Meredith Drops $1 Million Spat Over Sports Illustrated
New York Post: Meredith has dropped its $1 million lawsuit against Maven, the operator of Sports Illustrated. "We dismissed our suit as we have come to an agreement with them that we are satisfied with." Meredith sold SI to licensing giant Authentic Brands Group in...
Hearst Offers Free Online College 2.0 at Cosmopolitan
Daily Front Row: Cosmopolitan has launched a series of no-nonsense lessons called ExtraCurricular — a cheat sheet to everything from networking and saving money to straight-talking sex education. "These motivational classes are designed to be real talk for the real...
Conde Nast, Hearst Face Fear of Magazine Shutdowns
Business of Fashion: Looking ahead, magazine editors, CMOs and analysts say they expect more titles to close. And cost-saving strategies, including synergies among international editions of a magazine, are expected to gain momentum. "The magazine industry hasn't...
Hollywood Fears Movie Theaters Won’t Survive Covid
Los Angeles Times: After months of struggles from the pandemic, Hollywood has issued a dire message about the movie theater industry — the nation's cinemas "may not survive" without help. Groups representing movie studios, theater owners and directors on called on...
Disney Workers Caravan to Seek Help from Governor
Hollywood Reporter: A group of Disney employees will caravan to the California state capitol in an effort to urge the governor to sign a bill that would guarantee recall and retention for hospitality workers. The move comes after Disney announced plans to lay off...
Fox Corp CEO Toasts News Anchor After Fiery Debate
New York Times: Chris Wallace, the moderator of the first presidential debate, flew home from Cleveland on Tuesday night. At an airport there, he accepted a glass of champagne from Lachlan Murdoch, whose family controls Fox Corp, and Suzanne Scott, the CEO of Fox...
ViacomCBS Simulcasts Covid Special of ‘South Park’
Deadline: "South Park" headed to MTV and MTV2 after ViacomCBS revealed plans to simulcast the animated comedy's hour-long pandemic special. The long-running Comedy Central series premiered its supersized episode Wednesday at 8 pm. It's the latest simulcast across the...
AT&T Sees Decline in Downloads of App for HBO Max
Variety: A September discount promotion for HBO Max didn't help grow its reach on mobile devices, suggests new data from app analytics firm Apptopia. In the US, the HBO Max app was cumulatively downloaded roughly 1.5 million times during the promotional period of...
Disney, AT&T, BuzzFeed Team on TV Marketing Effort
Adweek: Disney, Xandr, BuzzFeed and TrueX teamed up on a new white paper to discuss how advertisers can use attention to learn more about consumer behavior across ad units, ad lengths, audience segments and overall campaign planning. "As consumer behavior continues to...
Vice Media Guy Responds to Trump About Proud Boys
Mediaite: Gavin McInnes, a co-founder of Vice Media and founder of the Proud Boys extremist group, reacted in real-time to President Trump's controversial debate remarks about the organization by feigning outrage that the president would presume to issue orders to the...
Gallup: Lack of US Trust in Media Hits an All-Time High
Gallup: At a time when Americans are relying heavily on the media for information about the pandemic and the presidential election, the public remains largely distrustful of the mass media. The percentage of US adults with no trust at all is a record high, up five...
New York Times to ‘Re-Report’ Podcast Following Hoax
Daily Beast: The New York Times is putting together a team of journalists to "re-report" its critically acclaimed podcast on the Islamic State after one of its central characters was arrested for allegedly faking his background in terrorism. "We are going to look for...
Conde Nast to Reverse Pandemic Pay Cuts for Staffers
WWD: Conde Nast is reversing the pay cuts it made for US employees as the coronavirus wreaked havoc on fragile revenues. Separately, the publisher named Yashica Olden as global chief diversity officer. New York Times: Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have...
Hearst Under Fire for Handling of Magazine ‘Disruptor’
New York: Hearst CEO Steve Swartz clearly hadn't calculated how events would unfold after the publication of an article about the "toxic culture" in the company's magazine division. Swartz had felt that the "crude" remarks by magazine chief Troy Young were not a...
Conde Nast Plans India Tech Center to Reinvent Brands
Bloomberg: Conde Nast plans to open a global technology and product center in Bangalore to amplify the digital capabilities of its brands and boost online revenues. The Conde Nast Technology Lab aims to "digitally reinvent brands like Vogue to be relevant to a younger...
