Mediagazer: Social music startup Smule raises $20M from the VC arm of Indian media conglomerate The Times Group, after raising $54M in May 2017 (Brian Heater/TechCrunch)

10:35 AM ET, October 17, 2018

Top News:

MTV partners with Bunim/Murray Productions to create three seasons of The Real World exclusively for Facebook Watch, expected to launch spring 2019 — - Viacom's MTV Studios and Bunim/Murray Productions are co-producing three seasons of Real World specifically for Facebook Watch.

Discussion: Recode, TechCrunch, Variety, Fast Company, The Wrap, Hollywood Reporter, @mattnavarra, The Verge and Mashable, more at Techmeme »

Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal:

Advertisers allege in suit that Facebook didn't disclose key video metric error for over a year and that scale of miscalculation was far worse than understood — Facebook knew of problems with how it measured viewership of video ads for more than a year before it revealed them in 2016, according to a complaint filed by advertisers.

David Hearst / Middle East Eye:

Source who listened to the audio recording of Jamal Khashoggi's final moments says he was not interrogated but tortured for seven minutes before dying — Middle East Eye publishes first details of audio tape acquired by Turkish investigators probing what happened to Saudi journalist

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Mediaite, New York Times, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, VICE News, Associated Press and BBC

New York Times:

Three of the suspects in the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi have links to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's security detail — ISTANBUL — One of the suspects identified by Turkey in the disappearance of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was a frequent companion of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman …

Theodoric Meyer / Politico:

Washington Post told contributing writer Ed Rogers to stop lobbying for Saudis or stop column; his firm, BGR, dropped the kingdom as a client, losing $80K/month — The Washington Post told a prominent Republican lobbyist he'd lose his gig as a contributing opinion writer unless he stopped lobbying …

Discussion: Poynter, CNN, @kfile, @jacobwolinsky, @libbycwatson, @ggreenwald, @jonathanchait, @dceiver, @sethhanlon, Politico, New York Times, @dfriedman33, @thekarami, Washington Post, The Guardian and CNN

Michael Calderone / Politico:

Craig Newmark donates $2.5M to New York Public Radio to help finance the expansion of WNYC and local news site Gothamist — THE WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL BOARD posed a good question Tuesday night: “Why is the Trump administration cleaning up Saudi Arabia's mess?”

Discussion: New York Times and The Wrap

Michelle Castillo / CNBC:

Netflix Q3: streaming revenue of $3.91B, up 36% YoY, and global membership surpassing 130M paid and 137M total; stock up 13%+ after hours — - Earnings per share (EPS): 89 cents vs. 68 cents estimate, according to a Refinitiv consensus estimate — Netflix shares soared 15 percent …

Matthew Iles / Civil:

Civil says the sale of its CVL token fails to hit its $8M goal, buyers will be offered full refunds; plans for a “simpler” token sale will be shared soon — A setback, and the path forward. — Key takeaways: — The CVL token sale didn't succeed.

Discussion: Nieman Lab, @vivian, @join_civil, The Next Web, @profjeffjarviss, @sashak, @mariabustillos, @jon_christian, @beejoli, @ppolitics, @thestalwart, @marklittlenews, Quartz, TechCrunch, Fortune, CNN and Columbia Journalism Review, more at Techmeme », Thanks:@steverubel

Janko Roettgers / Variety:

Scribd and The New York Times partner to launch a dual subscription package for $12.99 per month — E-book service Scribd has teamed up with the New York Times for a new joint subscription offering: Subscribers of the new Scribd and New York Times bundle get unlimited access to the Times' website …

Discussion: New York Times, TechCrunch, The Verge, Digiday, Fortune, Engadget and Fast Company

Kyle Bradshaw / 9to5Google:

YouTube says it has resolved widespread access issues that also affected YouTube TV and YouTube Music — Google's services are ubiquitous enough that it's pretty noteworthy when they go down. Tonight, it seems multiple services are suffering an outage, including YouTube …

Discussion: @teamyoutube, CBS News, Engadget, FierceVideo, @teamyoutube, Tubefilter, The Hill, USA Today, Android Police, The Verge, Variety and Beyond Search, more at Techmeme »

PEN America:

PEN America, along with two other organizations, sues President Trump seeking to stop him from using govt to retaliate against news outlets and journalists — “PEN declares for a free press and opposes arbitrary censorship. It believes that the necessary advance of the world toward …

Discussion: Associated Press, Politico, @penamerican, Bookseller News, @chiprolley, @thedemcoalition, @dangillmor, @protctdemocracy, Fortune, @sulliview, TVWeek.com, Law & Crime and Media Law Prof Blog

