ViacomCBS Suffers Super Bowl Streaming Glitch
AdAge: CBS All Access streaming had technical difficulties with its Super Bowl kickoff as some viewers trying to watch online were met with an error message. The issue was resolved for most viewers, but the disruption showed that the internet is not always the most...
Comcast’s NBC Sees Rising Star in ABC Veteran
Daily Mail: Tom Llamas is gearing up to become the new face of NBC News and potentially replace longtime anchor Lester Holt after he was poached from ABC. The 41-year-old news anchor announced he was stepping down after seven years at ABC as he signed off amid reports...
Fox Corp Cancels Lou Dobbs Business TV Show
Los Angeles Times: Fox News has canceled "Lou Dobbs Tonight," the program hosted by television's staunchest supporter of Donald Trump and of his assertions of voter fraud in the 2020 election. Dobbs's program, which airs twice nightly at 5 and 7 p.m. Eastern on the...
News Corp Plans Streaming TV News for Britain
Financial Times: Rupert Murdoch's media empire has unveiled its bet on the future of British news television with the soft launch of streaming services that will aim to bring the boisterous spirit of its media brands to the small screen. Murdoch's News UK is planning...
Analysis: News Industry Needs Streaming Model
CNBC: Simply folding news into entertainment-based streaming products makes little sense because audiences for news aren't very big, said Rich Greenfield, a media analyst at LightShed Partners. "News doesn't have that many viewers, and there's nothing that's going to...
TikTok to Fight Facebook with Push Into Shopping
Financial Times: TikTok is planning an aggressive expansion into e-commerce in the US, where it will go head-to-head with Facebook. The Chinese-owned viral-video app has briefed advertisers on a number of new features for 2021. The app is said to be rolling out...
Reddit Runs a Five-Second Ad During Super Bowl
The Verge: You could have been forgiven for missing Reddit's Super Bowl ad last night — it was only five seconds long. The ad mostly consisted of a text message that would've been pretty difficult to read in the moment, claiming that the company spent its "entire...
Twitter Bans Founder of Far-Right Gateway Pundit
Forbes: Jim Hoft, founder and editor of the far-right publication The Gateway Pundit, was suspended from Twitter on Saturday evening for violating platform rules. The account, @gatewaypundit, no longer has a presence on Twitter, save for a message that indicates the...
Hachette Pushes Out Pro-Trump Editorial Director
New York Times: Kate Hartson, the editorial director of Hachette Book Group's conservative Center Street imprint, was fired over her politics, she told her colleagues. Hachette has told employees that the company has learned the lessons of the Capitol siege on Jan. 6:...
New York Times Staffers Exit Over Past Behavior
New York Times: Two journalists responsible for some of the New York Times's most high-profile work of the last three years have left the paper after their past behavior was criticized inside and outside the organization. Donald G. McNeil Jr., a science correspondent,...
Tribune Faces Employee Union in New York City
New York Times: Journalists at the Daily News, the 101-year-old New York tabloid that has fallen on hard times after an ownership change, pay cuts and sweeping layoffs, said that they had formed a union. Newsroom employees at the paper, once a significant voice for...
Gannett Sells Newspapers to Family-Owned Firm
Poynter: A newspaper acquisition company announced that the country's largest newspaper chain was three papers smaller, thanks to a sale to a second-generation, family-owned newspaper company. Dirks, Van Essen & April announced that Reid Newspapers bought the...
Washington Post Snubs Media Acquisition Deals
Insider: The Washington Post has eyed targeted acquisitions in the past, including the video-game site Kotaku and the elections reporting service Decision Desk HQ. New Yorker: "Local journalism has to find its own model — and I believe pretty firmly that that model...
Conde Nast at Odds with Workers at New Yorker
Insider: A strike authorization vote is in the works at The New Yorker, an escalation that could lead to the most high-profile showdown between organized labor and a media company since a wave of unionization first swept the industry in 2015. Workers and management...
Penske in Deal for Streaming from Rolling Stone
Wall Street Journal: Rolling Stone magazine will start producing original videos for Twitch, in an arrangement that makes the famed music and pop-culture magazine the first mainstream publication to sign a long-term content deal with Amazon's live-video streaming...
