Mediagazer: Amazon expands Fire TV Edition to soundbars, car infotainment systems, set-top boxes, and more, and says Fire TV platform now has over 40M MAUs (Kyle Wiggers/VentureBeat)

12:40 PM ET, January 6, 2020

Top News:

Mark Kleinman / Sky News:

News Corp to sell Unruly, the video advertising platform it acquired for around £115M in 2015, to the ad tech company Tremor International — Rebekah Brooks will join the board of Tremor International as part of News Corp's deal to offload Unruly, Sky News learns. — City editor @MarkKleinmanSky

Discussion: Talking Biz News, The Drum, The Drum, Reuters, @paul_framp, @simonjharris, @markkleinmansky, @shonaghosh, @andyoakes, @mjbarash and Mumbrella

The Guardian:

Key figures from US media, including Dean Baquet, Ben Smith, Jorge Ramos, and Margaret Sullivan, describe their fears and ideas for covering the 2020 election — Key figures from major US newspapers, news sites and TV describe their fears about covering this year's election - and ideas on how to get it right

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, @sykescharlie, @baseballcrank, @froomkin, @oliverdarcy, @oliverdarcy, @asteadwesley, @brianstelter, @sulliview, @ewaldeng and @owillis

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

Vice UK had revenues of £17.3M in 2018, down from £25.7M in 2017, with losses of £3.9M, up 75% YoY; Vice UK blames Brexit uncertainty for the growth of losses — Pre-tax losses at millennial media brand Vice UK have grown by 75 per cent in 2018, according to the company's latest full-year financial figures.

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Amazon expands Fire TV Edition to soundbars, car infotainment systems, set-top boxes, and more, and says Fire TV platform now has over 40M MAUs — It was only a few months ago that Amazon took the wraps off over 20 new Fire TV devices to fill out its growing portfolio, including a refreshed Fire TV Cube …

Discussion: TechCrunch and The Streamable, more at Techmeme »

Lex / Financial Times:

Bloomberg Media says 15% of all news revenues come from live events, up from less than 1% in 2014, mainly due to the New Economy Forum aimed at Chinese elite — As the US wages trade war with China, the media company of presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg is making most of its conference revenues …

Discussion: @andreaslandwehr, @mattgarrahan and @annaknicolaou

Ben Strauss / Washington Post:

Sports Illustrated staff say they plan to unionize with NewsGuild, raising concerns about direction under Maven; organizers say 90%+ of staff signed petition — The staff of Sports Illustrated plans to unionize, it told management on Monday, saying it wants a greater say in the future …

Discussion: @maggiomatt, @si_union, @jennyvrentas and @si_union

VentureBeat:

Report: TV advertising spend in 2019 by Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft shows them spending most during sports, especially NFL broadcasts — With 2019 finally over, we're taking a look at how some major tech brands — Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft …

Steve Dent / Engadget:

Netflix wins just two Golden Globes despite receiving a record 34 nominations; HBO was the big TV winner with four awards, two each for Succession and Chernobyl — Streaming won big in TV at the 2020 Golden Globes, but Netflix failed to take advantage of its record-setting number of nominations.

Discussion: Variety, E! Online, CNBC, CBS News, Vox and Breitbart

Brian Stelter / CNN:

Rush Limbaugh renews his radio show contract with iHeartMedia; President Trump said at a rally it is a four-year deal — New York (CNN Business)"The Rush Limbaugh Show" will continue well into the new decade. — Limbaugh, whose contract was due to expire later this year, has renewed his deal …

Discussion: Poynter, @fox43, @brianstelter and @oliverdarcy

Patrick Wintour / The Guardian:

Iranian ambassador to UK to complain formally about a frontpage article in the Times claiming Iran is prepared to kill UK troops over Suleimani's assassination — Hamid Baeidinejad to complain formally over story claiming Iran prepared to kill UK troops — The Iranian ambassador to the UK …

Nieman Lab:

News organizations will start sending more geotargeted push notifications in 2020, highlighting different aspects of the same articles in different locales — “Coverage of the 2020 U.S. presidential election will mark the beginning of gerrymandered news coverage."

Robert Ito / Columbia Journalism Review:

A look at how news outlets from the New York Times to High Country News have embraced speculative fiction and the pitfalls thereof — Sam Greenspan, a former producer at NPR, released the first episode of his new podcast, Bellwether, in July. The name of the show, Greenspan says …

Discussion: @cjr and @cjr