Pride Media CEO to Shake Up The Advocate, Out Magazines
Digiday: Pride Media and its four LGBTQ-focused titles, including Out and The Advocate magazines, began 2020 on shaky ground following the exits of key leaders and financial woes, including its well-publicized failure to pay...
Cox Enterprises Billionaire Newspaper Heiress Dies at 100
Associated Press: Anne Cox Chambers, a newspaper heiress, diplomat and philanthropist who was one of the country’s richest women, died Friday at the age of 100. Chambers’ nephew James Cox Kennedy announced her death to the Atlanta...
New York Times Taps Wirecutter Guy to Oversee Products
MediaPost: The New York Times has had great success with its standalone products and ventures like Cooking, Games, Parenting and Wirecutter. To support that growth, the company announced David Perpich has been tapped to lead new products and...
BuzzFeed: We’re ‘Open to Being Part of a Larger Company’
New York Times: "The most important thing is to do what's right for the company," said CEO Jonah Peretti. "And if being part of a larger company allowed us to grow our mission, I would be open to that." He added: "Our plan this year is for BuzzFeed as a whole to be...
Craigslist Faces Historic Revenue Drop as Job Ads Decline
Fox Business: Craigslist, the mostly free classified ad website, saw a "historic" drop in revenue in 2019, according to the latest AIM Group Marketplaces Report. "It's not good news for Craigslist, but they're still probably generating profit in excess of $600...
Media Star Says Thanks to Professionals in Media Industry
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ViacomCBS Names NBC Veteran as President-CEO of CBS
Reuters: ViacomCBS said on Friday that senior NBCUniversal exec George Cheeks will take over the reins of CBS from Joe Ianniello on March 23. CBS appointed Ianniello as the interim CEO of the company in September 2018, after Les Moonves resigned from the...
Fox TV Apps Get Punted by Roku Ahead of the Super Bowl
CNET: If you were hoping to use the Fox Sports app to stream the Super Bowl on a Roku this weekend, you may need to start making other plans. On Thursday evening, Roku sent an email to customers alerting them that starting Jan. 31, it will be removing the Fox app...
AT&T Likely to Break Up, Ditch WarnerMedia, Analyst Says
CNBC: AT&T will eventually separate its telecom business from its media business, predicts Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson. "The companies that have diversified are not doing as well," he said. Comcast would be a natural fit for WarnerMedia, he...
Verizon Takes a Big Hit on Yahoo, AOL Media Businesses
Wall Street Journal: Verizon took a roughly $200 million charge to write-down the value of its media business, which is home to Yahoo and AOL. Revenue within Verizon Media Group was flat year-over-year at about $2.1 billion as it continued to confront declining...
Disney’s 20th Century Studios Chief to Exit After Changes
Los Angeles Times: Emma Watts, the longtime production head of the film studio once known as 20th Century Fox, has resigned as owner Disney continues to make major changes to the storied company it bought less than a year ago. Watts had been with Fox for more than...
Comcast to Face EU Fine Over NBCUniversal Merchandise
Associated Press: European Union authorities have fined NBCUniversal for restricting cross-border sales of “Jurassic Park” toys, “Big Lebowski” mugs and other licensed film merchandise, in the bloc’s latest regulatory effort to enforce the competition rules governing...
CBS, NBC Chief Silverman, a Onetime TV Force, Dies at 82
New York Times: Fred Silverman, who as a top executive at CBS, ABC and finally NBC was one of the most powerful people in the three-network era died on Thursday at his home in the Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles. He was...
Vice Media to Ditch Dumbo Office in Belt-Tightening Effort
Business Insider: Youth-focused Vice Media is consolidating its offices to two from three as it aims for profitability, moving its agency Virtue Worldwide from its longtime home in Dumbo to Williamsburg in Brooklyn. The move will help the still-unprofitable media...
News Corp’s Knewz Aggregator ‘Makes Readers’ Eyes Bleed’
Guardian: The name Knewz – widely mocked since it was announced last August – is not even the worst thing about the new website. It’s almost certainly the ugliest site to go live in decades, immediately eliciting cries of “It’s making my eyes bleed” on social...
