Mediagazer: Disney plans to raise US prices of Disney+ Premium, Hulu without ads, and ESPN+, and expand Disney+ ad plans to Canada and nine European countries this fall (Todd Spangler/Variety)

1:30 PM ET, August 10, 2023

Top News:

Rohan Goswami / CNBC:

In an interview, Linda Yaccarino says X is “close” to break-even and that advertisers including Coca-Cola and Visa have returned under her leadership — WATCH NOW — X Corp. CEO Linda Yaccarino told CNBC that she has “autonomy” under owner Elon Musk in an interview Thursday …

Discussion: Insider, The Wrap, TechCrunch, New York Post, @oneunderscore__, @atrupar, @jyarow, @w7voa, @justinbaragona, @junlper and @librarianshipwreck …, more at Techmeme »

Nicola Agius / Search Engine Land:

X unveils Sensitivity Settings and Enhanced Blocklist to boost brand safety and control for advertisers, rolling out over the next few weeks in the Ads Manager — The new tools give marketers more say over ad placement. — X, formerly known as Twitter, has launched two new features …

Discussion: X for Business, Engadget, @elyanathierry, The Register, @xbusiness, MobileSyrup, @lindayax, Social Media Today, TechCrunch, Forbes and Mashable, more at Techmeme »

Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:

X CEO Linda Yaccarino reinstates the company's “client council”, an invite-only group of marketing and ad executives whose members have not yet been decided — New CEO tries to mend fences with brands after Elon Musk took over platform formerly known as Twitter

Discussion: CNN, TechCrunch, The Wrap, Mediaite, Engadget, The Daily Beast, @lindayax, Fortune, Wired and Mashable, more at Techmeme »

Lucas Manfredi / The Wrap:

Bob Iger says “anyone who wanted to speculate about” potential Disney sale “would have to immediately consider the global regulatory environment” — “Obviously anyone who wanted to speculate about such things would have to immediately consider the global regulatory environment …

Discussion: AppleInsider and @carlquintanilla

Scott Mendelson / The Wrap:

Bob Iger says Disney is expecting content spending in 2023 to be $27B, about $3B lower than previously guided, in part due to the Hollywood strikes — The company had previously expected to spend $30 billion this year — Walt Disney is cutting its content budget for the year by $3 billion …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Reuters, Awful Announcing and The Hollywood Reporter

Kayla Cobb / The Wrap:
Bob Iger says cord-cutting trends are “unmistakable” and Disney is considering “a variety of strategic options” for its linear TV assets such as ABC

Discussion: The Streamable, The Hollywood Reporter, TVNewsCheck, @zdarsky.bsky.social, The Hollywood Reporter and CNN

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Disney plans to raise US prices of Disney+ Premium, Hulu without ads, and ESPN+, and expand Disney+ ad plans to Canada and nine European countries this fall

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:
Disney reports Q3 revenue up 4% YoY to $22.3B, a $460M net loss, down from a $1.41B net income YoY, and India's Disney+ Hotstar service losing 12.5M subscribers

Discussion: TechCrunch, Forbes, SlashFilm, CNBC, Axios, The Wrap, The Walt Disney Company and IndieWire

Adam Chitwood / The Wrap:
Bob Iger says that Disney is “actively exploring ways to address account sharing” and the company “will roll out tactics to drive monetization sometime in 2024”

Discussion: The Streamable, Observer, Tech Advisor, New York Times, The Verge, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Fortune, MobileSyrup, Mashable, ComingSoon.net, Insider, @carnage4life@mas.to and KXAN-TV, more at Techmeme »

Katie Robertson / New York Times:

Condé Nast names Katie Drummond, Vice Media's senior VP of global news and entertainment, as Wired's global editor; Drummond will be Wired's first female editor — Ms. Drummond will be the first woman to lead the technology magazine in its 30-year history.

