Mediagazer: Google begins showing AdSense ads in conversations with AI chatbots; sources say Google tested the ads in 2024 with startups, like AI search apps iAsk and Liner (Julia Love/Bloomberg)

10:30 AM ET, May 1, 2025

Top News:

Alex Isenstadt / Axios:

The White House launches White House Wire, a website that looks similar to the Drudge Report, to promote pro-Trump news stories — The White House has launched a new Drudge Report-like website devoted to promoting pro-Trump news stories. — Why it matters: The site, called “White House Wire …

Mark Stenberg / Adweek:

WaPo plans to overhaul its events business, moving away from virtual events to 30 to 40 in-person experiences, including 10 major franchise-style gatherings — The new approach will focus on franchisable gatherings catering to business audiences — The Washington Post is overhauling …

Discussion: @washpostcomms and @markstenberg3

David Bauder / Associated Press:
WaPo has banned its media writers from reporting stories about the paper and reportedly lost ~325K subscribers after the Harris non-endorsement

Discussion: Jacob Bogage on LinkedIn, @teddyamen.bsky.social, @danlamothe.bsky.social, @eldavidmontgomery.bsky.social, @dbauder.bsky.social and @pressgazette.co.uk

Colby Hall / Mediaite:

Steve Doocy says he will move to a new role as the dedicated host of Fox & Friends remote assignments; the show will continue to be hosted from its NYC studios — After 6,828 days of waking up at 3:30 a.m., Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy decided he wanted to sleep in a bit.

Discussion: TVLine, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, @edgarallandoh.bsky.social, The US Sun, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter

Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:

BBC Studios and the Agatha Christie estate partner to launch a writing course on education streaming service BBC Maestro, using AI to recreate Christie's voice — Actress Vivien Keene and the technology will bring the iconic mystery author to life in the result of a partnership between BBC Studios and the Christie estate.

Discussion: The Guardian, Deadline, The Times, Engadget, The Independent, BBC, BBC Maestro, Mirror, @marygillis.bsky.social, SlashFilm and The Verge

Julia Love / Bloomberg:

Google begins showing AdSense ads in conversations with AI chatbots; sources say Google tested the ads in 2024 with startups, like AI search apps iAsk and Liner — Google's ad network has begun showing advertising within the flow of conversations with chatbots — part of Alphabet Inc.'s efforts …

Discussion: TechCrunch, @michaelmartinez.co and The Hill, more at Techmeme »

Trishla Ostwal / Adweek:
Google introduces channel-level reporting in Performance Max, providing ad campaign metrics broken down by ad format and what Google property it runs on

Discussion: TVNewsCheck, The Drum, Search Engine Land, Business Insider, The Keyword, MediaPost and Search Engine Journal

Peter White / Deadline:

NBCU starts another round of layoffs, hitting the unscripted teams the hardest, with at least two reality SVPs impacted and several at NBC, Peacock, and Bravo — It appears that its unscripted teams were the hardest hit with this latest round of redundancies with at least two SVPS …

Discussion: Deadline, Cord Cutters News and The Wrap

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Study: UK ad spend hit a record £42.6B in 2024, with Meta and Google capturing ~£25.4B; online display ads grew 15.1% to £16.7B, and search rose 12.8% to £16.9B — Google and Meta accounted for at least half the record £42.6bn spent on UK advertising last year, according to Press Gazette estimates.

Discussion: Dominic Ponsford on LinkedIn

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:

MoviePass launches Mogul, a daily fantasy platform for movie enthusiasts, and says 400,000+ people have already signed up for its early-access waitlist — MoviePass, the startup that made its mark with its movie theater subscription service, has always been known for shaking things up, and its latest venture is no exception.

Discussion: The Hollywood Reporter and Fortune

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Mark Zuckerberg says Threads has 350M MAUs, having added 30M in Q1 2025, compared to 20M in Q4 2024 — Instagram Threads, Meta's X competitor, has now grown to over 350 million monthly active users, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed during the company's Q1 2025 earnings call on Wednesday.

