Top News:
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:
New York Times, Variety, The Wrap, The Hill, Associated Press, JoBlo, Washington Post, IGN, @patrickbigpix, Albert Fong on LinkedIn, Steve Siskind on LinkedIn, Paul Dergarabedian on LinkedIn, NBC News, Screen Rant, Los Angeles Times, CNN, The A.V. Club, The Wrap, Business Insider, Deadline, Screen Rant, ComingSoon.net, Forbes and IndieWire
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Peter Kafka / Business Insider:
Americans' visits to movie theaters have been falling since the early 2000s, coinciding with broadband internet growth; Hollywood is reacting by raising prices — - Hollywood had a miserable Memorial Day weekend — one of the worst it has had in decades. — But this shouldn't be a surprise …
Discussion:
@tvgrimreaper and @tvgrimreaper
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:
New York Post, Vivek Ramaswamy, New York Times, @kenbensinger, Variety, The Guardian, Deadline, City A.M., Axios, Bloomberg, @benmullin, @mattzeitlin, @tomgara, The Wrap, @mattgertz, Fox Business, @james.tartarus.org, @chrisgeidner, @rafat, The Information, @willystaley, @jamesrbuk, @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:
@jalefkowit@vmst.io, 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, @mitalilive, @olifranklin, @ftpressoffice and Talking Biz News
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.
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
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
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, BGR, Game Developer, @carnage4life@mas.to and The Verge, more at Techmeme »
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