Check out Mini-Mediagazer for simple mobiles or Mediagazer Mobile for modern smartphones.
1:15 PM ET, July 15, 2026

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Gene Maddaus / Variety:
Paramount agrees to a request from 12 states, led by CA, to link their federal antitrust case in the WBD merger to an existing Paramount+ subscriber lawsuit  —  Paramount has agreed to a request from 12 states to link their federal antitrust case to a pre-existing suit brought by Paramount+ subscribers.
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
Ted Johnson / Deadline:
Brendan Carr proposes repealing the national ownership cap, which restricts amassing TV stations that cover more than 39% of households, and sets an Aug. 6 vote  —  FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is proposing a repeal of the national ownership cap, which restricts broadcasters from amassing stations …
Bauer Media:
Bauer Media appoints Frances Hedges as Editor of Grazia; she was previously Deputy Editor of Harper's Bazaar UK  —  Bauer Media has appointed Frances Hedges as Editor of Grazia.  She joins from Harper's Bazaar UK where she was Deputy Editor since 2019.  —  Frances will lead Grazia's editorial vision …
Patrick Coffee / Wall Street Journal:
How TikTok Shop sellers are using AI creators and AI twins to boost sales; eMarketer: US sales on TikTok Shop are expected to hit $23.4B in 2026, up 48% YoY  —  Brands issue warnings as more creators use avatars and duplicates of themselves to boost affiliate sales
Discussion: The Independent and PR Daily
Jessica Davies / Digiday:
Ozone: publisher ad supply in Q2 fell by 32% to 37% YoY in the US and 39% to 41% YoY in the UK, driven by AI-era zero-click search and reduced referral traffic  —  Publisher ad supply fell by up to 40% in Q2 of 2026 as AI era, zero-click search choked the flow of traffic to news and other open-web sites …
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 …
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 …
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.
Discussion: New York Post
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.
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 …
Naman Ramachandran / Variety:
BBC DG Matt Brittin says the BBC and UK public service broadcasting face “real jeopardy” as license fee erosion drives BBC's third consecutive annual deficit  —  The BBC closed out a year that included its most-watched title in “The Celebrity Traitors” and its best drama debut in three years with …
Discussion: Deadline, Broadband TV News and Variety
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
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 1:15 PM ET, July 15, 2026.

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: 
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
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
 Earlier Picks: 
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
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
 

 
From Techmeme:

Thinking Machines Lab:
Thinking Machines Lab debuts Inkling, an open-weight MoE model with 975B total and 41B active parameters, trained to be broad rather than optimized for one area

Bloomberg:
Source: OnePlus will begin to cease operations in the US and Europe as early as this week and Realme will exit China as part of a restructuring by parent Oppo

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
 
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