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4:40 PM ET, February 9, 2026

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Laya Neelakandan / CNBC:
Trump endorses Nexstar's $6.2B acquisition of Tegna, saying “We need more competition against THE ENEMY, the Fake News National TV Networks”  —  President Donald Trump on Saturday endorsed Nexstar Media's proposed $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna, just months after criticizing the deal.
Max Tani / Semafor:
Source: WaPo planned a marketing campaign with a new slogan, We The People, but dropped it after MS Now launched a $20M brand campaign with the same slogan  —  THE SCOOP  —  Late last year, before The Washington Post slashed its staff and ousted its CEO, the paper was looking to rehabilitate its public image.
OpenAI:
OpenAI says it has started testing ads in ChatGPT in the US for logged-in adult users on the Free and Go tiers and that the ads do not change ChatGPT answers  —  Ads that support free access and don't change ChatGPT answers.  —  Today, we're beginning to test ads in ChatGPT in the U.S …
RELATED:
Madison Mills / Axios:
OpenAI says ads in ChatGPT are not eligible to appear near “sensitive or regulated topics like health, mental health or politics”
Jordy Fee-Platt / The Athletic:
Turning Point USA's All-American Halftime Show during the Super Bowl peaked at 6.1M concurrent YouTube viewers; the show wasn't on X due to licensing issues  —  Share full article  —  Streamed opposite Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime performance, Turning Point USA's “All-American Halftime Show” …
RELATED:
Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
A look at the 2026 Super Bowl ads from Anthropic, Meta, Amazon, Google, and others, as AI continued to take center stage in ad creation and AI product promotion
Reuters:
A Hong Kong court sentences the 78-year-old Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison over national security charges, ending a five-year legal saga  —  Hong Kong's most vocal China critic, media tycoon Jimmy Lai, was sentenced on Monday to 20 years in jail, ending …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
YouTube launches genre-specific YouTube TV Plans as lower-cost alternatives to the $82.99 monthly subscription; the Sports Plan is priced at $64.99 per month  —  After teasing in December, “YouTube TV Plans” are rolling out this week as cheaper alternatives to paying $82.99 per month for over 100 channels.
Scott Feinberg / The Hollywood Reporter:
The Academy will no longer show Oscar-nominated films to members on big screens after the screenings drew “an average of five members” over the last years  —  The organization says its post-nominations screenings, which reportedly cost thousands of dollars a pop, drew …
Discussion: Mediaweek
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Q&A with YouTube VP of Subscription Products Christian Oestlien on YouTube TV's future, the NFL and Oscars deals, its friendly rivalry with Netflix, and more  —  YouTube is going to start selling cheaper TV bundles for sports fans, news junkies  —  Happy Super Bowl Sunday …
K.J. Yossman / Variety:
HBO Max is set to launch in the UK and Ireland on March 26, with ad-supported tiers costing £4.99 or £5.99 per month and ad-free at £9.99 or £14.99 per month  —  HBO Max has finally set the launch date for the rollout of its standalone streaming service in the U.K. and Ireland.
Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Amazon's Melania documentary fell 67% in its second week box office with $2.4M; Amazon MGM Studios says it is sparking “interest” among Prime Video subscribers  —  The first lady's documentary fell off a steep 67 percent in its second weekend, prompting Amazon MGM to go on the offensive …
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
UK's weekly street newspaper Big Issue makes its two top digital editors redundant as part of a “difficult but necessary” restructure of the organization  —  Digital editor and deputy both departing.  —  Weekly street newspaper Big Issue has made its two top digital editors redundant …
Discussion: HoldtheFrontPage
Sara Guaglione / Digiday:
The Athletic is investing in live blogs and video to combat AI scraping; Similarweb says The Athletic had 16.9M unique visitors in January 2026, up 59% YoY  —  As the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics collide this week, The New York Times-owned publication The Athletic is playing up coverage …
 
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 More News: 
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Nexstar seeks to broaden The Hill's sponsors, pitching it as “non partisan and brand safe” ahead of midterms; Comscore: its page views grew 7% in 2025 to 1.24B
Valida Pau / The Information:
Beast Industries, the entertainment conglomerate founded by MrBeast and last valued at $5.2B, acquires Step Mobile, a teen-focused banking app
Tony Maglio / The Hollywood Reporter:
Holywater, the Ukrainian-founded company behind microdrama platform My Drama, acquires AI-assisted VFX company Jeynix and rebrands as Holywater Tech
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
YouTube launches a Premium paywall for song lyrics on YouTube Music, after testing it in recent months; users get five free lyrics before they have to subscribe
 Earlier Picks: 
Alexandra Alter / New York Times:
How AI is impacting the romance novel industry, with authors failing to disclose AI use and using pen names more, bogging down the publishing ecosystem
Miranda Green / Columbia Journalism Review:
A Tow Center probe found that GOP-aligned Metric Media filed 9K+ FOIA requests across the US in the past year, often about culture-war issues like banned books
 

 
From Techmeme:

Anthropic:
Anthropic launches Claude Sonnet 5, saying it nears Opus 4.8 performance at lower prices and is substantially better than Sonnet 4.6 for agentic work

Kyle Baird / The Block:
Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, Coinbase, and 140+ companies join Open Standard to launch Open USD, a stablecoin that shares earnings from its reserves

Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information:
Source: OpenAI engineers earlier this month told some colleagues they had figured out a way to more than halve the cost of inference

 
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