Amazon CEO Touts 150 Million Paying Members for Prime
Recode: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that the company’s Amazon Prime membership program now boasts more than 150 million paying customers across the globe. Amazon’s stock price jumped more than 10 percent on the news and the company’s broader earnings...
Quibi Preps ‘Rolling Thunder’ Marketing Plan Before Debut
Variety: Quibi CEO Meg Whitman, who is 67 days away from the launch of the company’s new streaming service, claimed that the company doesn’t really see the likes of Netflix, Hulu or Disney Plus as rivals. Quibi will be ramping up a “rolling thunder” marketing plan to...
Snap Launches Snapchat ‘TV Show’ Featuring User Bitmoji
USA Today: Snapchat has launched Bitmoji TV, marking a new addition to the platform's ever-expanding Discovery menu. The series, which was developed in-house, further differentiates the teen-focused app from other social networking platforms like...
Gawker Nemesis Readies Social Network for Rich, Powerful
MIT Technology Review: A proposed new social network is hoping to entice millions of people to pay to get close to superstars of tech, business and academia. The nascent site, called Column, already has connections, including the man who created the legal strategy...
Washington Post Editor Seeks Advice About Social Media
CNN: The Washington Post's top editor sent a memo to staffers addressing the newspaper's social media policy, days after the brief suspension of a reporter over tweets posted in the wake of Kobe Bryant's death drew widespread...
Tribune Employees ‘Should Sing Hallelujah’ About Buyouts
New York Post: A Tribune exec has staffers up in arms after saying journalists should be “singing ‘Glory Hallelujah’ ” about the buyouts being offered at the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News and other papers. Buyouts will allow people to “end their careers in...
Hearst in Struggle to Find a New Editor for Harper’s Bazaar
New York Post: Hearst looks like it is having some trouble filling Glenda Bailey’s old role at Harper’s Bazaar and is now scrambling to name a replacement editor-in-chief before Fashion Week begins in March. “It’s odd that we haven’t heard anything from...
Forbes to Name Businessweek Veteran as Revenue Officer
TalkingBizNews: Forbes has announced the appointment of Jessica Sibley to the position of chief revenue officer. Sibley, who has served as the company’s chief sales officer, will oversee revenue operations, including Forbes’s BrandVoice, Insights and ForbesLive...
Meredith Updates Print Magazine, Logo for Travel + Leisure
MediaPost: Travel + Leisure is updating its print magazine. The monthly will have a tweaked logo (wider and bolder), upgraded paper stock and larger trim size, starting with the March 2020 issue, on newsstands February...
Hearst Taps Editorial Director for New Auto Magazine R&T
WWD: Hearst just named Mike Guy as editorial director of luxury print magazine R&T, a companion to Road & Track that is dedicated to the auto-enthusiast lifestyle, covering travel, food, wine and luxury goods. Guy is the founder and former editor in chief of...
Vox Media’s The Cut Yanks Instagram Post on Kobe Bryant
Daily Beast: While coverage of basketball icon Kobe Bryant’s death in a helicopter crash on Sunday has since engulfed media outlets, New York Magazine’s women-centric politics, fashion, and culture site The Cut has taken a decidedly different approach....
G/O Media’s Expat Deadspin Writers Start Super Bowl Blog
Daily Beast: Deadspin may not be active for the Super Bowl this weekend, but some of the site’s more prominent ex-staffers are launching a temporary publication to blog about the big game. Several of Deadspin’s most well-known writers will reunite this weekend to...
Media Star Asks Readers to Help Support Industry Service
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AT&T Takes $1.2 Billion Hit on Buildup for Streaming Wars
Financial Times: The streaming wars are expensive and weighing on AT&T's latest financial results, as its WarnerMedia business revealed on Wednesday that it took a $1.2 billion hit due to costly investments in its upcoming streaming service to rival...
Disney’s ABC Suspends Journalist Over Kobe Bryant Error
Los Angeles Times: ABC News has suspended Matt Gutman, its chief national correspondent, who speculated on-air that all four of Kobe Bryant's daughters were on board the helicopter that crashed and killed the NBA icon and eight others on...