Mediagazer: Fubo is expected to immediately become cash flow positive after its deal with Disney closes in 12 to 18 months; Fubo's stock closed up 253.85% on January 6 (Lillian Rizzo/CNBC)

8:45 PM ET, January 6, 2025

Top News:

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Disney and Fubo announce a deal wherein Disney will combine Hulu + Live TV with Fubo in a joint venture and Fubo will drop its Venu Sports antitrust lawsuit — Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery will pay Fubo $220 million to settle antitrust suit — Disney announced a deal …

Discussion: The Hollywood Reporter, The Desk, IndieWire, ir.fubo.tv, Advanced Television, Broadband TV News, Awful Announcing, Business Insider, Bloomberg, Investing.com, Mercury News, New York Times, Cord Cutters News, Light Reading, Motley Fool, The Verge, 9to5Mac, @tvanswerman, Front Office Sports, The Wrap, @mgsiegler, 9to5Google, CNN, @pkafka, TVNewsCheck, The Streamable, @matthewkeyslive, Streaming Better, @pkafka, @matthewkeyslive, @joesteel@duck.haus, @chrisharihar, The Hill, Yahoo Finance, @knox_vol865, @allie_canal, SportsPro, Quartz, @nycmikehenry, WORLD SCREEN, New York Post, Fast Company, One America News Network, Benzinga, @davidclinchnews, Axios, TechCrunch, Plain Dealer, @frankthetank111, Associated Press, Cord Cutters News, @michellef_davis, Latest from Tv Technology, AV Club, @lucas_shaw, Media Play News, @jbflint, @mikestrawmedia, Engadget, Deadline, Los Angeles Times, Sports Media Watch, Ars Technica, @philthepill.online, Reuters, TVLine and New York Daily News, more at Techmeme »

Lillian Rizzo / CNBC:

Fubo is expected to immediately become cash flow positive after its deal with Disney closes in 12 to 18 months; Fubo's stock closed up 253.85% on January 6 — WATCH NOW — Disney will combine its Hulu+ Live TV service with Fubo, merging together two internet TV bundles, the companies announced Monday.

Discussion: RetailWire, @mediaevan.bsky.social, CBS News, Boing Boing, UPI, @juklien.bsky.social, @labuzamovies.bsky.social, NBC News and Sportico, more at Techmeme »

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
Sources: Fubo and WBD restarted negotiations over a carriage deal, which could bring channels like TBS and TNT back to Fubo for the first time since 2020

Discussion: Forbes, @matthewkeyslive, Adweek, @matthewkeyslive and Gizmodo

Ben Strauss / Washington Post:

The Athletic's editorial staff urges NYT management to recognize them as part of the Times Guild, which would expand the union to nearly 1,700 members. — It's unclear whether the Times, which shuttered its own sports desk after buying the Athletic, will fight the journalists' effort to join the bargaining unit.

Discussion: NewsGuild of New York, The Wrap, @benjstrauss, New York Times, @rondakaysen, Front Office Sports, @mediaevan, New York Post, Fox Business, Awful Announcing and The NewsGuild

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:

Google previews changes coming to Google TV, including adding Gemini, more natural voice commands, and deeper YouTube integration, rolling out later in 2025 — Alphabet Inc.'s consumer team will give TV sets running its Google TV operating system an AI upgrade by adding Gemini to its Google Assistant voice-control system.

Discussion: Engadget, 9to5Google, Neowin, iPhone in Canada Blog, @theaustinlyons, @markgurman and The Verge, more at Techmeme »

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Google unveils a Gemini-powered News Brief feature on Google TV that summarizes news stories from the internet and YouTube video headlines from trusted channels

Discussion: Yahoo News, Engadget, @seanokane.bsky.social, 9to5Google, @zeffmax and Digital Trends

Lillian Rizzo / CNBC:

Comcast plans to launch Universal Ads in Q1 2025 to simplify ad buying and win over SMB advertisers from Big Tech, and signs deals with WBD and others — Comcast plans to launch a new advertising platform that will make it easier for smaller businesses to buy ad time — and, the company hopes …

Discussion: Ad Age, Variety, Comcast Advertising, Latest from Tv Technology, Varun Nahar on LinkedIn, @joshsternberg.com, MediaPost, Shane O Leary on LinkedIn, Charles F Manning on LinkedIn, Tomas Almonte on LinkedIn and Dan Abend on LinkedIn, more at Techmeme »

Dade Hayes / Deadline:

Fox Corp says Tubi surpassed 97M MAUs and 10B streaming hours in 2024, but doesn't say how it calculates MAUs; 77% of Tubi viewers say they do not have cable — Tubi continued to gain traction in 2024, surpassing 97 million monthly active users and 10 billion streaming hours.

Discussion: The Wrap, The Desk, Latest from Tv Technology, Cord Cutters News, Streaming Better, @tvgrimreaper, TVNewsCheck, MediaPost and The Hollywood Reporter, more at Techmeme »

Oliver Darcy / Status:

Sources: layoffs affecting “many dozens of employees” are expected at The Washington Post this week; star reporter Josh Dawsey is leaving WaPo for a job at WSJ — The Washington Post is expected to lay off dozens of staffers this week, Status has learned.

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Puck hires Leigh Ann Caldwell, the co-author of WaPo's Early 202 newsletter, as chief Washington correspondent, and plans a live events franchise in DC with her

Discussion: @sarafischer, @desderamona.bsky.social and Liz Gough on LinkedIn

Variety:

A complete list of the 2025 winners at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association — “The Brutalist,” a historical epic that examines the post-war immigrant experience, and “Emilia Pérez,” a musical about a drug lord who undergoes gender-affirming surgery …

Tara Deschamps / The Canadian Press:

Google makes a $100M payment to the Canadian Journalism Collective in exchange for an exemption from the Online News Act — Google has sent the $100 million it agreed to pay Canadian news outlets in exchange for an exemption from the Online News Act to a journalism organization designed to distribute the funds.

Discussion: Canadian Press, @jfxryan.bsky.social and @tara_deschamps

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

Free London business newspaper City AM confirms it is ending its Monday print edition and will invest instead in more video and audio products — Update 6 January 2025: City AM has confirmed it is ending its Monday print edition and will invest instead in more video and audio products.

Discussion: @wolfereports.bsky.social

Emma Roth / The Verge:

TiVo plans to launch TiVo OS in the US with a new Sharp TV, arriving as soon as February 2025, rivaling the likes of Roku, Google TV, and Amazon's Fire TV — More than a year after launching its smart TV platform in Europe, TiVo is now bringing it to the US.

Discussion: Engadget, Media Play News, Latest from Tv Technology, The Streamable and Light Reading, more at Techmeme »

Zoe Kleinman / BBC:

After complaints from BBC, Apple plans an update “in the coming weeks” that will make it clearer to users when Apple Intelligence is summarizing notifications — Apple has said it will update, rather than pause, a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature that has generated inaccurate news alerts on its latest iPhones.