Mediagazer: London-based ticketing company Dice raised $65M led by MUSIC, taking its total funding to $200M+; Dice expects to serve 55K+ artists and 10K+ venues in 2023 (Glenn Peoples/Billboard)

10:55 AM ET, August 23, 2023

Top News:

Dominic Patten / Deadline:

In an email, the WGA says AMPTP's August 11 proposal failed to sufficiently protect writers and the studio CEOs meeting was an attempt to make the WGA “cave” — - TV Talk Podcast: Strike-Delayed Emmys Risk Getting Lost In Awards-Show Pileup & That's A Damn Shame

Discussion: 404 Media, The Hollywood Reporter, @christinastrain, The Hollywood Reporter, @jbflint, Los Angeles Times and The Wrap

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:

AMPTP releases details of the contract offered to the WGA on August 11, after WGA representatives met with Hollywood CEOs including Bob Iger on August 22 — WGA leaders met face-to-face with key CEOs on Tuesday evening as executives sought to pitch the guild on their most recent contract offer …

Discussion: TVLine, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Vanity Fair, Deadline, @nkulw, New York Times, @sharonwaxman, @sharonwaxman, The Wrap, @jbflint, @lucas_shaw, @slack2thefuture, CNN, Rolling Stone and The Ankler

Sean Piccoli / Deadline:

SAG-AFTRA and WGA members and sympathizers picketed outside of Amazon's and HBO's offices in NYC on August 22 as the Hollywood strikes continue — - Dispatches From The Picket Lines: Latine Writers & Actors In L.A. & NYC; ‘Roseanne’ And ‘The Conners’ Teams Reunite At Radford

Discussion: The Wrap, Yahoo News, WGN-TV, Yahoo Finance and Vox

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

An analysis of Google's policy dilemma as YouTube and UMG explore AI licensing, Google scrapes the web to train its AI, and lawsuits could upend copyright law — Google has made clear it is going to use the open web to inform and create anything it wants, and nothing can get in its way.

Discussion: YouTube Official Blog, The Information, @carnage4life@threads.net, @verge, @carnage4life@mas.to, Decrypt, @WarnerCrocker@mastodon.social, Plagiarism Today, Shelly Palmer, Complete Music Update and Deadline, more at Techmeme »

Washington Post:

Fox News staff and Trump advisers detail how Tucker Carlson's pre-recorded interview came about; Trump had initially wanted to stream the show on Truth Social — The on-again, off-again partnership found mutual benefit in a pre-recorded interview to air during the first Republican presidential debate

Discussion: @blackamazon, The Hill, @pkafka, @sarahellison, Associated Press, The Desk, Axios, Adweek and NBC News

Bron Maher / Press Gazette:

We Work founder Adam Neumann seeks a £25,000 donation to charity from The Spectator's US edition over an alleged defamatory story, which has since been amended — Neumann's lawyers say he was defamed by a report that he “defrauded” investors. — We Work founder Adam Neumann is seeking …

Jacob Granger / Journalism.co.uk:

A look at the New Statesman's podcast commercial strategy: ~30% of the revenue comes from podcast host Acast and the rest from in-house ads and branded content — 70 per cent of podcasting revenue is coming from bespoke deals with clients. Branded content is emerging as the space to watch

Discussion: Podnews

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Twitch rolls out an experimental TikTok-like Discovery Feed to select users, first with creators' horizontal clips and, “as the feed evolves”, vertical clips — Twitch is the latest tech company to try a TikTok-like way to browse content. The company is experimenting with a feature …

Discussion: TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Glenn Peoples / Billboard:

London-based ticketing company Dice raised $65M led by MUSIC, taking its total funding to $200M+; Dice expects to serve 55K+ artists and 10K+ venues in 2023 — Kobalt Music founder Willard Ahdritz's Ahdritz Holding LLC, Exor Ventures and Mirabaud Lifestyle Fund also participated in the funding round.

Discussion: Complete Music Update, Music Ally, Music Business Worldwide and Digital Music News, more at Techmeme »

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

Q&A with Fandom CEO Perkins Miller on the wiki hosting service's origin as Wikipedia's sister company, Pottermore, acquiring TV Guide, ads, FanDNA, AI, and more — Today, I'm talking with Perkins Miller. He's the CEO of Fandom, which runs thousands of wikis for everything from Disney …

Discussion: @verge, more at Techmeme »

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Sports podcasting network Blue Wire opens a community fundraising round, seeking $1M+ at a $26M valuation; in 2022, Blue Wire had $8M in revenue and a $5M loss — Blue Wire, a sports podcast company founded in 2018, will open up a community fundraising round on Tuesday …

Discussion: RADIO ONLINE, Awful Announcing, Barrett Media and Front Office Sports

Bianet:

Turkey's media regulator threatens to block VOA Türkçe's website in the country if the digital outlet doesn't apply for a broadcasting license within 72 hours — The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) gave VOA Türkçe 72 hours to make an application for a license.

