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9:50 AM ET, August 25, 2025

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Sources: Spotify has been unable to settle on the features that should be in a super premium plan, discussed for years, and hasn't come to terms with partners  —  The company has spent a couple years talking about a more-expensive version of its music service for superfans.  Where is it?
RELATED:
Melanie Goodfellow / Deadline:
Gaza Health Ministry says four journalists working for Reuters, AP, Al-Jazeera, and NBC were among 15 people killed in an Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital  —  Double-tap Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza on Monday killed at least 15 people, including four journalists, the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement.
Bloomberg:
Perplexity launches Comet Plus, a $5/month tier offering curated content, and says it has allocated $42.5M for publishers, which will receive 80% of the revenue  —  The company has clashed with media outlets over use of their work.  —  Add us on Google  —  Perplexity AI Inc. is offering publishers …
Discussion: Tom's Guide
Oliver Darcy / Status:
Q&A with Wired's global editorial director Katie Drummond on how it is impossible to disambiguate tech from politics as the US turns toward authoritarianism  —  The lines between Silicon Valley and Washington have blurred beyond recognition, necessitating a news organization that is fluent in both worlds.
Rebecca Rubin / Variety:
Netflix's theatrical debut of KPop Demon Hunters is estimated to earn $18M-$20M this weekend, topping the domestic box office; it came out on Netflix in June  —  In a box office twist, a film from the theatrical-averse Netflix appears to be No. 1 on North American charts.
Swati Pandey / Bloomberg:
President Trump says he would support the FCC revoking NBC and ABC's station licenses and calls them “two of the worst and most biased networks in history”  —  US President Donald Trump berated NBC and ABC as “two of the worst and most biased networks in history,” …
Tatum Hunter / Washington Post:
Vertical streaming apps charging $20/week are beating Netflix, Hulu, and Paramount+ in user growth with their 60-second mini dramas optimized for mobile viewing  —  Streaming apps that charge $20 a week for absurd, 60-second soap operas are winning audiences that rival Hulu and Paramount+.
Rebecca Rubin / Variety:
Comscore: US box office revenue from May 1 have reached $3.53B, making it clear sales will be short of the $4B summer threshold, last attained in 2023  —  Heading into the summer, Hollywood was bullish that several promising blockbusters would be able to propel ticket sales above $4 billion for only the second time since the pandemic.
Discussion: CNBC
CNBC:
A profile of Gunnar Wiedenfels, the “hard-nosed accountant” who is WBD CFO and future Discovery Global CEO after the split from WBD, managing CNN, HGTV and TNT  —  By day, Gunnar Wiedenfels is the chief financial officer of Warner Bros. Discovery and the CEO-elect of Discovery Global …
Discussion: Adweek and Awful Announcing
Matt Donnelly / Variety:
Sources: Disney is on the hunt for original movie concepts to lure young men aged 13-28 back to the brand, as audiences dwindle for the superhero genre  —  Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty aren't the only ones looking for a prince.  —  Leadership at Walt Disney Studios has been pressing Hollywood creatives …
 
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 More News: 
Ben Koo / Awful Announcing:
Sources: ESPN has removed its paywall on most written content, after requiring an ESPN+ subscription for previously free articles on its site starting in 2020
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Bluesky blocks access to its service in Mississippi, saying it doesn't have the resources to comply with the state's broad new law requiring age verification
 Earlier Picks: 
Anu Adegbola / Search Engine Land:
Google begins rolling out Asset Studio in beta, letting advertisers generate and edit images, videos, and voiceovers directly in the Google Ads interface
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Four outlets have taken down AI-generated articles by a “journalist”; Wired says the article it took down didn't get a proper fact-check or sufficient editing
 

 
From Techmeme:

Bailey Lipschultz / Bloomberg:
Filing: SpaceX aims to raise $75B in its IPO, selling 555.6M shares at $135 each, which would value the company at almost $1.77T

Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Google introduces Gemma 4 12B, a unified, encoder-free open multimodal model that can run locally on devices with 16GB of VRAM or unified memory

Katherine Blunt / Wall Street Journal:
Alphabet upsized its equity raise to $84.75B, including $35B in underwritten public offerings, up from a planned $30B; a source says it contacted ~75 investors
 
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