Mediagazer: An interview with Alsu Kurmasheva of RFE/RL, a seasoned editor and broadcaster who spent months in a Russian prison before being released in a prisoner swap (Manuel Roig-Franzia/Washington Post)

Trade body data: copyrighted music revenue was $45.5B in 2023, above cinema box office spending of $33.2B in 2023 and $41.9B in 2019; record labels made $28.5B — Annual revenues from copyrighted music hit almost $46bn last year, against $33.2bn for cinema

Discussion: Pivotal Economics, Billboard, Music Ally and Will Page on LinkedIn

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

PlayAI, which uses AI to clone voices for $49 per month and recently rolled out AI agents, raised a $20M seed co-led by 500 Startups and Kindred Ventures — Back in 2016, Hammad Syed and Mahmoud Felfel, an ex-WhatsApp engineer, thought it'd be neat to build a text-to-speech Chrome extension for Medium articles.

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Press freedom groups send six questions to the Scott Trust over The Observer sale, including why there is only one bidder and why staff can't speak out freely — The chair of the Scott Trust has offered to meet a consortium of press freedom groups which has raised concerns over the sale of The Observer.

Discussion: Financial Times and osce.org

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:

The music industry is entering a cycle of consolidation, driven by a slowdown at the major labels, the growing market for independents, and the rapacity of PE — The music industry is entering new era, one driven by a slowdown at the major labels, the growing market for independents and the rapacity of private equity.

Discussion: @lucas_shaw, @lucas_shaw and @lucas_shaw

Geneva Abdul / The Guardian:

Internal email: the UK's Reach plans to merge staff at The Daily Mirror and celebrity magazine OK! to cut costs, but the move won't result in cutting of roles — Merging of daily newspaper and celebrity magazine employees is latest move by owner, Reach, to cut costs

Discussion: MediaPost and Telegraph

Reporters Without Borders:

Investigation: how hack-for-hire Appin tried silencing 15+ outlets since 2022 over articles, newsletters, and podcasts covering Appin's “ethical hacking” — Whether based in the US, Switzerland, France or India, any media outlet investigating the “ethical hacking” of Appin …

Discussion: Reporters Without Borders on YouTube and @rsf_inter, more at Techmeme »

Max Tani / Semafor:

Sources: CNN is considering making network anchor Kaitlan Collins its chief White House correspondent and relocating her show from New York to DC — The Scoop — CNN's leadership says it doesn't want to go back to its wall-to-wall 24-hour coverage of Donald Trump when he returns to the White House in January.

Discussion: TVNewsCheck

Financial Times:

Similarweb: Bluesky's US and UK app usage grew ~300% to 3.5M DAUs after November 5; Threads has 1.5x Bluesky's DAUs in the US, down from 5x before November 5 — Social media giant's Threads app makes changes as smaller competitor to X surges — Meta's Threads is losing ground …

Manuel Roig-Franzia / Washington Post:

An interview with Alsu Kurmasheva of RFE/RL, a seasoned editor and broadcaster who spent months in a Russian prison before being released in a prisoner swap — Russian authorities put Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Alsu Kurmasheva behind bars, but they couldn't outsmart her.

Discussion: Kathleen Moore on LinkedIn, Freedom of the Press … and Voice of America

Peter White / Deadline:

Fox and Hulu extend their content partnership, including in-season streaming rights for Fox's programming; sources: the deal is worth $1.5B over four years — The two companies have struck a new multiyear content partnership that includes in-season streaming rights for Fox's programming slate.

Discussion: Comic Book, Cord Cutters News, Media Play News and Advanced Television

Shawn Musgrave / The Intercept:

A US federal court allows The Intercept's claim that the DMCA stops OpenAI from stripping a story's title or byline but dismisses its claims against Microsoft — In an order on Friday, a federal court rejected OpenAI's effort to toss a lawsuit filed by The Intercept over using its journalists' work …

Discussion: The Information, Observer and CNBC

Andrew Deck / Nieman Lab:

Experts expect a surge in FOIA requests in Trump's second term, causing more delays and lawsuits; FOIA.gov: as of Q3 2024, the backlog of requests reached 222K+ — The law itself is likely to stand, but experts expect a surge in requests, longer delays, and more court dates.

Discussion: Jason Leopold on LinkedIn, @mvtopic, @mvtopic, @decka227 and @mvtopic