Discussion: Voice of America and @w7voa@journa.host

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More News:

Kevin Jiang / Toronto Star:
Experts warn that Meta, and possibly Google, blocking trusted news outlets in Canada will worsen misinformation as the world nears a “precipice” of AI content

Discussion: @sadeghimckenzie, @mattdpearce, Techdirt and @librarianshipwreck …, more at Techmeme »

Klaus Lauer / Reuters:
Axel Springer settles with Julian Reichelt, the former Bild EIC that the publisher had sued for sharing internal company data with newspaper Berliner Zeitung

Discussion: Bloomberg and Financial Times

Charlie Warzel / The Atlantic:
Whether Wirecutter has become less reliable is hard to say given the rise of copycats, changes to the internet since 2011, and falling trust in institutions

Discussion: @cwarzel, @nxthompson, @yappelbaum, @matthewkassel, @lrhodes@merveilles.town, @bradbarrish@mastodon.social and Longreads

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Cox launches Neighborhood TV, a streaming service meant to serve small audiences of 400K to 500K per zone that includes original and licensed local news content

Discussion: StreamTV Insider, Next TV, The Streamable, MediaPost, Media Play News and Cord Cutters News

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
TikTok launches Search Ads Toggle, which lets brands target users with ads in search and add “Negative Keywords” so their ads don't appear beside some queries

Discussion: MediaPost, TikTok For Business, Music Ally, The Verge, Mashable SEA and Ad Age

Alex Cooper / Advocate:
Wellness company For Them acquires Autostraddle, which sees 2.5M+ views/month, in an all-equity deal, and renames the queer outlet to Autostraddle by For Them

Discussion: Autostraddle, Autostraddle, Axios and Ad Age

Earlier Picks:

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Prominent media executives and others raise ~$3M to launch the Center for News, Technology & Innovation, for fostering an open internet and an independent press

Discussion: @jimfriedlich, @dicktofel, @craignewmark, @blackamazon and @michellemanafy@journa.host

Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
IBM plans to sell its weather business, including Weather.com and business-oriented offerings, to private equity firm Francisco Partners for an undisclosed sum

Discussion: PRWeek, IBM, The Register, Adweek, CNBC, @aaronmehta, @pfbsuperdave, Associated Press, WRAL TechWire, The Information, UPI, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, @mlbellar@universeodon.com, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap and Cord Cutters News

Katie Robertson / New York Times:
Three Motherboard alumni and former EIC Jason Koebler launch 404 Media to cover tech, hacking, sex work, and more; subscriptions are $10/month or $100/year

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta is rolling out a Threads web app over the next few days that will let users post, interact with other posts, and look at the feed

Discussion: Gizmodo, UPI, CNET, Washington Post, MediaPost, Wall Street Journal, @simevidas@mastodon.social, 9to5Mac, CNBC, BBC, TechCrunch and RTÉ

Kerry Flynn / Axios:
Mather Economics acquires AI tool Sophi, which recommends when outlets should show visitors a paywall, from The Globe and Mail; Sophi works with ~100 newsrooms

Jon Porter / The Verge:
Nick Clegg says Meta now lets Instagram and Facebook users opt out of its recommendation algorithms for Reels, Stories, Search, and more, to comply with EU DSA

Discussion: Music Ally, Gizmodo, The Information, Meta, 9to5Mac, @gedankenstuecke@scholar …, TechCrunch and Mashable SEA

From Techmeme:

TechCrunch:
SensorTower: users in India have spent $8M on ChatGPT subscriptions through IAP since 2023, not including web app purchases, versus ~$330M spent by US users

Google Online Security Blog:
Google announces Sec-Gemini v1, an experimental AI model for cybersecurity, claiming it outperforms others on the leading CTI-MCQ threat intelligence benchmark

Reuters:
Sources: a TikTok US deal, which was largely finalized by April 2, was put on hold after China indicated it would reject the deal over President Trump's tariffs

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