Top News:
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
A look at CBS' bet on its massive overhaul of the Evening News, with greater emphasis on in-depth reporting on the ground from places beyond NYC, DC, and LA — Billboard Women in Music 2025 — The venerable “CBS Evening News” has, for many of its viewers, been something consumed along with dinner.
Discussion:
Nicole Vap on LinkedIn, Carlos P. Beltran on LinkedIn, @bristei and @bristei
Kaya Yurieff / The Information:
Source: President Trump plans to announce TikTok America, a company that is ~50% owned by US investors and 19.9% by ByteDance, which would license the algorithm — President Donald Trump plans to announce later on Wednesday his plan for a new company called TikTok America …
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Status, TechCrunch, Fortune, Axios, Music Ally, San Francisco Business Times, Wired, The Ankler, Seattle Business Journal, Washington Post, Capital Brief, Financial Times, 9to5Mac, The Verge, @philthepill.online, @saintnick98.bsky.social, @rrrvvvwww.bsky.social, Paola Marzario on LinkedIn, @sophienadeau.bsky.social, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, NewsNation, UPI, @tomjanmeeus.bsky.social, CBS News, New York Times, Digital Music News and Reuters, more at Techmeme »
Naman Ramachandran / Variety:
Australian PM Anthony Albanese asserts his support for local content quotas on streaming platforms, despite pushing their implementation back from July 1 — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has doubled down on the government's commitment to implement local content quotas for streaming platforms …
Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal:
Former Vice CEO Nancy Dubuc joins Togethxr, a media and commerce startup focused on women's sports, as executive chair; source: revenue so far in 2025 is $30M — The media veteran joins a group of her industry peers at Togethxr, a company that aims to capitalize on interest in women's sports
Discussion:
TVNewsCheck
Jessica Testa / New York Times:
Spotify debuts new ad tools, including an AI tool in the US and Canada that generates scripts and voiceovers, and pitches itself to advertisers as “nutritional” — After finally achieving profitability, the streaming platform wants to be a healthy alternative to “doom scrolling.”
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Adweek, Spotify, Music Ally, The Hollywood Reporter, Ad Age and The Media Leader
Bloomberg:
AI video startup Runway raised $308M led by General Atlantic, sources say at a $3B+ valuation, and plans to hire more filmmakers, screenwriters, and others — The deal, which is set to be announced Thursday, pushes Runway's value to just over $3 billion, according to people familiar …
Discussion:
Variety, Reuters, TechCrunch and The Verge, more at Techmeme »
Bron Maher / Press Gazette:
Newsquest's editorial development director says it now employs 36 “AI-assisted” reporters, freeing up the rest of the newsroom to “be out pounding the beat” — Regional publishing giant Newsquest now employs 36 “AI-assisted” reporters across its titles, its editorial development director has said.
Discussion:
What's New in Publishing
Wikimedia:
Wikimedia says bandwidth usage for multimedia content grew 50% since January 2024, driven by AI training bots; 65% of resource-consuming traffic comes from bots — Since the beginning of 2024, the demand for the content created by the Wikimedia volunteer community - especially for the 144 million images …
Pranav Mukul / The Economic Times:
Bengaluru-based Pratilipi, which runs Pratilipi Comics, podcasting studio IVM, and more, raised a $20M Series E at a $100M valuation, down from $265M in 2021 — The deal, however, has been struck at a significantly lower post-funding valuation of $100 million, as per cofounder and CEO Ranjeet Pratap Singh.
Discussion:
YourStory.com
Brendan Ruberry / Semafor:
Users complain that three well-known sites that help avoid paywalls, including archive.is, redirected them to Russia's RT for at least five days as of Tuesday — The Scoop — Three well-known sites that help users avoid paywalls mysteriously redirected users to Russian state-controlled …
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
A look at the ascent of true crime podcaster John Allen, known as MrBallen, and the success of Ballen Studios, which employs 70 people and produces seven shows — John Allen, known online as MrBallen, operates a 70-person company with his Pulitzer Prize-winning family on staff.
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
CNBC strikes distribution deals with Apple and Roku for its $14.99 per month subscription service CNBC+ — Billboard Women in Music 2025 — The future of CNBC may not entirely take place on CNBC. — As of Wednesday afternoon, both Apple TV and Roku will distribute CNBC+ to users …
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