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9:40 AM ET, December 19, 2025

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 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  —  Abu Dhabi's state investment fund will also be a managing investor.  —  The TikTok sale is officially happening …
Ryan Glasspiegel / Front Office Sports:
Sources: Netflix will pay Barstool a yearly fee “in the eight figures” for its video podcasts; Fanatics has pitched WWE podcasts to Netflix which airs WWE Raw  —  Netflix is paying out meaningful sums of money in its ongoing push to entice creators to migrate the video forms …
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 …
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.
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.
Kirsten Chuba / The Hollywood Reporter:
TikTok's first awards show, held on December 18, handed out 14 awards, including Creator of the Year for Keith Lee; at the event, none of the screens worked  —  The event, which streamed live from the Hollywood Palladium on Thursday, handed out 14 awards and battled problems with its video screens.
Discussion: Us Weekly, Mashable, BBC, Variety, People and SAMAA TV
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
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 …
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
 
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 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
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
 Earlier Picks: 
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”
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:

Alex Heath / Sources:
Meta's head of Threads Connor Hayes says that fediverse compatibility isn't a priority for its current roadmap, but it is something that it's “maintaining”

Chris McGuire / Council on Foreign Relations:
US approving Nvidia H200 exports to China is based on the idea that Huawei is a viable competitor, but data shows the gap between Nvidia and Huawei is widening

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
 
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