Top News:
Mark Stenberg / Adweek:
Morning Brew co-founder Austin Rief steps down as CEO, replaced by COO Robert Dippell; the company is on pace to generate $70M+ in revenue in 2025 — The 10-year-old company, now wholly owned by Axel Springer, has transformed its newsletter business into a multimedia portfolio
Julie Pace / The Associated Press:
The AP says it was blocked from a White House event after the WH threatened to bar the organization if it did not adopt Trump's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico — The Associated Press issued this statement on Tuesday from Executive Editor Julie Pace: — As a global news organization …
Discussion:
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Ben Kochman / New York Post:
WWE CEO Vince McMahon's lawyer says US federal prosecutors dropped a criminal probe into whether McMahon tried to cover up sexual misconduct allegations — Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have dropped a criminal probe that focused on whether former World Wrestling Entertainment boss Vince McMahon tried …
John Ourand / Puck:
Sources: ESPN and the NFL are in renewed negotiations and have discussed a deal that would have ESPN take control of NFL Network and NFL RedZone — Once again, ESPN and the NFL are in renewed negotiations for the former to take on the latter's media assets. What's changed since the last time these dance partners played footsie?
Discussion:
The Streamable, Awful Announcing, Cord Cutters News and Barrett Media
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple will unveil an Android app for Apple TV+ as early as Wednesday as it looks to boost subscriptions and compete with Netflix and Disney+ — Apple Inc. is set to announce that it's expanding the TV+ streaming video service to Android phones for the first time, according to people familiar with the move.
Discussion:
TechRadar, MacRumors and @markgurman, more at Techmeme »
Dominic Patten / Deadline:
Sean “Diddy” Combs sues NBCUniversal and Peacock for $100M over his depiction in the Diddy: Making of a Bad Boy documentary that launched on Peacock in January — Set to go on trial for sex trafficking and more in May, the much accused and already incarcerated Sean “Diddy” …
Discussion:
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Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:
Sources: more than 20 Observer journalists have taken redundancy, capped at £120,000 per person, and 46 staffers are transferring over to Tortoise Media — More than 20 Observer journalists are believed to have taken redundancy rather than transfer over to Tortoise Media.
Discussion:
@katebevan.com
Mark Yarm / Long Lead Presents:
Q&A with Ashlee Vance about launching the media company Core Memory, why mainstream media's tech coverage feels like activism, AI's threat to journalism, more — The Elon Musk biographer talks about what's wrong with tech coverage today and how Washington needs “a chaos agent for a little while.”
Discussion:
@markyarm
Sophie Culpepper / Nieman Lab:
A study of paywalls on 21 German and Austrian local and regional news sites in 2022: less is more for teaser features, and discounts are an effective enticement — “Reducing the information density of teaser elements on paywalled articles and offering discounts may help newspapers increase their online subscriber numbers."
Discussion:
@neilthurman.bsky.social and Simon Owens's Media Newsletter
Connor Hart / Wall Street Journal:
IAC reports Dotdash Meredith's Q4 revenue up 10% YoY to $522.1M and plans to ramp up monetization efforts after Dotdash traffic grew 80% in 2024 — Company aims to complete its spin off of Angi by the end of March — IAC is ready to move on from home-services company Angi …
Discussion:
A Media Operator and Reuters
Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch says Fox and Tubi brought in $800M+ in advertising sales for the presentation of Super Bowl LIX — In addition to the record 127.7 million viewers for the game, Kendrick Lamar's performance was the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show in history.
Discussion:
The Desk, TV Tech, The Wrap, Adweek, Front Office Sports, Variety, Bloomberg, Media Play News, @archroadkill.bsky.social, WORLD SCREEN, Deadline, The Japan Times and Decider
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Amazon Prime Video, which already has NFL Thursday Night Football, plans to add the NBA in the fall and NASCAR in 2025, showing premier live sports year-round — The tech giant will add NBA and NASCAR rights this year, setting up to have premier live sports year-round, and it intends to capitalize on it.
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