Mediagazer: At a House hearing on “NPR bias”, Republicans criticize NPR CEO's absence but some praise local stations, and witnesses call for decentralizing or defunding NPR (Tyler Falk/Current)

2:00 PM ET, May 9, 2024

Top News:

Dade Hayes / Deadline:

Disney and WBD announce a streaming bundle of Disney+, Hulu, and Max, with ad-supported and ad-free plans, beginning this summer in the US, with pricing to come — Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery are breaking ground in streaming with a bundled offering featuring Disney+, Hulu and Max in a single package.

Discussion: The Streamable, The Ankler, Business Insider, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, The Wrap, Variety, Streaming Better, Başak Ayter on LinkedIn, Dennis R. Chimelis, Jr on LinkedIn, How-To Geek, Chris Marine on LinkedIn, 9to5Mac, IGN, @rakeshlobster, @samhaft, Neowin, Decider, @sherman4949, @sherman4949, @sherman4949, @rfaughnder, Engadget, MediaPost, Scott Bishoff on LinkedIn, Tara Sigaroudi on LinkedIn, Gene Miller on LinkedIn, The A.V. Club, SlashFilm, The Desk, New York Times, TVLine, Emily Chau Dea on LinkedIn, IndieWire, Next TV, @thekenyeung@threads.net, Reuters, BGR, @jw@threads.net, Wall Street Journal, Awful Announcing, TV Insider, @counternotions@mastodon …, @trustedsystem.bsky.social, Advanced Television, CNBC, Adweek, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, The Walt Disney Company, Media Play News, Screen Rant, Consequence, Bloomberg, WORLD SCREEN and Cord Cutters News, more at Techmeme »

Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:

WBD reports a $86M profit in Q1 for its DTC unit, which includes streaming, up from $50M in Q1 2023, and 99.6M streaming subscribers, up from 97.7M in Q4 2023 — The entertainment conglomerate led by CEO David Zaslav reported its first-quarter results.

Discussion: Streaming Better, The Streamable, IndieWire and Media Play News

Jennifer Maas / Variety:
WBD reports Q1 revenue down 7% YoY to $9.96B, and a $966M net loss, down 10% YoY, as TV revenue fell 8% YoY to $5.13B and studio revenue fell 13% YoY to $2.82B

Discussion: MediaPost, Sportico, The Wrap, CityNews Toronto, The Information, Deadline, CNBC, Advanced Television, WORLD SCREEN and Reuters

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Sources: WBD plans more cost cutting to hit financial targets for next year, including the possibility of more layoffs, and has decided to raise Max prices

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Engadget, Quartz, Media Play News, @lucas_shaw, Sports Media Watch, Android Headlines, Streaming Better, The Verge, The Hill, The Desk, Lucas Shaw on LinkedIn, 9to5Google, The Streamable, Awful Announcing, Reuters and Next TV

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

Gannett fires an experienced editor overseeing 26 community newspapers for “sharing proprietary information” with a “competing media company”, which was Poynter — Sarah Leach spoke to Poynter in an attempt to staff up her team. She may have been successful, even if she won't be at Gannett to see it through.

Discussion: @elaheizadi, @sentinelleach, Substack, @nannburke, @benmullin and @poynter

New York Times:

Sources: if Sony and Apollo acquire Paramount Global, they plan to sell off CBS, cable channels like MTV, and Paramount+, while keeping Paramount Pictures — CBS and other well-known properties would be sold if Sony and Apollo are able to buy Paramount. But the new owners would keep the movie studio.

Discussion: The Streamable, Deadline, Quartz, @serwer, @brianstelter, @benmullin, @benmullin, @danprimack, Media Play News, The Desk, Reuters, @ernie.tedium.co and Axios

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Vice Media plans to create a joint venture with Savage Ventures, which will invest “tens of millions of dollars”, to relaunch its sites, including Vice.com — - Savage Ventures was one of the entities that looked to buy Vice out of bankruptcy last year.

