Mediagazer: 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 (Beth Mellor/Bloomberg)

8:55 AM 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: The Streamable and IndieWire

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: CNBC, Reuters, Deadline, Advanced Television and CityNews Toronto

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, Deadline, City A.M., Advanced Television, IDX and The Hollywood Reporter

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.

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: Quartz, Engadget, Sports Media Watch, @lucas_shaw, 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: Quartz, @serwer, Media Play News, The Desk, @brianstelter, @benmullin, @danprimack, @benmullin, Reuters, @ernie.tedium.co and Axios

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: The Guardian, Engadget, Reuters, ABC News and ZDNet, more at Techmeme »

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

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

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: TVNewsCheck, Poynter, CoinGape and Rory Maloney on LinkedIn

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: Reuters and The Wrap

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 — United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Tuesday condemned Russia's brutal crackdown on journalists …

Reuters: A Moscow court places veteran Russian journalist Nadezhda Kevorkova in pre-trial detention for two months on suspicion of “justifying terrorism”, per her son

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

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 — A few years back, a writer in a developing country started doing contract work for a company called AdVon Commerce …

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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More 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: 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.

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

Earlier Picks:

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 Streamable, The Desk, 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, RADIO ONLINE, @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:

The Information:
OpenAI says ChatGPT has hit 20M paid subscribers, up from 15.5M at the end of 2024, suggesting the company is making at least $415M in monthly revenue

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google rolls out a new Gmail encryption model for enterprises in beta that doesn't require senders or recipients to use custom software or exchange certificates

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Meta is ramping up work on its first AR glasses with a display, which could be introduced as early as the end of 2025 and cost between $1K and $1,400

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