Discussion: @michaelroston, @zachsdorfman, @lmatsakis, @sokane1, @kashhill.bsky.social, @kashhill and @mat

Michael Schneider / Variety:

Fox and the Television Academy push back the Emmy Awards to January 15, 2024 from September 18, 2023 in response to the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes — The Emmys officially have a new date: Fox and the Television Academy were set to announce this morning that the 75th Emmy Awards will shift to Monday …

Discussion: The Wrap, The Verge, SlashFilm, IndieWire, Next TV, New York Times, New York Daily News, ComingSoon.net, The Hollywood Reporter, The A.V. Club and Media Play News

Etan Vlessing / The Hollywood Reporter:

Lionsgate delays the planned split of Lionsgate and Starz to the first quarter of 2024, citing the eOne deal, Hollywood strikes, and a “disruptive marketplace” — The Hollywood giant, led by CEO Jon Feltheimer, has pushed the timing for a spin off of its studio business …

Discussion: The Streamable, The Wrap and Deadline

Scott Mendelson / The Wrap:
Lionsgate reports Q1 revenue up 1.6% YoY to $909M vs. $893M est., a $70.7M net loss, and Motion Picture revenue up 46% to $406.5M driven by John Wick: Chapter 4

Discussion: Media Play News, Lionsgate, Variety and Deadline

David Hellier / Bloomberg:

Source: Saudi Pro Football League has made TV deals in 130 territories, including with Fox and DAZN, which paid ~$500K/year; 2022/23 global rights made $710K — The Saudi Pro Football League has secured a network of deals to broadcast games featuring superstars such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema around the world.

Patrick Coffee / Wall Street Journal:

Lyft begins serving in-app ads to riders when they match with a driver, as they wait for rides, and during their trips, and plans to add video ads later in 2023 — The ride-sharing company and its larger rival, Uber, are racing to build significant ad operations

Discussion: Search Engine Land, Ad Age and Slate, more at Techmeme »

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Indian regulators approve the proposed merger between Sony India and Zee Entertainment, first unveiled in 2021, which will create a media powerhouse — The mega-deal has run into various hurdles since being unveiled in 2021. … It would bring together linear TV networks, digital businesses …

Discussion: Bloomberg, Variety, Zee News and Deadline

Bron Maher / Press Gazette:

BBC News and BBC Sounds launched a Discord server in late June for the Newscast podcast, letting the audience influence the news; the server has 3,700 members — It's now over a month since BBC News' flagship podcast, Newscast, launched a server on Discord.

David Folkenflik / NPR:

Former Fox exec Preston Padden has joined a small band of vocal critics urging the FCC to deny Fox's renewal of its license to operate Fox 29 in Philadelphia — Preston Padden joined the Fox broadcast network a few years after its launch and helped founder Rupert Murdoch make it viable.

Discussion: Poynter, @edourdoo, @boulderpreston, @newscorpse, @davidfolkenflik, @boulderpreston, Columbia Journalism Review, @farhip, Washington Post and The Wrap

Alex Weprin / Hollywood Reporter:

Filing: Dave Portnoy acquired Barstool Sports for $1 from Penn Entertainment, which says it expects to record a loss of between $800M and $850M on the deal — Penn Entertainment estimates that it will take a loss of as much as $850 million on Barstool. — Just how much did Dave Portnoy pay …

Discussion: The Ankler, Fortune, New York Post, Deadline, Awful Announcing, Sportico, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Bloomberg and Barrett Media

Matt Levine / Bloomberg:
The Penn-Barstool deal made sense for Penn and Dave Portnoy when he sold Barstool in 2020, and the Penn-Disney deal makes sense now as Portnoy regains Barstool

Discussion: The Rebooting, @theuncharles, Vox, The Atlantic, Axios, Insider, Variety and The Athletic

Archived Page Info:

This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 1:30 PM ET, August 10, 2023.

View the current page or another snapshot:

Who's Hiring in Media?

