AT&T Fires Back in Bid to Preserve Takeover of Time Warner
Associated Press: Fighting to defend its $81 billion takeover of Time Warner from a government challenge, AT&T is arguing the Trump Justice Department has failed to show that the merger will raise prices for pay-TV programming and for the consumers who watch...
Fox, Comcast $35 Billion Battle Over Sky Heads to Auction
CNBC: 21st Century Fox and Comcast are heading for an auction to settle a takeover of British broadcaster Sky. The bidding process will officially begin on Friday evening and comes to end on the following day, the U.K.'s Takeover Panel said. Each bid must be made in...
Comcast CEO Offers Sneak Peek of New Philly Office Tower
Philadelphia Inquirer: Comcast opened the doors to its new high-rise on Thursday. Calling it a "sneak peek," CEO Brian Roberts gave the first tour of the $1.5 billion Comcast Technology Center, taking the whisking Swiss-designed elevators to several floors of...
Sony Extends Colorful Movie Chief’s Reign After Turnaround
New York Times: Sony Pictures Entertainment has signed Tom Rothman to a new multiyear contract that will keep him running the company’s movie divisions, which include Columbia Pictures and TriStar, into the next decade. “The team is really hitting its stride under...
Viacom Appoints Two Executives to Oversee Awesomeness
MediaPost; Viacom’s digital studios division has named Rebecca Glashow and Shelley Zimmerman as the co-heads of Awesomeness. Viacom acquired the company, known as AwesomenessTV, back in July, adding it to the portfolio of properties in its Digital Studios...
Disney’s ESPN Streaming Service Hits 1 Million Subscribers
CNET: ESPN+ has racked up a million subscribers in the five months since Disney's sports network launched the streaming video service. With ESPN+ and a planned streaming service with its blockbuster movies and shows, Disney is aiming to battle tech companies like...
CBS’s Streaming Service to Debut Revival of ‘Twilight Zone’
Variety: Jordan Peele is traveling through another dimension — a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. CBS announced Thursday that Peele will serve as host and narrator of “The Twilight Zone,” the revival of the classic science-fiction...
Hulu to Join TV Revival Craze with Return of ‘Veronica Mars’
Associated Press: Veronica Mars has another mystery to solve. Hulu has ordered eight new one-hour interconnected episodes of the series, starring Kristen Bell, that premiered in 2004 and aired on UPN for two seasons and The CW for...
Facebook to Unveil ‘Portal’ Video Chat Device for the Home
Cheddar: Facebook plans to finally unveil its Portal video chat device for the home next week. The device will function similarly to an Amazon Echo Show with social features and come in two screen sizes. The larger device could be priced around $400, while the smaller...
Spotify Starts Letting Indie Artists Upload Their Own Music
Fast Company: Spotify is giving indie artists a way to upload their own songs to the service, without having to go through a third-party distributor. It’s a new feature of Spotify for Artists, which lets musicians track users’ listening stats and submit tracks for...
Alphabet’s Google Mulls Search Tweak Following Travel Ban
MarketWatch: Days after the Trump administration instituted a controversial travel ban in January 2017, Google employees discussed ways they might be able to tweak the company’s search-related functions to show users how to contribute to pro-immigration...
Report: Digital Represents Half of US Ad Sales for First Time
Los Angeles Times: Advertisers are spending more money on online sites such as Google and Facebook, pushing digital ads to represent more than half of U.S. ad sales for the first time, according to a report released Thursday....
Conde Nast’s Glamour to Anchor Video Network for Women
Deadline: Conde Nast has formed a Women’s Video Network, which will be anchored by Glamour, in an effort to showcase the media company’s strong female audience. The network will feature a pre-release of network programming that will be featured at next spring’s...
Bauer’s Top Two Women’s Magazines Now Have One Editor
Forbes: The two best-selling magazines on the American newsstand sell a combined average of 1.2 million copies per issue. And now the two magazines, Bauer Media USA’s First for Women and Woman’s World, have a single editor, Carol...
Hearst Relocates Two Magazines Into Former Bowling Alley
New York Post: About 75 editorial employees from Runner’s World and Bicycling magazines will be trading in their bucolic suburban office park headquarters for new digs in downtown Easton, Pa. The new offices for the Hearst titles will be in the 20,000-square-foot...
