Fox News Pulls Expat Anchor Smith’s Social Media Accounts
Washington Examiner: Former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith's social media accounts have disappeared following his departure from the network. Smith's official Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts no longer appear. Fox News confirmed that each of the accounts was...
BBC News Unveils ‘Dark Web’ Site in Bid to Stop Censorship
BBC News: The BBC has made its international news website available via Tor, in a bid to thwart censorship attempts. Tor is a privacy-focused web browser used to access pages on the dark web. The browser can obscure who is using it and what data is being...
Entercom Joins Farrow for Podcast Based on ‘Catch and Kill’
Variety: Ronan Farrow is launching a podcast offshoot of his best-selling book “Catch and Kill.” Slated to premiere in November, “The Catch and Kill Podcast with Ronan Farrow” will feature new audio material and interviews with people Farrow interviewed about...
Conde Nast CEO Says Facebook, Google Need US Regulation
CNBC: Conde Nast CEO Roger Lynch has called for stricter regulation of Facebook and Google due to their dominance in the digital advertising space. He also called the companies valuable partners in content distribution, underscoring the dilemma for many digital...
Penske Media Enters Deal to Launch Edition of Variety in Italy
FIPP: Launching on January 1, 2020, Variety Italy will publish Italian-language content across a wide range of platforms including digital, social, podcasts, custom, video, as well as execute exclusive events in Rome, Milan and Venice during the most important...
Newsweek Veteran Claims Business Model Hurts Staff Writers
Columbia Journalism Review: With two years of near-constant editorial changes behind them, many journalists at Newsweek have found their jobs increasingly difficult to do well — or at all. “You’re being asked to write a story in two hours, and your editors are being...
News Corp Outlets Benefit from Investigative Unit of Storyful
Nieman Lab: The Islamic State on TikTok. Child sex abuse on Facebook. The trolling of Meghan Markle. What do these stories — published by the Wall Street Journal, the Times of London, and Sky News — have in common? They all used data from social media agency...
New York Times Eliminates Position for Newsroom’s Security
Fox News: It appears that the New York Times has let go of its senior director of information security. "Today the @nytimes chose to eliminate my role, stating that there is no need for a dedicated focus on newsroom and journalistic security," tweets Runa...
Study: Ad-Funded Era of Publishing is Over and Won’t Return
FIPP: As the era of ad-funded publishing draws to a close, media companies need to not only diversify revenue models, but also get better at predicting what the future will bring and respond positively to change and monetize from it, says FIPP CEO James...
Report: Publisher Commits Suicide After Newspaper Shutters
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Roger Williams, the publisher of the Waycross Journal-Herald, a small-town, family-owned newspaper in Georgia, was found dead at his office Wednesday morning in an apparent suicide. The paper ceased publication last month after becoming...
Disney CEO Wants New Streamer to Rely Less on Algorithms
Wall Street Journal: Disney CEO Bob Iger is weeks away from launching his company’s Disney+ streaming service. Iger says he is piloting the service himself. He spent two hours on Tuesday exploring the app and offering notes. His feedback: Make the product rely less...
ViacomCBS’s CEO Talks Possibility of More Media M&A Deals
Vanity Fair: Might there be even more M&A in ViacomCBS's future? “The only thing I'd say is, look, we’ll be opportunistic,” says CEO Bob Bakish. “But at the core, I believe this combination has tremendous value, and people will see us unlock that value once we...
Facebook COO Gets Steamrolled in Tough Interview by Couric
Variety: Sending a jolt through a luxurious and excessively polite afternoon in Beverly Hills, veteran journalist Katie Couric delivered a relentless series of hardball questions to Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg on Tuesday at the sixth annual...
Apple’s CEO Dines Out with Obama, De Niro in New York City
Daily Mail: Former US president Barack Obama met acting legend and vociferous Donald Trump critic Robert De Niro and Apple CEO Tim Cook for dinner in New York on Monday evening. The trio spent several hours eating together at Yves Restaurant in...
Netflix Plans 59 New Offerings to Fight Rivals Apple, Disney
MarketWatch: Netflix is mobilizing ahead of the launch of two big new competitors in November with an armory of 59 new offerings next month, including the arrival of 43 original programs. The company said the line-up changes will include “a lot of Christmas titles”...
