New York Times Eyes ‘Morning’ for Subscriptions
Digiday: The New York Times's flagship morning newsletter The Morning hit a milestone in January 2021: over 1 billion unique opens since it launched in May 2020. The newsletter represents a direct and important relationship between the Times and its readers, and a...
Meredith Cooks Up Recipe for Largest Food Site
WNIP: Allrecipes, with its 85 million user base, is a publisher to learn from when nurturing a niche audience. It started as a recipe sharing site in 1997 and has grown steadily to become the world's largest food website. The publisher has throughout been tightly...
Conde Nast in Rent Standoff at One World Trade
Wall Street Journal: Conde Nast is withholding $2.4 million in rent at One World Trade Center for January 2021 and could withhold further sums in the coming months as part of a rent dispute with its landlords. The publisher wants to reduce its square footage and its...
New York Times Appoints ‘Partner’ for Publisher
New York Times: Rebecca Blumenstein will take on a newly created role at the New York Times, reporting directly to the publisher, A. G. Sulzberger, and helping him run newsroom operations as the newspaper's business expands. Blumenstein, a deputy managing editor, has...
Hearst Promotes Staffer to Digital Director of Elle
WWD: Jessica Roy has been promoted from deputy digital director of Hearst's Elle magazine to digital director, taking the reins from Katie Connor, who recently decamped to W. Roy was deputy digital director for three years and previously held positions at The Cut,...
The Atlantic Nabs Seven Figures for ‘Inheritance’
Digiday: The Atlantic is setting out on an 18-month journey to uncover Black history in America, with initial sponsor Salesforce willing to support it with a seven-figure deal. This partnership is coming to fruition at the same time that the advertising world had...
New York Times Staffers in Dispute Over N-Word
New York Post: A full-blown war has erupted inside the New York Times over the ouster of long-time science reporter Donald McNeil for his use of the N-word on a trip to Peru in 2019. Current and former staffers have been locked in heated debate since McNeil’s removal...
Air Mail Newsletter Opens Selective Online Store
Business of Fashion: In recent years, media companies have increasingly turned to e-commerce to supplant dwindling advertising sales, with revenue typically generated through affiliate marketing links. The Graydon Carter-led Air Mail has just launched its first...
US Publishers Vague About Returning to Offices
Digiday: The timeline for the eventual return to in-person work remains murky for US media companies, many of whom have spent the past year delaying once-optimistic plans for reopening. Asked to share their approach to an uncertain future, four media executives said...
Google Warns of Covid Hit on Company’s Culture
CNBC: As Google prepares to return workers to offices in 2021, it is warning it may take a productivity and financial hit in the process, according to the company's annual 10-K report. "As we prepare to return our workforce in more locations back to the office in...
Facebook Promises to Crack Down on Covid Lies
USA Today: Facebook is moving more aggressively to combat vaccine misinformation, taking down debunked claims on Facebook and Instagram including that vaccines cause autism or that it is safer for people to get Covid-19 than to receive the immunization. Facebook also...
Disney Plans Food Festival as Park Stays Closed
Los Angeles Times: It's still not clear when Disney's theme parks in Anaheim will reopen, but the House of Mouse hopes to appease its most ardent fans by holding a food and beverage festival on the grounds of its California Adventure Park in March. To help launch the...
Fox Corp Seeks to Halt $2.7 Billion Mega Lawsuit
Law & Crime: Lawyers for Fox Corp have filed a motion to dismiss a $2.7 billion lawsuit by Smartmatic, a maker of electronic voting technology. Smartmatic sued Fox News and Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro in New York state court for reports and...
ViacomCBS Helps Streamer Score at Super Bowl
Broadcasting & Cable: ViacomCBS ran 29 house ads during CBS’s broadcast of the Super Bowl, accounting for about 25% of commercial time during the game, according to an analysis by MediaRadar. Of those 29 promos, eight were for Paramount+, or about 30%....
Nielsen Delays Report on Super Bowl Viewership
Sports Business Journal: We won't learn the ratings for the Super Bowl until Tuesday morning, an extraordinary delay that has led to speculation the final viewership could drop significantly. "You all know if it takes too long, they're scrambling to figure out how to...