Bloomberg Rolls Out Newsfeed Summaries Written by Robot
Digiday: This week, Bloomberg Media rolled out Bulletin, a newsfeed-style feature in its mobile app that gives users personalized stories every time they open the application. The stories’ one-sentence summaries are written by an artificial intelligence-powered...
Minute Media Buys Entertainment Media Brand Mental Floss
Venture Beat: Minute Media raised $17 million in funding back in May, and it is now taking advantage of that cash to acquire consumer media brand Mental Floss, which will help the company continue its vision of targeting millennial...
Eldridge’s Billboard Buys Entertainment News Site Amplify
MediaPost: Billboard Media Group has enlarged its holdings, acquiring live entertainment news site Amplify. Founder of the site Dave Brooks has joined Billboard’s full-time staff as a senior...
Netflix, Disney to Join Same Sector in Stock Market Overhaul
Reuters: The most significant changes to Wall Street’s broad industry sectors since 1999 will take effect Monday, reclassifying many of the hot growth companies that have been nearly synonymous with the “tech” rally that has fueled the stock bull...
Amazon Emerges as Third Largest Digital Ad Platform in US
MarketWatch: Amazon is poised to become the number three digital ad platform in the U.S., according to eMarketer data, moving past Oath and Microsoft. The top two platforms are Facebook and Alphabet's Google. EMarketer estimates that Amazon's U.S. digital ad revenue...
Alphabet’s YouTube Hosts Right-Wing ‘Influencer Network’
Fast Company: YouTube is home to a right-wing “alternative influence network” that can drive viewers to extremist positions on race, gender, and other topics, according to a new report from the Data & Society Research Institute....
Disney Taps Marvel Superheroes for New Streaming Service
Variety: Disney is enlisting Earth’s Mightiest Heroes as the company prepares to launch its upcoming streaming service. The entertainment giant is in early development on an ambitious plan for a number of limited series centered on popular characters from the Marvel...
Viacom: We’ll Benefit from ‘Distraction’ of Big Media Mergers
TBI Vision: Viacom CEO Bob Bakish has that the Disney-Fox merger represents a “significant positive” for the business, which stands to benefit from exec changes and creative “dislocation.” The merger “has provided a very real opportunity to acquire talent in the form...
Sony Brings Back PlayStation as Mini Console Priced at $100
PC Magazine: Nearly 25 years after making its debut, the original PlayStation is coming back. Following Nintendo's lead on the retro console front, Sony has announced it's bringing back the original PlayStation in mini...
Comcast Studio to Release Feature Film of ‘Downton Abbey’
TVLine: You are hereby invited to return to "Downton Abbey"… in September of 2019. Focus Features announced on Wednesday that the "Downton Abbey" follow-up movie will release on Friday, Sept. 20, 2019, one week after its international...
AMC in Hunt for Media Partners to Expand ‘Dead’ Franchise
Bloomberg: AMC Networks wants to keep “The Walking Dead” on its feet for years to come. The company, which owns the popular zombie-apocalypse series, plans to produce multiple movies and new TV shows. AMC has talked to several large media companies about partnering on...
Endeavor Mulls Possible Bid for Fox-Apollo’s Endemol Shine
Variety: Agency heavyweight Endeavor is among the companies exploring a bid for Endemol Shine, the production and distribution powerhouse jointly owned by 21st Century Fox and private-equity firm Apollo...
AT&T-CNN Host Cuomo Gets Daily Radio Show on SiriusXM
Associated Press: CNN’s Chris Cuomo is adding a radio show to his television work. The prime-time host will start his own two-hour radio show next Monday at noon on SiriusXM. The company said Wednesday that Cuomo’s weekday show will air on its nonpartisan P.O.T.U.S....
Soon-Shiong, Owner of LA Times, Invests in Video-Game Firm
Washington Post: The holding company of Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, has announced an investment in Daybreak Game Co. “We could take an engine like this and find a way to enhance a different form of social network, and games...
Meredith Sees New Potential Buyers Circle Fortune Magazine
Recode: Marc Benioff is buying Time, so he’s not going to buy Fortune. Who will? Here’s one contender: Ian Osborne, a British consultant and investor who is working with a group of investors that wants to buy the business...