Top News:
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.
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The Media Leader, Observer, Quartz, Music Ally, Alphabet Inc., The Verge, The Register, The Desk, Reuters, Neowin, MediaPost, The Wrap, 9to5Google, Deadline, Wall Street Journal, Variety, Next TV and TVNewsCheck, more at Techmeme »
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 …
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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%+
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
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 …
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Variety, Gizmodo, New York Post, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline 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 …
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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’
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
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
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.
Judd Legum / Popular Information:
A look at Sinclair's Rapid Response Team, which produces biased short articles; affiliates must include at least three RRT stories nightly — Eugene Ramirez, the lead anchor of Sinclair's national evening news broadcast, resigned in January over concerns about the accuracy and right-wing bias …
Discussion:
@eugeneramirez, @michaelsocolow, @sueblueswilson, @agt00soul, @kali_fissure, @juddlegum, @drvolts, @jayrosen_nyu, @thetnholler, @davidfolkenflik, The Daily Beast, @kbode@threads.net, TVNewsCheck, @FAIR@mastodon.world, @davinasass@threads.net, @shamrockchickens@threads.net, @realjuddlegum@threads.net, @kiminsley11@threads.net, @KimPerales@toad.social and @emmettoconnell@mas.to
Bron Maher / Press Gazette:
A look at The Guardian's recipes app Feast, which costs £2.99/month and has reached 100K+ downloads since April 2024, and how its bundling differs from the NYT — The Guardian says its new recipes app Feast has achieved more than 100,000 downloads since it soft-launched in April.
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
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 …
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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
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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 …
Discussion:
Variety, TVNewsCheck, The Hollywood Reporter, Reuters, Sportico, Next TV and The Wrap
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