Top News:
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Spotify reports Q2 revenue up 20% YoY to €3.8B, MAUs up 14% YoY to 626M, subscribers up 12% YoY to 246M, above est., and €266M operating income; SPOT jumps 12%+ — Spotify Technology SA shares surged to their highest in more than three years on Tuesday after the Swedish audio …
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Axios, Fast Company, Spotify, Neowin, Billboard, Benzinga, MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal, Proactive, The Verge, Investor's Business Daily, RTÉ, Quartz, Music Ally, @alexweprin, The Hollywood Reporter, @thetranscript_, Tech Xplore, Deadline, Music Business Worldwide, @eldsjal, @sarafischer and Variety, more at Techmeme »
Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:
Comcast reports Peacock Q2 revenue up 28% YoY to $1B, a $348M loss, down from $651M in Q2 2023, and paying subscribers up 38% YoY to 33M — Comcast and its entertainment unit NBCUniversal report second-quarter results, including the “best year-over-year improvement” in quarterly streaming losses since launch in 2020.
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Variety, The Desk, The Desk, Comcast Corporation, The Streamable, The Information, IndieWire, Cord Cutters News, The Wrap, @alexweprin, Variety, Next TV, Deadline, Barron's Online, CNBC, MarketWatch and Media Play News
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Bloomberg:
A look at Comcast's bet on the Paris Olympics, which executives hope will greatly elevate Peacock against Netflix and Disney+; Peacock has exclusive US rights — - US viewers will be able to see every Olympic event on Peacock — Coverage of Games will promote Peacock original programming
Discussion:
The Streamable, Next TV, Reuters, Slate, @lucas_shaw, E! Online, IndieWire and Rolling Stone
Dade Hayes / Deadline:
Comcast President Mike Cavanagh says NBCUniversal expects an 11-year rights deal with the NBA, starting with the 2025-26 season, will be announced “soon” — In the first on-the-record comments by a media partner in the NBA's pending $76 billion rights bonanza …
Discussion:
Variety, Sportico, Next TV, The Wrap and The Hollywood Reporter
Max Goldbart / Deadline:
BBC plans to lay off 500 more staff by March 2026 and reports a £263M operating deficit in 2023/24, up from £193M in 2022/23, projected to be £492M in 2024/25 — The BBC will lay off 500 more staff by March 2026 as its annual report paints a worrying financial picture including …
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Naman Ramachandran / Variety:
BBC reports BBC Commercial revenue of £1.9B in 2023/24, down from £2.1B in 2022/23, and 3.8M BritBox International subscribers, with a 25% annual growth rate — BBC Commercial, the revenue-generating arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation, has revealed a dip in sales and earnings for the 2023/24 fiscal year.
Discussion:
WORLD SCREEN, The Hollywood Reporter, Broadband TV News, Broadcast, The Hollywood Reporter, Advanced Television and BBC
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Huw Edwards tops the list of BBC's highest paid journalists for 2023/24 despite being off-air since July 2023; 46 BBC journalists earned above £178K
Huw Edwards tops the list of BBC's highest paid journalists for 2023/24 despite being off-air since July 2023; 46 BBC journalists earned above £178K
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The i Paper, The Mirror, Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Mirror, The Mirror, London Evening Standard, Metro.co.uk, The Independent, Daily Express, The Independent, Sky News, RTÉ, The Sun, GB News, LBC, The Times and Deadline
Mike Scarcella / Reuters:
A US judge rules that Nina Jankowicz, a former Biden anti-disinformation official, could not back up her defamation claims against Fox News and parent Fox Corp — Fox News Media and its parent Fox Corp (FOXA.O) won a ruling on Monday dismissing a lawsuit by a former Biden administration official …
Discussion:
Deadline, The Hill, Mediaite, NPR and Los Angeles Times
Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:
TelevisaUnivision reports Q2 revenue up 3% YoY to $1.3B, ad revenue up 6% YoY to $785M, and operating expenses up 6% YoY to $896M — The Spanish-language media giant, led by CEO Wade Davis, reports its second-quarter financials. … The company also reemphasized that its streaming business …
Discussion:
Variety, WORLD SCREEN, Next TV, TelevisaUnivision and TVNewsCheck
Digiday:
Google says it won't be “deprecating third-party cookies” in Chrome and will instead keep working on “privacy-preserving alternatives” via Privacy Sandbox APIs — After much back and forth, Google has decided to keep third-party cookies in its Chrome browser.
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Reuters:
The US calls on Russia to free Russian-American RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who was jailed last week in what RFE/RL said was “a mockery of justice” — The U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Tuesday called on Russia to free Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist …
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Semafor, Reporters Without Borders and European Federation …
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Dylan Donnelly / Sky News:
A Russian court sentences Russian-American RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva to six and a half years in prison for spreading “false info” about the Russian army
A Russian court sentences Russian-American RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva to six and a half years in prison for spreading “false info” about the Russian army
Discussion:
Associated Press, Radio Free Europe/Radio …, TVNewsCheck, @freedomofpress, @samberkhead, @bentavener, @reidstan, @rebecca_vincent, @janlipavsky, @samagreene, @pressgazette, @bbcstever, @hadas_gold, CNN, New York Times, Committee to Protect …, BBC, The Guardian, Voice of America, Reuters, CNN, CBS News and USAGM
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Amazon begins rolling out a new UI for Prime Video to help distinguish content included with Prime, update its navigation bar, manage subscriptions, and more — And the new UI specifically addresses something that's annoyed Prime Video users for years: Now, according to Amazon …
Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
Vivendi plans to list its French TV business Canal+ in London and advertising company Havas in Amsterdam, as part of a drive to break up the media conglomerate — Media group controlled by Vincent Bolloré to break up, with advertising company Havas to list in Amsterdam
Discussion:
Reuters, Financial Times, The Media Leader, Broadband TV News, Advanced Television and Bloomberg