Mediagazer: Ofcom report: UK broadcasters predict a “tipping point” when broadcast TV will become economically unviable as distribution costs rise and audiences move online (Daniel Thomas/Financial Times)

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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: Variety, The Wrap, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Dennis R. Chimelis, Jr on LinkedIn, How-To Geek, Chris Marine on LinkedIn, Decider, @sherman4949, @sherman4949, @sherman4949, 9to5Mac, IGN, @rfaughnder, @rakeshlobster, @samhaft, Engadget, Neowin, 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, The Streamable, Next TV, @thekenyeung@threads.net, Reuters, BGR, @jw@threads.net, Wall Street Journal, Awful Announcing, TV Insider, @counternotions@mastodon …, @trustedsystem.bsky.social, CNBC, Adweek, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, The Walt Disney Company, Media Play News, Advanced Television, 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: 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 — Warner Bros. Discovery reported its first-quarter 2024 earnings Thursday, revealing it had reached 99.6 million paid streaming subscribers …

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

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, Media Play News, Engadget, Quartz, @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

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, Media Play News, @danprimack, 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: @bkoo, @annamerlan, @jayasax, @rafat, Sara Fischer on LinkedIn and @trentreinsmith.bsky.social

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

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

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

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 — The New York Times Games announced on Tuesday that it's launching a Wordle archive …

Discussion: The New York Times Company, Fast Company and Gizmodo

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

Discussion: Press Gazette, TVNewsCheck, Poynter, CoinGape and Rory Maloney on LinkedIn

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

Discussion: @benmullin, Charles Miller on LinkedIn and The Wrap

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: AdExchanger, Reuters and The Wrap

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 credential coalition — Social media companies under pressure to identify deepfakes and prevent spread of misinformation

Discussion: Associated Press, The Guardian, The Verge, 9to5Mac, ABC News, ZDNet, Reuters and Engadget, more at Techmeme »

Naman Ramachandran / Variety:

ITV reports Q1 revenue down 7% YoY to £887M, ad revenue up 3% YoY, digital ad revenue up 14% YoY, and ITV Studios revenue down 16% YoY to £382M — U.K. broadcaster ITV has reported mixed financial fortunes for the first quarter of 2024. — Its advertising revenue growth of 3% …

Discussion: The Guardian, The Media Leader, WORLD SCREEN, Deadline, IDX, City A.M., Advanced Television and The Hollywood Reporter

Nicholas Yong / Rest of World:

Some Singaporean writers resist the government's request to use their works to train a multilingual LLM, citing little clarity on compensation and other issues — Singapore's literary community is pushing back against an official effort to train LLMs using their published works, part of a growing global resistance.

Discussion: @anupkaphle, @nuurrianti, @incoherentboy and @restofworld, more at Techmeme »