Top News:
Jennifer Maas / Variety:
Sources: WBD will lay off ~1,000 employees across sectors including finance, business affairs, and production; source: fewer than 10 Max staffers are affected — Sources tell Variety that nearly 1,000 employees will be laid off across a few sectors in a new cost-cutting move at WBD …
Discussion:
Deadline, Quartz, @minotimusic, The Wrap, Jon Malone on LinkedIn, IndieWire, The Hollywood Reporter, @tvgrimreaper, The Desk and Cord Cutters News
Jack Queen / Reuters:
A jury convicts Ozy Media and its founder Carlos Watson of fraud, in a case accusing them of lying to investors about the startup's finances and sham deals — Ozy Media and founder Carlos Watson were convicted of fraud by a Brooklyn federal jury on Tuesday, in a case accusing them of lying …
Discussion:
New York Times, Courthouse News Service, Associated Press, Breitbart, @ednynews, The Information, The Verge, Variety, TheGrio, Axios, Mediaite, The Wrap, Bloomberg and Deadline
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Taboola CEO Adam Singolda says the company has struck a deal with Apple to power native advertising in the Apple News and Apple Stocks apps; TBLA jumps ~5% — - Taboola's effort to build trust with Apple across its various teams and stakeholders was “a multiyear process,'” Singolda said.
Discussion:
Media Voices, Simon Owens's Media Newsletter, @sarafischer, The Drum, The Overspill, Jay Friedman on LinkedIn, @counternotions@mastodon …, @thomholwerda@exquisite.social, The Verge, MediaPost, 9to5Mac, @simondowens@threads.net, @benedictevans@threads.net, @crumbler@threads.net and @joesteel@duck.haus, more at Techmeme »
Annie Gilbertson / Proof:
Investigation: Apple, Nvidia, Anthropic, and others trained their AI on a dataset that contained YouTube video transcripts, including from the WSJ, NPR, and BBC — AI companies are generally secretive about their sources of training data, but an investigation by Proof News found …
Discussion:
The Verge, Beyond Search, SWAMY WORLD, Ars Technica, @mkbhd, @juliaangwin, @neilturkewitz, @mkbhd, Ezra Cooperstein on LinkedIn, The Register, Quartz, @juliaangwin, Digital Trends, @benlovejoy, Craig Newmark on LinkedIn, Engadget, @carnage4life@mas.to, Dexerto, Nieman Lab and 9to5Mac, more at Techmeme »
Elahe Izadi / Washington Post:
Six journalists who worked at DCist, closed by WAMU earlier in 2024, launch the 51st, a worker-run local news site for DC, and a $250K fundraising campaign — The worker-run newsroom will attempt to fill a niche its founders say opened when WAMU closed DCist.
Tim Reynolds / Associated Press:
The NBA's Board of Governors approves the league's next media rights deals with Disney, NBC, and Amazon Prime Video; WBD could still match one of the deals — The NBA's Board of Governors approved the league's next media rights deals with Disney, NBC and Amazon Prime Video at its meeting Tuesday …
Discussion:
Puck, The Desk, @sherman4949, @mikevorkunov, NBA.com, New York Times, Awful Announcing and The Streamable
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Deezer debuts Playlist with AI in beta, where users can create playlists from text prompts, powered by Google's Gemini 1.5, following rivals' similar offerings — Deezer is the latest music streaming app to introduce an AI playlist feature. The company announced on Monday that a select number …
Discussion:
Deezer Newsroom, Digital Music News, Music Ally and Music Business Worldwide
Andrew Deck / Nieman Lab:
The editorial union at Ziff Davis' Mashable, Lifehacker, and PC Mag agrees to a tentative contract prohibiting layoffs or salary cuts due to generative AI — Ziff Davis can't lay off workers or decrease their salary due to generative AI, according to the tentative contract.
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough says that he was “surprised” and “disappointed” after NBC leadership pulled his show on Monday — The MSNBC host returned to the channel Tuesday, saying he was “surprised” and “disappointed” by the decision to preempt his show Monday.
Discussion:
Fox News, Variety, @grynbaum, Axios, Mediaite, @jameslynch32, @maxwelltani, Washington Post, The Daily Beast, @newsjennifer, @grynbaum, @joebrusuelas, @jeffjarvis, @jeffjarvis, @jeffjarvis, The Daily Beast, @ivanthek, Newser, The Guardian, Washington Examiner, HuffPost, TVLine, Raw Story, Daily Mail, Raw Story, Fox News, Fox News and Deadline
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Nate Silver joins Polymarket, a predictions market startup that has raised $70M since 2020, as an adviser; he'll continue to produce his Substack newsletter — - “Probabilities really matter when you're trying to make plans,” Silver said in a phone interview.
Discussion:
@elliosch, @lyingwithstats, @cwarzel, @zbs.bsky.social, @loudmouthjulia, @cwarzel, @tvmojoe and @DemocracyMattersALot …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Disney is working on features to increase the hours viewers spend on streaming, including pop-up live channels and more-tailored recommendations — Entertainment giant makes technical improvements meant to retain subscribers and encourage longer viewing sessions
Discussion:
Ars Technica, @tvgrimreaper, IndieWire, @wsjbusiness, @gabrielmalor.bsky.social and Quartz
Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:
A survey of 1,500 Britons: 7% pay for news subscriptions, 87% say they prefer ads to paying for content; overall, respondents said only 5% of ads were relevant — Two-thirds of Britons expect to access online content about current affairs and their special interests without paying for it, according to new research.
Discussion:
Warren Johnson on LinkedIn and TOOLKITS