Mediagazer: Sources: Amazon has had early talks with Disney about working on a streaming version of ESPN, possibly helping with distribution while taking a minority stake (Sahil Patel/The Information)

1:00 PM ET, August 25, 2023

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Alex Griffing / Mediaite:

Nielsen: Fox News' first debate of the 2024 Republican presidential primary brought in 12.8M viewers; the 12 debates of the 2016 campaign averaged ~15M viewers — Fox News's first Republican debate of the 2024 presidential election exceeded expectations and brought in 12.8 million total viewers …

Lisa Richwine / Reuters:
X claims Tucker Carlson's interview with Donald Trump drew 74M+ views, but the number includes users who scrolled past the video or watched for a few seconds

Discussion: @tuckercarlson, Mediaite, Bloomberg, The Verge, @elonmusk, Variety, d2384, Deadline, New York Times, @brianstelter, @jason_kint, @brianstelter, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times, Forbes, The Hill, Vox, Politico, The Guardian, Mastodon, The Daily Beast, The Wrap, New Republic, Adweek, The Wrap, Slate, Advocate, Semafor and Media Matters for America

Michael M. Grynbaum / New York Times:
Donald Trump appearing in Tucker Carlson's X video over a TV debate shows mass media has yielded some gatekeeper powers to more niche outlets for die-hard fans

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Kaya Yurieff / The Information:

The Creators Guild of America, a nonprofit advocacy group with board members including YouTuber Justine Ezarik, launches to support digital creators' interests — The Hollywood strike has highlighted the lack of a similar labor movement within the creator economy, but new efforts to change that are emerging.

Discussion: @kyurieff, @ericnewcomer and Communicate Online

Nathan McAlone / Insider:
OnlyFans reports revenue up 17% YoY to $1.1B in the FY to November 30, 2022, profit up 24% YoY to $404M, creators up 47% YoY to 3.2M, and users spent $5.6B

Discussion: find-and-update.company …, Music Ally, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Variety and The Information, more at Techmeme »

Sherman Smith / Kansas Reflector:

Marion County Sheriff's Office agrees to destroy the digital files it copied from Marion County Record computers and illegally kept — Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn and Sheriff Jeff Soyez stand outside the evidence room where an undersheriff signs over newspaper property to a forensic expert.

Discussion: @pressfreedom, Columbia Journalism Review, Voice of America and The Daily Beast

Ariel Bogle / The Guardian:

NYT, CNN, and some other news outlets block OpenAI's GPTBot web crawler from accessing their content; some have also blocked Common Crawl Foundation's CCBot — Chicago Tribune and Australian newspapers the Canberra Times and Newcastle Herald also appear to have disallowed web crawler from maker of Chat GPT

Discussion: MIT Technology Review, @carnage4life@mas.to and Insider, more at Techmeme »

Katharine Trendacosta / Defector:

Hollywood trade publications have long been seen as PR tools for studios, but their stories during the WGA strike have absolutely shattered their credibility — If you were on the website-formally-known-as-Twitter last week, first of all, my condolences, we are in hell together, and second …

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Sharon Waxman / The Wrap:
Instead of calming strike tensions, CEOs who met with the WGA's negotiators riled things up, revealing ego-driven decision-making; the union responded angrily

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:

YouTube confirms plans to roll out support for RSS uploads for podcasters and make podcasts in YouTube Music available worldwide by the end of 2023 — YouTube Music just launched support for podcasts earlier this year, and that's going to only get better in the months to come as RSS support is apparently coming to the app.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Podnews, Android Police, Triton Digital and RAIN News

Reggie Ugwu / New York Times:

Netflix is offering its DVD subscribers up to 10 movies to keep for free ahead of the closure of its rental-by-mail service at the end of September — The company is shuttering its rental-by-mail service in September, more than 25 years after it launched. — When subscribers receive …

Discussion: Boing Boing

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:

Barbie becomes 2023's top-grossing movie in North America, grossing $575.4M in 34 days; The Super Mario Bros. Movie grossed $574.3M in 140 days in North America — Greta Gerwig's movie has surpassed ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ in North America and will do the same at the worldwide box office by early next month.

Discussion: The Wrap, Observer, Billboard, Deadline, Variety, ET Canada, The Playlist, The A.V. Club, ComingSoon.net, Screen Rant, CNN, Collider, TIME, Comic Book and SlashFilm

Sahil Patel / The Information:

Sources: Amazon has had early talks with Disney about working on a streaming version of ESPN, possibly helping with distribution while taking a minority stake — Amazon has had early talks with Disney about working on the streaming version of ESPN it is developing, said people familiar with the matter.

Discussion: MediaPost, The Streamable, Awful Announcing, Barrett Media, Cord Cutters News, @aagave, @rawkuz99 and Reuters, more at Techmeme »

Jimmy Vielkind / Wall Street Journal:

Sources: the FBI and German investigators are probing the possible poisonings of two Russian journalists and a Russian activist — Three women say they suffered a sudden onset of unusual symptoms; FBI and German investigators conducting probes — The FBI and German investigators are probing …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times and The Daily Beast

David Pierce / The Verge:

For Amazon's second season streaming Thursday Night Football, the company plans more AI tools in Prime Vision, more Black Friday shopping integrations, and HDR — This NFL season, if you watch a Thursday Night Football game on Amazon Prime Video, you're likely to see all sorts of new on-screen stuff.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Shelly Palmer, @reckless1280@threads.net, The Streamable and Wall Street Journal

Ainsley Harris / Fast Company:

How YouTube plans to integrate creators into its NFL Sunday Ticket programming, as the company looks to be a “one-stop shop for multiple types of video content” — College football's brightest stars, dressed in their snappiest suits, assembled beneath gray skies and the beaux-arts grandeur …

Discussion: Variety, TechCrunch, @afarles, CNET and The Desk, more at Techmeme »

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From Techmeme:

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