Mediagazer: The Sun names Jon Lloyd, previously behind TV content formats like Come Dine With Me, as its director of video to lead a video-first commissioning strategy (Charlotte Tobitt/Press Gazette)

12:10 PM ET, March 5, 2025

Top News:

YouTube debuts a $7.99/month Premium Lite tier in the US, offering ad-free videos like gaming and news, and plans to launch in Thailand, Germany, and Australia — Today we'll begin expanding our Premium Lite pilot to users in the US. Premium Lite gives viewers a new …

Discussion: TechCrunch, The Wrap, Billboard, The Verge, Engadget, The Hollywood Reporter, BGR, 9to5Google and Cord Cutters News, more at Techmeme »

Murray Stassen / Music Business Worldwide:

YouTube says YouTube Music and YouTube Premium now have 125M+ subscribers globally, including trials, after passing 100M subscribers in February 2024 — MBW's Stat Of The Week is a series in which we highlight a data point that deserves the attention of the global music industry.

Discussion: Variety, The Information, @lucas_shaw and YouTube Official Blog

Joe Flint / Wall Street Journal:

Disney plans to cut nearly 6% staff, or ~200 jobs, across ABC News and Disney Entertainment Networks; ABC is also eliminating 538, which had ~15 employees — The layoffs are being announced to employees as early as Wednesday — About 200 employees are being let go at Disney's ABC News Group …

Oliver Darcy / Status:

Source: WaPo Publisher Will Lewis quietly met with Free Beacon EIC Eliana Johnson last month, where the two discussed recruiting conservative journalists — As Jeff Bezos pushes The Washington Post to the right, publisher Will Lewis quietly met with a conservative editor last month, Status has learned.

Discussion: New York Post, @mediaevan, @oliverdarcy.bsky.social, @mattdpearce.com and Mediaite

Mike Isaac / New York Times:

Digg founder Kevin Rose and Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian buy Digg for an undisclosed sum from Money Group, aiming to focus on “connection and humanity” online — Two decades after creating Digg, a community-focused social message board, Kevin Rose is reviving the site and teaming up with a founder of Reddit.

Discussion: Digiday, Associated Press, Reuters, Engadget, TechCrunch, The Verge, Bloomberg, Inc.com, The Hollywood Reporter, @dannygroner.bsky.social and 9to5Mac, more at Techmeme »

Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:

A look at the LA Times' AI “Insights”: much of the cited sourcing wouldn't pass scrutiny in a newsroom or a classroom, and the political labels can be confusing — The hope: The L.A. Times will appear more “objective” if it presents both sides of an issue, even if one side's written …

Corbin Bolies / The Daily Beast:

The Los Angeles Times removes Particle's AI-powered “Insights” feature from a column after the tool tried to defend the Ku Klux Klan, just a day after its debut — An AI-generated summary tried to offer “different views” on the hate group.

Discussion: The Present Age, @mattsheffield@mastodon.social, Shelly Palmer, Timnit Gebru on LinkedIn, @sternbergh.bsky.social, @harrymccracken@mastodon …, @ripperoni.com and The Guardian, more at Techmeme »

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Patch CEO Warren St. John says its AI-curated newsletters, with 400K subscribers, have grown Patch's reach from 1,100 to 30K US communities in just a few months — - Of Patch's 3 million newsletter subscribers nationally, 400,000 subscribe to its new AI newsletter products, per St. John.

Discussion: Mike Carraggi on LinkedIn

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:

WPP invests in Stability AI as part of a deal to use its models across images, video, and audio, and says it is increasing its AI investment to ~£300M per year — AI being used across industry to produce marketing campaigns faster and at lower cost — UK advertising group WPP …

Discussion: Ad Age and Fortune

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:

TNT Sports strikes a deal with DAZN to televise 24 of the 63 FIFA Club World Cup 2025 matches on TNT, TBS, and truTV, including the final — TNT Sports will televise 24 of the 63 matches, including the final, on TNT, TBS and TruTV in a deal with the streaming sports service, which retains global rights.

