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8:00 PM ET, December 18, 2025

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Internal memo: TikTok has signed a deal to sell its US unit; Oracle, Silver Lake, MGX will collectively own 45% of the US entity, and ByteDance will retain ~20%  —  TikTok has signed a deal to sell its U.S. entity to a joint venture controlled by American investors, per an internal memo seen by Axios.
RELATED:
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Memo: the TikTok US deal is set to close on Jan. 22; terms include retraining the recommendation algorithm on US user data and Oracle overseeing data protection  —  Abu Dhabi's state investment fund will also be a managing investor.  —  The TikTok sale is officially happening …
Shane O'Neill / Washington Post:
Q&A with Christopher Anderson, who photographed Trump's inner circle for VF: “My job is to ... draw on my experience as a journalist and photograph what I see”  —  Every line, spot, blemish and blood vessel was captured by Christopher Anderson's lens.  What was he thinking?
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
CBS News and The Free Press announce Things That Matter, a series of town halls and debates, starting in early 2026, with Sam Altman, J.D. Vance, and others  —  The news division is also planning a town hall with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore in the ‘Things That Matter’ series, with Bank of America lined up as a sponsor.
RELATED:
Natalie Korach / Status:
Sources: Bari Weiss moved a planned internal CBS town hall, set to lay out her broader vision, from this month to 2026, after the Erika Kirk town hall flopped
Financial Times:
Trump Media agrees to merge with Google-backed fusion energy company TAE in a $6B deal and build the “world's first utility-scale fusion power plant” in 2026  —  Deal represents bet on nuclear energy powering artificial intelligence boom  —  The Trump family media group has agreed …
Jake Kanter / Deadline:
YouTube terminates Screen Culture and KH Studio, two large channels that used AI to create fake movie trailers; the platform earlier suspended the channels' ads  —  The Google-owned video giant has switched off Screen Culture and KH Studio, which together boasted well over 2M subscribers and more than a billion views.
Anna Betts / The Guardian:
David Brooks, who wrote a NYT column last month decrying popular fixation on the Epstein story, appears in newly released photos of a 2011 event with Epstein  —  Images, undated and uncaptioned, include Vladimir Nabokov lines written on women and show Bill Gates and Noam Chomsky
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) agree to buy WildBrain's 41% stake in Peanuts Holdings for ~$457M, raising Sony's slice to 80%  —  Sony is paying more than a few peanuts to get majority ownership of Charles M. Schulz's beloved Peanuts franchise featuring Snoopy, Charlie Brown and more.
Will Sattelberg / 9to5Google:
Google returns as a partner service for Movies Anywhere, after leaving the service during a feud with Disney in October and November  —  Movies Anywhere was one of the unintended casualties faced during Google and Disney's brief feud throughout October and November, but as promised …
Discussion: How-To Geek
Ethan Millman / The Hollywood Reporter:
Universal Music Group partners with music creation platform Splice to build “advanced commercial AI tools” for musical artists  —  The new pact is the latest AI music development for the world's largest music company after settling a lawsuit with Udio in October.
Discussion: Billboard, UMG and Digital Music News
M.G. Siegler / Spyglass:
YouTube streaming the Oscars in 2029 makes Netflix's WBD bid less likely to face antitrust issues, as it shows Netflix might need WBD to compete against YouTube  —  Say ‘UGC’ again.  Say.  ‘UGC’.  Again!  I dare you!  I double-dare you!  —  It sure looks like Google may have just handed Warner Bros …
 
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 More News: 
Emilio Casalicchio / Politico:
Downing Street makes changes to press access, cutting an afternoon briefing and promising more press conferences, which will be open to social media influencers
Mark Stenberg / Adweek:
Dow Jones hires ex-Bloomberg Media CEO M. Scott Havens as its first chief growth officer, overseeing subscription growth and other consumer revenue streams
Discussion: Talking Biz News
 Earlier Picks: 
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple says it will roll out more App Store ads in 2026 “to increase opportunity in search results”; Apple's website says 800M+ users visit the App Store weekly
Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal:
A study of 1,000+ marketing campaigns: host-read podcast ads on YouTube are up to 25% less effective at driving purchases than in audio-only podcasts
John Rogers / Associated Press:
Peter Arnett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent who covered the Vietnam War for the AP and the first Gulf War for CNN, has died at 91
 

 
From Techmeme:

Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:
In an experiment, Claude ran a vending machine in the WSJ newsroom and lost $1,000+ after it dropped prices to zero, gave away a free PlayStation, and more

OpenAI:
OpenAI releases GPT‑5.2-Codex, with improvements on long-horizon work through context compaction, stronger performance on large code changes, and more

Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple makes iOS changes in Japan to comply with local laws, including alternative app stores and payment options, a new fee structure, and new default controls
 
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