Mediagazer: Mark Halperin's media startup 2WAY, which hosts panel videos and does live events built around political pundits like Sean Spicer, raised a $4M seed in December (Max Tani/Semafor)

9:35 AM ET, February 11, 2025

Top News:

Michael M. Grynbaum / New York Times:

Fox Corp. acquires Red Seat Ventures, which helped Tucker Carlson, Nancy Grace, Megyn Kelly, Piers Morgan, and others set up their podcast businesses — Tucker Carlson, Nancy Grace, Megyn Kelly and Piers Morgan are among the clients of Red Seat Ventures, which now joins Rupert Murdoch's empire.

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:

Red Seat, one of the most influential companies in the news and talk creator economy, will be in Fox's Tubi division, putting it at a remove from Fox News — Red Seat Ventures counts former Fox News stars Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson as clients, as well as Piers Morgan and Nancy Grace.

Discussion: Business Insider, Breitbart, Cord Cutters News, Adweek, StreamTV Insider, Los Angeles Times, Chris Erwin on LinkedIn, Reuters, Mock Paper Scissors, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Media Play News, The Wrap, Deadline, The Daily Wire, TVNewsCheck and WORLD SCREEN

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:

Annual letter: YouTube CEO Neal Mohan says TV has overtaken mobile as the “primary device for YouTube viewing in the US”, indicating YouTube is “the new TV” — YouTube CEO Neal Mohan released his annual letter Tuesday morning, outlining his priorities for the video platform.

Discussion: YouTube Official Blog, The Wrap, Variety, Deadline, Tubefilter and Daily Guardian

Rick Porter / The Hollywood Reporter:

Nielsen and Fox: Super Bowl 2025 averaged a record 126M viewers, up 2% YoY, across Fox, Fox Deportes, Telemundo, Tubi, and NFL platforms; Tubi had 13.6M alone — Fox says 126 million viewers watched the game across all platforms. — A blowout on the field didn't deter a record number of viewers from watching Super Bowl LIX.

Bloomberg:
While traditional TV viewership has plummeted, the NFL's share of TV viewing has doubled over the past two decades, despite a brief dip around 2016

Discussion: TVNewsCheck, @lucas_shaw, Breitbart and Washington Post

Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:

PBS closes its DEI office to comply with President Trump's EO and says affected staff are leaving, as it faces an FCC investigation and threats to its funding — The public broadcaster is also facing an investigation by the FCC and potential threats to its funding.

Discussion: Deadline, HotAir, Breitbart, Insurance Journal, @benmullin.bsky.social, TVNewsCheck, The Wrap, Newsbusters, @wendysparrow.bsky.social, The Free Press, The Desk, Mediaite and Fox News

Max Tani / Semafor:

Mark Halperin's media startup 2WAY, which hosts panel videos and does live events built around political pundits like Sean Spicer, raised a $4M seed in December — THE SCOOP — Mark Halperin's media startup is staffing up. — 2WAY is bringing aboard Meghan McCain and Michael Moynihan …

Discussion: @maxwelltani, @athenae.bsky.social, @davidsirota, The Independent and Wide World of News

Matthew Weaver / The Guardian:

A BBC study finds 51% of AI answers to questions about the news had “significant issues”, and 19% of answers citing BBC content introduced factual errors — Most answers had ‘significant issues’ when researchers asked services to use broadcaster's news articles as source

Discussion: Press Gazette, BBC, Advanced Television, TechRadar, Matt O'Leary on LinkedIn, BBC, @keirstitt, @rogermosey, @bbcnewspr, @charliemoloney, @gillianegolden, @bbcnewspr, @michaelsavage.bsky.social, @peterstefanovic.bsky.social and @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us

Aidan Ryan / The Boston Globe:

How WBZ NewsRadio reporter Matt Shearer became New England's most viral journalist by chasing the weird and wacky stories of the region — The small town of Stow, “emotionally in shambles” without a single Dunkin' store, welcomes its first location in years.

Discussion: Nick Benevenia on LinkedIn, @aidanfitzryan, @nickbenevenia.bsky.social, @katienotopoulos.bsky.social and Matt Shearer on LinkedIn

Mark Stenberg / Adweek:

NowThis reports 2024 revenue up 122% YoY to $20M and an adjusted profit of $4.6M, achieving profitability for the first time as an independent company — The social video publisher credits the election and a new editorial strategy for the momentum — The social publisher NowThis …

Discussion: @markstenberg3

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:

Fox Corp. names John Nallen as president and COO, promoting one of Lachlan Murdoch's top deputies, in a deal that will keep him at Fox through June 2028 — The owner of the Fox network and Fox News says that Nallen has signed a new long-term deal with the company.