Discussion: The Streamable, Advanced Television, WORLD SCREEN, Front Office Sports, @nick-waters.bsky.social and Sports Video Group

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

The Sun names Jon Lloyd, previously behind TV content formats like Come Dine With Me, as its director of video to lead a video-first commissioning strategy — Jon Lloyd to lead video-first commissioning strategy. — The Sun has named a director of video to lead its expansion plans in this area.

Benjamin Svetkey / The Hollywood Reporter:

Streaming has been a major setback for classic movies, largely due to platforms that ignore or bury old films; the oldest film on Netflix is from 1973 — The oldest title available on Netflix last month was 1973's ‘The Sting.’ Where does that leave the next generation of film lovers?

Discussion: @chrisyogerst.com, @tvhilton.bsky.social and Screen Rant

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More News:

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A US district court judge stops discovery requests against the NYT in Justin Baldoni's defamation lawsuit and signals the NYT might get dismissed from the case

Discussion: Us Weekly and Deadline

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:
Memo: WSJ Editor Emma Tucker announces the layoffs of some reporters and editors, and the creation of new jobs, amid a consolidation of tech and media coverage

Discussion: The Wrap, @katie_robertson, @jessicalessin and @annkspencer.bsky.social

Emma Roth / The Verge:
YouTube will tighten gambling content rules, including prohibiting creators from verbally referring to gambling services not approved by Google, from March 19

Discussion: Barrett Media and CNN

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Memo: Kari Lake, special adviser to the US Agency for Global Media, says Victor Morales, who started working at USAGM in 2016, has been named acting USAGM CEO

Discussion: @davidfolkenflik, Inside Radio and Arizona Republic

Bloomberg:
Filing: AP renews its request for a judge to order the White House to resume access for AP reporters at Trump's events and says a ban harms AP financially

Discussion: Talking Biz News, The Guardian, Deadline and TVNewsCheck

Lucas Manfredi / The Wrap:
David Zaslav says WBD is both looking at how much content it's producing and bringing HBO content to TNT and TBS that it doesn't plan on licensing to rivals

Discussion: @jbflint, @jbflint, @jbflint, @jbflint and Media Play News

Earlier Picks:

Kerry Flynn / Axios:
Firsthand, whose tools let marketers and publishers engage consumers through AI agents on their own sites or other sites as paid media, raised a $26M Series A

Discussion: Kerry Flynn on LinkedIn

Aidan Ryan / The Boston Globe:
The Maine Trust for Local News, which owns 22 newspapers, is laying off 49 employees and reducing print editions to cut costs and focus on digital products

Discussion: Bangor Daily News, @charlesornstein, @sahogan, The Maine Wire, MediaPost, @aidanryan.bsky.social, @aidanryan.bsky.social, Nieman Reports and Press Herald

Lauren Johnson / Adweek:
Amazon launches Complete TV, an AI-powered ad tool to let advertisers track their upfront commitments and to buy scatter TV inventory not sold in the upfront

Discussion: Digiday, @daveclark, Lauren Johnson on LinkedIn, MediaPost, Digiday, Business Insider and What's New in Publishing

Brian Steinberg / Variety:
MSNBC taps The Washington Post's Jackie Alemany to co-host The Weekend and serve as a Washington correspondent

Discussion: The Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap, @richardhudock, @bristei, The Washington Free Beacon, Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Barrett Media, Editor and Publisher, Adweek, MSNBC and Deadline

Martin Baron / The Atlantic:
Jeff Bezos handled his ownership of The Washington Post admirably for over a decade but then faltered badly, cozying up to Trump to avoid the president's wrath

From Techmeme:

Joe Rivano Barros / Mission Local:
Waymo says it temporarily suspended its ride-hailing service in San Francisco during a citywide blackout, as downed traffic lights appeared to halt its vehicles

Mitchell Peters / Billboard:
Pirate activist group Anna's Archive says it scraped 86M music files and 256M rows of track metadata from Spotify, and releases them in ~300TB of torrent files

John Sakellariadis / Politico:
Sources: DHS is investigating whether 6 staffers misled CISA's acting director into taking a polygraph that he failed, compounding instability at the agency

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