Mediagazer: Leaked audio: Mathias Döpfner told Politico staff that employees who disagree with Axel Springer's values, or “the essentials”, shouldn't work for the publisher (Matthew Kassel/Jewish Insider)

10:35 AM ET, April 29, 2026

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David Shepardson / Reuters:

The US FCC officially orders early license reviews of eight Disney-owned ABC stations, in LA, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, Houston, and more — The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday ordered early license reviews of eight Disney-owned ABC stations in a major escalation …

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Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Former FCC Commissioners and staffers ask a federal appeals court to require the FCC to vote on a November 2025 petition to repeal the News Distortion Policy

Discussion: Inside Radio, Radio World and TV Tech

Peter Kafka / Business Insider:

Sources: Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro has decided to keep ESPN within Disney for now, rather than spinning it off — - ESPN used to be one of the most important assets in media. — That's changed, because the media world has changed, and Disney has debated spinning out ESPN as a stand-alone company.

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New York Times:

Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro faced several setbacks since taking over, and must now guide the company through federal regulatory review of ABC's station licenses — Josh D'Amaro, who took the helm in February, will have to lead Disney through surprising new scrutiny from the president.

Brian Morrissey / The Rebooting:

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Brian Steinberg / Variety:

The CW and ESPN agree to let ESPN stream ~800 hours of CW sports per year; the CW and Roku plan to stream CW entertainment to The Roku Channel in Fall 2026 — Approximately 800 hours of college football and basketball, professional bull riding, WWE fights, NASCAR races …

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Sara Fischer / Axios:

Advocacy groups including WGA West and The Tech Oversight Project write a letter urging the US FTC and DOJ to probe Netflix for antitrust issues — Axios Media Trends … Today's Media Trends, edited by Christine Wang and copy edited by Sheryl Miller, is 1,928 words, a 7½-minute read.

Discussion: Sludge

Matthew Kassel / Jewish Insider:

Leaked audio: Mathias Döpfner told Politico staff that employees who disagree with Axel Springer's values, or “the essentials”, shouldn't work for the publisher — 'Nobody should work for Axel Springer despite the essentials or in disagreement with one of the essentials …

Discussion: @zaidjilani, @zaidjilani, @zaidjilani, @jgreenbergsez, @joshkraushaar, @jonahdispatch, @elliotmalin and Semafor

Matthew Gault / 404 Media:

An analysis of Internet Archive data: by mid-2025, ~35% of newly published websites since ChatGPT's launch in November 2022 were AI-generated or AI-assisted — Researchers found the internet is becoming aggressively positive as AI-generated text floods the web.

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Patrick Coffee / Wall Street Journal:

Hightouch, which uses AI to help marketers create and manage campaigns, raised $150M led by Goldman Sachs and Bain at a $2.75B valuation, up from $1.2B in 2025 — The Trade Desk also invested in Hightouch, which is now valued at $2.75 billion — Hightouch, a platform that uses generative AI …

Discussion: Pulse 2.0, more at Techmeme »

Jay Peters / The Verge:

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan says YouTube TV is getting “fully customizable” multiview, letting users pin up to four live streams, after a limited rollout in 2023 — Custom multiview is finally here. Custom multiview is finally here. … YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced Tuesday …

Edward Komenda / The Proton Blog:

Analysis of profiles using 2025 Google ad auction data: an average US user generates $1,600 in annual ad value; the top 10% users generate 43% of all ad value — Proton analyzed over 54,000 demographic profiles using 2025 ad auction data to estimate what advertisers pay to reach different types of Americans.

Discussion: Jane Clark on LinkedIn, @ntnsndr.in, @leighelse@mastodon.nz, @twinklebutt.bsky.social, Forbes and Hacker News

Ciara Zavala / Local News Matters:

A case study of using AI to aid election coverage at Bay City News, starting in 2024 and refining later, aiming to reduce journalists' manual, repetitive tasks — In the fast-evolving landscape of AI, we saw an opportunity to revolutionize local election coverage in our newsroom by reducing manual …

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