Disney to Shutter Stores Amid Shift to E-Commerce
CNBC: Disney said that it will close 20% of its brick-and-mortar Disney Store locations before the end of the year as part of a bigger focus on its e-commerce business. At least 60 of its North American locations will close, the company said, citing changing consumer...
ViacomCBS Unveils Streaming Service Paramount+
Barron's: Paramount+ launches on Thursday as the conversation on Wall Street over the future of ViacomCBS in a streaming-dominated world continues. ViacomCBS is calling Paramount+ a brand-new service, but it's more of an expansion and rename of its CBS All Access...
Comcast CEO Sees Big Opportunity in Exiting Hulu
Deadline: Brian Roberts has opened up on Comcast's ability to monetize its stake in Hulu and take back content from the service that is now controlled by Disney. "We have an exit opportunity in a couple of years and that is creating real value for shareholders that...
Fox Corp Looks to Increase Investment in FanDuel
Telegraph: Rupert Murdoch is poised to take advantage of the boom in US sports gambling by deepening ties with FanDuel. The media mogul is positioned to increase his stake in the US fantasy sports and betting website by nearly a fifth later this year. Murdoch's Fox...
Sinclair to Cut Nearly 600 Jobs Across Broadcaster
Baltimore Sun: Sinclair Broadcast Group said that it plans to cut nearly 600 jobs companywide, including at its headquarters, because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The layoffs represent 5% of Sinclair's workforce. "The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic...
DAZN Taps Disney, TikTok Veteran for New Chief
Wall Street Journal: Kevin Mayer, a former senior executive of Disney and architect of its Disney+ streaming service, has been named chairman of DAZN, a sports-streaming platform. Mayer succeeds former colleague John Skipper, a one-time head of Disney's ESPN who had...
Chernin’s Barstool Sports Leader Touts New Fund
CNET: Dave Portnoy is introducing his own exchange-traded fund, which uses artificial intelligence to determine what stocks to trade based on positive online posts. The VanEck Vectors Social Sentiment ETF is set to launch March 4. It will hold stock in 75 companies,...
Female Athletes Team Up to Launch Media Venture
New York Times: Alex Morgan, Sue Bird, Simone Manuel and Chloe Kim have teamed up to create TOGETHXR, a media and commerce company designed to elevate women's voices. The startup is backed financially with a "mid-seven figure investment" by Magnet Companies, a private...
Conde Nast Veteran Gets a GoFundMe to Pay Rent
New York Post: A GoFundMe page has been set up for Andre Leon Talley, seeking to help raise $500,000 for a messy legal battle with former Manolo Blahnik CEO George Malkemus over a $1 million home in White Plains. The former Vogue editor-at-large claims Malkemus is...
Gannett Reporter Covering Protests Heads to Trial
USA Today: The trial of a Des Moines Register reporter who was arrested covering racial justice protests last summer is slated to begin next week in what experts said is a rare criminal prosecution of a journalist on assignment in the US. Andrea Sahouri faces charges...
New York Times Columnist Has Ties to Facebook
BuzzFeed News: New York Times columnist David Brooks is drawing a second salary for his work on an Aspen Institute project funded by Facebook and other large donors — a fact he has not disclosed in his columns. A Times spokesperson refused to reveal whether the paper...
News Corp’s UK TImes Goes After Harry, Meghan
Reuters: Britain's Prince Harry and American wife Meghan have issued a statement saying Meghan was "saddened" by a report in the UK Times of a bullying complaint against her, calling it an "attack on her character." On Sunday they will appear in an in-depth interview...
Daily Mail Owner Acquires New Scientist Magazine
Press Gazette: The New Scientist is being sold to Daily Mail owner DMGT for £70 million. The weekly science magazine and website was owned by a consortium of individual investors led by Sir Bernard Gray. It has 40 journalists and makes 75% of its revenue from...
The Face Magazine to Develop Creators for TikTok
TheDrum: The Face magazine is introducing a new talent agency for TikTok content creators, to underline its position as "a leading force in the digital influencer sphere." From its inception in 1980, The Face has served as a hub for up-and-coming creators and artists...
‘Gawker Slayer’ Lawyer Publishes Book on Victory
Hollywood Reporter: On March 8, a few days short of the fifth anniversary of a $140 million jury verdict in 2016 that shocked the media establishment and perhaps foreshadowed an anti-elite sentiment that would sway the presidential election that year, "Gawker Slayer:...
