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)

12:00 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: 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 »

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Lisa Schlein / Voice of America:
The UN high commissioner for human rights condemns Russia's crackdown on journalists; at least 30 journalists are currently detained on various criminal charges

Discussion: Reuters

Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:
Researchers: Meta's Canada news ban resulted in news outlets posting much less on Facebook, and posts with screenshots of news stories increasing dramatically

Discussion: CityNews Toronto, @niemanlab, Gail J. Cohen on LinkedIn, @niemanlab@mastodon.social and Media Ecosystem Observatory

Jamie Dettmer / Politico:
How investigative journalists in Ukraine face increasing intimidation, as some worry outlets are censoring themselves, seeing patriotism as trumping journalism

Discussion: @hanse_mina@mastodon.social

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.

Maggie Harrison Dupré / Futurism:
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

Earlier Picks:

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

Discussion: Julia Thornton on LinkedIn, MediaPost, Dana McGraw on LinkedIn, The Verge and AdExchanger

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

Discussion: The Desk, The Streamable, Deadline and Streaming Better

Todd Spangler / Variety:
NBCUniversal signs deal to make iHeartMedia the exclusive audio partner for the 2024 Paris Olympics; iHeartMedia will create an original iHeartPodcast

Discussion: The Hollywood Reporter, Next TV, iHeartMedia …, @xpangler, Chris Harp on LinkedIn, Michael Biondo on LinkedIn, Jeff Hurley on LinkedIn, New York Post, Radio & Television …, Inside Radio and Barrett Media

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

Discussion: Digiday and Wall Street Journal

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

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

From Techmeme:

John Hudson / Washington Post:
Sources: White House National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and other NSC members have conducted government affairs over personal Gmail accounts

Wikimedia:
The Wikimedia Foundation says base bandwidth demand for downloading Wikimedia Commons multimedia content is up 50% since January 2024, driven by AI crawlers

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Google researchers say DPRK's IT workers are fraudulently securing positions at companies in Germany, Portugal, and the UK, after facing sanctions in the US

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