1:15 PM ET, September 8, 2024
September 8, 2024
12:35 PM
Todd Spangler / Variety:
DirecTV files FCC complaint, accusing Disney of bad faith negotiations and trying to block DirecTV from taking legal action against its anticompetitive demands
11:25 AM
Mathias-Felipe de-Lima-Santos / The Conversation:
Study: many Google News Initiative-funded projects in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East have struggled to progress or sustain themselves after launch
8:00 AM
Clay Risen / New York Times:
Nell McCafferty, whose writing on women's rights and gay rights helped turn Ireland into one of the most progressive European countries, died on Aug. 11 at 80
September 7, 2024
6:35 PM
Nathália Pandeló Corrêa / Inbox Collective:
A profile of The News, a Brazil-based newsletter published in the Portuguese language that has over 2M subscribers, 33 staffers, and seven spin-off newsletters
12:35 PM
Todd Spangler / Variety:
DirecTV plans price increases on October 6: DirecTV Stream Choice will go up by $6 to $114.99 per month, and DirecTV Stream Ultimate by $10 to $129.99 per month
September 6, 2024
10:50 PM
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
NBC plans to cut The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon from five to four original episodes per week in the new season, the last to join its late-night rivals
10:00 PM
Joe Flint / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Sinclair ousts Ken Solomon, CEO of the Tennis Channel since 2005, citing his time spent advising Dr. Phil McGraw's company as a growing distraction
9:20 PM
Megan Cassella / CNBC:
In a letter, Kamala Harris is endorsed for president by 88 corporate leaders, including media execs James Murdoch, Peter Chernin, Mark Cuban, and Barry Diller
6:35 PM
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
As the DirecTV-Disney carriage dispute continues, DirecTV nudges customers to Fubo or Sling and offers a $30 credit, and Disney offers $30 off Hulu with Live TV
6:20 PM
Saleah Blancaflor / Adweek:
AdImpact: the NFL kickoff game averaged 48.9M US viewers, up from 40.1M in 2023; YouTube and YouTube TV had 16% of the audience, and other streamers had 34%
5:00 PM
Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
The judge in the Google monopoly ruling says he'll take until August 2025 to determine remedies in the case and asks the DOJ to propose fixes by the end of 2024
4:25 PM
Svea Herbst-Bayliss / Reuters:
Sources: Starboard files a shareholder resolution to end dual-class shares that give Rupert Murdoch control of News Corp; Murdoch has ignored similar proposals
3:15 PM
Wired:
An analysis of Tenet Media's videos shows frequent use of terms including “white people”, “Black people”, “civil war”, “Elon Musk”, and “illegal immigrants”
2:25 PM
Taylor Lorenz / Taylor Lorenz's Newsletter:
The Tenet Media case highlights both the lack of transparency in the creator economy and the threat this poses to media integrity
1:35 PM
Jake Lahut / Columbia Journalism Review:
The decline of local news has made it harder for political campaigns to connect to locals and forced them to run on national issues to get cable news attention
1:00 PM
Kaya Yurieff / The Information:
Filing: OnlyFans revenue rose 20% YoY to ~$1.31B for the FY ending November 2023; creator accounts grew 29% YoY to ~4.1M and gross payments reached $6.6B
12:10 PM
Jake Kanter / Deadline:
In a financial report, All3Media declares a £90.3M cash injection from RedBird IMI, which bought the British production company for £1.15B in February 2024
11:25 AM
Anna Merlan / Mother Jones:
A Tenet Media contributor tweeted that Tenet “has ended”; its X, Instagram, TikTok, and Rumble pages are online but haven't been updated since the indictment
11:10 AM
Sarah Scire / Nieman Lab:
The INN approved 48% of newsrooms that applied for its membership in 2023, as others failed to meet its standards which include prohibitions on “dark money”
9:40 AM
Reuters:
YouTube terminates Tenet Media's channel and four channels operated by Tenet owner Lauren Chen
8:10 AM
Christopher Palmeri / Bloomberg:
Sources: Shari Redstone will get $180M in severance and other benefits on top of $350M from the sale of her 20% stake in National Amusements
September 5, 2024
10:15 PM
Clay Risen / New York Times:
J. Richard Munro, who was Time's CEO from 1980 to 1990 and led the publication through its acquisition of Warner Communications, died on August 11 at age 93
8:05 PM
A.G. Sulzberger / Washington Post:
US politicians could curtail the free press using tactics common among some foreign leaders, but the press must resist being baited into taking a political side
5:10 PM
Will Sommer / Washington Post:
Most of the six members of Tenet's “talent” team claim they did not know the money they were paid allegedly came from Russia; Lauren Southern has not commented
4:00 PM
Dan Milmo / The Guardian:
YouTube begins limiting repeated video recommendations about fitness levels, body weights, physical features, and more to teens globally, expanding from the US
3:40 PM
Mark Savage / BBC:
A US judge rules Spotify is not liable in a long-running, complicated music rights case, despite not licensing tracks from Eminem publisher Eight Mile Style
2:05 PM
Christopher Palmeri / Bloomberg:
FCC filing: Larry Ellison will own 77.5% of Paramount Global parent company National Amusements after his son David completes Skydance's Paramount acquisition
1:20 PM
Ben Smith / Semafor:
Blaze Media's CEO says it has ended its contract with BlazeTV contributor Lauren Chen of Tenet Media, which is alleged to have been funded by Russia
1:05 PM
Associated Press:
The US charges Dimitri Simes, a Russian-born US citizen and ex-Trump adviser, with working for a sanctioned Russian state TV network and laundering the proceeds
12:40 PM
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Email: the FT US Guild says it has reached a tentative three-year deal setting minimum salaries at $75K; the contract still needs to be voted on by members
12:20 PM
Sarah Scire / Nieman Lab:
The Salt Lake Tribune's first annual report shows $15.3M in 2023 revenue and $779K net profit; in July 2024, it had 9K print subscribers and 30K digital
11:30 AM