Authentic Brands Likes Licensing at Sports Illustrated
Digiday: Authentic Brands Group has found lucrative business opportunities from slapping the Sports Illustrated logo on products that fit nicely into the franchises and intellectual property that the brand developed over its nearly 70 years of covering...
Essence Magazine Furloughs Staffers Amid Pandemic
TheHill: Essence magazine, the renowned publication that has been committed to covering the Black woman experience since 1970, announced this week that it will be furloughing staff to offset the "significant negative impact" of the ongoing Covid-19...
Digital Trends Lays Off Over a Dozen Editorial Staffers
Talking Biz News: Digital Trends, the technology news website, has laid off at least 13 editorial staffers. "We have recently announced several staffing updates to our team, as part of our plan to support our rapidly growing business lines," says a Digital Trends...
Drudge Report Faces Steady Decline of Visitor Traffic
TheRighting: Traffic to the Drudge Report has decreased steadily in the first eight months of 2020. The website has experienced year-over-year declines in unique visitors in every month of 2020. Drudge's downward trend contrasts sharply with increases in traffic that...
Axios on Pace for Profits Despite Digital Media Unrest
Wall Street Journal: Axios, the digital news startup, is on target to make a profit this year despite the economic turmoil stemming from the coronavirus that led to broad layoffs and pay cuts at many media outlets. The company is on track to take in about $58 million...
Facebook, Fox Corp Help Spread ‘Fake News’ on Biden
NBC News: A conspiracy theory that Joe Biden would wear an electronic ear piece during the first presidential debate went wildly viral in the hours before the event, and the groundless theory was later amplified by conservative news outlets that claimed Biden had...
Fox Corp Promotes Cable News Win Over Broadcast TV
Fox News: Fox News Channel finished a historic third quarter as the first cable network ever to surpass all broadcast networks in total weekday prime-time viewers for an entire three-month period. Fox News averaged 4 million weekday prime-time viewers, beating top...
Comcast to Fight Disinfo with Shepard Smith on CNBC
Daily Beast: Shepard Smith says he is ready for Wednesday night's debut of "The News with Shepard Smith," an hour-long CNBC show that replaces the 7 pm airing of "Shark Tank." Smith's plans? "We're gonna do a newscast. We're gonna have no pundits and no...
Disney to Lay Off 28,000 Workers Across Theme Parks
Los Angeles Times: The Covid-19 pandemic has brought substantial layoffs to Disney's massive theme park operations and other units. The company will lay off 28,000 domestic employees at its parks, experiences and products operations, affecting about 13% of its global...
iHeartMedia to Turn Staff Covid Furloughs Into Layoffs
Radio Insight: iHeartMedia says that a number of employees who were furloughed in March will not be returning to the radio giant. As a "result of changed habits and so much work still being done from home, we will not need all the jobs we once...
AT&T’s WarnerMedia Plans Batman Podcast on Spotify
Reuters: An original story about Batman alter-ego Bruce Wayne will debut next year as a podcast series on the Spotify streaming service. Called "Batman Unburied," the series is the first being developed through a deal between Spotify and Warner Bros to bring DC Comics...
Disney Adds Co-Watching Feature to Streaming Service
TechCrunch: Disney+ has become the latest streaming service to introduce a way for friends and family to watch movies and TV together while in different locations. Disney has already been testing the new GroupWatch feature in Canada, Australia and New...
Sinclair Sports Regionals Set for Punt from YouTube TV
Cord Cutters News: After renegotiating with Sinclair to continue access to regional sports networks earlier this year, YouTube TV has announced that the contract extension is expiring and the streaming service will drop Fox regional sports networks beginning this...
Buzzer Raises $4 Million for Mobile Live Sports Platform
Axios: Buzzer, a mobile platform that wants to connect fans through live sports, has raised $4 million in seed funding. Buzzer's vision is to aggregate sports rights, sending fans notifications to make it easy to pop into a live game, either through existing...
Bloomberg Media to Expand with Personal Finance Site
Axios: Bloomberg Media plans to launch Bloomberg Wealth, a new editorial vertical to help readers and viewers make smarter decisions about their personal finances, including divorce and moving. It will include data-backed tools designed to help readers navigate...