Discussion: @carnage4life@threads.com, @crumbler@threads.com, @jwang815@threads.com and @sdw@threads.com, more at Techmeme »

Meta:
Meta reports Q1 revenue up 16% YoY to $42.3B, vs. $41.4B est., net income up 35% to $16.6B, family daily active people up 6% to 3.43B on average for March 2025

Discussion: MEDIANAMA, Motley Fool, @thetranscript_, City A.M., @mikeisaac, @munster_gene, @edludlow, @munster_gene, @munster_gene, @mikeisaac, @mikeisaac, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Variety, Deadline, Bloomberg and CNBC, more at Techmeme »

Dylan Byers / Puck:

Sources: Shari Redstone asked CBS CEO if it would be possible to delay sensitive 60 Minutes stories about Trump until after the Skydance deal is closed — Amid Trump's legal torture of CBS, Shari Redstone has played the role of a spineless placater—a desperate seller eager to settle and liquidate her position in the family heirloom.

Discussion: @jaspar.bsky.social, @mergerson.bsky.social, @karlbode.com, @avi.zollman.com, @dylanbyers, Wall Street Journal, Cord Cutters News, Techdirt, The Washington Free Beacon, Newsmax, Media Play News and Los Angeles Times

Daniel Boffey / The Guardian:

Court document: Rebekah Brooks took a “deeply concerning interest” in the phone hacking campaigner Tom Watson, and one journalist wrote that he “must die” — Exclusive: Sun reporter also wrote that former MP ‘must die’, according to claims in newly disclosed document

Etan Vlessing / The Hollywood Reporter:

SiriusXM reports Q1 revenue down 4% YoY to $2.07B, a $204M net income, down from $241M in Q1 2024, and self-pay subscribers down 303K, for 33M total subscribers — The auto giant, led by CEO Jennifer Witz, reported its first-quarter results as it faces the impact of U.S. tariffs on new car sales.

Discussion: Advanced Television, Reuters, Deadline, Benzinga and SiriusXM

Kelcee Griffis / Bloomberg:

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat after Geoffrey Starks left, is set to offer a dissenting voice against FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's media policies — She'll soon be the lone Democrat on the commission, which is supporting the president's combative stance against the media.

Discussion: TVNewsCheck and The Dispatch

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More News:

Arthur Macmillan / Columbia Journalism Review:
Q&A with Ryan Lizza on Politico threatening a lawsuit against his new Substack called Telos, the RFK scandal, how Trump weaponized media conventions, and more

Discussion: Poynter, @adriana_lacy, @kirk_bado, @scottnover, Telos, @taylorlorenz.bsky.social, Politico and Mediaite

John J. Lennon / Vulture:
An incarcerated man describes the negative impact on some prisoners of true crime shows, which fail to contextualize and exploit their participation

Discussion: @yaz_minsky, @johnjlennon1, @johnjlennon1 and @gazelleemami

Financial Times:
Kadrey v. Meta, centered on the use of LibGen to train Llama AI models, kicks off, marking the first big legal test in the ongoing battle over AI and copyright

Discussion: Reuters and @cyrilpedia.bsky.social, more at Techmeme »

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
The GOP used legal threats to take down billboard ads bought by Democrats in March 2025, a blatant SLAPP demand and potentially a First Amendment violation

Discussion: @mmasnick.bsky.social and Punchbowl News

Earlier Picks:

Agence France-Presse:
A Turkish court hands Swedish journalist Joakim Medin an 11-month suspended sentence for insulting the president, but he remains in jail on terrorism charges

Discussion: @indexoncensorship.org, Agence France-Presse and Associated Press

Mark K. Miller / TVNewsCheck:
Sinclair names Jeff Blackburn, formerly SVP of global media and entertainment at Amazon, as CEO and chairman of the Tennis Channel

Discussion: Sports Business Journal, Baltimore Business Journal, Awful Announcing, The Desk, Radio & Television …, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and New York Times

Axios:
PBS CEO Paula Kerger says she is “hopeful” more Republicans will back the public broadcaster, and PBS would defend “vigorously” if someone went after its board

Discussion: Mediaite, Adweek, The Hill, Daily Kos, Washington Post and RADIO ONLINE

From Techmeme:

Bloomberg:
iRobot files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reaches a restructuring agreement to hand over control to its secured lender and main Chinese supplier Shenzhen Picea

Emilia David / VentureBeat:
Nvidia launches Nemotron 3, a family of AI models using a hybrid mixture-of-experts architecture and the Mamba-Transformer design, in 30B, 100B, and ~500B sizes

Arsheeya Bajwa / Reuters:
Nvidia announces it has acquired SchedMD, the developer of Slurm, an open-source workload management system for HPC and AI

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