Top News:
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.
Discussion:
Substack, @elaheizadi, @jayrosen_nyu, @sentinelleach, @marybschneider, @hayley__harding, @danrshafer, @roypeterclark, @annagustafson, @megganje, @reporterdavidj, @saminglot, @solomonlexib, @lesbowen, @raleighreporter, @nannburke, @kkdumez, @llondo, @rasmus_kleis, @seloesch, @neilstrebig, @mediaevan, @stevenldoyle, @kylewiim, @johnsellek, @kelleyroot, @dangillmor@mastodon.social, @benmullin, @poynter, @kennysmith@mstdn.social and @zachvat@newsie.social
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:
FTVLive, Sports Media Watch, Lillian Rizzo on LinkedIn and The Desk
Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:
AMC Networks reports Q1 net revenue fell 17% YoY to $596M, operating income fell 36% YoY to $110M, streaming revenue grew 3% YoY to $145M, and 11.5M subscribers — The company, led by CEO Kristin Dolan, reported its first-quarter results. … After returning to streaming subscriber growth …
Discussion:
Variety, The Wrap, @richlightshed and AMC Networks Inc.
Christi Carras / Los Angeles Times:
LAist initiates a voluntary buyout program for staff to avoid layoffs as it faces a “significant budget shortfall” ranging from $4M-$5M in the next two years — Journalists at LAist have been offered buyouts ahead of a potential round of layoffs at the local public radio station …
Discussion:
@caitlinherdez and Current
Tom Wheeler / The Hill:
Google's YouTube TV, which now has over 8M subscribers, should add C-SPAN to its channel lineup as a public service, as more consumers ditch cable subscriptions — C-SPAN celebrated its 45th anniversary this year. Since 1979, the nonprofit cable network has given Americans a window on their democracy …
Discussion:
@cspansusan and The Desk
Zachary Small / New York Times:
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.
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:
@thedeskdotnet, The Desk, @deadline, Nexstar, TVNewsCheck, The Wrap and Next TV
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.
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:
Reuters and Australian Financial Review
Christopher Kuo / New York Times:
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
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:
Ars Technica, Streaming Better, Media Play News, The Streamable, Quartz, IndieWire, CNBC and Bloomberg
RELATED:
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:
Forbes, Charlie Boss on LinkedIn, AdExchanger, MediaPost, Reuters, WORLD SCREEN, Media Play News, Next TV, The Information, The Wrap, Advanced Television and Deadline
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 …
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_
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