Mediagazer: The EU fines Meta €797.72M for tying Facebook Marketplace to Facebook and “imposing unfair trading conditions” on rival websites, the first such fine for Meta (Javier Espinoza/Financial Times)

Top News:

Disney reports Q4 revenue up 6% YoY to $22.6B, TV network revenue down 6% YoY to $2.5B, and a $321M DTC streaming profit, up from a $387M loss in Q4 2023 — Streaming profit and studio are bright spots, while income from cable and theme parks declines — Disney's streaming business …

Discussion: Reuters, The Wrap, WDWMAGIC.COM, Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, @thetranscript_, Business Wire and Rafael Brown on LinkedIn

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Reliance and Disney complete their $8.5B Indian media merger, creating India's largest media group with $3.1B in annual revenue and 50M+ streaming subscribers — Reliance and Disney have completed their landmark Indian media merger, creating an $8.5 billion entertainment powerhouse in the country's streaming and television markets.

Discussion: Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter and YourStory.com

Brooks Barnes / New York Times:

In its Q4 report, Disney, which rarely offers guidance, shares growth expectations to 2027, including a ~$700M operating profit in DTC streaming in 2025 — The company, which does not typically release guidance to investors, said that profit would jump over the next three years.

Discussion: CNN, Quartz, Benzinga, Yahoo Finance, Financial Times and @brianstelter

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:

CEOs at Nexstar, Sinclair, and Tegna, plus some analysts, say they expect deregulation and consolidation in the broadcast TV industry under Trump's FCC — Flush with political ad dollars and anticipating a deal-friendly environment, moguls are eyeing big moves to roll up lucrative local broadcasters.

Discussion: @mediaevan and @WarnerCrocker@mastodon.social

Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:

Spotify plans to pay incentives to video creators who hit certain viewing thresholds and, in January 2025, to let Premium users view podcast videos without ads — Audio-streaming giant plans to pay hosts to make podcast videos and allow premium subscribers to watch them without ads

Discussion: MEDIANAMA, Spotify, Music Ally, Podnews, @spotifycreator, @spotifynews, @kantrowitz, @alexeheath, @paulroetzer, Spotify, @johnbuckley.bsky.social, Engadget, Los Angeles Times, Business Insider, TechCrunch, Spotify and The Verge, more at Techmeme »

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Spotify projects its first full year of profitability ever in 2024; CEO Daniel Ek says profitability is the new normal for Spotify

Discussion: The Hollywood Reporter, Digiday, @sarafischer, Investor's Business Daily, CMU, Digital Music News, MEDIANAMA, Fortune and Music Ally

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Don Lemon, who sued Elon Musk and X after a deal fell apart, says he's leaving X on November 15, citing X's new ToS that moves legal disputes to Texas courts — Don Lemon, a one-time business partner of Elon Musk who's now suing the tech mogul, is done with X.

Murray Stassen / Music Business Worldwide:

German royalty licensing group GEMA sues OpenAI and subsidiary OpenAI Ireland in Munich Regional Court, claiming ChatGPT violates copyrights of lyrics — OpenAI, the $157 billion-valued US-based AI giant behind ChatGPT, has been sued by German collection society and licensing body GEMA.

Discussion: gema.de, ai fray, Digital Music News, Jeff Rabhan on LinkedIn, The Decoder, CMU, @konkrit@mastodon.social, Billboard and Music Ally

Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:

The EU fines Meta €797.72M for tying Facebook Marketplace to Facebook and “imposing unfair trading conditions” on rival websites, the first such fine for Meta — Facebook is undermining rivals by ‘tying’ its free Marketplace services with the social network, Brussels says

Discussion: European Commission, Bloomberg, @metanewsemea and Meta, more at Techmeme »

Jennifer Maas / Variety:

In Q4, Disney added 4.4M Disney+ Core paid subscribers, reaching 120M in total, Disney+ Hotstar subscribers rose 1% YoY to 35.9M, and Hulu subscribers hit 52M — Disney ended its 2024 fiscal year with 122.7 million Disney+ Core paid subscribers, an increase of 4.4 million subs …

Discussion: IndieWire, Reuters, WHEC.com, Cord Cutters News and Benzinga

John Koblin / New York Times:

Nielsen: since Trump won, MSNBC has averaged 550K viewers, down 39% on October, and its prime time audience is down 53%; Fox's prime time audience is up 21% — Prime-time viewership at MSNBC has fallen 53 percent from October, and jumped 21 percent on Fox News.

Discussion: @pierogie.bsky.social and HotAir

Wall Street Journal:

X names former Tubi CFO Mahmoud Reza Banki as its CFO; Trump pardoned Banki in January 2021 for making false statements; a source says he joined X in November — Mahmoud Reza Banki, former Tubi finance chief, joins platform amid financial challenges — Elon Musk's X Corp. named Mahmoud …

Discussion: Fortune, Business Insider, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter, more at Techmeme »

Jay Peters / The Verge:

The WSJ is testing AI-generated article summaries at the top of new stories in a “Key Points” box to see how readers respond, following Gannett and others — The Wall Street Journal is experimenting with AI-generated article summaries that appear at the top of its news stories.

Discussion: TVNewsCheck and MediaPost