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6:00 AM ET, December 19, 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 …
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 stake 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.
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 …
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
YouTube's head of products for podcasts Steve McLendon says viewers streamed 700M+ hours of podcasts on TV in October, up from 400M hours in October 2024  —  That's up from 400 million hours a year ago as podcasts become the new late-night TV.  —  People are spending more time tuning …
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
Jessica M. Goldstein / New York Times:
A look at Track Star, a YouTube music quiz show that has become a stop on the celebrity promo trail and has started creating documentary-style music features  —  John Fogerty has written some of the most instantly recognizable songs in rock ‘n’ roll history.
Discussion: @jessicagolds
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  —  The move has already sparked an uproar from Westminster's journalists.  —  LONDON — No.10 Downing Street announced Thursday …
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.
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?
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 …
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
 
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 More News: 
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
Lanre Bakare / The Guardian:
Members of UK performing arts union Equity vote overwhelmingly in favor of refusing to be scanned while on set to prevent their likeness being used by AI
 Earlier Picks: 
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
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
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
 

 
From Techmeme:

Dan Primack / Axios:
a16z raises $15B+ across five new funds, including $6.75B for its fifth growth fund, the largest sum, and $3B for unspecified “other venture strategies”

Helena Horton / The Guardian:
Grok says image generation and editing are now limited to paid subscribers, after outcry over its use to create sexually explicit and violent imagery

The Information:
Sources say DeepSeek will launch V4, its next-generation model, in the coming weeks and say it outperformed Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT series in coding
 
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