Facebook Pays $5.8 Million to Train Local Reporters in UK
Reuters: Facebook is donating 4.5 million pounds ($5.8 million) to train journalists in Britain to support communities that have lost local newspapers and reporters, in no little part due to ad revenue and readers switching online to the social media...
Johnston Press in UK Falls Into Arms of New York Hedgie
Bloomberg: The collapse of Johnston Press into the arms of a New York hedge fund marks an unusual twist in the long decline of the U.K.’s local newspaper industry. In fact, it fits a pattern that has played out for years in the U.S., where hedge funds have become the...
Hearst Cuts British Esquire Frequency to Six Issues a Year
Campaign: Hearst UK is planning a shake-up of Esquire that will see the magazine reduced from 10 issues per year to six, with a higher cover price, from February. Esquire will feature a bigger format and better-quality paper stock, as well as new sections and...
Conde Nast Shrinks HQ to Make Room for New Subleases
New York Post: Anna Wintour is the only exec at Conde Nast who won’t be giving up her private bathroom in an upcoming office revamp. Looking to shore up its finances, the publisher is shrinking its space at its Manhattan headquarters at One World Trade Center to make...
New York Magazine Eyes New Revenues from Selling Tech
Fast Company: New York Media, the parent company of New York Magazine, is the latest media company to join the software licensing bandwagon. In an increasingly competitive industry, organizations have sought new ways to rely less on content churn and...
BuzzFeed’s Commerce Unit Generates $50 Million in Sales
Bloomberg: Scotts Miracle-Gro, the plant-care giant, had a problem: Millennials weren’t gardening enough. So the company turned to one of the most renowned experts on millennial behavior, BuzzFeed. Scotts worked with a more obscure part of BuzzFeed focused on...
Tech, Media Industries See Top Execs Looking for New Jobs
TechCrunch: A number of the biggest names in media and tech left their jobs over the last year (or announced they will be leaving soon), including a handful of now-billionaires who have resources, ambition and time on their hands to explore something new. There’s a...
Disney, WarnerMedia Forecast as Big Winners in Streaming
Deadline: Michael J. Wolf predicts that established media brands — including Disney and WarnerMedia — will be among the handful of winners in the emerging direct-to-consumer world. Wolf’s consulting firm, Activate, ranked potential winners in the streaming sweepstakes...
CBS-Viacom’s Redstone Saga Pivots on Short iPhone Video
Vanity Fair: Last January, Arnold Kopelson, then a CBS board member, ventured to Sumner Redstone’s Beverly Hills estate to see his old friend. He took out his iPhone and filmed a short video of now 95-year-old mogul. Shortly afterwards, Kopelson expressed disbelief...
AT&T’s CNN to Win Trump Lawsuit – But Will It Even Matter?
Bloomberg Opinion: CNN is going to win the First Amendment lawsuit it filed Tuesday against President Trump’s White House for taking away reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass. And the sad truth is that Trump won’t mind at all. Instead of understanding judicial repudiation...
Comcast NBC’s Holt is Most Trusted in TV News, Poll Says
Hollywood Reporter: While cable news has become the medium du jour during Donald Trump's presidency, with Fox News hosts cheering on a president who has battled CNN and MSNBC, even the most successful shows on those networks can't draw as many viewers as the evening...
Disney in Talks with Hearst to Sell A+E Channels in Europe
Variety: Disney is in talks with Hearst to sell off its interest in five European cable channels that are part of the larger A+E Networks joint venture between the companies. Disney last week agreed to divest the channels as a condition of receiving approval for the...
Tribune TV Gets Takeover Interest from Rival Broadcasters
New York Post: The auction of TV broadcasting giant Tribune Media is heating up. ION Media — a privately held operator of 70 stations across the US — has joined buyout firm Cerberus Capital and Hicks Equity Partners in a bid to buy...
Netflix to Grab More Real Estate for Expansion in Hollywood
Variety: Netflix plans to colonize more Los Angeles office space, right in the heart of Hollywood. The company inked a long-term lease with Kilroy Realty for about 355,000 square feet at the Academy on Vine site, meaning Netflix will occupy all the space in the three...
Microsoft’s LinkedIn Expects Media Biz to Rake in $2 Billion
Axios: LinkedIn, the business and employment network, says it expects to bring in roughly $2 billion from its media business — mostly via ad revenue — by the end of this fiscal year. LinkedIn has been hesitant to reveal revenue numbers around its media efforts since...