Kaitlin Thaney / Wikimedia Foundation:

George Soros donates $2M to the Wikimedia Endowment, which has raised more than $26.5M since its launch in January 2016 — The billionaire investor and noted philanthropist is giving $2 million to the Wikimedia Endowment. — We are pleased to announce a $2 million gift to the Wikimedia Endowment …

Discussion: @mepadraigreidy

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More News:

Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Social music startup Smule raises $20M from the VC arm of Indian media conglomerate The Times Group, after raising $54M in May 2017

Quint Forgey / Politico:
Arizona ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio is suing The New York Times and its editorial board member Michelle Cottle for $147.5M in damages over an opinion piece

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Warner Bros. is shutting down DramaFever, a Korean streaming service focused on dramas, which it bought from Softbank in 2016; about 20% of staff to be laid off

Discussion: @lizcook, Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap and Decider

Christine Schmidt / Nieman Lab:
Vox launches Future Perfect, a website section, twice-weekly newsletter, and weekly podcast focused on “effective altruism”, with a $380K Rockefeller grant

Discussion: @abbyhiggins and @niemanreports

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook says it will demote links in the News Feed to websites that illicitly scrape and republish content from other sources with little or no modification

Discussion: Engadget, more at Techmeme »

Aidan McLaughlin / Mediaite:
Memo: CNN's sister channel HLN, which has struggled with ratings, will cut back on live shows, airing taped programming after 3pm weekdays starting October 29

Discussion: TVNewser, @rakeshlobster, @howardkurtz, Broadcasting & Cable, Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, The Wrap, Variety and TV Tattle

The Guardian:
Facebook rolls out new rules on political ads in the UK, will provide ad library like in US but not require ads on political topics to be labeled and registered

Discussion: Facebook, @hadas_gold, @alexhern, @jason_kint, Forbes, Telegraph, CNET and Engadget, more at Techmeme »

Earlier Picks:

Nicholas Confessore / New York Times:
Source: NY AG subpoenas 14 trade groups, businesses, and advocacy organizations over its investigation into fake net neutrality comments on FCC website

Discussion: Motherboard, Motherboard, @motherboard, @nytimesbusiness, @newyorkstateag and The Hill, more at Techmeme »

John McCarthy / The Drum:
UK-based Facebook publisher Unilad has been sold to its rival LadBible, forming the “largest social media publisher ever” with a combined 120M followers

Discussion: @perlberg and @johngeemccarthy

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Report: Hulu CEO Randy Freer says the company is planning a skinny bundle aimed at “cord-shavers” and priced at less than its current $40/month service

Discussion: The Information, @jessicalessin, @brianstelter, 9to5Mac, @richbtig, Engadget, MediaPost and The Wrap

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Chartbeat: traffic to publishers from Facebook down nearly 40% since January 2017, but direct mobile traffic to publishers websites and apps has grown 30%+

Discussion: @monroeschultz, @flipboard, @jasonclampet, @mariekshan and @jason_kint, more at Techmeme »

David Folkenflik / NPR:
NPR CEO Jarl Mohn names Houston Chronicle Executive Editor Nancy Barnes as the network's senior vice president for news and editorial, to start on November 28

Matt Wilstein / The Daily Beast:
Hosts of Pod Save America talk about their HBO specials for midterms and Crooked Media's role as a smart, entertaining, media company on the left

Discussion: Mediaite, @jakevk, @mattwilstein, @britjfrain, @mattwilstein and Dallas Morning News

Alex Heath / Cheddar:
Source: Facebook is building a hybrid video chat/TV set-top box, internally called Ripley, which it plans to announce in Spring 2019

Discussion: @alexeheath, Fast Company, Marketing Land, The Verge, The Next Web, 9to5Mac, @ow, @shiraovide, @jguynn, @andythegiant, Softpedia News, Mashable, Business Insider, VentureBeat, Engadget, Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check, Variety and TechCrunch

From Techmeme:

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Sources: EU may accept Apple's proposal to open its NFC payments tech to rivals, and may close its antitrust probe in May, letting Apple avoid hefty fines

George Steer / Financial Times:
Nvidia closed down 10% on Friday, falling the most since March 2020 and losing more than $200B of its market value, as investors pull back from AI bets

Gaby Del Valle / The Verge:
The US Senate reauthorizes FISA's Section 702; some communication service providers had threatened to stop cooperating with the US government in case of a lapse

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