Facebook’s Instagram Unites the Quarantined – Unlike Netflix
Bloomberg Opinion: Instagram Live allows users to watch both peers and celebrities just going about their lives, even when they appear to be doing nothing special. In the coronavirus age, "we're looking for content that provides some semblance of human connection" —...
Geffen Takes His Instagram Account Private After Yacht Post
The Wrap: David Geffen shared with his 87,000 Instagram followers his escape to the Grenadines on his reported $590 million yacht to avoid the coronavirus pandemic — posts that created enough backlash among shocked onlookers that he has made his account private. Be a...
Oprah: Don’t Be Hating Me, I’m OK in Retreat from Everyone
Associated Press: Oprah Winfrey says she's playing it safe when it comes to the rapidly spreading coronavirus. Winfrey has been quarantining and practicing social distancing at her home: "Don't be hating because I'm having a really good time. I'm really OK in retreat...
Bloomberg Media CEO Touts Performance During Outbreak
Digiday: In March, new subscriptions to Bloomberg Media grew by 86% compared with February, despite hosting most of its coronavirus coverage outside its paywall. The week ending March 20 was its highest week in terms of subscriber acquisition since launching its...
American Media CEO Slashes Staff Pay at Teetering Tabloids
Daily Beast: David Pecker, the CEO of financially troubled American Media Inc., is cutting the payroll of the National Enquirer and at least nine other AMI publications by 23 percent starting April 1. The move could be a harbinger of worse things to come, including...
Conde Nast’s Self-Quarantines Won’t Halt Magazine Videos
The Verge: There are few people as beloved online as the staff of the Bon Appétit test kitchen. When businesses began closing their offices and asking their employees to work from home, my thought was: What'll happen to the Bon App YouTube channel? Luckily, the show...
Meredith Still on Schedule to Unveil New Lifestyle Magazine
Mr Magazine: The new Ayesha Curry magazine is on schedule to launch in late April, despite the pandemic, said Doug Olson, president of Meredith Magazines. "The magazine is printed and ready to go. Ayesha has over 9 million social media followers, so she plans to...
Hearst Magazine New Hires Start Jobs Working from Home
WWD: Cosmopolitan has announced some changes it made to its beauty team before the coronavirus crisis escalated, forcing the magazine's staff to work from home. Among those beginning their new jobs remotely is new beauty director Julee Wilson. Be a real Media Star —...
Benioffs’ Time Magazine CEO Vows No Layoffs for 90 Days
@efelsenthal: "TIME is pledging no layoffs for 90 days. We will also continue to ensure our hourly workers are paid while our offices are closed. Grateful for our immensely dedicated employees and the support of our owner's Marc and Lynne @benioff in our mission...
Gannett, Tribune Shouldn’t Get a Bailout, Columnist Argues
New York Times: "The time is now to make a painful but necessary shift," writes New York Times media columnist Ben Smith. "Abandon most for-profit local newspapers, whose business model no longer works, and move as fast as possible to a national network of nimble new...
Vox Media Sees Coronavirus Stories as Safe for Advertisers
CNBC: Ryan Pauley, chief revenue officer at Vox Media: "There is no brand suitability problem for advertisers being adjacent to this content, in fact quite the opposite. The fact that a high percentage of articles are being flagged as brand unsafe is a misapplication...
Roundup: Digital, Legacy Media Tighten Belts During Crisis
CNN: 2020 was supposed to be a banner year for digital media. BuzzFeed, Group Nine, and Vice each indicated that this year they would be profitable, a long-elusive goal for an industry bedeviled by diminishing ad dollars. But no one could have predicted that a global...
Overview: Media’s Fragile Ecosystem is Under New Pressure
New Yorker: Already, the coronavirus has exposed the fragility of the American health-care system, highlighting its weak points. It will do the same for other systems, including the media ecosystem. The question at this point is how much of it can survive, and how it...
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...