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Dylan Byers / Puck:
Sources: Comcast CEO Brian Roberts approached Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson earlier in 2022 with a plan to merge NBCUniversal with EA; the plan fell apart — For months, the media elite have been wondering what the Comcast impresario might buy to scale up in the content wars.
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Source: Pete Davidson, Aidy Bryant, Kate McKinnon, and Kyle Mooney are expected to leave Saturday Night Live following the 47th season finale on May 21, 2022 — Chad is leaving Studio 8H. — Pete Davidson, who joined “Saturday Night Live” as a relative unknown and has become …
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Todd Spangler / Variety:
Nielsen: streaming had a record 30.4% share of US TV viewing in April 2022; Netflix took 6.6%, YouTube 6.1%, Hulu 3.3%, Prime Video 2.5%, and HBO Max 1% — HBO Max previously was included in Nielsen's “other streaming” category. The measurement firm broke it out now that HBO Max hit the 1% share threshold.
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Dwight Garner / New York Times:
Roger Angell, a baseball writer and editor at The New Yorker widely considered among the best the US has produced, dies at his Manhattan home at age 101 — In elegantly winding articles for The New Yorker loaded with inventive imagery, he wrote more like a fan than a sports journalist.
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Manori Ravindran / Variety:
Meta is hosting up to 300 content creators over two days at a villa in Cannes, with an Instagram “Reels Squad” of 120 creators covering The Cannes Film Festival — The social giant formerly known as Facebook is taking the Croisette by storm and rolling out the red carpet for creators at the festival.
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Simon Fraser / BBC:
The Taliban order female Afghan TV presenters and other women to cover their faces while on air as of May 21, 2022; a spokesman called the ruling “advice” — The Taliban have ordered female Afghan TV presenters and other women on screen to cover their faces while on air.
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Joe Pompeo / Vanity Fair:
After ~30 buyouts, BuzzFeed News will have 70-80 staffers, down from a peak of ~250; the investigations team published five big projects in its last five weeks — The site's prized investigations unit is disbanding and dropping its last bombshells—"a triumphal exit," says the team's editor …
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Sara Fischer / Axios:
Memo: CNN Digital Worldwide editor-in-chief Meredith Artley is leaving the company after more than 12 years; sources: she was frustrated with corporate shakeups — Meredith Artley, the longtime SVP and editor-in-chief of CNN Digital Worldwide, is out at the network, according to a memo obtained by Axios.
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Keach Hagey / Wall Street Journal:
A new bipartisan Senate bill would prohibit companies with $20B+ in annual digital ad transactions from participating in more than one part of the ad ecosystem — The bill, which has some Democratic support, takes aim at conflicts of interest in advertising technology
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Murray Stassen / Music Business Worldwide:
Google agrees to not remove Bandcamp from the Play Store even if it doesn't implement Google's IAP; Epic will keep 10% of Bandcamp's in-app purchases in escrow — Bandcamp's had a rollercoaster couple of months. — In March, the online music store and direct-to-fan platform got both the music …
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Rick Porter / Hollywood Reporter:
The CW pares down its fall TV shows as parent companies Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global look to sell the network; Nexstar is the lead bidder — The network sets a lineup a week after cutting more series than it has in a decade. — A pair of prequels and a handful of acquisitions …
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Carrie Blazina / Pew Research Center:
Study: student journalists account for 11% of US state capitol reporters; in Nebraska 58% of state reporters are students, in Louisiana 26%, and in Virginia 25% — Student journalists account for around one-in-ten state capitol reporters in the United States (11%), according to a recent Pew Research Center study.
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