Top News:

The Financial Times names Chief Commercial Officer Jon Slade as CEO, replacing John Ridding on July 1; Slade manages 75% of the FT Group's £500M annual revenue — Financial Times chief commercial officer Jon Slade has been named as the next CEO of the business, to succeed John Ridding.
Discussion:
@ft, Talking Biz News, Financial Times, Nikkei Asia, afaqs!, MediaPost and Financial Times

In a letter, Skydance alleges Project Rise Partners, the group behind a late $13.5B rival bid for Paramount, “fraudulently misrepresented” its financing — PRP rep calls Skydance accusations ‘outrageous’ and says group has financial commitments to complete a transaction with Paramount
Discussion:
Deadline, MLex, New York Post, The Wrap and Bloomberg

Q&A with WSJ Publisher and Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour on WSJ cutting tech reporting, the content deal with OpenAI, WSJ opinion pages, press freedom, and more — Today, I'm talking with Almar Latour, who is the publisher of The Wall Street Journal and CEO of its parent company Dow Jones …
Discussion:
Status, @oliverdarcy.bsky.social, Daring Fireball, Talking Biz News and @reckless.bsky.social

A Florida circuit court judge denies the Pulitzer Board's request to pause a defamation lawsuit by Trump until he is out of office — New York CNN — — A Florida circuit judge on Monday denied the Pulitzer Board's request to pause a defamation lawsuit from Donald Trump until the president is out of office.

Miramax appoints former Village Roadshow executive Alix Jaffe as president of television, reporting to CEO Jonathan Glickman, starting March 31 — She succeeds Marc Helwig who departed the company at the start of 2025 after almost five years. — In her new role, Jaffe …
Discussion:
The Wrap, The Hollywood Reporter and TVNewsCheck

Sources: Concord Music is in the final negotiations to acquire Stem, an LA-based company involved in music distribution, payments, and royalty services — We also hear that Raine Group is in the middle of it.
Discussion:
Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter

Google updates Chrome extension policy to ban affiliate link injection without user action or benefit, after allegations Honey stole creators' affiliate revenue — Honey was accused of shadily swapping out affiliate links, and now Google has new rules for extensions targeting exactly that.
Discussion:
@zachbussey.bsky.social, @jaypeters.net and Advisorator, more at Techmeme »

Mike Verdu, who joined Netflix in 2021 to launch its game offering and took on a new role as VP of Generative AI for games four months ago, has left the company — Mike Verdu, the executive who led Netflix's foray into gaming before changing roles at the company last year, is no longer at Netflix …
Discussion:
Mobilegamer.biz and @stephentotilo.bsky.social, more at Techmeme »

The US DHS skipped a fully competitive bid process to give two GOP-tied firms part of a $200M TV ad campaign lauding Trump's fight against illegal immigration — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security skipped a fully competitive bidding process to give two Republican-linked firms …

Disney+ and Lucasfilm bring Andor season one to Hulu and the first three episodes to the Disney+ YouTube channel for free, ahead of Andor's season two launch — Disney+ is making episodes more widely available online ahead of the release of season two. — “Oppression breeds rebellion,” says a character in Andor.
Discussion:
Disney Plus on YouTube, The Verge, Game Rant, Streaming Better, Kotaku, SEENIT, @starwars, The Streamable, The Sun, The Manual, @dhmontgomery, @ironcrakka, @simondowens@threads.net, Digital Trends, kottke.org, @avitek.bsky.social, @jaylender.bsky.social, UPI, Polygon, BGR, Cord Cutters News, Entertainment Weekly, Inverse, SlashFilm, Forbes, Deadline, The Wrap, The Playlist and Media Play News

ABC: print circulations at UK regional daily newspapers collectively declined 16% YoY in 2024, and no regional daily now has print circulation of 20,000 or more — Print circulations at UK regional daily newspapers collectively declined 16% between 2023 and 2024, according to the latest data from ABC.
Discussion:
@benjitoon.bsky.social and @pressgazette.co.uk

SoftBank-backed Jellysmack spins off Jellysmack Originals into a new entity, Blue Foxes, led by ex-Jellysmack Originals VPs; Jellysmack keeps Law&Crime Network — - Creator economy startup Jellysmack has spun off part of its original content business into a new entity.