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Dade Hayes / Deadline:
Comcast President Mike Cavanagh says NBCUniversal expects an 11-year rights deal with the NBA, starting with the 2025-26 season, will be announced “soon” — In the first on-the-record comments by a media partner in the NBA's pending $76 billion rights bonanza …
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Variety, Next TV, The Wrap and The Hollywood Reporter
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Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:
Comcast reports Peacock Q2 revenue up 28% YoY to $1B, a $348M loss, down from $651M in Q2 2023, and paying subscribers up 38% YoY to 33M — Comcast and its entertainment unit NBCUniversal report second-quarter results, including the “best year-over-year improvement” in quarterly streaming losses since launch in 2020.
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The Desk, The Streamable, IndieWire, Variety, Comcast Corporation, Variety, The Wrap, Cord Cutters News, @alexweprin, Next TV, CNBC, Deadline, MarketWatch and Barron's Online
Bloomberg:
A look at Comcast's bet on the Paris Olympics, which executives hope will greatly elevate Peacock against Netflix and Disney+; Peacock has exclusive US rights — - US viewers will be able to see every Olympic event on Peacock — Coverage of Games will promote Peacock original programming
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Reuters, Slate, @lucas_shaw, E! Online, IndieWire, Rolling Stone and The Streamable
Max Goldbart / Deadline:
BBC plans to lay off 500 more staff by March 2026 and reports a £263M operating deficit in 2023/24, up from £193M in 2022/23, projected to be £492M in 2024/25 — The BBC will lay off 500 more staff by March 2026 as its annual report paints a worrying financial picture including …
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Naman Ramachandran / Variety:
BBC reports BBC Commercial revenue of £1.9B in 2023/24, down from £2.1B in 2022/23, and 3.8M BritBox International subscribers, with a 25% annual growth rate — BBC Commercial, the revenue-generating arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation, has revealed a dip in sales and earnings for the 2023/24 fiscal year.
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Broadcast, BBC, Broadband TV News, The Hollywood Reporter, The Hollywood Reporter and Advanced Television
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Huw Edwards tops the list of BBC's highest paid journalists for 2023/24 despite being off-air since July 2023; 46 BBC journalists earned above £178K — Forty-six BBC journalists earned above £178,000 last year from their work for the corporation, according to the BBC's annual report …
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The i Paper, Metro.co.uk, Sky News, The Mirror, The Mirror, The Mirror, Daily Mail, Telegraph, Daily Express, The Independent, The Independent, London Evening Standard, LBC, The Times, GB News, RTÉ, The Sun and Deadline
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Spotify reports Q2 revenue up 20% YoY to €3.8B, MAUs up 14% YoY to 626M, subscribers up 12% YoY to 246M, above est., and €266M operating income; SPOT jumps 14%+ — Spotify Technology SA, the Swedish audio-streaming giant, reported second-quarter subscriber growth …
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Mike Scarcella / Reuters:
A US judge rules that Nina Jankowicz, a former Biden anti-disinformation official, could not back up her defamation claims against Fox News and parent Fox Corp — Fox News Media and its parent Fox Corp (FOXA.O) won a ruling on Monday dismissing a lawsuit by a former Biden administration official …
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The Hill, Mediaite, NPR and Los Angeles Times
Digiday:
Google says it won't be “deprecating third-party cookies” in Chrome and will instead keep working on “privacy-preserving alternatives” via Privacy Sandbox APIs — After much back and forth, Google has decided to keep third-party cookies in its Chrome browser.
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Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:
TelevisaUnivision reports Q2 revenue up 3% YoY to $1.3B, ad revenue up 6% YoY to $785M, and operating expenses up 6% YoY to $896M — The Spanish-language media giant, led by CEO Wade Davis, reports its second-quarter financials. … The company also reemphasized that its streaming business …
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Variety, WORLD SCREEN, Next TV, TelevisaUnivision and TVNewsCheck
Reuters:
The US calls on Russia to free Russian-American RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who was jailed last week in what RFE/RL said was “a mockery of justice” — The U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Tuesday called on Russia to free Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist …
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Semafor, Reporters Without Borders and European Federation …
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Dylan Donnelly / Sky News:
A Russian court sentences Russian-American RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva to six and a half years in prison for spreading “false info” about the Russian army
A Russian court sentences Russian-American RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva to six and a half years in prison for spreading “false info” about the Russian army
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Associated Press, Radio Free Europe/Radio …, TVNewsCheck, @freedomofpress, @samberkhead, @bentavener, @reidstan, @rebecca_vincent, @janlipavsky, @samagreene, @pressgazette, @bbcstever, @hadas_gold, CNN, New York Times, BBC, Committee to Protect …, The Guardian, Voice of America, Reuters, CNN, CBS News and USAGM
Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
Vivendi plans to list its French TV business Canal+ in London and advertising company Havas in Amsterdam, as part of a drive to break up the media conglomerate — Media group controlled by Vincent Bolloré to break up, with advertising company Havas to list in Amsterdam
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Reuters, Financial Times, The Media Leader, Broadband TV News, Advanced Television and Bloomberg