Top News:
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Daniel Ek says Spotify is working on a deluxe Spotify tier, costing around $17 to $18, that has “a lot more control, a lot higher quality across the board” — The saga of Spotify HiFi has many twists and turns. First announced over three years ago, the music service's higher …
Discussion:
Billboard, Neowin, TechCrunch, Music Business Worldwide, 9to5Mac, The Media Leader, Digital Trends and RAIN News, more at Techmeme »
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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 12%+
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 12%+
Discussion:
Music Ally, Simon Owens's Media Newsletter, Chris Walton on LinkedIn, The Information, @alexweprin, @thetranscript_, @sarafischer, @eldsjal, @natetharp@threads.net, @carnage4life@threads.net, Spotify, Neowin, Benzinga, MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal, Proactive, The Verge, Tech Xplore, Investor's Business Daily, Axios, Fast Company, Quartz, Billboard, Music Ally, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, The Wrap, Music Business Worldwide, Variety and Reuters
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
YouTube Q2 ad revenue grew 13% YoY to $8.66B, vs. $8.93B est.; Google's subscriptions, platforms, and devices unit that includes YouTube TV had revenue of $9.3B — The Google-owned video platform still saw its ad haul rise by 13 percent compared to last year.
The Information:
Internal messages: Meta staff complained about Threads' algorithm limiting political posts, after the For You page was slow to show news of Biden dropping out — Shortly after Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential election Sunday, an employee at Meta Platforms posted in the company's internal forum …
Robbie Whelan / Wall Street Journal:
Former Marvel chairman Ike Perlmutter, who backed Nelson Peltz in a failed proxy fight for two Disney board seats, sells his stake of nearly 26M Disney shares — Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter, the former Marvel Entertainment executive, who for the last decade and a half has been one of Disney's …
Discussion:
Variety, Gizmodo, Deadline, New York Post, The Hollywood Reporter and Reuters
Reuters:
A Moscow court finds Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar guilty in absentia of distributing false information about the Russian army and sentences him to 8.5 years — A court in Moscow said on Tuesday it had found Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar guilty in absentia of knowingly distributing false information …
Discussion:
International Center … and Committee to Protect …
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Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Though the UK's ICO says it's “disappointed” with Google's not deprecating third-party cookies, the regulator has only weakly enforced data protection laws — In a material development that will likely have a big impact on online business models, Google is no longer proposing …
Discussion:
Street Fight, Beet.TV, @LukaszOlejnik@mastodon.social, Digital Trends, Digiday, Privacy Sandbox, Security, Privacy & …, AdExchanger, Bloomberg, Criteo, Neowin, @Privacymatters@mastodon …, MarTech, RTÉ, Gizmodo, Press Gazette, Inside Radio, Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Register, The Verge, Reuters, Axios, W Media Research, The Drum, The Media Leader, Adweek, MediaPost and 9to5Google
Melanie Goodfellow / Deadline:
France's Arcom regulator will not renew the TNT frequencies of Canal+ Group's controversial channel C8, which was fined €7.6M for lack of political plurality — Controversial French free-to-air channel C8, a subsidiary of Vivendi's Canal Plus Group, is set to lose its TNT frequency …
Discussion:
Variety, Reporters Without Borders and GB News
Amanda Meade / The Guardian:
Some of News Corp's most experienced journalists in Australia, including Sue Dunlevy, have been made redundant, as the outlet cuts its national reporting team — Murdoch's Australian arm has quietly slashed tens of millions of dollars in costs to counter a slow advertising market and loss of revenue from Meta deal
Discussion:
@mark_melbin@mastodon.online
Amanda Meade / The Guardian:
Journalists at Nine newspapers Sydney Morning Herald and the Age plan to strike during Olympics if their demands, including a higher pay rise, aren't met — Reporters will walk off job from Friday - affecting Paris Games coverage - unless union demands are met during Wednesday afternoon meeting
Discussion:
Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review
Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
BBC reports UK households paying the £169.50 licence fee fell by 500K to 23.9M in 2023/2024; 69% of Britons under 16 consume any BBC content in an average week — Corporation faces stark challenge as it struggles to reach younger audiences who are watching Netflix and YouTube
Discussion:
Alex Blundell Jones on LinkedIn, The Sun, Financial Times, The Business Times and GB News
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Twitch introduces new policy and moderation updates to curb sexual harassment, including making its policy “easier to understand” and adding moderation tools — Twitch has introduced new policy and moderation updates that aim to help curb sexual harassment.
Laura Dubois / Financial Times:
The EU raises concerns over the independence of Italy's public broadcaster Rai after budget cuts and alleged “intimidation” by Giorgia Meloni's government — European Commission raises alarm over independence of public broadcaster Rai after budget cuts and ‘intimidation’
Discussion:
The Guardian and Agenzia ANSA
Jess Jones / City A.M.:
LADbible owner LBG Media reports H1 2024 revenue up 55% YoY to £42.3M, adjusted earnings up 240% YoY to £10.2M, and a global audience of 493M; LBG jumps 11%+ — Shares in LBG Media soared 12 per cent after the company behind popular entertainment channel LAD Bible posted strong revenue …
Discussion:
LBG Media
Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:
Comcast reports Peacock Q2 revenue up 28% YoY to $1B, and a $348M loss, down from $651M in Q2 2023; paying subs were up 38% YoY to 33M but down from 33.5M in Q1 — Comcast and its entertainment unit NBCUniversal report second-quarter results, including the “best year-over-year improvement” …
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