Top News:
The Hollywood Reporter:
The Sky-ITV deal raises questions about US ownership of the UK's largest commercially funded free-to-air network and a key part of its cultural landscape — The acquisition — which will combine the U.K.'s biggest free-to-air commercial networks with its biggest pay-TV network …
Discussion:
Associated Press, Deadline, Variety, The Wrap, MediaPost, The Drum, UPI, The Standard, Sky News, The Independent, TheDesk.net, The Sun, Forbes Middle East, Ronan Scanlan on LinkedIn, Media Play News, The Next Web, CNBC, TechRadar, T3, Forbes, The Guardian, Blockonomi, RTÉ, Bloomberg, Advanced Television, Mirror, Telegraph, Dow Jones Newswires, Reuters, The Irish Times, BusinessCloud, TVBEurope and Bloomberg Law
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Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Sky agrees to acquire ITV's TV business for £1.6B, uniting the UK's two largest commercial broadcasters; ITV says shareholders will receive £950M from the deal — Combination will leave US media group Comcast in control of a broadcaster that reaches 21mn households
Discussion:
The Hollywood Reporter, New York Times, Dow Jones Newswires, Daily Star, The Independent, The Standard, Telegraph, Daily Express and The Sun
Deadline:
Sky strikes a £2.1B output deal with ITV Studios, ITV's production arm, until 2032; ITV Studios is not part of Sky's deal to acquire ITV's TV network — Sky has finally sealed a £1.6 billion ($2.1 billion) deal to acquire ITV's television network operations.
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Sources: Netflix is studying its data to see why viewers quit its shows after S1, with some shows seeing a 30%-70% S2 drop, as it faces a quarter without hits — Netflix's biggest hits are losing more than half of their audience after one season — Good afternoon from Los Angeles.
Discussion:
Comic Book, @iamjurassicmark.bsky.social, @mikecook82.bsky.social, @hoptimusprime.bsky.social, @tmcallister.bsky.social, Gizmodo, Chris Heatherly on LinkedIn, @jpgorman.bsky.social, contextisking.com, @trollbreath.com, @johngary.bsky.social, @augustjpollak.bsky.social, @mhwilliams.bsky.social, @dannygroner.bsky.social, @theillustriousq.bsky.social, @sundownactproof.bsky.social, Spyglass and NextBigWhat
Max Tani / Semafor:
Analysis: ABC's The View hasn't featured a single candidate running in a competitive midterm race since the FCC launched an “equal time” rule probe in February — THE SCOOP — The Federal Communications Commission has already changed the programming of one of television's …
Discussion:
New York Post, New York Sun, @maxwelltani, @scottnover and Inside Radio
Alice Brooker / Press Gazette:
UK left-wing news site The Canary suspends its national weekday print newspaper after two weeks, saying Lloyds closed its bank account and withheld funds — The Canary has reportedly suspended its national weekday print newspaper amid accusations of Lloyds closing its bank account and withholding funds.
Tim Donnelly / The New York Groove:
Why some staffers at Schneps Media want a union: low pay leads to high turnover and a loss of institutional knowledge at the chain of local newspapers in NYC — Turnover is high at the city's largest newspaper chain: 'There's not much in the way of institutional knowledge.'
Olivia Carville / Bloomberg:
A profile of Kaley Glenn-Mills, the plaintiff in K.G.M. v. Meta et al., who was awarded $6M in damages in a landmark LA jury trial over social media addiction — Kaley Glenn-Mills' lawsuit reshaped the fight to protect children from social media. She says she still can't stop scrolling.
Discussion:
Gizmodo, @livcarville, @livcarville, @business and @mattnavarra@threads.com
Natalie Korach / Status:
An Interview with Onion CEO Ben Collins on the satirical outlet's Infowars takeover, reaction from Alex Jones' followers, content expansion plans, and more — Rather than wait for the process to play out, the satirical outlet launched its own parody version of the conspiracy platform last week …
Discussion:
@nataliekorach.bsky.social
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Versant agrees to acquire Full Swing, a sports tech company best known for its advanced golf simulators, tracking, and analytics software for $530M in cash — The tech company, best known for its advanced golf simulators, will expand the Golf Channel owner's presence in the tech and analytics space.
Discussion:
Awful Announcing, CNBC, The Wrap, Variety, Sportico, Deadline, Sports Business Journal, Barrett Media, Front Office Sports, @sherman4949 and Pulse 2.0
Nilesh Christopher / Los Angeles Times:
How ByteDance is making Hollywood inroads with its Seedance video generator, thanks to low pricing, striking realism, and features like timeline-based prompting — - 8 min Click here to listen to this article … - A viral AI video of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise sparked industry outrage …
Discussion:
@carnage4life@mas.to, Fortune, The Decoder and WeRSM
John Koblin / New York Times:
A look at Outside Tonight, a YouTube-based late-night talk show from Julian Shapiro-Barnum, who hosted the successful web series Recess Therapy — Julian Shapiro-Barnum, best known for a social media series called “Recess Therapy,” has started an online-only late-night show.