Commissioning Editor - Practical Law — Reuters

Energy Markets Reporter, London — WSJ

Oil Reporter, Singapore — Bloomberg

Newsperson - State Govt. & Politics, CA — AP

Business Reporter, SC — Post & Courier

State Government Reporter, WA — Seattle Times

Climate Crisis Columnist — Prospect UK

Multimedia Journalist, CA — Paramount

Community Engagement Mgr., DC — Freedom Forum

Staff Writer - Business, NY — WIRED

Editor, MA — Nieman Reports

Team Editor - Breaking News, ON — Toronto Star

Senior Reporter & Event Host, NY/CA — Newcomer

Climate & Weather Reporter, MN — Star Tribune

Senior Tech Editor, Remote US — The Verge

News Reporter, MA — Berkshire Eagle

Multimedia Journalist, PA — Observer-Reporter

Managing Editor, WA — Everett Herald

Private Credit Reporter, NY — Debtwire

Legislative Reporter, CA — Sacramento Bee

Reporter, PA — Tribune-Review

Visual Editor, Remote — Rest of World

Staff Writer, MI — Watershed Voice

California Playbook Writer, CA — Politico

Senior Media Editor — Digiday

National Investigative Reporter, NY — HuffPost

Business & Gaming Reporter, NV — Las Vegas Sun

Coastal Climate Reporter, SC — Island Packet

Environment & Energy Reporter, CT — CT Mirror

Coordinating Editor, OR — OPB

Staff Reporter, CA — Daily Kos

Data Editor, NY — ProPublica

Editor-in-Chief, AZ — Phoenix New Times

Add your company here

See Also:

Mediagazer: site main

Mediagazer River: reverse chronological Mediagazer

Mediagazer Mobile: for phones

Mediagazer Leaderboard: Mediagazer's top sources

Subscribe:

Mediagazer RSS feed

Mediagazer on X

Mediagazer on Mastodon

More News:

Reuters:
PE firm Symphony Technology Group agrees to acquire media editing software maker Avid for ~$1.4B; Avid's products were used in Top Gun: Maverick and other films

Discussion: Broadband TV News, The Hollywood Reporter and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »

Sara Guaglione / Digiday:
Podcast revenue at iHeartMedia, Spotify, and Acast grew between 12% and 31% YoY in Q2; PwC projects total podcast ad revenue to grow 25% YoY to $2.28B in 2023

Discussion: Adweek and Podnews

Thomas Germain / Gizmodo:
CNET is deleting older posts, calling such cuts a best practice for sites “primarily driven by SEO traffic”; Google says purging to improve SEO is “not a thing”

Discussion: @flargh@mastodon.social, The Verge, Search Engine Land, The Overspill, @searchliaison, @searchliaison and @dannyjpalmer@infosec.exchange

Earlier Picks:

Mathew Ingram / Columbia Journalism Review:
Q&A with Mark Rasch, a lawyer for Tim Burke, whose PCs and equipment were seized in a probe of Fox News video leaks, on the case's implications for journalists

Discussion: @mathewi, @matthewkeyslive, @aaschapiro, @aaschapiro, @urbanachievr, @aaschapiro, @sally_yachts, @matthewkeyslive, Mediaite and @bubbaprog.ilovecitr.us

Yuvraj Malik / Reuters:
The world's largest news media organizations sign an open letter calling for a framework to “collectively negotiate” use of their IP with AI model operators

Discussion: The Verge

Steven Waldman / The Atlantic:
Funding US local news, which could mean ~$1.5B per year to sustain 25K local reporter positions, would more than pay for itself and “save American democracy”

Discussion: @jrussellmi, @dlberes, @bykenarmstrong, @mckaycoppins, @stevenwaldman, Media Nation and American Press Institute

From Techmeme:

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
How Tim Cook may navigate Trump's presidency, a closer look at Apple's upcoming smart home command center, sources detail a new AirTag coming in 2025, and more

The Information:
Sources: in recent months, Nvidia has asked its suppliers to change the design of server racks for Blackwell GPUs several times to overcome overheating problems

Nextgov/FCW:
Sources: CISA's director Jen Easterly and deputy director Nitin Natarajan plan to leave the agency on January 20, 2025, the day Trump will be inaugurated

Sister Sites:

Techmeme
Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web

memeorandum
What US political commentators are discussing online right now

WeSmirch
The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page