Mediagazer: 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 (Sara Fischer/Axios)

2:45 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: AdExchanger, The Streamable, The Ankler, Business Insider, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Streaming Better, The Wrap, Başak Ayter on LinkedIn, How-To Geek, Chris Marine on LinkedIn, 9to5Mac, IGN, Dennis R. Chimelis, Jr on LinkedIn, @rakeshlobster, @samhaft, Decider, @sherman4949, @sherman4949, @sherman4949, Neowin, @rfaughnder, Engadget, MediaPost, Scott Bishoff on LinkedIn, Tara Sigaroudi on LinkedIn, Gene Miller on LinkedIn, The A.V. Club, SlashFilm, The Desk, New York Times, Advanced Television, 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, CNBC, Adweek, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, The Walt Disney Company, Media Play News, Screen Rant, The Verge, 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: Streaming Better, Media Play News, 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

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

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, The Verge, Engadget, Quartz, Media Play News, @lucas_shaw, Sports Media Watch, Android Headlines, Streaming Better, The Hill, The Desk, Lucas Shaw on LinkedIn, 9to5Google, The Streamable, Awful Announcing, Reuters and Next TV

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.

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

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, @serwer, @brianstelter, @benmullin, Quartz, @danprimack, @benmullin, Media Play News, The Desk, Reuters, @ernie.tedium.co and Axios

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.

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: TechCrunch, Reddit Upvoted and Reuters, more at Techmeme »

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

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

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

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

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: Press Gazette, AdExchanger, The Wrap and Reuters

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

Discussion: Associated Press, Android Headlines, 9to5Mac, ABC News, ZDNet, Reuters and Engadget, more at Techmeme »

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

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Discussion: The Desk, Daily Mail, The Athletic, WORLD SCREEN, The Guardian and City A.M.

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Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is testing a more conversational version of Siri, dubbed “LLM Siri”, with plans to release it in spring 2026 as part of iOS 19 and macOS 16

The Information:
Sources: OpenAI considered making a browser, discussed deals to power AI features on Samsung devices and search on sites and apps from Condé Nast and others

Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg:
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