Top News:
Alex Rogers / Financial Times:
Letter: Vivek Ramaswamy calls for BuzzFeed to axe staff, focus on video, and hire new voices, like Tucker Carlson, after raising his stake in BuzzFeed to 8.3% — Former US Republican presidential candidate urges media group to hire from ‘across the political spectrum’
Discussion:
Variety, New York Times, Vivek Ramaswamy, The Guardian, @kenbensinger, Axios, The Wrap, City A.M., Deadline, @jamesrbuk, Bloomberg, @benmullin, @mattzeitlin, @tomgara, @mattgertz, Fox Business, @james.tartarus.org, @chrisgeidner, @rafat, The Information, @willystaley, @briannachesser and The Hollywood Reporter
Evan Osnos / New Yorker:
How a struggling actor duped friends and investors in a $690M+ Hollywood Ponzi scheme, claiming to buy cheap movie rights and sell them to major streamers — A struggling actor struck it rich in Hollywood—then the F.B.I. showed up. — Anyone who visited Zach and Mallory Horwitz in 2019 …
Discussion:
New York Post, @xenocryptsite, @franklinleonard, @ewong, @eosnos, @newyorker, @dancow and @eosnos
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
FT CEO John Ridding says news publishers “have leverage and should insist on payment” from AI companies and disintermediation is the industry's “biggest threat” — Financial Times chief executive John Ridding has told other news publishers they “have leverage and should insist on payment” from AI companies.
Discussion:
MediaPost, Talking Biz News, @mitalilive, @olifranklin and @ftpressoffice
Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Comscore: Memorial Day weekend box office grossed an estimated $128.3M, a 29-year low, excluding 2020 and 2021, and down ~37% YoY; Furiosa led with just $32M — Overall revenue for the four-day holiday also hits a 29-year low as the early summer calendar suffers from an unprecedented absence …
Discussion:
Business Insider, New York Times, Variety, The Hill, Albert Fong on LinkedIn, Paul Dergarabedian on LinkedIn, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, JoBlo, Washington Post, IGN, @patrickbigpix, Steve Siskind on LinkedIn, NBC News, Screen Rant, CNN, The A.V. Club, The Wrap, Business Insider, Deadline, Screen Rant, ComingSoon.net, Forbes and IndieWire
New York Times:
The Daily Beast starts taking staff buyout applications, seeking to cut $1.5M; sources: 10 to 15 unionized editorial staff members are expected to take buyouts — The leadership duo has looked for money-saving measures since joining the digital tabloid in April.
Discussion:
The Wrap, @katie_robertson and @benmullin
Lulu Garcia-Navarro / New York Times:
Q&A with Netflix's Ted Sarandos on the state of Hollywood, shifting US tastes, programming strategy, ads, corporate activism, YouTube, live events, AI, and more — Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times — If you're anything like me, you probably spent some large portion of this week sitting on your couch watching Netflix.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
YouTube's Playables, a collection of over 75 free games available on mobile and desktop, rolls out to all users — YouTube's “app store” for games is rolling out more broadly. The company announced on Tuesday that its collection of lightweight, free games dubbed “Playables” …
Discussion:
YouTube Official Blog, Game Developer and The Verge, more at Techmeme »
Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
Push alerts from the BBC News app have become hugely influential in the UK; the app has an estimated 12M installs, with ~60% of its users getting notifications — With BBC news app alerts reaching as many as 7m Britons, parties are desperately trying to influence what gets pushed out
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Meta adds safety features to CrowdTangle for use during the EU elections, in a bid to address EU concerns over Meta's plan to shut down the tool in August 2024 — Meta Platforms (META.O) has added safety features to its misinformation tracking tool CrowdTangle for use during European Parliament elections …
Discussion:
@clothildegouj, @orestepollicino, @bravebosom, @mathver and @rajiinio
John Koblin / New York Times:
A look at the growing importance of ads for video streaming services, as Antenna says that 56% of new subscribers chose the cheaper ad-supported tier in Q1 2024 — Ads are here, there — almost everywhere — on streaming services now. — Not long ago, streaming TV came with a promise …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
The Daily Wire says it finished 2023 with a profit and more than $200M in revenue, with more than $22M from commerce, most from its line of shaving products — - “We launched Jeremy's Razors for the same reason we launched a general and kids entertainment business and a news …
Discussion:
@sarafischer, @kendallbaker, @ckrewson and @hitsamty
Sara Fischer / Axios:
The Associated Press has inked new deals with five local nonprofit newsrooms to share and distribute content ahead of the 2024 election — - And it continues to add more statehouse reporters through an ongoing collaboration with Report for America. … - Those newsrooms were selected based …
Discussion:
@jeffjarvis
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