Helen Bushby / BBC:
The UK's CMA launches an investigation into whether the sale of Oasis tickets on Ticketmaster breached consumer protection law, including via “dynamic pricing”
10:20 AM
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
YouTube announces AI detection tools to protect against copying creators' likeness, including their faces and voices, and plans to offer AI scraping controls
9:00 AM
Maia Coleman / New York Times:
US prosecutors charge a man for allegedly using AI to create hundreds of thousands of songs and using bots to play them and get $10M in streaming royalties
7:40 AM
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
The Guardian's CFO says the outlet plans to start making product recommendations with the aim of diversifying revenue through affiliate links
6:30 AM
Jeremy Barr / Washington Post:
Mehdi Hasan's Zeteo News, launched in April, has 31K paid subs, including more than 1,000 at the $500+ “founder” level, accounting for ~$3M in annual revenue
September 4, 2024
11:45 PM
Christian Blauvelt / IndieWire:
Sources: Disney pauses its adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, after five women made sexual assault allegations against the author
10:45 PM
Hadas Gold / CNN:
A coalition of news outlets petitions a Nevada court to make public the proceedings around Rupert Murdoch's attempts to modify his family's succession plans
9:10 PM
Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
Kantar: 26% of marketers plan to cut back X ad spending in 2025 and 14% plan to pull budgets in 2024, over concerns about content and trust in disseminated info
7:00 PM
CNN:
Source: Tenet Media is the Tennessee-based company the US DOJ alleges was being funded by Russia; Benny Johnson and Tim Pool say they were victims of the scheme
5:40 PM
Josh Kovensky / Talking Points Memo:
The US indictment of two RT employees describes funding and direction of a company that seems to match Tenet Media, which appears to employ Tim Pool and others
5:05 PM
Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:
Shares of Truth Social's parent TMTG continue to slide, as the expiration date nears for a lockup agreement preventing Trump and others from selling their stock
4:45 PM
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
A look at ESPN's transformation over the last year, including overhauling its on-air talent, as it prepares to launch its flagship streaming service in 2025
4:05 PM
Michelle Ma / Bloomberg:
Netflix struggles to reduce its productions' carbon footprint, with more emissions in 2022 vs. 2019, partly because it doesn't own any equipment or studio space
3:15 PM
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
An interview with FT CEO John Ridding on how FT hit its highest-ever revenue of £500M last year, appealing to younger audiences, AI, and more
2:54 PM
New York Times:
The US sanctions five Russian news outlets including RT, sanctions RT's EIC, indicts two RT staffers, and seizes 32 domains, as it fights Russian influence
2:10 PM
Kate Knibbs / Wired:
The Internet Archive loses its appeal of a US district court ruling that favored publishers in a copyright dispute over the nonprofit's ebook lending program
1:40 PM
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
YouTube expands its existing parental controls to let parents link their account to their teens' account and gain insight into the teens' activity
1:15 PM
Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:
The Guardian's award-winning Middle East correspondent Martin Chulov departs abruptly; Chulov was reportedly the subject of an internal investigation
12:35 PM
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Note: BBC tells staff it plans to cut up to 115 editorial and production jobs in its Nations and Regions units, including 40 to 45 jobs at BBC Local in England
11:55 AM
TechCrunch:
X debuts a beta TV app “on several app stores”, like for Amazon Fire TV and Google TV, to court advertisers, creators, and partners to a “video-first platform”
11:40 AM
Rhian Lubin / The Independent:
Elon Musk, in an eventually deleted X post, promoted a Tucker Carlson interview with a Hitler apologist who downplayed the Holocaust and said Nazis were humane
11:05 AM
Jennifer Maas / Variety:
AMC Networks and Charter reach an early renewal for their multiyear carriage deal; Spectrum TV Select customers will get free access to AMC+'s ad-supported tier
10:35 AM
Alexandra Alter / New York Times:
The Black List, which has hosted thousands of unproduced screenplays and became an indispensable tool for studios and producers, now accepts fiction books
9:40 AM
Oliver Darcy / Status:
Source: CNN CEO Mark Thompson is in serious conversations with Josh Tyrangiel to hire him; Tyrangiel is currently a WaPo columnist and was Vice news chief
8:15 AM
Max Goldbart / Deadline:
The BBC raises representation targets from 20% to 25% across all TV production roles, and says it spent £243M on diversity content from April 2021 to March 2024
6:20 AM
Financial Times:
Interviews with Sony executives, including CEO Kenichiro Yoshida, on why the company needed to shift its focus from distribution to the creation of IP and more
September 3, 2024
6:35 PM
Aisha Counts / Bloomberg:
In a letter, Evan Spiegel tries to rally Snap staff amid a 48% stock price drop this year, says Snap will test new ad formats in the chat inbox and on Snap Map
6:23 PM
Brian Stelter / CNN:
Brian Stelter returns to CNN as chief media analyst, appearing on air, developing digital content, and serving as lead author of the Reliable Sources newsletter
6:10 PM
Jose Alejandro Bastidas / The Wrap:
DirecTV's CFO says the company is prepared to let its carriage fight with Disney take “as long as it needs to”, and “fat bundles” of channels need to be trimmed
5:55 PM
Kate Brumback / Associated Press:
A district court judge orders Trump to stop using Isaac Hayes' Hold On, I'm Coming, pending further review; others have objected to Trump's use of their songs
4:10 PM
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Outside, formed in 2021 when Pocket Outdoor Media bought Outside Magazine and other sports media and tech companies, acquires Under Armour's MapMyFitness apps