New York Times Eyes Conde Nast’s Niche in Cooking
Business Insider: The New York Times's cooking product is ramping up its investment in video and borrowing from rival Bon Appétit's playbook as it seeks to win over the coveted home chef audience. NYT Cooking has invested in a new kitchen studio and is expanding the...
Los Angeles Times Circles Media Veterans for Editor
New York Post: The team searching for a new top editor for the Los Angeles Times is still wading through a long list of potential candidates but expects to announce a permanent executive editor by the end of the first quarter. No frontrunners have yet to emerge, but...
Conde Nast’s Vogue Cover Helps Lift Sneaker Brand
WWD: After the divisive Vogue cover of Kamala Harris, online mentions of sneaker maker Converse multiplied more than tenfold, according to Launchmetrics. The data and analytics firm tallied $5.5 million in media impact value and more than 1,000 placements since...
A360’s Celeb Magazines in a Fuss Over Advertorials
New York Post: The latest issues of Star and In Touch magazines ran a full-page ad for cosmetics retailer Sephora that was designed to look like editorial copy without warning readers that it was paid advertising content. The error appeared to be the result of a...
Group Nine to Go Public Seeking Digital Media M&A
Variety: Group Nine Media's special purpose acquisition company announced pricing of its initial public offering of 20 million units at $10 apiece, for total gross proceeds of $200 million. Group Nine Acquisition Corp's securities will begin trading Jan. 15. Group...
Politico Staff Objects to Right-Winger on Newsletter
New York Times: Politico is facing a backlash from its staff after it handed its Playbook newsletter, a popular morning read in Washington, to the right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro for a day. More than 200 members of the staff joined a Zoom call with the editor in...
Axios Unveils $10,000 Tool to Help Companies Write
Wall Street Journal: Axios is launching AxiosHQ, a software tool that will enable businesses to update their employees — including through internal newsletters — in Axios's punchy, just-the-facts, bullet-point style. Axios said the tool will cost at least $10,000 a...
Medium to Acquire Platform for Talking About Books
CNN: Medium, launched in 2012 by Twitter cofounder Ev Williams, has been the platform of choice for public figures. Now through a new acquisition, Medium has another way to entice people to read its content and write for its network. Medium is acquiring Glose, a...
Google Pauses Political Ads After Riot at US Capitol
Axios: Google has informed its advertising partners that its platforms will block all political ads, as well as any related to the Capitol insurrection, "following the unprecedented events of the past week and ahead of the upcoming presidential inauguration." Google...
Amazon Ad Business is Forecast to Gain Most Share
CNBC: Amazon will be the leading share gainer among the major digital ads businesses in 2021 and 2022, according to a new ad buyer survey from Cowen. Amazon's ad business will continue to grow as more spend comes from TV, search and other digital platforms and as...
Facebook COO Deflects Blame for US Capitol Attack
Washington Post: Ahead of the US Capitol march, President Trump supporters promoted it extensively on Facebook and used it to organize bus trips to Washington. More than 100,000 users posted hashtags affiliated with the movement prompted by baseless claims of election...
Netflix Says Almost Half of Its Employees Are Female
Bloomberg: Netflix has made gains in adding women and minorities to its workforce over the past three years, vaulting it past Silicon Valley peers, according to the company's first-ever report on diversity and inclusion. Women made up 47% of its workforce in 2020, up...
Disney Silent on Trump’s Future in Hall of Presidents
Orlando Weekly: Disney has faced renewed calls to close the Hall of Presidents attraction at the company's Florida theme park in the aftermath of the riot at the US Capitol. The President Trump animatronic figure has been subjected to protest and derision since it was...
Lionsgate Film Star Slams Online ‘Bull–t’ in Departure
Deadline: Armie Hammer has responded to the salacious news on social media about him, and his recent departure from Lionsgate's Jennifer Lopez movie "Shotgun Wedding." In a statement, the actor said: "I'm not responding to these bullshit claims but in light of the...
Comcast’s NBC Helps Create Ads for Tokyo Olympics
Adweek: NBC is currently working with marketers to craft more effective ads for the Tokyo Olympics. It's creating an Olympics Ad Engine that uses past Games' spots and data to make suggestions on how their new spots can be modified to achieve different marketing...
