation in exit docs, and OpenAI never took back anyone's vested equity

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: US officials have told Google, Meta, and others about concerns that undersea cables could be vulnerable to tampering by China-owned repair ships

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