Mediagazer: Fubo reports Q1 revenue up 40% YoY to $1.55B, up 6% to $1.68B pro forma after closing Disney's Hulu merger, and 6.2M North American subscribers, down from 6.3M (Etan Vlessing/The Hollywood Reporter)

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Disney names Josh D'Amaro, head of its theme parks and consumer products division, as CEO, replacing Bob Iger, effective March 18; D'Amaro joined Disney in 1998 — Dana Walden named president and chief creative officer of the company — The Walt Disney Co., after a more than two-year saga …

Dade Hayes / Deadline:

Disney names Dana Walden, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, as its president and chief creative officer, a newly created role, effective March 18 — Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D'Amaro has been elevated to CEO of the Walt Disney Co., capping a closely watched multi-year process of identifying Bob Iger's successor.

Discussion: Variety, IndieWire, Adweek, CNN, Financial Times, The Wrap, Associated Press, New York Post, Axios, Daily Disney News, BMI, Yahoo Finance, WPXI-TV, New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, CNBC, ZeroHedge News, Barrett Media and Bloomberg

Jennifer Maas / Variety:

Disney says new CEO Josh D'Amaro's initial annual package is set at ~$38.4M, with a $2.5M base, and President Dana Walden's is set at ~$24M, with a $3.75M base — Disney has set the pay packages for its newly appointed top executives: CEO Josh D'Amaro and president and chief creative officer Dana Walden.

Discussion: The Wrap, Business Insider, Puck, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, The Indian Express, Pulse 2.0, Screen and Yahoo Finance

Isaac Rouse / Polygon.com:

Crunchyroll is raising its US prices by $2 per month; the cheapest tier gets its first price increase since 2019 and now offers offline downloads on one device — If you didn't secure a Crunchyroll subscription when it was on sale during Black Friday, we have some bad news, anime fans: The price has officially gone up.

Discussion: Ars Technica, Digital Trends, The Wrap, Engadget, IGN, Kotaku, Screen Rant, Comic Book, Crunchyroll News, PCMag, CNET, Telecompaper, The Verge and r/anime, more at Techmeme »

Hannah Abraham / Forbes:

Reliance's Jio Studios acquires a 50.1% equity stake in Sikhya Entertainment for ~$16.7M, uniting India's largest studio with the Oscar-winning production house — Sikhya Entertainment co-founders Guneet Monga Kapoor and Achin Jain with Jio Studios President Jyoti Deshpande

Discussion: Variety, BW Marketing World, The Hollywood Reporter India, The Economic Times, Livemint, Moneycontrol, The Indian Express, News18, Fortune India, MediaNews4U, CNBC-TV18, The Hindu, The Hindu BusinessLine, BMI, Business Standard, Outlook India and Financial Express

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

DMGT reports revenue down 1% YoY to £1.1B, adjusted operating profit up 11% to £97M, and digital ad revenue down 15% to £148.3M due to Google's AI Overviews — Digital advertising revenue at the publisher of the Daily Mail fell by 15% last year.

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

Court docs: the US DOJ failed to tell a judge about a 1980 law protecting journalists when it sought to seize WaPo reporter Hannah Natanson's devices last month — The Justice Department did not address a 1980 law that generally bars warrants for reporting material when it sought to seize …

Discussion: @charliesavage.bsky.social, @ericjgeller.com and The Reporters Committee …

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:

Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun says the company is among the few in the sector to crack the use of generative AI, and pledges another €1B for AI and data operations — Chief executive says French ad group is among sector's few companies to have figured out how to scale the technology

Discussion: Anne Stagg on LinkedIn, The Drum, The Times, Wall Street Journal and Adweek

Etan Vlessing / The Hollywood Reporter:

Fubo reports Q1 revenue up 40% YoY to $1.55B, up 6% to $1.68B pro forma after closing Disney's Hulu merger, and 6.2M North American subscribers, down from 6.3M — The sports-first streamer and ESPN also unveiled a reseller and marketing deal to expand the reach and distribution of Fubo services.

Discussion: Advanced Television, Benzinga, ir.fubo.tv, Cord Cutters News, Streaming Better and Telecompaper

Kerry Flynn / Axios:

The IAB proposes draft legislation to protect publishers from AI companies using their content to train models and generate summaries without compensation — Interactive Advertising Bureau CEO David Cohen announced proposed draft legislation and plans to push for action to protect publishers …

Discussion: MediaPost, IAB and TVNewsCheck

Sarah Scire / Nieman Lab:

Q&A with journalist Danny Funt about his new book on sports betting, news organizations making sports betting deals, parallels with prediction markets, and more — “Sports media is kind of getting bribed,” as one former ESPN reporter told journalist Danny Funt.

Discussion: @bmoritz99.bsky.social, @daviddaniel.bsky.social, @samlitzinger.bsky.social, @dannyfunt.bsky.social, Los Angeles Times and CNN

Trishla Ostwal / Adweek:

Amazon Ads announces the open beta of its Model Context Protocol server, which lets advertisers connect AI agents to Amazon Ads through a single integration — At IAB ALM, the retail giant pitched MCP as infrastructure for AI agents to run advertising workflows more efficiently

Discussion: InfoQ, AdExchanger, SiliconANGLE, MediaPost, Cyber Daily, Digiday and PYMNTS.com, more at Techmeme »

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:

Disney says ESPN is valued at ~$30B and the NFL's 10% equity stake in ESPN valued at ~$3B; Disney has the right to buy back NFL's stake in 2034, per a filing — Disney has the right to buy back the NFL's stake beginning in July 2034, with the league holding an option to acquire more of ESPN.

Discussion: The Hollywood Reporter, Awful Announcing, Sports Business Journal, Sportico, Cord Cutters News, SportsPro, Deadline, The Wrap, Front Office Sports and Variety

Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
Disney reports Q1 operating profit down 9% YoY to $4.6B, weighed down by high movie production costs and a 15-day YouTube TV carriage dispute that cost $110M

Discussion: Yahoo Finance, Android Authority, Front Office Sports, The Streamable, The Wrap, Business Insider and Cord Cutters News

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Disney reports Q1 revenue up 5% YoY to $26B, driven by Zootopia 2 and a record $10B revenue from Experiences; streaming operating income rose 72% YoY to $450M