Discussion: David Webb on LinkedIn, @bkoo, @annamerlan, @jayasax, @rafat, Sara Fischer on LinkedIn and @trentreinsmith.bsky.social

Aisha Counts / Bloomberg:

Reddit releases a new content policy, including a ban on AI data licensees from using deleted posts or comments; Reddit expects $60M+ in 2024 licensing revenue — - Social media company restricts data use by AI companies — Reddit expects to generate $60 million from licensing in 2024

Discussion: TechCrunch, Reddit Upvoted and Reuters, more at Techmeme »

Tyler Falk / Current:

At a House hearing on “NPR bias”, Republicans criticize NPR CEO's absence but some praise local stations, and witnesses call for decentralizing or defunding NPR — House Republicans criticized NPR CEO Katherine Maher Wednesday for not attending a hearing about alleged bias within the network …

Discussion: USA Today, Free Press, @elaheizadi, Inside Radio, @brandyzadrozny@threads.net and Fox News

Mark Stenberg / Adweek:

OpenAI's pitch deck to news publishers promises priority placement to partners in chat conversations and payment contingent on “display success” — OpenAI's Preferred Publisher Program offers media companies licensing deals — The generative artificial intelligence firm OpenAI …

Discussion: Isha Marathe on LinkedIn, Mark Stenberg on LinkedIn, @markstenberg3, The Rebooting and TOOLKITS

Beth Mellor / Bloomberg:

After Concord said its $1.25 per share offer for Hipgnosis was final, Hipgnosis is set to be sold Blackstone at $1.30 per share, valuing the fund at ~$1.57B — That was topped last week by a $1.30 per share bid from Blackstone, valuing the business at about $1.57 billion.

Discussion: Billboard, City A.M., Music Business Worldwide, Digital Music News, Reuters and Wall Street Journal

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:

Ofcom report: UK broadcasters predict a “tipping point” when broadcast TV will become economically unviable as distribution costs rise and audiences move online — Media watchdog warned of ‘tipping point’ for model's economic viability — British broadcasters have warned …

Discussion: Telegraph and Advanced Television

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:

News Corp reports Q3 revenue down 1% YoY to $2.42B, net profit down 40% YoY to $30M, ad revenue fell 8.9% YoY to $358M, and 3.715M digital subscribers — News Corp posted lower quarterly revenue and earnings due to a slowdown in advertising and declines at its overseas newspaper unit and subscription-video business.

Discussion: Press Gazette, AdExchanger, The Wrap and Reuters

Financial Times:

TikTok plans to start automatically labeling some AI content, including from DALL-E and Adobe's Firefly, and joins the Adobe-led content credentials coalition — Social media companies under pressure to identify deepfakes and prevent spread of misinformation

Discussion: Associated Press, Android Headlines, Engadget, Reuters, ABC News, ZDNet and 9to5Mac, more at Techmeme »

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Nik Roseveare / Advanced Television:
Sky announces Sky Sports+, a new service starting in August that will increase coverage of the English Football League and more, as part of its EFL partnership

Discussion: The Desk, Daily Mail, The Athletic, WORLD SCREEN, The Guardian and City A.M.

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
The New York Times Games rolls out a Wordle archive with 1,000+ past puzzles for “Games” and “All Access” subscribers, and adds its WordleBot to NYT Games app

Discussion: Charles Miller on LinkedIn, The New York Times Company, Fast Company and New York Times

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An investigation into AdVon, the company behind Sports Illustrated's fake writers, finds its AI content and fake authors at the LA Times, Miami Herald, and more

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Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority:
Source: Google has canceled the development of a second-generation Pixel Tablet, planned for release in 2025, due to concerns that it wouldn't sell very well

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is testing a more conversational version of Siri, dubbed “LLM Siri”, with plans to release it in spring 2026 as part of iOS 19 and macOS 16

The Information:
Sources: OpenAI considered making a browser, discussed deals to power AI features on Samsung devices and search on sites and apps from Condé Nast and others

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