Check out Mini-Mediagazer for simple mobiles or Mediagazer Mobile for modern smartphones.
12:40 PM 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:
Financial Times:
Memo: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew says ByteDance's US entities will retain direct control over core US revenue drivers, including ecommerce, ads, and marketing  —  Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX to invest in new data security joint venture as part of Trump-brokered deal
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
RELATED:
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 …
Natalie Korach / @nataliekorach:
Sources: VF's article by Chris Whipple featuring quotes from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles led to VF's biggest subscription signup day since 2016  —  Scoop: Vanity Fair's bombshell Chris Whipple story including extensive interviews with Susie Wiles led to the biggest subscription signup day for the mag since 2016, according to people familiar, marking the first major win for editorial director Mark Guiducci
RELATED:
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”
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Netflix acquires avatar creation platform Ready Player Me to let its subscribers carry their personas and fandoms across games; the startup raised $72M  —  After shifting its gaming strategy to focus more on games played on the TV, Netflix announced it's acquiring Ready Player Me, an avatar creation platform based in Estonia.
Discussion: Cord Cutters News
Jennifer Maas / Variety:
The Kansas City Chiefs launch Foolish Club Studios, a first for an NFL team, to produce scripted and unscripted content that “might only be sports-adjacent”  —  The Kansas City Chiefs are the undisputed NFL team of choice for Swifties — but the team's ultimate goal is total world fandom domination.
Discussion: The US Sun
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Axel Springer has considered buying about a dozen media businesses in the US, including TED Conferences, TechCrunch, the 1440 newsletter, and more  —  Mathias Döpfner says ‘embrace AI or die’ as he looks to bolster his U.S. media holdings  —  Mathias Döpfner is hunting for “new gold” in media.
George Winslow / TV Tech:
The National Association of Broadcasters launches a campaign to support live sports on free broadcast channels as more big games move to streaming services  —  The campaign comes at a time when fans are increasingly complaining about the cost of accessing games behind paywalls and the complexity of accessing the games
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.
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 12:40 PM ET, December 19, 2025.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 See Also: 
Mediagazer: site main
Mediagazer River: reverse chronological Mediagazer
Mediagazer Mobile: for phones
Mediagazer Leaderboard: Mediagazer's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Mediagazer RSS feed
Mediagazer on X
Mediagazer on Mastodon
 
 
 More 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
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
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
 Earlier Picks: 
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
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
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
 

 
From Techmeme:

Financial Times:
Sources: UK officials believe China was behind the October cyber attack on the UK's Foreign Office, which aimed to access tens of thousands of sensitive files

Adamya Sharma / Android Authority:
Samsung unveils the Exynos 2600, the world's first smartphone SoC built on a 2nm Gate-All-Around process, expected to power some Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus models

Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
Coinbase sues Connecticut, Illinois, and Michigan over attempts to regulate prediction markets, arguing that the markets fall under CFTC's jurisdiction
 
Sister Sites:

Techmeme
 Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web
memeorandum
 What US political commentators are discussing online right now
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page