Mediagazer: Disney announces that Safra Catz, CEO of Oracle, is departing its board of directors after six years (Todd Spangler/Variety)

7:00 PM ET, July 19, 2024

Top News:

Nielsen: the Republican National Convention's final night averaged 25.38M US viewers over 14 outlets, up 7% from 2020; people 55+ were about 72% of the audience — Thursday's multi-network coverage beats the final night from four years ago, but the four-day average is lower.

Discussion: New York Times, The Wrap, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, Deadline, @tvmojoe, @tvmojoe, @tvmojoe and Nielsen

BBC:

A Russian court convicts Evan Gershkovich of espionage and sentences him to 16 years in prison; Wall Street Journal calls the trial a “sham” — US journalist Evan Gershkovich has been sentenced by a Russian court to 16 years in prison on espionage charges, after a secretive trial decried as a “sham” by his employer.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, The Desk, Mediaite, Washington Post, Talking Biz News, Reuters, @potus@threads.net, @senatorwarner@threads.net, Axios, @jaketapper, ABC7, Bloomberg, Brian Tierney on LinkedIn, TVNewsCheck, @kimzetter, New York Times, @jrezaian, SWAMY WORLD, Voice of America, The US Sun, Politico, @jtoonkel, Newser, The Guardian, Alistair MacDonald on LinkedIn, Nora Eckert on LinkedIn, CNN, @brettbruen, Lynn Cook on LinkedIn, The Wrap, Raw Story, Euractiv, @maxseddon, @davidfolkenflik, Breitbart, Al Jazeera, Associated Press, Semafor, @bbcstever, Courthouse News Service, freebeacon.com, NPR, @sylkegruhnwald@infosec …, Lucy Knight on LinkedIn, Reuters, Business Insider, Radio Free Europe/Radio …, Washington Examiner, Committee to Protect …, The White House, CBS News, Fox News, The Daily Beast, SPJ News and News/Media Alliance

Reuters:

Netflix added 8.05M subscribers in Q2, vs. 5M est., as it benefited from its crackdown on password sharing and popular titles like Bridgerton and Baby Reindeer — Netflix (NFLX.O) said on Thursday it added more than 8 million subscribers in its second quarter as the streaming service benefited …

Discussion: Seeking Alpha, New York Post, The Hollywood Reporter, Yahoo Finance, The Ankler, TVNewsCheck, 9to5Mac, The Desk, The Guardian, The Streamable, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, IndieWire, Media Play News and Business Insider, more at Techmeme »

Lillian Rizzo / CNBC:
Netflix reports Q2 revenue up 16.8% YoY to $9.56B, vs. $9.53B est., paid memberships up 16.5% YoY to 277.65M, vs. 274.4M est., net income up 44% YoY to $2.15B

Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Peter Naylor, Netflix's VP of ad sales since August 2022, is leaving, and the company plans to hire a head of US and Canada ad sales to replace his global role

Discussion: Ad Age, Variety, @pkafka, @pkafka, @pkafka, TVNewsCheck, The Information, Adweek and Deadline

Lucas Manfredi / The Wrap:
Netflix says its ad tier now accounts for 45%+ of all signups in the markets where it's available, and ad tier memberships grew 34% QoQ in Q2 to 40M MAUs in May

Discussion: Variety, RTÉ, WORLD SCREEN, MediaPost, Financial Times, @sharonwaxman, IGN, Quartz, The Information, Next TV and Deadline

Connor Mycroft / South China Morning Post:

Media orgs, WSJ union, and a congressional panel express support for Selina Cheng, who says WSJ fired her for assuming Hong Kong Journalists Association's chair — - Asia Chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association latest to support reporter who says newspaper fired her over press freedom role

Discussion: Talking Biz News, @wongmjane@threads.net, ABC, @ceccgov, @connor_mycroft, Hong Kong Free Press HKFP, @connor_mycroft, SPJ News, China Media Project, Hong Kong Free Press HKFP, @connor_mycroft, @connor_mycroft, CNN, Washington Post, Semafor, Voice of America, National Union of Journalists … and Al Jazeera

Patrick Smith / NBC News:

CrowdStrike reports widespread “BSODs on Windows hosts”, impacting thousands of PCs and disrupting TV broadcasters, including Sky News and NBC News — Major carriers, including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, all issued ground stops Friday morning citing communications issues.

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Disney announces that Safra Catz, CEO of Oracle, is departing its board of directors after six years — Disney announced that Safra Catz, CEO of Oracle, is departing its board of directors after six years. — Disney and Catz did not provide an explanation for why she stepped down from the Mouse House's board.

