AT&T, ViacomCBS Put Media M&A on Hold Amid Pandemic
Bloomberg: Media companies including AT&T and ViacomCBS are pressing the pause button on asset sales worth more than $5 billion because of the global coronavirus pandemic. AT&T's auction of four regional sports networks and ViacomCBS's offloading of its...
ViacomCBS Parent Loses Borrowing Power as Stock Drops
Wall Street Journal: ViacomCBS's parent company is losing some of its ability to borrow money at a time when its key revenue drivers — movie theaters, new film releases and live-sports broadcasts from the CBS network — have ground to a halt because of the novel...
Comcast NBCUniversal CEO Tests Positive for Coronavirus
CNBC: New NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said he has tested positive for Covid-19 in an e-mail sent to NBCUniversal staff. Shell wrote that he is "improving every day" while working remotely in Los Angeles. He emphasized that staff who can work from home should continue...
Disney to Put Sports Films on ESPN as Live Sports Vanish
Screen Crush: Today, pretty much all pro sports are suspended and in quarantine just like the rest of us. And since major athletic competitions are kind of what ESPN airs 24/7, they’re being hit particularly hard by their absence. ESPN is shoring up its schedule with...
ViacomCBS Gets 25 Inquiries to Acquire Simon & Schuster
Deadline: ViacomCBS has received 25 inbound inquiries about buying Simon & Schuster since CEO Bob Bakish signaled plans to sell the storied publisher in late February. The coronavirus was already top of mind then for many companies then and Bakish had indicated a...
Comcast NBCUniversal Vows $150 Million to Help Workers
Los Angeles Times: NBCUniversal has committed $150 million to help TV, film and theme park workers who have been idled by the coronavirus response. Streaming giant Netflix made a similar commitment, pledging $100 million to help workers struggling because of the...
AT&T, Comcast News Channels Oppose Airing Trump ‘Lies’
Daily Beast: Top MSNBC anchors have already argued publicly that their network should not air President Trump's pandemic musings in full. Privately, several staffers at CNN and MSNBC have acknowledged that airing Trump’s pressers live likely amplifies the spread of...
Fox Corp’s News Channel Sets Ratings Record with Trump
The Hill: President Trump's virtual town hall hosted by Fox News on Tuesday set a record as the most-watched town hall in cable news history with an average of 4.4 million viewers. Trump and members of the White House coronavirus task force sat in the Rose Garden...
Google’s YouTube, Video Calling Suffer Worldwide Outage
Bloomberg: Major Google services including YouTube, video-calling and Gmail were hit by partial outages Thursday while the internet giant's infrastructure is experiencing record usage during the coronavirus pandemic. People around the world tweeted that various...
Quibi Faces New Uncertainty Ahead of Debut in Pandemic
Hollywood Reporter: Even in the best of times, Quibi was a high-stakes gamble. Now, with the coronavirus pandemic, the mobile video platform is about to find out whether the millions of potential users under quarantine are a subscriber-boosting blessing or a...
Report: Podcasts Suffer a Surprising Decline During Crisis
WWD: Since early March, when concerns around the coronavirus started to get more severe, people have been listening to podcasts a lot less. Downloads in the space overall have dropped about 10 percent since the start of the month, according to data from...
New York Times Among News Sites Hit by Virus Ad Block
BuzzFeed News: The coronavirus pandemic has inspired an unprecedented surge in news readership. But it hasn't created a concurrent surge in advertising revenue — starving news organizations of the resources they desperately need in a time of...
Group Nine Adds PopSugar Fest to List of Delayed Events
WWD: Around 15,000 attendees were set to gather in New York in June for PopSugar's annual Play/Ground festival. But without a clear end to the coronavirus crisis in sight, the organizers have become the latest in a long line to press the postpone...
Slate Erects Metered Paywall to Diversify Revenue Stream
Nieman Lab: Slate has seen nearly every trend in digital news come and go over its 24 years online, and it was relatively early to membership as well, having launched the successful Slate Plus six years ago. But starting this week, Slate will be "trying something...
Report: New York City Journos on Front Lines in Virus War
Vanity Fair: The nation's biggest hot spot also happens to be the world's media capital, which means stories that are told in New York will be a warning bell for other parts of the country. But, given the collapse of local newspapers, will places without a robust...
