Mediagazer: A look at the battle among streamers for stand-up comic specials, as Amazon, Hulu, and Max challenge Netflix's dominance of the genre (The Hollywood Reporter)

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Rishav Chatterjee / Reuters:

News Corp puts its 65% interest in Australian pay TV company Foxtel up for sale, citing third-party interest and a strategic review — Australian pay television company Foxtel, controlled by the Murdoch family and partly by local telecom firm Telstra (TLS.AX), has been put …

Discussion: Sydney Morning Herald, The Hollywood Reporter, The Guardian, ABC, Mumbrella and Australian Financial Review

Jaspreet Singh / Reuters:

News Corp reports Q4 revenue up 6% YoY to $2.58B vs. $2.49B est., net income of $71M, Dow Jones revenue up 4% to $566M, and book publishing revenue up 15% — Media conglomerate News Corp (NWSA.O) beat Wall Street estimates for fourth-quarter revenue on Thursday, helped by digital subscription growth …

Discussion: New York Post, Talking Biz News, The Wrap, The Wrap and News Corporation

Lara O'Reilly / Business Insider:

Email: the World Federation of Advertisers discontinues activities of its nonprofit, GARM, following X's antitrust lawsuit, but intends to contest X's claims — - The World Federation of Advertisers is ‘discontinuing’ the activities of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media.

Sheena Vasani / The Verge:

Substack now lets users publish posts and collect subscribers directly from their profile without setting up a publication, on the web or in its app — Anybody with a Substack account can now publish posts on Substack's web and mobile app, the company announced on Thursday …

Discussion: Substack Reads and @simondowens@threads.net

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Paramount Global says it will cut 15% of its US workforce, or about 2,000 employees, in the next few weeks, after cutting about 800 positions in February — Paramount Global will cut 15% of its U.S. workforce in the next few weeks — a round of layoffs that will affect about 2,000 employees …

Discussion: IGN, TVNewsCheck, The Wrap, The Guardian, Deadline, @hadas_gold, IndieWire, AdExchanger, CNN, StreamTV Insider, Los Angeles Times, Next TV and Deadline

Alex Sherman / CNBC:

Paramount reports Q2 revenue down 11% YoY to $6.81B vs. $7.21B est., its first ever streaming profit, of $26M, and a $5.98B impairment charge for cable networks — Paramount Global is cutting 15% of its U.S. workforce, or about 2,000 jobs, part of a broader cost-cutting plan as it prepares for a merger with Skydance Media.

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Todd Spangler / Variety:

Lionsgate reports a Q1 net loss of $59.4M vs. a $70.7M net loss a year ago and revenue down 8% YoY to $834.7M vs. $857.5M est.; Starz shed 500K subscribers — Lionsgate, still feeling ripple effects from last year's twin Hollywood strikes, reported a decline in sales and while narrowing …

Discussion: Media Play News, Deadline, Jericho Wilson on LinkedIn, The Wrap and The Hollywood Reporter

The Hollywood Reporter:

A look at the battle among streamers for stand-up comic specials, as Amazon, Hulu, and Max challenge Netflix's dominance of the genre — What industry contraction? Platforms from Hulu to Amazon are spending wildly to woo comedians like Nate Bargatze and Bill Burr and put a dent in Netflix's dominance.

Theo Wayt / The Information:

TikTok and Pinterest partner with Amazon to let users buy items from Amazon ads without leaving the social media apps — Amazon's e-commerce business is huge but slow-growing, while shopping on social media has been taking off. That's prompted Amazon to look for ways to team up with popular social media apps.

Discussion: Affiverse, esports.gg and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »

Thomas Hunter / Press Gazette:

Victoria Newton, editor of The Sun, defends her outlet's early coverage of the BBC's Huw Edwards and criticizes the Met's delay in revealing charges against him — The Sun's Victoria Newton has revealed she felt “quite lonely” at times in her capacity as editor in the wake of the paper's revelation …

Discussion: @pressgazette, Mark Stephens CBE on LinkedIn and BBC

CNN:

ABC says Trump and Harris have agreed to debate on September 10; at a press conference, Trump also says he has agreed to debate on Fox and NBC — Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are set to debate on ABC on September 10 after the former president said Thursday he had agreed to the faceoff, along with two others next month.

Bloomberg:

Sources: the UK is considering revisiting parts of the Online Safety Act to give authorities more power to force social media companies to curb harmful content — - Starmer has few existing levers to curb incendiary content — Officials consider revisiting key parts of Online Safety Act

Discussion: The Hill, The Guardian, The Verge and Deadline