Disney: Longtime ESPN Reporter Dies at Age 58
ESPN: Pedro Gomez, an ESPN reporter since 2003 and one of the country's foremost baseball journalists, died unexpectedly Sunday. Gomez, who was based in Phoenix, covered baseball for SportsCenter, Baseball Tonight and other ESPN studio shows, live events and radio....
Fox Corp Preps Larry Kudlow Business TV Show
Los Angeles Times: Larry Kudlow will move into the Fox Business Network lineup next week, effectively replacing Lou Dobbs, whose program was canceled Friday. Kudlow's new program will air at 4 p.m. Eastern with a repeat at 7 p.m. Eastern. "Fox Business Tonight," which...
Discovery-Backed GB News Faces Early Boycott
Press Gazette: Hundreds of tweets have been directed to banks, mobile phone companies and other brands using the hashtag #DontFundGBNews. Although Britain's GB News has yet to broadcast a second of coverage, the campaign group Stop Funding Hate used articles from the...
Lupa Systems, from Murdoch, Eyes Asian Media
Bloomberg: James Murdoch's investment company Lupa Systems and a former senior executive at Disney's Asia unit are weighing a plan to raise funds through a special purpose acquisition company. The former chief executive officer of 21st Century Fox and Uday Shankar,...
Disney TV Veteran Unveils App for Youth Sports
The Information: Ben Sherwood's new app company Mojo is going live and hoping to attract legions of youth sports coaches along with the athletes and their families. Mojo is subscription-based and offers coaches instructional videos and practice drills. Sherwood is a...
Twitter Looks Into Adding Subscription Products
Bloomberg: Twitter is building a subscription product as a way to ease its dependence on advertising – a plan the social network has considered for years, and one that has taken on a heightened priority given the pandemic and pressure from activist investors to...
Reddit Valuation Doubles After Round of Funding
Wall Street Journal: Reddit doubled its valuation to $6 billion in a new round of funding that comes as the social-media company has added users through the Covid-19 pandemic and more recently has gained attention for its role in the recent Wall Street trading frenzy....
News Corp Preps Movie on GameStop from WSJ
Deadline: The Wall Street Journal has become one of the latest companies to explore the recent GameStop financial saga. Ben Silverman and Howard T. Owens' company is working with the Wall Street Journal Studios on the feature documentary, "This Is Not Financial...
New York Times Writer in Flap Over Tech Biggie
Mediaite: New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz locked her account on Twitter after falsely claiming that tech entrepreneur Marc Andreessen used a "slur" during a private chat online. "@PMarca just openly using the r-slur on Clubhouse tonight and not one other person...
Conde Nast Touts New Yorker Print Crosswords
New Yorker: Starting this week, The New Yorker's crossword will appear in every issue of the print magazine. These crosswords will also appear on the website, which will continue to offer the full range of New Yorker puzzles, with crosswords every Monday, Wednesday,...
Penske in Search for New Editor at Rolling Stone
Vanity Fair: Jason Fine, the editor of Rolling Stone since 2018, will be moving out of that role effectively immediately. There will now be a wide search for an editor in chief while two of Fine's erstwhile deputies, Sean Woods and Jerry Portwood, mind the store in...
Roundup: Older White Males Leaving Media Jobs
TheWrap: A new era is unfolding with the imminent departures of a generation of powerful leaders on the American news media landscape. The next cohort of editors who take their place will undoubtedly shape the future of journalism. "These are people I very deeply...
Amazon Scores with New Ad During Super Bowl
Associated Press: Amazon's Michael B. Jordan ad for Alexa and Cadillac's Edward Scissorhands update were hits during this year's Super Bowl, while overcomplicated ads like Michelob Ultra Organic Seltzer missed the mark. Amazon's commercial showed a woman fantasizing...
Netflix at Work on Six New Projects with Obamas
Reuters: Barack and Michelle Obama's production company announced six new projects in development for Netflix, including a love story with a supernatural twist and a young adult thriller. The former president and first lady's Higher Ground Productions will adapt...
Disney Forms Unit to Seek Creative Acquisitions
Deadline: Disney Television Studios is looking to ramp up its search for book and podcast IP that it can develop for the small-screen with a new division led by Elizabeth Newman and Jordan Moblo. The studio has set up a Creative Acquisitions Department to identify and...