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2:35 PM ET, February 1, 2024

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 Top News: 
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
UMG begins pulling its artists' music from TikTok after negotiations failed; videos featuring UMG-owned songs will be muted, and users can pick a new soundtrack  —  - Publisher behind Drake and Taylor Swift pushes for better pay  — Videos featuring Universal Music-owned songs will be muted
Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Email: The Messenger shuts down, effective immediately, citing economic headwinds; Jimmy Finkelstein launched the outlet in May 2023 and hired about 300 people  —  By closing less than a year after it launched, The Messenger is now one of the biggest busts in the annals of online news.
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Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Disney has reached a preliminary agreement to sell 60% of its Indian media business to Reliance-backed Viacom18 at a $3.9B valuation  —  Viacom18's purchase of 60% of Disney's India business reunites the company with two executives who built it  —  Disney has reached a preliminary agreement …
Jordan Hoffman / New York Magazine:
A Messenger journalist describes his time working for the outlet, where the expensive offices were empty and reporters were instructed to chase trending topics  —  A text time-stamped 1:19 a.m. early Wednesday read, “I think it's over, man.”  It was a Los Angeles-based colleague at The Messenger.
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Primary Wave Music acquires a 50% stake in the Brazilian music company Nas Nuvens, valuing it at ~$100M and highlighting the booming market for Brazilian music  —  - Primary Wave invests in the Brazilian company Nas Nuvens  — Funding round values Nas Nuvens at around $100 million
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Todd Boehly-backed music company Gamma, which works with Usher and Snoop Dogg, raised $100M+ led by Alpha Wave Global, sources say at a $400M valuation  —  - Alpha Wave Global leads round valuing company at $400 million  — Former Apple executive Larry Jackson launched company in 2023
Richard Nieva / Forbes:
YouTube says YouTube Premium and Music have a combined 100M subscribers; CEO Neal Mohan says subscriptions have become a “meaningful part” of YouTube's business  —  YouTube CEO Neal Mohan told Forbes the subscription services are now a “meaningful part” of the business.
Nqobile Dludla / Reuters:
NBCU and South African pay TV company MultiChoice plan to invest $177M in Showmax, MultiChoice's streamer built on Peacock; NBCU gets a 30% stake in Showmax  —  South African pay TV company MultiChoice Group (MCGJ.J) and U.S. media conglomerate Comcast's (CMCSA.O) NBCUniversal Media will invest …
Discussion: Deadline
Bron Maher / Press Gazette:
Politico redesigns its Europe, German, and French websites to have simpler homepages than the UK and US versions, to improve readability for AI web crawlers  —  Politico has given its Europe, German and French websites a redesign which improves readability for the web crawlers that feed into generative AI large language models (LLMs).
Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:
SiriusXM reports a Q4 net drop of 94K subscribers and 109K Pandora subs, net income down 4% YoY to $352M, revenue of $2.29B, and eyes “cost efficiencies”  —  The audio entertainment giant, the home of Howard Stern, is led by CEO Jennifer Witz whose team sees opportunities …
The NewsGuild:
More than 200 unionized Tribune journalists, designers, and production workers across seven newsrooms are staging a 24-hour strike today  —  - DO NOT click on stories from the Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, Virginian-Pilot, Morning Call, Suburban Chicago Tribune, Design and Production Studios, Tribune Content Agency
Reuters:
A Russian court extends the pre-trial detention of Russian-American RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, in custody since October 18, to April 5  —  A Russian court on Thursday extended the pre-trial detention of Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist who is accused of violating a law on “foreign agents”.
 
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 More News: 
Christina Couch / Nieman Lab:
How some small media outlets are trying to prevent reporter burnout by adopting work models that reduce workloads and prioritize time outside the office
Jordan Moreau / Variety:
VFX workers at a Disney subsidiary vote to unionize with the IATSE, becoming the first group of “vendor-side” artists to unionize via an official NLRB vote
 Earlier Picks: 
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Email to subscribers: Hulu changed its agreement to ban sharing accounts outside of the user's household “unless otherwise permitted by your Service Tier”
Dan Mangan / CNBC:
A US judge dismisses Disney's suit against Gov. Ron DeSantis claiming retaliation after Disney criticized Florida's “Don't Say Gay” bill; Disney plans to appeal
 

 
From Techmeme:

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI unveils GPT-4o, a new flagship generative AI model that is faster and natively multimodal, rolling out for free to all ChatGPT users in the coming weeks

Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
Sources: the EU is set to issue new antitrust charges against Microsoft over concerns of undermining Teams competitors, despite the company offering concessions

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Meta announces Travel Mode, in beta, for the Quest 2 and Quest 3 under “Experimental features”, as a way to optimize the headset for use on moving vehicles
 
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