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12:45 PM ET, January 21, 2021

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Dan De Luce / NBC News:
Michael Pack, the head of USAGM who oversaw VOA and the Open Technology Fund, has resigned at the request of the Biden administration  —  WASHINGTON — The Trump appointee overseeing the Voice of America and other U.S.-funded broadcasters resigned on Wednesday at the request of the Biden administration …
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New York Times:
In her first briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki vowed to bring “truth and transparency back to the briefing room”  —  Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, conducted the first news briefing of President Biden's administration on Wednesday and vowed to bring …
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Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:
The media should hold power to account and resist the adversarial-seeming approach to politics it took pre-Trump, like when it focused on Obama's tan suit
nyguild.org:
New Yorker Union announces 24-hour strike over management's response to pay negotiations; the union asked for $65K/year starting salaries and annual increases  —  Today, the New Yorker Union is undertaking a twenty-four-hour work stoppage.  Between 6 A.M. on Thursday, January 21st …
David Folkenflik / NPR:
Biden addressed divisions sown by media when he spoke about “lies told...for profit” and distrust of those who “don't get their news from the same sources you do”  —  President Joe Biden invoked what he called seven “common objects we, as Americans, love” in Wednesday's inaugural address.
Variety:
Bonnie Fuller, founder of entertainment outlet Hollywoodlife.com, has bought out Penske Media's stake in the company, assuming full ownership  —  Penske Media Corporation (PMC) announced today that after a decade of partnership and co-ownership of Hollywood Life, founder Bonnie Fuller …
Discussion: Showbiz411
Hannah Ellis-Petersen / The Guardian:
Indian political drama on Amazon Prime was forced to edit out scenes, the first time that a streaming platform has been subjected to censorship in the country  —  Director of Tandav agrees to remove scenes deemed to insult Hindu gods and office of Indian prime minister
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Towns and counties around the US are suing Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services, seeking to regulate them like cable TV and make them pay cable fees  —  A Georgia lawsuit is pushing to expand TV franchising rules  —  Streaming services are slowly turning into cable TV …
Robert Booth / The Guardian:
UK broadcaster Sky pledges that one in five staff members will be from a minority ethnic background by 2025 and that 5% will be Black  —  UK broadcaster aims to reshape its workforce, partly in response to Black Lives Matter movement  —  Sky has pledged that one in five of its staff …
Discussion: Kidscreen, @bitc and Broadband TV News
Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:
ViacomCBS to launch Pluto TV in France on February 8, making it the first free ad-supported streaming service in the country  —  Offering 40 curated and original channels, it will become the first advertising-supported streamer in the country.  —  ViacomCBS will launch advertising-supported …
 
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 More News: 
Chris Stokel-Walker / Ars Technica:
How one composer got paid for unauthorized use of his work, including on China's CCTV, using YouTube's copyright claims system and lawyers
Jacob Shamsian / Business Insider:
Pro-Trump media outlet OAN has scrubbed stories about voting machine companies from its website without explanation, after the companies hired libel lawyers
Wayne Friedman / MediaPost:
Kantar: HBO Max took 19.2% of new streaming subs in Q4, followed by Prime Video at 18.2%, with 41% of new HBO Max subs citing specific content as sign up reason
 Earlier Picks: 
Dade Hayes / Deadline:
Tubi, the free, ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox, says total viewing hit 2.5B hours in 2020, up 58% YoY, and half of its 33M MAUs are younger than 35
Discussion: Ad Age
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Netflix reports Q4 revenue of $6.64B vs. $6.63B est., up 21.5% YoY, and global streaming paid memberships of 203.7M, up 8.5M vs. 6.5M est.; stock up 16%+
 

 
From Techmeme:

Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
DeepSeek releases MIT-licensed DeepSeek-V3-0324, the latest version of their enormous DeepSeek v3 model; the previous DeepSeek v3 version had a custom license

Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
Alibaba releases Qwen2.5-VL-32B, a 32B open model under Apache 2.0, claims better alignment with human preferences and math reasoning than earlier 2.5 VL models

Matthew Griffin / Bloomberg:
eToro files for an IPO, with plans to list on the Nasdaq, and reports 2024 revenue of $12.6B, about 96% of which was from cryptoassets, and net income of $192M

 
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