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8:30 AM ET, July 15, 2026

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RELATED:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
The Writers Guild of America sues Paramount and WBD in an effort to stop their merger, claiming the deal would hurt wages and working conditions for writers  —  The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter:
Letter: Tennessee Deputy Governor Stuart McWhorter urged David Ellison to move Paramount's corporate headquarters from California to Tennessee  —  Paramount CEO David Ellison and his family have deep ties to the Volunteer State and the mogul is now in a legal battle with California.
Lillian Rizzo / CNBC:
Paramount's lead trial counsel says the company is still aiming to close the WBD deal by the end of September and is prepared to bring the case to SCOTUS
Ethan Baron / Mercury News:
California and Google will contribute $20M each over two years to the CA Civic Media Program, far below the $250M promised in 2024, with grants of up to $250K  —  Critic says the funding ‘goes backwards’ for local news  —  Months after Gov. Gavin Newsom stripped state funding from a much larger plan …
RELATED:
Steven McIntosh / BBC:
Scott Mills was the highest-paid BBC presenter in 2025-26, earning ~£745K before his exit in March, followed by Greg James, Stephen Nolan, and Laura Kuenssberg
Max Goldbart / Deadline:
The BBC reports license fee payers fell 539K YoY to 23.3M in 2025-26, the biggest fall since 2020-21; license fee income rose £36M to £3.9B after the fee uplift
Reuters:
Sources: Lionsgate has attracted takeover interest from France's Bolloré Group, owner of Canal+, and Banijay, which just completed an $8B merger with All3Media  —  Lionsgate Studios (LION.N), the entertainment company behind the “Hunger Games” and “John Wick” franchises …
Discussion: Bloomberg and r/MediaMergers
Aaron Smith / Pew Research Center:
Survey: 57% of US women and 47% of men ages 18 to 29 say they get health and wellness information from influencers; women say they see such content more often  —  Although health providers are the most common place Americans turn for information about their health, social media influencers and podcasts also play a major role.
The Athletic:
German soccer league Bundesliga is moving its US TV rights from ESPN to Versant's USA Network and Fandango in a deal, sources say, worth $100M over five seasons  —  Germany's Bundesliga — featuring Harry Kane, Bayern Munich and United States stars like Bayer 04 Leverkusen's Malik Tillman …
David A. Graham / The Atlantic:
Acting AG Todd Blanche has shown he's willing to stifle the free press, through subpoenas of WSJ, NYT, and WaPo reporters and a search of a WaPo reporter's home  —  The acting attorney general is showcasing his willingness to intimidate reporters whose revelations have upset the president.
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Spotify launches Talk to Spotify, letting users create playlists and more via voice, rolling out in beta to Premium users age 18+ in the US, Ireland, and Sweden  —  The new beta feature works from the Home or Now Playing views on mobile.  —  Spotify already uses a lot of AI (too much some might say) …
Mark Stenberg / Adweek:
Semafor hires Adam Banicki as its first head of video and says video is on pace to generate high-seven- to low-eight-figure revenue by the end of the year  —  The publisher, which has five new shows in development, has hired Fortune's Adam Banicki to create video programming for its C-suite audience
Washington Post:
A look at State Affairs, whose statehouse coverage is used to train LLMs powering a Bloomberg Terminal-like product; it's raised $70M and has 76 editorial staff  —  State Affairs combines media and technology at a time when tensions between the two industries are at a fever pitch.  —  Summary
 
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 More News: 
A.J. Katz / The Wrap:
Hachette, Elsevier, Cengage Learning, and author Scott Turow sue Google for allegedly using millions of copyrighted books and articles to build AI models
Reuters:
Germany's media regulator says Google's AI Overviews and Perplexity are subject to media law, after a court said Google may be liable for inaccurate AI content
 Earlier Picks: 
Trishla Ostwal / Adweek:
eMarketer: chatbots like ChatGPT and Google AI Mode will make <$1B in ad revenue in 2026; OpenAI projected $2.5B in ChatGPT ad revenue in 2026 and $100B by 2030
 

 
From Techmeme:

Milana Vinn / Reuters:
Sources: Stripe and PE firm Advent have jointly offered $60.50/share to acquire PayPal, a 28% premium to Tuesday's close, valuing it at $53B+; PYPL jumps 15%+

Reuters:
China says Apple Intelligence has been registered for use on iPhones in the country; the service will integrate Alibaba's Qwen and may add Baidu's AI features

Max A. Cherney / Reuters:
ASML says Intel has decided to use ASML's next-gen High NA EUV machines to make some of its flagship Panther Lake laptop chips; a High NA machine costs ~$400M
 
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