Analysis: Newspapers Too Late for Rescue by US Stimulus
New York Post: The reeling US newspaper industry will be eligible to tap a portion of the $2 trillion stimulus package that contains $349 billion earmarked for small businesses. But the potential rescue package comes too late to help dozens of newsrooms that have been...
Opinion: City Magazines to Follow Alt-Weeklies in Closures
Nieman Lab: "All local print and digital media will face some version of pain from the coronavirus. Alt-weeklies were the first canary to feel woozy. Next in line: city magazines. Their ad mix is also high on entertainment. The first fatality I noticed was San Diego...
Reuters Institute Chief: Many News Outlets Won’t Survive
Reuters Institute: "To be brutally honest," writes Rasmus Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute. "I think a lot of news media won’t make it, including both legacy and new entrants. Some start-ups will disappear entirely. But I also think there is an opportunity...
Media M&A Set for New ‘Roaring ‘20s’ After Coronavirus
Observer: Theaters, theme parks, excursions and production companies are forecast to be high on the list for future acquisitions when business resumes after the coronavirus pandemic. "Lifting rules on social distancing will lead to a resurgence of in-person...
Disney, Comcast Want Cash Amid Escalation of Pandemic
Deadline: Comcast has raised $4 billion from the sale of debt securities, in the midst of an escalating economic crisis, following Disney, which raised $6 billion last Friday. "This goes to the saying that use raise money when you can, not when you need it," according...
Apple Mulls Delay of New iPhone Over Coronavirus Crisis
Nikkei Asian Review: Apple is preparing the ground to possibly delay the launch of its first 5G iPhones, as the coronavirus pandemic threatens global demand and disrupts product development schedules. The tech giant has held internal talks on the possibility of...
Google, Facebook to Rake In Billions Despite Big Ad Loss
Variety: Ad spending is falling off a cliff amid the COVID-19 pandemic — and Facebook and Google, the two heavyweights in digital advertising, are expected to bear the brunt of the downturn in terms of sheer dollars lost. Still, they're projected to continue to raking...
Fox Corp, iHeartMedia Tap Elton John for Benefit Concert
Associated Press: Elton John is hosting a "living room" concert aimed at bolstering American spirits during the coronavirus crisis. Alicia Keys, Billie Eilish, Mariah Carey and Tim McGraw are scheduled to take part in the event airing Sunday on Fox TV and on...
Comcast, Disney See a Viewership Surge in Broadcast TV
Reuters: Netflix was expected to be a major beneficiary of the stay at home directives. However, multiple shows on traditional television, including “The Good Doctor” on ABC, “The Masked Singer” on Fox and “Survivor” on CBS are also seeing a surge in...
AMC Furloughs CEO, Employees as Movie Theaters Shutter
Reuters: AMC, the world's largest theater operator, has placed its chief executive and all of its corporate employees on furlough to preserve cash during the coronavirus outbreak. AMC’s 1,000 theaters around the world were closed last week to help prevent the...
AT&T, Comcast New Streamers Still on Schedule to Debut
Adweek: So far, it’s still all systems go for three major upcoming streaming services — HBO Max, Peacock and Quibi — which will make their debuts in a much different entertainment landscape, and a possibly very locked-down populace, despite coronavirus-related...
Netflix Outage Briefly Knocks Off Users Across US, Europe
Bloomberg: Netflix customers suffered outages on Wednesday, at a time when coronavirus lockdowns have caused home viewing to surge, but the streaming giant says the problem has been resolved. "Some of our members in the U.S. and Europe were unable to use Netflix for...
Pinterest Launches ‘Today’ Tab Amid Record High Traffic
Mobile Marketer: Pinterest this week introduced a "Today" tab as a hub for daily inspiration, trending posts and curated topics as traffic surges to a record during the coronavirus pandemic. The social media company plans to feature expert information on COVID-19...
ByteDance’s TikTok Anoints 15 Year-Old as No 1 Creator
Business Insider: Charli D'Amelio, age 15, is now the most popular creator on TikTok, the viral video-sharing app where she has reached 41.4 million followers. Since her first video went viral on the platform in July 2019, she's signed with a talent agency and...
Fox Corp News Pundits Volunteer to Die to Save Economy
Vanity Fair: Fox News regular and radio host Buck Sexton wants America "to go back to work very soon, even if that means there are more casualties from COVID-19 than would occur under this continued extreme shutdown…It is reality and we need to accept and act on...