Mediagazer: Netflix defeats a shareholder lawsuit claiming the company hid the impact of account sharing; NFLX fell ~50% from January to April 2022 after growth warnings (Jody Godoy/Reuters)

Top News:

Kashish Tandon / Reuters:

India's Zee Entertainment remains committed to its $10B Sony India merger, calling media reports of the deal falling through “baseless and factually incorrect” — India's Zee Entertainment (ZEE.NS) on Tuesday said it was committed to its merger with Sony's (6758.T) local arm …

Discussion: Financial Times, Anto Antony on LinkedIn, Bloomberg and Advanced Television

Bloomberg:

Sources: Zee misses a deadline to pay $200M to Disney's India unit for cricket TV rights, citing a cash crunch; Zee agreed to pay $1.4B+ in August 2022 — - Payment was part of a $1.4 billion cricket rights purchase — Network is saving cash ahead of likely collapse of its merger

Discussion: Anto Antony on LinkedIn

Casey Newton / Platformer:

Substack plans to remove some Nazi publications, but its new policy interpretation won't include proactively removing neo-Nazi and far-right extremism content — Substack is removing some publications that express support for Nazis, the company said today.

Discussion: The Verge, @jbenton, @brianstelter, Engadget, @jasonkoebler@threads.net, @brian.fishman.5@threads.net, @fraying@xoxo.zone, @LyleDAL@universeodon.com, @neurovagrant@masto.deoan.org, @crumbler@threads.net, @ernie@writing.exchange, @thisismissem@hachyderm.io and Rolling Stone, more at Techmeme »

Etan Vlessing / Hollywood Reporter:

Imax says its 2023 box office was $1.06B, near 2019's $1.1B record and up 24.4% YoY, with $393.2M in North America, its highest grossing year ever in the region — Christopher Nolan's ‘Oppenheimer’ and Taylor Swift's concert film helped drive the rebound in ticket sales coming out of the pandemic.

Discussion: Variety, ScreenRant and IMAX Corporation

Steven J. Horowitz / Variety:
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour becomes the highest-grossing concert film of all time, earning $261.6M+ globally, surpassing Michael Jackson's This Is It from 2009

Discussion: Rolling Stone UK, Forbes, Rolling Stone, Billboard, ScreenRant, Digital Music News and The Hollywood Reporter

Julie Jargon / Wall Street Journal:

Meta plans to start automatically restricting teen Instagram and Facebook accounts from harmful content, including posts about self-harm, in the coming weeks — Efforts to curb harmful material and reduce unwanted interactions with teen social-media accounts come as states sue parent company Meta

Discussion: Meta, TechCrunch, The Verge, The Hill, NPR and 9to5Mac, more at Techmeme »

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Fox Corp. debuts Verify, a blockchain protocol developed with Polygon Labs for media companies to register content and grant usage rights to AI companies — Fox Corp., one of the largest media companies in the U.S., has publicly debuted a new blockchain platform called Verify …

Discussion: Variety, TechCrunch, TVNewsCheck and @bgrueskin

Nic Newman / Reuters Institute:

Survey of 314 news leaders from 56 countries: just 47% say they are confident about journalism's 2024 prospects; 63% worry about declining social media traffic — The disruptive power of artificial intelligence (AI) will sweep through the information space this year at a time of intense political …

Discussion: BuzzMachine, @nicnewman, @charliebeckett, @risj_oxford, Press Gazette, HoldtheFrontPage and Fast Company

Mia Sato / The Verge:

How the internet reshaped itself around Google's search algorithms, including via SEO tricks, and the company's role in many websites now using similar designs — How the internet reshaped itself around Google's search algorithms — and into a world where websites look the same. — Animations by Richard Parry

Discussion: @miarsato, @ct_bergstrom@fediscience.org, @scott@typetura.social, @katienotopoulos@threads.net and @reckless1280@threads.net, more at Techmeme »

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:

Amazon announces Matter Casting, an Apple AirPlay-like feature to send video from different platforms to Amazon devices, initially supporting Echo Show devices — Amazon.com Inc. introduced a new feature that mimics Apple Inc.'s AirPlay while working across different platforms …

Discussion: The Desk, The Verge, Thurrott and Cord Cutters News, more at Techmeme »

Jody Godoy / Reuters:

Netflix defeats a shareholder lawsuit claiming the company hid the impact of account sharing; NFLX fell ~50% from January to April 2022 after growth warnings — Netflix (NFLX.O) has defeated a lawsuit filed by shareholders in a federal court in California that accused the streaming entertainment company …

Discussion: Broadband TV News and The Hollywood Reporter

Press Gazette:

An analysis of 23 leading paywalled publishers: the price of a digital news subscription rose by 20% on average in the UK in 2023; Bloomberg's grew by 50% — How annual digital subscription prices at the biggest news titles compare to one year ago. — The price of a digital news subscription …

Discussion: @baekdal, Media Voices and Press Gazette

Julia Kollewe / The Guardian:

Memo: Channel 4 Chair Ian Cheshire says the government-approved appointments of four white directors to the broadcaster's board lag behind its diversity targets — Chair says government-approved appointments lag behind broadcaster's diversity targets — A row has broken out over the lack …

Discussion: Mediaite, Deadline, Telegraph, The Express & Star, Daily Mail, @roziebreen and @jake_kanter