Discussion: Deadline, @bristei, Adweek, The Wrap, Variety, WORLD SCREEN and TVNewsCheck

Nicole Sperling / New York Times:

How Netflix, which thought Emilia Pérez could deliver its first best picture Oscar, is scrambling to limit the fallout from the Karla Sofía Gascón scandal — Netflix had thought the movie could deliver the company its first best picture award. But comments from its star have put it on the defense.

Discussion: BGR, Vanity Fair, The Playlist, Business Insider, Screen Rant, Washington Post and Page Six

Bron Maher / Press Gazette:

Jack Peat, co-founder of digital media outlet The London Economic, steps down after 12 years as editor, citing “punishing algorithms and scarce resources” — Jack Peat said running the site “requires huge personal sacrifices”. — The co-founder of digital media outlet …

Discussion: @pressgazette.co.uk

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More News:

Sohee Kim / Bloomberg:
Animated feature Ne Zha 2 grossed a record $1B+ in China over its first 10 days in cinemas, marking a rebound after the Chinese box office fell 23% in 2024

Discussion: Variety, @lucas_shaw, Screen Rant, The Wrap and Oh No They Didn't!

Ben Smith / Semafor:
Internal message: WaPo had 15M unique visitors on its platforms and 76.9M off-platform in the week of January 27 as traffic recovers amid US government chaos

Discussion: @pressgazette and @alexanderrusso

Dade Hayes / Deadline:
Cricket Media, the 50-year-old children's media company known for its namesake print magazine, acquires Sensical, a kids streaming outlet launched in 2021

Discussion: @victoriastrauss.bsky.social, Bethany Boles on LinkedIn and Sharon Cohen on LinkedIn

Financial Times:
Sources: the UK's ITV has held early talks with RedBird IMI about a deal for ITV Studios; CVC and Blackstone are also interested in ITV's production arm

Discussion: Ian Whittaker on LinkedIn

Alice Robb / Bloomberg:
A look at the debate about how much authors should get paid to license books for AI; Microsoft offered HarperCollins $5,000 per title, of which authors get 50%

Discussion: Music Ally, New York Post, Beyond Search, Enrico Bonadio on LinkedIn, @newsfromcity and @alicelrobb

Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
A look at WikiTok, a site that lets users vertically swipe through an endless stream of random Wikipedia article stubs without algorithmically tracking the user

Discussion: Fast Company, Interesting Engineering, @marklittle.bsky.social, @clemens@social … and @peterrenshaw@ioc.exchange

Earlier Picks:

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Edison: despite Spotify's video push, only two of the top 10 US podcasts post videos on Spotify; 37 of the top 50 US podcasts regularly post videos on YouTube

Discussion: Raw Story, The Creativity Business, Digiday and Edison Research

Amanda Holpuch / New York Times:
Lee Enterprises says a “cybersecurity event” has disrupted operations at its newspapers since at least February 3, forcing some to not print at all

Discussion: TechRadar, Augusta Free Press, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Register, TechCrunch, Daily Progress, Press of Atlantic City, MediaPost, Omaha World-Herald, Buffalo News, News & Advance, @kennysmith.bsky.social, @dicktofel.bsky.social, Ravalli Republic, Kenosha News, WISC-TV, The Beatrice Daily Sun and La Crosse Tribune

Matthew Luxmoore / Wall Street Journal:
A profile of Russia's most influential news anchor Dmitry Kiselyov, once an admirer of Western news networks who has since become Putin's propagandist in chief

Discussion: @mjluxmoore

Emmanuel Morgan / New York Times:
A look at former NFL player Shannon Sharpe's success moving from TV commentator to podcasting, especially with his own show, Club Shay Shay

Washington Post:
Many independent media organizations in Ukraine and exiled Russian news outlets that relied on US funding are struggling to survive after Trump suspended USAID

Discussion: Al Jazeera, The Guardian, A sort of extended …, The Bulwark, LewRockwell, Reporters Without Borders, New York Post, @goldstein.bsky.social, The Daily Wire and EADaily

From Techmeme:

Meta:
Meta launches Llama 4 Maverick with 400B parameters and Scout with 109B parameters and a 10M context window, and previews Behemoth with 2T total parameters

Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:
In backing Trump, effective accelerationists like Musk and Andreessen got a “Decel-in-Chief”, who instigated a brain drain and tariffs that hurt tech companies

TechCrunch:
SensorTower: users in India have spent $8M on ChatGPT subscriptions through IAP since 2023, not including web app purchases, versus ~$330M spent by US users

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