Mediagazer: MLB launches a streaming service for MLB Network in the US for $5.99/month, no cable TV subscription required; live games will be subject to local blackouts (Todd Spangler/Variety)

The NBA declines WBD's effort to join the set of rights packages built for Amazon, Disney, and NBCUniversal, saying WBD's proposal did not match Amazon's offer — The company had proposed to match Amazon's $1.8 billion per year bid for NBA games. … “Warner Bros. Discovery's most recent proposal …

Discussion: CNN, TVLine, The Wrap, New York Times, Variety, Sportico, Bloomberg, The Information, Los Angeles Times, Deadline, @ourand_puck, @ourand_puck, Sports Media Watch, MediaPost and Adweek

Discussion: The Desk, The Hollywood Reporter, Digital Music News, Marketing Dive, Variety, TVNewsCheck, The Wrap, Reuters, The Hollywood Reporter, Sportico, Next TV and The Hollywood Reporter

Chloe Meley / Bloomberg:

Informa agrees to buy Ascential, the owner of the Cannes Lions and Money20/20 conferences, for ~£1.2B in cash, or £5.68/share, a 53% premium on Monday's close — Informa Plc has agreed to buy Ascential Plc, the owner of the Money20/20 and Cannes Lions conferences …

Discussion: Reuters, MediaPost, PRWeek, MediaPost, Press Gazette, Nagib A. on LinkedIn, City A.M., Financial Times 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.

Discussion: Alphabet Inc., The Verge, CNBC, Marketing Dive, Christian Grece on LinkedIn, The Register, The Media Leader, Music Ally, Quartz, The Desk, Reuters, Neowin, MediaPost, The Wrap, 9to5Google, Deadline, Wall Street Journal, Variety, Next TV and TVNewsCheck

Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:

Reddit appears to be blocking search engines that don't rely on Google's indexing; Bing, DuckDuckGo, and others are not showing recent results from Reddit — DuckDuckGo, Bing, Mojeek, and other search engines are not returning full Reddit results any more.

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: Digital Music News, Billboard, Neowin, Chris Walton on LinkedIn, TechCrunch, Music Business Worldwide, 9to5Mac, @carnage4life@threads.net, The Media Leader, Wall Street Journal, Digital Trends, RAIN News and Bloomberg

Todd Spangler / Variety:

MLB launches a streaming service for MLB Network in the US for $5.99/month, no cable TV subscription required; live games will be subject to local blackouts — Major League Baseball has a new way to get fans to pay to catch the streaming action of America's pastime.

Discussion: MLB.com, The Wrap and Awful Announcing

Adam B. Vary / Variety:

San Diego's Comic-Con, from July 25-July 28, is expected to draw more than 130,000, after back-to-back pandemic cancellations and the SAG-AFTRA strike — Last year, the organizers of San Diego Comic- Con were eager to put on their annual event sans pandemic cancellations or COVID protocols …

Discussion: @variety, Forbes, AV Club and San Diego Union-Tribune

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 …

Discussion: @palafo@threads.net, @theinformation, @georgescriban@threads.net, @kevinmkruse@threads.net, @drewharwell@threads.net, @fridaghitis@threads.net, @katieharbath@threads.net and @_hadasgold@threads.net

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, Financial Times, Reporters Without Borders and GB News

Variety:

A Prime Video India-commissioned report finds that India is attracting ~$6B per year in local content investments, or $4 per head vs. $370 per head in the US — Indian streaming series such as Netflix's “Heeramandi,” Prime Video's “Mirzapur” or Disney+ Hotstar's “Bad Cop,” could soon be more influential than Bollywood.

Discussion: Bloomberg, @lucas_shaw and Deadline

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

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