G/O Media Sees Exit of Longtime Editor at Kotaku
Washington Post: Stephen Totilo, editor in chief of gaming news site Kotaku, announced his departure Friday afternoon. "Tomorrow, I will simply be a reader of Kotaku, like so many of you," he tweeted. Under his leadership, the site became a destination for coverage of...
Bustle Digital Plots a Big Business in Newsletters
Digiday: By the end of 2021, Bustle Digital Group wants to attract 10 million subscribers across all of its brands' newsletters and increase the newsletter business from a seven-figure revenue stream to an eight-figure revenue stream year-over-year. In January, the...
Air Mail Newsletter Finds Growth Amid Pandemic
WWD: Graydon Carter said Air Mail performed "exceptionally" in 2020, not losing a single advertiser and growing circulation by around 10 percent per month. And he expects it to do even better after the pandemic, as much of its content was originally planned around...
ViacomCBS Braces for ‘Most Streamed TV Event’
Adweek: There are about to be more ways than ever to stream the Super Bowl, thanks to wider availability and the proliferation of smart TVs. As Sunday approaches, connected TV platforms are preparing for what they anticipate will be "the most streamed TV event to...
AT&T’s WarnerMedia Preps Exit for Head of CNN
New York Times: The long timeline for Jeff Zucker's departure from CNN guarantees that speculation will continue to swirl around other possibilities: that he could lead a buyout of CNN from AT&T, or that he could replace Jason Kilar at the helm of WarnerMedia....
Fox Corp Faces $2.7 Billion Voting Tech Lawsuit
Associated Press: A voting technology company is suing Fox News, three of its hosts and two former lawyers for Donald Trump — Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell — for $2.7 billion, charging that the defendants conspired to spread false claims that the company helped...
Comcast to Expand Franchise for ‘Dateline NBC’
Associated Press: After the format worked for HBO and Netflix, "Dateline NBC" is trying its own version of a multi-part true crime drama this month. The newsmagazine premieres "The Widower," about a Las Vegas man who had four of his six wives die under mysterious...
Vice Media Says Its Staff is Now Majority Female
Variety: A seismic shift in the work culture and make-up of Vice Media under CEO Nancy Dubuc appears to be paying dividends, as per the company's new diversity and inclusion report. It reveals that women now comprise over half of the Shane Smith-founded company's...
iHeartMedia Debuts New Podcast with Bill Clinton
Rolling Stone: Bill Clinton has launched a new podcast called "Why Am I Telling You This?" via IHeartMedia. In the 46-minute first episode of the interview series, the former president — a saxophone player and jazz aficionado —chatted with Wynton Marsalis about that...
SAG Delivers Parting Shot on Trump Resignation
Los Angeles Times: Donald Trump resigned from SAG-AFTRA and lashed out at the performers' union after it revealed plans last month to expel him. "Who cares!" Trump said in his letter, to what he described as the "so-called" union. He touted his cameo appearances in...
Apple, Netflix Spend Big Bucks at Sundance Fest
Bloomberg: Apple and other buyers threw cash at independent films at the Sundance Film Festival as they jostled for movies they thought could bolster their streaming platforms. Apple spent $25 million for “Coda,” a drama about a woman with a deaf family, in a sale...
Facebook Postings Dim Career of Armie Hammer
Variety: Armie Hammer's Hollywood career is in freefall as his sex scandal explodes on social media. Hammer made a statement that confirmed content surfacing on the internet was "stolen from my private Instagram." Hammer’s legal team is in the process of subpoenaing...
Clubhouse Social Audio App Attracts Zuckerberg
@melodyhahm: Mark Zuckerberg made a surprise appearance on Clubhouse, the invite-only social audio app, on Thursday night. The app was "glitching and having technical difficulties," with the "room at capacity." of 5,000. The Facebook CEO is said to have discussed...
Snap, Pinterest Log User Growth Amid Pandemic
Wall Street Journal: Snap and Pinterest added millions more new users than expected in their latest quarters, showing strong growth in social-media use during the Covid-19 pandemic. Snap, the parent of ephemeral-messaging platform Snapchat, ended the quarter with 265...
Google Launches Showcase for News in Australia
Guardian: Google has launched its News Showcase product in Australia with seven Australian publishers the internet giant will pay to host content. The initial deals cover 25 mastheads, including the Canberra Times, the Illawarra Mercury, the Saturday Paper and Crikey....