Mediagazer: Nepal says it is blocking most major social media platforms, including Facebook, X, and YouTube, after the companies failed to register with the government (Binaj Gurubacharya/Associated Press)

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Mark Stenberg / Adweek:

The New York Times is shuttering its NYT Audio app, launched in May 2023, and integrating podcast archives and audio journalism into its News app — The standalone product will shutter in October as the publisher increases audio and video in its flagship News app

Discussion: @patrickmcgee_, Podnews and Mark Stenberg on LinkedIn

Addison Cummings / The New York Times Company: NYT names Real Estate Editor Nikita Stewart as its new Metro editor; she has held various NYT positions and worked at The Star-Ledger and The Washington Post

Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter:

WBD files a copyright suit against Midjourney, accusing the startup of using its content to train AI and letting users generate images of characters like Batman — The lawsuit against Midjourney was filed as a growing contingent of Hollywood steps into the fight over generative artificial intelligence.

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:

PBS is cutting 100 positions, or about 15% of its staff, including 34 immediate layoffs, after Congress stripped $500M in annual funding from public media — Congress voted this year to strip $500 million in annual funding from public broadcasters, including PBS stations.

Discussion: Axios, Challenger …, ARLnow, MPR News, TVNewsCheck, NBC News, @willmckinley.bsky.social, The Wrap and TheDesk.net

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:

A revamped Inside the NFL, produced by NFL Films, will debut September 8 on Elon Musk's X, with at least 10 short episodes airing weekly on the platform — Ryan Clark will host the show, which will be reimagined for the Elon Musk-owned platform as a short-form series with new episodes throughout each week of the NFL season.

Discussion: The Wrap, @cerealfanatic.bsky.social and Awful Announcing

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline:

Memo: Paramount announces a full return-to-office policy starting in January 2026 and offers a “severance opt-in program” for New York and Los Angeles workers — The latest is a return to office policy that requires all employees to be in the office five days a week.

Discussion: @jeremymbarr, @jtoonkel, @jeremymbarr, Jackie Szymanski on LinkedIn, Bisnow, NewsMax.com, LAmag, Business Insider, Fox Business, Reuters, CNBC, The Hollywood Reporter, TheDesk.net, Wall Street Journal, @bengoggin.bsky.social, Variety, The Wrap and TVNewsCheck

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:

Hello Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden is stepping down, and Maureen Polo will succeed her; CFO Corey Shepardson has been named COO and will run business operations — Polo joined the Reese Witherspoon-founded company in 2022 as head of direct-to-consumer. — Hello Sunshine is shaking up its C-suite …

Discussion: Variety, The Wrap and Deadline

Binaj Gurubacharya / Associated Press:

Nepal says it is blocking most major social media platforms, including Facebook, X, and YouTube, after the companies failed to register with the government — Nepal's government said Thursday it is blocking most social media platforms including Facebook, X and YouTube because the companies failed …

Tripp Mickle / New York Times:

Ads during the Chargers-Chiefs NFL game on YouTube on September 5 will cost ~$30 for every 1,000 viewers, more than double what YouTube usually gets — A YouTube commercial in Times Square for Friday night's game.Video by Tony Cenicola/the New York Times — Neal Mohan, the chief executive …

Discussion: TVNewsCheck, Reuters, The Athletic, Los Angeles Times, CNET, TODAY.com, Cord Cutters News, The Verge, Next in Media, New York Daily News, Barrett Media, E! Online, Awful Announcing, Washington Times, Sports Illustrated and YouTube Official Blog

Kerry Flynn / Axios:

ProRata.ai, which lets publishers embed custom AI search on their sites with a 50/50 revenue share, raised a $40M Series B, bringing its total raised to $75M+ — - Existing investors Mayfield Fund, MVP Ventures, Revolution Ventures, SBI Investment, BOLD Capital, XPV-Exponential Ventures and Idealab Studio also participated.

Discussion: Business Wire, more at Techmeme »

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

Manchester-based Mill Media names ex-WaPo Managing Editor Cameron Barr as investigations editor; Mill Media has 21 staff and 11K+ paying subs across six titles — Former Washington Post managing editor Cameron Barr hopes to help “restore and revive investigative accountability” with a new role at Manchester-based Mill Media.

Discussion: Cameron Barr on LinkedIn, @glasgowbell.bsky.social and @joshiherrmann.bsky.social

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Meta rolls out a tool that lets users attach up to 10,000 characters of text to Threads posts, building upon Threads' 500-character text limit for posts — Blogging is back. … Meta is adding a new feature to let you add a bunch of extra text to Threads posts — no screenshots of text blocks required.

Discussion: Engadget, PCMag, Meta Newsroom, Android Headlines, Social Media Today, WeRSM, Sherwood News, iPhone in Canada, @dannygroner.bsky.social, TechCrunch and Mashable, more at Techmeme »

Matt Donnelly / Variety:

Fandango partners with TikTok to let users buy movie tickets from within TikTok, starting with Disney's Tron: Ares, in theaters October 10 — Fandango will parnter with TikTok on a new venture that will let users purchase movie tickets directly in-app. — The first-of-its-kind deal …

Discussion: Tubefilter, Social Media Today, LAmag, CNET and Media Play News