Top News:
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Comcast reports Q4 revenue up 2% YoY to $31.92B and media revenue, including its TV networks, up 3.5% to $7.22B; Comcast lost 311K cable TV customers — Comcast topped Wall Street's fourth-quarter estimates on Thursday as revenue from the company's broadband business gave it a boost despite losing customers.
Discussion:
Advanced Television, Variety, Reuters, CNBC, @sherman4949, Barrett Media, @bristei, Barron's Online, Bloomberg, Deadline, @tvgrimreaper and Comcast
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Comcast reports Peacock's Q4 losses fell to $372M from a $825M loss in Q4 2023 and revenue rose 28% YoY to $1.3B; Comcast didn't disclose a subscriber count — Comcast, led by chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, reported fourth-quarter and full-year results for its entertainment unit and other operations.
Discussion:
IndieWire, The Wrap, Media Play News and @tvgrimreaper
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Meta agrees to pay ~$25M to settle Trump's 2021 lawsuit against Meta and Mark Zuckerberg after the company suspended his accounts following the January 6 riot — The president had sued the social-media company after his accounts were suspended following Jan. 6 riot
Discussion:
MediaPost, Washington Post, Axios, New York Times, UPI, @mediaevan, @emilybell.bsky.social, Poynter, emptywheel, NPR, HuffPost, @mattgertz, AV Club, @rebeccaballhaus, Digby's Hullabaloo, The Guardian, Benzinga, The Hill, One America News Network, @davidfrum.bsky.social, Reclaim The Net, Reuters, @katarinacorleone.bsky.social, Associated Press, RedState, CNBC, Mediaite, Raw Story, @derfbackderf.bsky.social, Politico, Le Monde, Forbes, @philipmai.com, The Verge, Engadget, The Gateway Pundit, The Desk, Daily Mail, @zacheverson.com, The Post Millennial, ABC News, @kjhealy.co, The Atlantic, @annmlipton@esq.social, TVNewsCheck, @documentingmeta@threads.net, NBC4 Washington, The Information, Variety, The Wrap, ZeroHedge News, @bgrueskin.bsky.social, CNN, The Independent, @noupside.bsky.social, @brianfung.me, @brianstelter.bsky.social, @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social, Business Insider and CBS News, more at Techmeme »
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The BBC apologizes to staff after an internal review found employees felt unable to raise concerns about Russell Brand's misconduct during his tenure at BBC — The BBC has apologised to staff who felt they could not speak up with concerns about Russell Brand's behaviour because he was seen as …
Discussion:
The Guardian, Variety, Us Weekly, The Hollywood Reporter, Daily Mail, The Independent, The i Paper, Sky News, The Mirror US, The Mirror, The Sun, Deadline, Irish Mirror, GB News and Irish Independent
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The Washington Post names Peter Spiegel as its new managing editor; Spiegel most recently was the Financial Times' US managing editor for nearly six years — The veteran, award-winning journalist will oversee the National and Local newsroom departments, including coverage of politics, national security and immigration
Discussion:
@sidhubaba
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Court filing: Elon Musk, seeking to dismiss Don Lemon's lawsuit, blames an “invasive and charged interview” for canceling Lemon's $1.5M partnership with X — - Former CNN star is suing Musk over failed $1.5 million deal — X owner says journalist's interview led to ‘sour’ relationship
Discussion:
@mediaevan.bsky.social, @kurtwagner.bsky.social, @kurtwagner.bsky.social and The Root
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NewsGuard: with news-related prompts, DeepSeek's chatbot repeated false claims 30% of the time and provided non-answers 53% of the time, giving an 83% fail rate — Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek's new chatbot failed to provide accurate information about news …
Discussion:
Politico, @firstadopter, The Mirror, TechNode, @brianfung.me, @newsguard.bsky.social, @peark.es, BGR, Interesting Engineering, Gizmodo, Fortune and Reuters, more at Techmeme »
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How Epic is transforming Fortnite into a content platform, paying $350M to creators in 2024; 36.5% of the total playtime was spent in games made by creators — What are creator made islands competing for players' attention if nothing but decentralized channels in a centralized ecosystem?
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The Authors Guild launches a project for writers to certify their books as human-authored and not AI generated, initially for members and single-author books — Books not created by AI will be listed in a US Authors Guild database that anyone can access. — Books not created by AI …
Discussion:
@authorsguild, The Authors Guild, Associated Press and r/artificial
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The co-founder of the nonprofit National Trust for Local News, Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, is stepping down as the organization's CEO after four years — Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, who co-founded the National Trust for Local News four years ago, is stepping down as the organization's CEO.
Discussion:
Press Herald, The Maine Wire, NTLN and @dankennedy.net
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Influence Media Partners secures ~$360M in debt financing through private securitization, collateralized by music royalties from its portfolio of music rights — Rights-backed securitization deals are becoming increasingly common in the music industry. — Today (January 29) brings the latest news from this space.
Discussion:
Music Ally, Billboard, Digital Music News, Influence Media Partners and Variety
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Fox EVP of Ad Sales Mark Evans says there is an increase in Super Bowl ad buys from AI companies, while ad buys from movie studios and streamers are down — AI-focused ads are up, and movie spots are down, Fox says, as 30-second ads hit an eye-watering $8 million.
Discussion:
Sportico, Adweek, TVNewsCheck, Sports Business Journal, CNBC, RetailWire, Benzinga, @alexweprin, Gizmodo, The US Sun, Us Weekly, The Wrap, The Verge, Awful Announcing, @mousterpiece.bsky.social and Ad Age