Check out Mini-Mediagazer for simple mobiles or Mediagazer Mobile for modern smartphones.
7:20 PM ET, July 27, 2025

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Paramount says it expects its merger with Skydance to close on August 7; the new company will trade on Nasdaq as PSKY  —  In just under two weeks, Paramount Global will complete its takeover by the smaller Skydance Media to form “Paramount Skydance Corp.” — and bringing a rollercoaster M&A ride to its conclusion.
RELATED:
Lucas Manfredi / The Wrap:
FCC filing: Larry Ellison will hold a minority voting interest of ~35.5% in the combined Paramount-Skydance company, without any veto or special voting rights  —  The Oracle chairman will not have any “veto rights, or any special or outsized voting rights,” per an amendment filed with the FCC
Discussion: Slate, HuffPost and The Information
Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat on the FCC, dissents against the Paramount-Skydance merger and says the FCC made “unprecedented” moves to help broker the deal
Nellie Andreeva / Deadline:
Chris McCarthy, co-CEO of Paramount Global and president of Showtime/MTV, plans to depart the company once its acquisition by Skydance is completed
Ellie Wolfe / The Baltimore Banner:
The Johns Hopkins University Press will license its authors' books to train AI models, citing concerns that “the window may be closing” for making AI deals  —  The Johns Hopkins University will license its books to train proprietary large language models, an advanced form …
Axios:
Rupert Murdoch's media empire is playing both sides of the Trump-Epstein scandal, with the WSJ breaking bombshell news that Fox News is largely ignoring  —  Rupert Murdoch's media empire is playing both sides of the Trump-Epstein scandal, breaking bombshell news with one hand and largely ignoring it with the other.
CNBC:
The fate of Jimmy Kimmel's ABC show, whose contract ends in 2026, will reveal if Colbert's cancelation was a one-off or a fundamental shift in late-night TV  —  There are two schools of thought around CBS' decision to end “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
Arielle Swedback / On Substack:
A survey of 2K Substack publishers finds 45.4% use AI, mainly for research; among them, 51.1% are over age 45, 55% are men, and 85% of tech publications use it  —  AI is here—at schools, in memes, and, yes, even on Substack.  But beyond sniffing out its usage—who's being too liberal with the em dashes or the “It's not [this].
New York Times:
Docs and interviews: Media Matters is struggling to survive, having racked up ~$15M in legal fees to defend itself from lawsuits by Elon Musk, the FTC, and AGs  —  Scrambling to pay legal fees, Media Matters has dialed back its criticism, trimmed its staff and contemplated closing entirely.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Meta will no longer accept political, election, or social issue ads in the EU from October, like Google, with both citing incoming regulation  —  Meta on Friday said starting in October it will no longer accept political, election or social issue ads in the European Union …
Lucia Moses / Business Insider:
Sources: Netflix is searching for a video podcasting head; the role could be under Netflix's TV and film licensing arm rather than the original content side  —  - Netflix is quietly searching for an exec to lead its video podcast efforts.  — The streamer is chasing YouTube, which has cemented itself as a video podcast titan.
Discussion: Bloomberg
Michael Schaffer / Politico:
Sources: all but one person on WaPo's obit desk has taken the paper's buyout offer; the lone holdout is too junior to qualify for the buyout deal  —  It looks like it's time to submit a death notice for the Washington Post's obituaries section.  —  The paper's longtime obit chief …
Austin Fuller / Current:
At a CPB meeting, CEO Patricia Harrison said CPB is doing “everything possible” to secure funding for FY26 while also preparing for a possible shutdown  —  Dru Sefton / Current … “So it's very difficult — hope on the one side, and sort of acceptance on the other,” Harrison said.
RELATED:
Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Donations to US public media surge amid funding cuts, up by ~$70M YoY so far in 2025, but still fall well short of the annual $550M that Congress has cut
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 7:20 PM ET, July 27, 2025.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 See Also: 
Mediagazer: site main
Mediagazer River: reverse chronological Mediagazer
Mediagazer Mobile: for phones
Mediagazer Leaderboard: Mediagazer's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Mediagazer RSS feed
Mediagazer on X
Mediagazer on Mastodon
 
 
 More News: 
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Source: India orders ISPs and app stores to block 25 streaming services, like Ullu and ALTT with millions of downloads, for allegedly promoting obscene content
Katie Robertson / New York Times:
Project Veritas has withdrawn its 2020 lawsuit against The New York Times; the lawsuit accused the newspaper of defamation over an article published in 2020
Morgan Sung / KQED:
Sen. Alex Padilla grants the Internet Archive federal depository status, making it a part of a network of over 1,100 libraries that archive government documents
 Earlier Picks: 
Peter White / Deadline:
Source: E! News, the long-running celebrity news show, will end on September 25; its digital brand will continue with a focus on social platforms
 

 
From Techmeme:

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Sources: Meta is considering deep budget cuts to its metaverse efforts in 2026, potentially as high as 30% and most likely including layoffs as early as January

Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Apple says general counsel Kate Adams and policy chief Lisa Jackson will retire, and Jennifer Newstead, Meta's former chief legal officer, will replace Adams

Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Two studies suggest AI chatbots can shift political views more effectively than TV campaign ads, especially by presenting many claims, regardless of accuracy
 
Sister Sites:

Techmeme
 Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web
memeorandum
 What US political commentators are discussing online right now
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page