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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:
@marybschneider, @hayley__harding, @annagustafson, @kkdumez, @saminglot, @kelleyroot, @llondo, @reporterdavidj, @johnsellek, @dangillmor@mastodon.social, @elaheizadi, @jayrosen_nyu, @sentinelleach, @zachvat@newsie.social, @kennysmith@mstdn.social, @danrshafer, @megganje, Substack, @solomonlexib, @lesbowen, @raleighreporter, @nannburke, @rasmus_kleis, @seloesch, @neilstrebig, @mediaevan, @stevenldoyle, @kylewiim, @benmullin and @poynter


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:
Lillian Rizzo on LinkedIn, The Desk and Sports Media Watch


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

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


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.


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:
The Desk, @thedeskdotnet, Nexstar, TVNewsCheck, The Wrap, @deadline and Next TV


The British Board of Film Classification adopts updated guidelines for how it rates movies; in the US, no systematic process for updating guidelines exists — As the attitudes of moviegoers evolve, so do the guidelines of the ratings board, which has reclassified dozens of films including “Mary Poppins” and “Rocky.”
Discussion:
BBFC


Jason Gastrow, aka Dunkey, who has nearly 7.5M YouTube subscribers after reviewing games for over a decade, starts Bigmode, a publishing company for indie games — After a decade of humorously reviewing games, the man known as Dunkey began a publishing company to support indie projects, starting with the mazelike Animal Well.


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 …


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


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_


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:
Reuters and Australian Financial Review


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


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