Fox Corp Won’t Air Broadcast TV Inauguration Show
Politico: Joe Biden’s team is planning an inauguration celebrity TV special to air on broadcast channels ABC, CBS and NBC — but not Fox. Cable news networks CNN and MSNBC will carry it live. A spokesperson for Fox News says they will not carry the entire special but...
Lupa, from Murdoch, Plans Venture with Disney Alum
Financial Times: James Murdoch is embarking on an ambitious new media venture in India after reuniting with Uday Shankar, the executive who helped build the Murdoch family's Star television empire before leading Disney's Asia arm. The project brings back together one...
Twitter CEO: Internet Companies Are ‘Too Powerful’
CNBC: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on Wednesday that banning President Trump was the "right decision for Twitter," but admitted that the internet shouldn't be controlled by a handful of private companies. In a series of 13 tweets, Dorsey said that online speech...
Snap Permanently Bans Trump Account on Snapchat
Axios: Snapchat will permanently ban President Trump's account, after locking it indefinitely last week following the siege at the US Capitol. The Trump campaign and digital team relied on Snapchat as a key platform to reach younger audiences before the company...
Spotify Seeks More Joe Rogans in Push for Podcasts
Bloomberg Businessweek: In the past two years, Spotify has spent close to $900 million acquiring podcast production and technology companies. And it's spent millions more on exclusive rights to shows from celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and TikTok star Addison Rae....
News Corp Picks the News Outlets Off-Limits to Staff
New York Times: The New York Post instructed staff members this week not to use reporting from CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post as the sole basis for any article. The order was handed down by Michelle Gotthelf, the editor in chief of nypost.com,...
Forbes CEO Doesn’t Support Ban of Trump ‘Fabulists’
Fox News: Steve Forbes, the chairman and CEO of Forbes Media, denounced blacklists of Trump administration officials in his defense of a controversial op-ed in his magazine threatening companies who hire Trump "fabulists." Said Forbes: "Unlike Twitter, media giants...
Meredith Touts Online Record at Digital Publications
MediaPost: Meredith said its digital group last month saw a record number of online sessions and higher viewership metrics. Meredith Digital's online sessions grew 13% to 685 million in December from a year earlier, surpassing the prior record of 680 million in April....
Penske to Part with Longtime Fashion Critic at WWD
The Cut: Bridget Foley, the executive editor of Women's Wear Daily, and a pillar of the paper's fashion coverage for more than 30 years, was laid off from her position. "It's a huge part of my life,” Foley said. "I was privileged as a chronicler, and also as a...
Clarim Names Business Journalist as Content Officer
Talking Biz News: James Ledbetter has been hired as chief content officer of Clarim Media, the parent company of Worth magazine and Techonomy. Ledbetter said that Clarim will continue the fintech newsletter he started last year. "The fact that the leadership at Clarim...
Quartz Promotes Sales Exec to Chief Revenue Officer
MediaPost: Quartz has named Natalie Diamond as chief revenue officer, charged with overseeing the publication's advertising business. Previously, Diamond, who has been with the company since 2014, was VP of partnerships and managed the global sales team. She has also...
Google Drops Trump After Violating Policy on YouTube
Reuters: YouTube said on Tuesday it has suspended Donald Trump's channel as it violated policies for inciting violence after last week's assault on the US Capitol by the president's supporters. Trump's channel is now prevented from uploading new videos or livestreams...
Netflix Unveils Plan to Release 70 New Movies in 2021
Bloomberg: Netflix said it will release 70 original movies in 2021, the streaming service's most ambitious slate yet as the theatrical movie business remains stuck in limbo. Netflix's lineup of movies includes one of its most expensive to date, "Red Notice," an action...
Disney Bests Netflix in Most Popular Streaming Films
Los Angeles Times: Disney+ represented 6% of the average amount of time consumers spent streaming weekly in December, a significant achievement for the subscription service that launched November 2019, according to data released from Nielsen. Meanwhile, the most...
AT&T, Comcast Stir Chatter of Mega Media Mergers
Business Insider: Media insiders have been speculating about potential industry-shaking deals in 2021, like a merger of AT&T's WarnerMedia and Comcast's NBCUniversal or a tech takeover of MGM or Lionsgate. "Firms like Comcast and AT&T already dismantled...