Google, Facebook Face Push to Pay for US Media
New York Post: Australia's bold move to force tech giants to start paying for the news appears to be reigniting US efforts to hold Google and Facebook to account for the gloomy state of the local news industry. Momentum is building for a new version of a bipartisan...
Disney CEO Says Movie Biz Has Changed Forever
Bloomberg: Bob Chapek said he believes there have been fundamental changes in people's attitudes toward moviegoing, trends that will probably continue after the global pandemic passes. "The consumer is probably more impatient than they've ever been before,...
AT&T’s WarnerMedia to ‘Reframe’ Movie Classics
Variety: TCM on Thursdays this month will seek to put some popular but troublesome classic films in better context, part of an effort it calls "Reframed." A team of the network's on-air personnel will introduce viewers to some of Hollywood's most seminal pictures,...
Report: 2020 Was Worst Year Ever for Cord-Cutting
Broadcasting & Cable: For the media industry, 2020 was the worst year ever for cord cutting, according to a new report from analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson. Traditional distributors lost 6 million subscribers, a drop of 7.3%. Penetration was down to a...
Netflix, Hulu Battle New Effort to Tax Digital Video
Law360: Netflix and Hulu are coming out swinging against an attempt by the city of Knoxville, Tennessee, to force the streaming services to pay franchise fees, slamming the suit as a "back-door attempt" to tax their digital video content. The streaming giants laid out...
Disney’s Hulu Poised to Surpass ABC in Ad Sales
Bloomberg: Advertising at Disney's online channels looks set to overtake the company's ABC broadcast network as marketers shift spending to more targeted audiences. Online outlets such as Hulu, ESPN+ and ABC.com will soon pass the ABC network. "The secret weapon with...
ViacomCBS Looks to Tap Influence of SpongeBob
Bloomberg: On social media, SpongeBob SquarePants and his undersea friends are mentioned or turned into a meme every five seconds. Now ViacomCBS will find out if that social-media clout can get customers to actually pay for SpongeBob content. The company is releasing...
Comcast: Internet Traffic Soaring From Pandemic
VentureBeat: Comcast said that peak internet traffic rose 32% in 2020 over pre-pandemic levels, with some markets rising 50% in March 2020. Video streaming accounted for 71% of all downstream traffic, and it grew 70% over 2019 levels. Comcast said that the first four...
Fox Corp’s News Channel Staffers Bash New Hire
Daily Beast: Fox News announced that it has hired former Trump spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany as a contributor. The news set off some alarms within a newsroom that has been "purged" in recent months in favor of right-wing opinion programming. "It's truly disgusting they...
AT&T’s WarnerMedia Blasted for Cuomo at CNN
New York Post: CNN anchor Chris Cuomo is being slammed by fellow members of the media for refusing to cover Gov. Andrew Cuomo's growing list of scandals, following a number of softball interviews during the height of the pandemic. "Every J-school student knows that...
ViacomCBS: Breach Results in Costly Settlement
Vanity Fair: CBS and a law firm hired to probe sexual-misconduct allegations against former chief Les Moonves are said to have paid millions to someone who claimed a breach of confidentiality after the New York Times revealed explosive details from a draft report on...
Scripps Plans Multicast Networks with Reality TV
Deadline: Adding to its multicast network portfolio, EW Scripps is launching two channel offerings focused on reality TV. Doozy, aimed at women aged 25 to 54, will serve up episodes of "Storage Wars," "Married at First Sight," "Hoarders" and other shows. Defy TV will...
Vice Expands ‘Dark Side’ Franchise with Talk Show
Deadline: Vice is continuing to add to the number of shows it has in the ring. The youth-skewing broadcaster is expanding its "Dark Side of the Ring" franchise further with a 90-minute talk show. "Dark Side of the Ring: Confidential," which premieres March 9, will...
Spotify Forecast to Emerge as King of Podcasting
TechCrunch: According to a new forecast, Spotify's US podcast listenership will surpass Apple Podcasts for the first time this year when 28.2 million US users will listen to podcasts on Spotify at least monthly, compared with 28.0 million via Apple Podcasts.This shift...
Conde Nast Names Global Editorial Head for Wired
New York Times: Conde Nast has named Gideon Lichfield as the new global editorial director of Wired. Lichfield joins Wired with extensive experience in tech and business journalism, most recently at MIT Technology Review, where he had been the editor in chief since...