Verizon Plans New Subscription Service for Yahoo Finance
Axios: Yahoo Finance, the decades-old money brand now owned by Verizon, is launching a subscription service that aims to compete with Bloomberg for the cash and attention of retail investors. Yahoo Finance Premium will act as a testing ground for Verizon Media Group...
Snap Discloses US Subpoenas About Initial Public Offering
Reuters: The U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission have subpoenaed Snap for information about its March 2017 initial public offering. The inquiries follow an ongoing shareholder lawsuit in which investors allege that Snap misled the public...
Uzabase’s Quartz Unveils App, For-Pay Business Coverage
Financial Times: Quartz is to launch a subscription tier for its business coverage and a new app that will offer aggregated news and user discussion with the aim of avoiding the negativity that plagues debate on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. The new...
Bloomberg Founder to Soon Decide on Bid for US President
Associated Press: Michael Bloomberg declared lifetime allegiance to the Democratic Party on Tuesday and outlined an aggressive timeline for deciding whether to run for president. “I think January, February would be about as late as you can do it and as early as you...
Tribune Suitors Appear to Have Trouble Raising Deal Money
New York Post: Tribune Publishing stock hit a new 52-week low on Tuesday, prompting speculation that its suitors are having a tough time coming up with money to close a deal. A potential acquisition is still seen as McClatchy’s to lose. But sources speculate that the...
Hearst to Cease Regular Publication of Seventeen Magazine
WWD: Seventeen magazine is the latest legacy magazine to be pushed further out of print. The roughly 75-year-old title is having its print frequency reduced next year, going from the current bimonthly schedule to at most a few issues a year. The magazine will continue...
Penske to Buy Brant’s ARTnews, Arts in America Magazines
New York Post: Jay Penske’s publishing empire PMC just gobbled up a trove of art publications. The company, which owns Variety, WWD and Rolling Stone, said Tuesday that it bought print tycoon Peter Brant’s Art Media Holdings, which publishes ARTnews and Art in...
IAC’s Daily Beast Looks to Tap Gonzo Spirit as New Gawker
Recode: Noah Shachtman, editor in chief of the Daily Beast: "We like to embrace the gonzo and that Gawker was an inheritor of that gonzo spirit that didn’t originate with Gawker, but that they carried that mantle for a little while. We really like the gonzo. We really...
Comcast on Alert After Trump’s Tweet About Antitrust Laws
CNBC: Shares of Comcast slipped Monday after President Trump alleged in a tweet the company "routinely violates antitrust laws." Comcast has "much more potential for damage to consumers, than anything AT&T-Time Warner would...
AT&T CEO Bashes White House for Pulling CNN Press Pass
Deadline: AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson criticized the White House for failing to follow the proper procedure when it revoked CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press pass. “If the White House wants to pull someone’s press credentials, there is a process. That process...
Disney: Marvel Creator Dies at 95; CEO Honors ‘Super Hero’
Los Angeles Times: Stan Lee, who helped create Spider-Man and other comic book superheroes that transformed the industry and raked in billions at movie box offices, has died at 95. Lee was "a super hero in his own right to Marvel fans around the world," said Disney...
Fox, Disney to Sell YES Network Back to New York Yankees
Bloomberg: The New York Yankees are moving forward with plans to buy back the YES Network, the regional sports network that was sold to 21st Century Fox four years ago. The Yankees have relayed their intentions to both Fox...
Viacom’s MTV Buys SnowGlobe Fest to Grow in Live Events
Associated Press: MTV is expanding its live events business in the U.S. by acquiring the SnowGlobe Music Festival. The three-day New Year’s Eve festival takes place in South Lake Tahoe, California. MTV says it’s taking the next step in “its resurgence by expanding...
Vice Creative Officer Leaves After Changes in Management
Variety: Tom Punch, Vice Media’s global chief creative and commercial officer, has left the media company after six years to join ad agency Spring Studios. His departure from Vice comes after a series of senior-executive changes at the...
Amazon Picks New York City, Northern Virginia for New HQs
MarketWatch: Amazon has chosen New York City and Northern Virginia to be the locations of the company's new satellite offices. The official announcement that Amazon will divide its second headquarters between Long Island City and Crystal City, Va., may come as soon as...