Check out Mini-Mediagazer for simple mobiles or Mediagazer Mobile for modern smartphones.
8:10 AM ET, December 18, 2025

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Axios:
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr tells a Senate committee the FCC “is not an independent agency”; the agency removed “independent agency” from its site as he testified  —  FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in his Wednesday Senate testimony that the agency he governs “is not an independent agency, formally speaking.”
RELATED:
Steven Portnoy / ABC News:
Democratic Senate Commerce Committee members accused FCC Chairman Brendan Carr of making “mafia threats” and encroaching on broadcasters' First Amendment rights  —  Sen. Markey calls him “chairman of the ‘Federal Censorship Commission.’”  —  Brendan Carr, commissioner …
John Rogers / Associated Press:
Peter Arnett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent who covered the Vietnam War for the AP and the first Gulf War for CNN, has died at 91  —  Peter Arnett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who spent decades dodging bullets and bombs to bring the world eyewitness accounts of war …
Scott Feinberg / The Hollywood Reporter:
The Academy signs a multiyear deal that gives YouTube the exclusive global rights to the Oscars, beginning in 2029 and running through 2033, streaming for free  —  The Academy announced on Wednesday:  —  LOS ANGELES, CA - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and YouTube signed …
Brian Stelter / CNN:
Senators Warren and Blumenthal call on AG Bondi to recuse herself from reviewing the WBD deal due to her prior employment with lobbying firm Ballard Partners  —  Warner Bros. chose Netflix over Paramount — again.  Now what?  —  Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said Wednesday …
RELATED:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
SEC filing: WBD says the Ellisons offered David Zaslav a compensation package of several hundred million dollars, which Zaslav said was inappropriate to discuss
Wall Street Journal:
WBD recommends shareholders reject Paramount's unsolicited cash bid, calling the offer “illusory” and saying it believes Netflix's proposal is still superior
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Paramount reaffirms its $30/share all-cash bid after WBD's board officially rejected it, saying its bid offers “superior value and certainty” for shareholders
New York Times:
WBD says the Ellisons have “consistently misled” shareholders, including claiming Paramount's proposal had a “full backstop” but it “does not, and never has”
RELATED:
Christopher Palmeri / Bloomberg:
Filing: Comcast's offer to merge NBCUniversal with WBD valued Comcast's media and theme-park assets at about $81B; Comcast's overall valuation is about $111B
Discussion: MediaPost
Laura Cress / BBC:
Netflix wins rights to a FIFA soccer simulation game, developed by Delphi Interactive and set for release ahead of the 2026 World Cup, for free to Netflix users  —  Fifa will finally release its much-anticipated return to video games in 2026, several years after its acrimonious split with developer EA.
RELATED:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Netflix signs a deal with Barstool Sports to stream video versions of three podcasts, initially in the US; full video episodes will be removed from YouTube
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple says it will roll out more App Store ads in 2026 “to increase opportunity in search results”; Apple's website says 800M+ users visit the App Store weekly  —  Apple is expanding the number of ads that appear in App Store search results.  In an update on its Apple Ads website today …
Will Page / Pivotal Economics:
Analysis: music copyright's global value rose 5.2% YoY to a record $47.2B in 2024; the revenue split favored labels and artists at 62%, above songwriters' 38%  —  11-MINUTE READ  —  TL;DR  —  Music copyright was valued at $47.2bn in 2024, nearly doubling in a decade
Jennifer Schuessler / New York Times:
PEN America elects novelist Dinaw Mengestu as president, as the organization navigates free speech challenges across the US and criticism of its Gaza response  —  The novelist Dinaw Mengestu will lead the literary group at a time of escalating threats to free expression at home and abroad.
Discussion: PEN America
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
YouTube says it will no longer give data to US Billboard charts after January 16, arguing Billboard's ranking formula doesn't count ad-supported streams fairly  —  YouTube is pulling its data from Billboard for use in the publisher's industry-leading U.S. music charts.
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 8:10 AM ET, December 18, 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: 
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta is testing limiting Facebook professional accounts and Pages to posting just two links per month, unless they subscribe to $14.99+/month Meta Verified
 Earlier Picks: 
BBC Press Office on LinkedIn:
BBC News hires Lindsay McIntosh, previously Head of News at The Sunday Times, as its Executive News Editor
 

 
From Techmeme:

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Filing: Sony and Tencent reach a “confidential settlement” over Tencent's Light of Motiram, a game that Sony alleged was a “slavish clone” of its Horizon series

OpenAI:
OpenAI releases GPT‑5.2-Codex, with improvements on long-horizon work through context compaction, stronger performance on large code changes, and more

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Armadin, launched by Mandiant's founder Kevin Mandia to fight AI hacking, raised a $24M seed and is in talks to raise $100M+ at a $600M+ valuation
 
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