Discussion: The Wrap, @sherman4949, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Los Angeles Times, @ashleylcarter1@threads.net, The Walt Disney Company and Bloomberg

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:

Podcasts seem to be recovering: Audacy's podcast business is profitable, iHeartMedia's and Acast's Q1 podcast revenue grew 18% YoY and 25% YoY, respectively — The dark days of financial and legal woes appear to be ending as the industry sees signs of revival — Hello, hello, and welcome back to Soundbite.

Discussion: Molly DeMellier on LinkedIn, @ashleyrcarman and The Podcast Host

Alexa Corse / Wall Street Journal:

X's Grok AI model struggles to generate accurate headlines and new summaries, especially for breaking news, elevating jokes and rumors into some X news items — Grok posted incorrect information, amplified unverified claims and failed to identify sarcasm as details of Trump shooting unfolded

Discussion: @alexacorse, @alexacorse, Wired, @rachaelmyrow, Forbes and The Wrap

Kevin Roose / New York Times:

A study of 14K domains used in the C4, RefinedWeb, and Dolma datasets finds a dramatic drop in content available to train AI models as publishers tighten access — New research from the Data Provenance Initiative has found a dramatic drop in content made available to the collections used to build artificial intelligence.

Discussion: Data Provenance Initiative, Francis Saele on LinkedIn, @clementdelangue, @edmundlee, @kevinroose and Observer, more at Techmeme »

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

Fortune names Jim Edwards as its global news director to create “24/7 coverage across Europe, US, and Asia”; Edwards was Business Insider UK's founding editor — Fortune has hired longtime business journalist Jim Edwards to be is global news director. — He will start on Monday.

Discussion: @ajs

Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:

Amazon's Twitch reinstates Donald Trump's account three years after he was banned, as “there is value in hearing from presidential nominees directly” — Gaming site says it allowed the candidate back after his presidential nomination. — LEARN MORE

Discussion: TechCrunch, Engadget and The Verge, more at Techmeme »

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

In an interview, Metro executives say the free newspaper is now profitable in both print and digital, after it underwent a major restructuring in March 2023 — Metro is growing commercially even as free London rival Evening Standard forced to reduce print output.

Discussion: Sofia Victoria Delgado on LinkedIn, Emily Shackleton on LinkedIn and Media Voices

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More News:

Daryna Antoniuk / The Record:
Bangladesh orders a nationwide shutdown of its mobile internet amid student protests that killed dozens of people to “ensure the security of citizens”

Discussion: Associated Press, The Guardian, Bloomberg, Variety, Semafor, Al Jazeera, SWAMY WORLD, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Bloomberg, New York Times, Engadget and Courthouse News Service, more at Techmeme »

Washington Post:
Sue Mi Terry, wife of WaPo columnist Max Boot, has been charged with acting as an agent of South Korea; the indictment cites a WaPo column she wrote with Boot

Jack Dunn / Variety:
Fox Entertainment announces a restructuring of its operations that includes layoffs for about 30 people

Discussion: The Wrap, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter

NBC News:
Social media influencers backing Trump include Bryce Hall, with 23.7M TikTok followers, FaZe Banks, with nearly 5M YouTube subscribers, and Jake and Logan Paul

Discussion: Ad Age

Aidan McLaughlin / Mediaite:
Veteran cable news host Lou Dobbs, who made his name on CNN and then Fox Business, has died at 78; Trump announced his death on Truth Social

Earlier Picks:

Lisa Richwine / Reuters:
FilmLA: from April through June 2024, the number of on-location filming days in LA fell 12.4% YoY, driven by a 56.9% drop in reality TV production

Committee to Protect Journalists:
The CPJ supports an urgent appeal filed to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture on behalf of Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora, imprisoned since 2022

Discussion: @pressfreedom, @pressfreedom, @pressfreedom and doughtystreet.co.uk

Emma Roth / The Verge:
Apple is launching new immersive video content for the Vision Pro over the next few months, including content from The Weeknd and the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend

Discussion: 9to5Mac, Music Ally, Spyglass, Apple, Ars Technica, SWAMY WORLD, BGR, TechCrunch, AppleInsider and 9to5Mac

New York Times:
A profile of Carlos Espina, who has 9.4M TikTok followers, posts in Spanish about immigration and politics, and whom the White House treats as a broadcaster

Discussion: @taylorlorenz, @sapna, @sapna, The Information and TVNewsCheck, more at Techmeme »

From Techmeme:

Gavin Anderegg / anderegg.ca:
Bluesky is working to become fully decentralized but it could take years amid financial concerns as it makes money only by selling domains for usernames

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
How Tim Cook may navigate Trump's presidency, a closer look at Apple's upcoming smart home command center, sources detail a new AirTag coming in 2025, and more

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: ByteDance is valuing itself at about $300B as part of a recent buyback offer, one of its highest valuations ever

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