Mediagazer: Australia's federal government plans to create a joint parliamentary select committee to investigate Meta abandoning payment-for-content deals with news outlets (The Australian)

7:40 PM ET, May 9, 2024

Top News:

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: Quartz, Media Play News, CNBC, The Streamable, Streaming Better, IndieWire and Bloomberg

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, Reuters, Deadline, Next TV, The Information, The Wrap, Media Play News, Advanced Television and WORLD SCREEN

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

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.

CNBC:

Sources: Sinclair is looking to sell 60+ of its 185 TV stations, in markets including Minneapolis and Austin, and is exploring options for the Tennis Channel — Signage stands outside the Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. headquarters in Cockeysville, Maryland, U.S., on Friday, Aug. 10, 2018.

Discussion: The Desk and Sports Media Watch

The Australian:

Australia's federal government plans to create a joint parliamentary select committee to investigate Meta abandoning payment-for-content deals with news outlets — Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman — The decision by tech giant Meta to abandon payment-for-content deals with news outlets …

Discussion: Australian Financial Review

Dade Hayes / Deadline:

Nexstar Q1: revenue up 2.1% YoY to $1.28B, net income up 89.8% YoY to $167M, losses for The CW were cut by $50M, or about half 2024's projected loss reductions — The CW's losses fell by $50 million in the first quarter and parent Nexstar Media Group still expects the network to turn a profit by next year …

Discussion: @deadline, TVNewsCheck, Nexstar, The Wrap and Next TV

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: The Rebooting, @mempko@fosstodon.org, @markstenberg3, Isha Marathe on LinkedIn, Mark Stenberg on LinkedIn and TOOLKITS, more at Techmeme »

New York Times:

A look at Israel's long-strained history with Al Jazeera, which Israel calls a security threat, while Al Jazeera says Israel wants to hide its brutality in Gaza — The network will keep covering the war in Gaza, but it will be harder for Israelis to watch.

Discussion: Jerusalem Post, BBC, @omunderdal and Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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

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: Reddit Upvoted, Social Media Today, ZDNet, TechCrunch and Reuters, more at Techmeme »

Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:

ElevenLabs previews a music-generating AI model, showing samples of songs with lyrics generated from text prompts — Voice AI startup ElevenLabs is offering an early look at a new model that turns a prompt into song lyrics. To raise awareness, it's following a similar playbook Sam Altman used …

Discussion: @bryancsk, @scobleizer, @ammaar, @carles_reina, @victorswift, @elevenlabsio, @ammaar, @somewheresy and @lukeharries_

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

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: Advanced Television and Telegraph

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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

Discussion: The Adobe Blog, Tubefilter, The Hill, Neowin, Social Media Today, 9to5Mac, ABC News, ZDNet, CityNews Toronto, Reuters, Android Headlines, Mashable, Associated Press and Engadget, more at Techmeme »

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

Discussion: Press Gazette, The Wrap, Reuters and AdExchanger

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

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

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

Earlier Picks:

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

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

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

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

Discussion: StreamTV Insider, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, AdExchanger, Tubefilter, How-To Geek, UPROXX, Chris Marine on LinkedIn, Media Play News, Kurt Kyle on LinkedIn, 9to5Mac, Streaming Better, Dennis R. Chimelis, Jr on LinkedIn, @rakeshlobster, Ars Technica, The Streamable, Başak Ayter on LinkedIn, Tony Sokolowski on LinkedIn, Howard Lee on LinkedIn, @samhaft, The Wrap, Decider, Business Insider, IGN, Fox Business, No Film School, @sherman4949, @sherman4949, @sherman4949, @rfaughnder, Neowin, Engadget, MediaPost, Scott Bishoff on LinkedIn, Tara Sigaroudi on LinkedIn, Gene Miller on LinkedIn, Advanced Television, New York Times, Sports Media Watch, The A.V. Club, SlashFilm, The Desk, 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, Bloomberg, CNBC, Adweek, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, The Walt Disney Company, Screen Rant, The Verge, Consequence, WORLD SCREEN and Cord Cutters News

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

From Techmeme:

Arfa Javaid / Financial Express:
Replit CEO Amjad Masad says learning to code is a waste of time, citing Dario Amodei's prediction that AI may generate essentially all code by next year

Bain:
India's e-commerce market grew 10%-12% YoY to ~$60B in GMV in 2024, versus historical rates of over 20%, with 270M+ people shopping online, second only to China

Zac Bowden / Windows Central:
In the latest Windows 11 preview build, Microsoft removed the “bypassnro” command, which let users skip signing into a Microsoft Account when installing Windows

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