Verizon to Offer Customers Free One-Year Access to Disney+
Associated Press: Verizon is offering new and current customers a free year of Disney’s new video streaming service. The offer announced Tuesday is worth nearly $84, based on $6.99 monthly subscription fee for the Disney Plus service, which debuts Nov....
Roku Inks $150 Million Deal to Acquire Ad-Tech Outfit Dataxu
CNBC: Roku is buying Dataxu, a platform that lets marketers plan and buy video ad campaigns, for $150 million in cash and stock. Boston-based Dataxu, a demand-side platform, provides marketers with automated bidding and self-serve software to manage ad campaigns...
Quibi Sells Out First-Year Ad Inventory Ahead of April Launch
TheWrap: Quibi announced Tuesday it has sold out of its $150 million first year advertising inventory. Set for an April 2020 launch, it has also added Discover, General Mills, Taco Bell and T-Mobile as new brand partners. The mobile-only streaming service has...
Discovery Introduces Food Network Videos, Cooking Classes
TechCrunch: Discovery announced the U.S. launch of its Food Network Kitchen subscription service, which will bring daily live and on-demand cooking classes as well as instructional cooking videos to Amazon Echo devices, including the smart screen Echo Show, as well...
Comcast Outrages NBC Staffers with New Deal for News Chief
Fox News: NBC News president Noah Oppenheim’s contract was reportedly renewed by the Peacock Network despite an onslaught of negative attention surrounding Ronan Farrow’s “Catch and Kill,” which paints Oppenheim as a key figure in NBC’s decision not to run his expose...
Disney’s Marvel in Deal for Exclusive Podcasts with SiriusXM
Reuters: Disney’s Marvel Entertainment said on Tuesday it would create exclusive weekly podcasts for satellite radio company SiriusXM and its online music service Pandora starting next year. The slate of programs will include five new series on popular Marvel...
Facebook Won’t Pay Associated Press, Reuters for News Page
Financial Times: Facebook will pay millions of dollars to some publications featured on its news page but nothing to others. The social media giant has offered no money to Reuters or Associated Press — arguing that wire services do not qualify despite offering...
Amazon Taps Reuters, CBS News for Video News Aggregator
TechCrunch: Amazon is rolling out a news aggregation app for Fire TV users in the U.S. The app serves up a customizable news experience from a number of different outlets. The list includes nearly 20 names, including partners like Reuters, CBS, Sports Illustrated and...
Snap ‘Discovers’ Millions of New Users on Path to Profitability
Fox Business: People are Discover-ing Snap. The social network/camera company touting its Discover Channel as an outlet for growth released its earnings Tuesday in another dose of good news/bad news for the...
Report: Facebook User Exodus to Help Niche Social Networks
Fast Company: A new research report from Activate says we’re spending much less time on Facebook. However, Facebook won’t be disrupted by a single rival. Instead, smaller and more focused communities will skim off more and more of the time people spend on the...
Vox Media’s Polygon Readies Culture, Gaming Show for Quibi
MediaPost: Vox Media Studios and Quibi are partnering on a new daily show focused on culture, gaming and news set to be produced by Polygon, Vox Media’s culture and gaming network. The show will appear in Quibi’s Daily Essentials lineup, adding internet culture news...
Vice Media, BuzzFeed Staffers Fear Worthless Stock Options
Business Insider: A number of fast-growing digital startups gave options or other equity compensation to employees to convince them to help build the media companies of the future. Now, employees of these startups are seeing their hopes of getting rich off shares...
Meredith Sells Money Website to Ad Company in Puerto Rico
Des Moines Register: Meredith announced Tuesday that it had sold the website for Money magazine to Ad Practitioners — the latest of Meredith's acquisitions from its purchase of Time Inc. to be unloaded. Meredith had been trying to sell Money since shortly after...
Conde Nast Veteran Proposes New Model for Print Magazines
Press Gazette: Former British Vogue editor-in-chief Alexandra Shulman has suggested that the future of print magazines could lie in switching to less frequent, special editions, allowing media companies to take costs out of the business while maintaining their...
Hearst Chief Gets Post-Fox Interview Phone Call from Murdoch
New York Post: Hearst executive vice chair Frank Bennack made an appearance on Fox Business on Tuesday, to talk about his new book, “Leave Something on the Table,” when he got a surprise call to drop by and visit Fox Corp. chairman Rupert...