Google, Facebook Agree to Team for Antitrust Fight
Wall Street Journal: Google and Facebook agreed to "cooperate and assist one another" if they ever faced an investigation into their pact to work together in online advertising, according to an unredacted version of a lawsuit filed by 10 states against Google last...
MGM Explores a Sale as Media Stock Up on Content
Wall Street Journal: MGM, the movie studio behind the "James Bond" franchise, is exploring a sale, betting that its library of content will prove attractive to companies pursuing growth in streaming video. MGM has tapped investment banks Morgan Stanley and LionTree...
Disney Names New Film Chief Amid Streaming Push
CNBC: Alan Horn is stepping down as co-chairman of Walt Disney Studios, but will remain with the company as chief creative officer. Alan Bergman will run Disney's studio content as the sole chairman. The shifts come after Disney announced that it was restructuring to...
AT&T Unhappy with Bids to Buy Struggling DirecTV
New York Post: AT&T's attempt to unload DirecTV has been thrown into doubt, as the telecom giant has signaled it's unhappy with the offers it has received for the struggling satellite TV service. Earlier this month, AT&T pushed back a deadline for final bids...
ViacomCBS’s Super Bowl Ad Slots Likely a Bargain
CNBC: With the pandemic impacting NFL scheduling, advertisers who are not yet committed to the Super Bowl could see last-minute discounts for slots. CBS is likely package the Super Bowl with other NFL or sports programming packages to make it attractive for companies...
Fox Corp’s News Channel Sees GOP Flee to Upstart
Vanity Fair: Republican lawmakers and other GOP officials are increasingly appearing on Newsmax, the right-wing cable channel that gained traction by embracing President Trump’s election denialism claims even when, in some cases, they were too radical for Fox News...
WPP Slashes New York Office Space in Cost Cutting
Business Insider: WPP will shed 700,000 square feet, or around one-third, of its New York City office space as part of a plan to reduce global real estate costs by up to 20% in the next five years. As part of the downsizing, ad agency Ogilvy will ditch its...
Twitter CEO No Longer Follows Trump, Biden, Harris
Reuters: Jack Dorsey appeared to stop following President Trump on Twitter this weekend. The Twitter CEO also unfollowed President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, as well as the account of Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump. Trump has lost 368,743...
Bloomberg News: No Bias in ‘Pharma Bro’ Coverage
New York Times: Bloomberg News said it had found no bias in former reporter Christie Smythe's coverage of Martin Shkreli, a story recalled in an Elle magazine article posted online Sunday. "Ms. Smythe's conduct with regard to Mr. Shkreli was not consistent with...
Hearst’s Elle ‘Pharma Bro’ Story Stirs Up Hollywood
New York: Stephanie Clifford, the writer of "The Journalist and the Pharma Bro," said she is now fielding requests from Hollywood for adaptations. It takes a lot to get everyone on the Internet to read the same thing, but on Sunday night, Clifford's article on Elle's...
Meredith Titles Among 2020’s Notable New Glossies
Tech-media-tainment: Celebrity-branded lifestyle magazines continued to be a hot trend this year. Meredith launched three such titles in 2020. In January, it released Reveal magazine, with Drew and Jonathan Scott, as well as Rachael Ray in Season. April brought Sweet...
Conde Nast Editor Names Favorite Magazine Cover
Deez Links: Does Vanity Fair's Radhika Jones have an all-time favorite magazine cover? "For me, it’s the cover that represents the possibility of what a magazine can do. When I think about the possibilities of Vanity Fair, I think about, can you make an image that...
Hearst Former Newspaper Gets Another New Owner
San Francisco Business Times: Bay Area real-estate magnate Clint Reilly has acquired the 155-year old San Francisco Examiner, along with SF Weekly. "I've always felt the Examiner is one of the great brands of American journalism, the flagship of the Hearst Corp until...
New York Times Preps Year-End Leadership Change
Guardian: This month, at 69, Arthur Sulzberger Jr will retire as company chairman, after decades of speculation that he would be the last Sulzberger to run the business. Sulzberger will hand over a healthy, thriving enterprise to his son AG Sulzberger, giving the...
Washington Post Opens News Hubs in Europe, Asia
MediaPost: The Washington Post said it will create breaking news hubs in London and Seoul to cover live news in the US and around the world. "WaPo will be able to operate energetically and rapidly 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with a particular emphasis on the...
Financial Times to Cut 64 Staffers Amid Pay Dispute
Press Gazette: Hits to advertising revenue and events income mean the Financial Times is expected to make a small loss in 2020. The FT is said to be proposing to make 64 redundancies out of a global workforce of 2,300 (700 of whom are journalists). The redundancies...
Ebony Sells Magazine Brands to Former NBA Player
Wall Street Journal: Ebony Media plans to sell its business to an investment group led by former NBA player Ulysses “Junior” Bridgeman for about $14 million, the only serious offer received by the bankrupt publisher of Black magazines. Ebony stopped publishing in...
Group Nine Media Forms SPAC to Buy Competitors
The Wrap: Group Nine Media has formed a special purpose acquisition company, according to an SEC filing. The company, called Group Nine Acquisition Corp, was formed "for the purpose of effecting a merger, capital stock exchange, asset acquisition, stock purchase,...
Vox Media’s New York Mag Merch to Support Locals
MediaPost: New York magazine has partnered with Neighborhood Spot to create a capsule collection, based on the 16th annual "Reasons to Love New York" issue, a tribute to 500 local businesses forced to close this year, since the coronavirus pandemic...
Apple Shutters Stores After New Coronavirus Surge
Reuters: Apple has temporarily shut all of its 53 stores in California because of a coronavirus outbreak and 16 stores in the United Kingdom following restrictions introduced by the government in London. The company said it was temporarily shutting some stores in...
Google Offers Free Covid Testing as Employee Perk
Wall Street Journal: Google has come up with a new perk for Silicon Valley's famously pampered workforce: Free, weekly, at-home Covid-19 testing. The search giant rolled out the new benefit for all of its 90,000 US employees. The offer proved so popular that Google’s...
Fox Corp Chief Gets Vaccine Amid Fox News Doubts
Reuters: Rupert Murdoch received a dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, a day before prominent opinion host Fox News's Tucker Carlson raised suspicion over the marketing strategy for the vaccine. The 89-year-old Murdoch received the vaccine at his local doctor's office in...
Comcast’s NBC Adds Empathy to Nightly Newscast
Associated Press: During this brutal news year, Lester Holt has concluded that telling stories isn't enough. The "NBC Nightly News" anchor frequently ends his broadcasts now with commentaries, an unusual departure for network evening newscasts that have more than a...
ViacomCBS, Comcast See Declines in Broadcast TV
MediaPost: For much of this year -- starting with the Covid-19 pandemic in March -- TV network ratings, especially those of major broadcast networks, have seen steeper declines than in past seasons. The top four networks collectively are down 17% in Nielsen-measured...
AT&T’s ‘Wonder Woman’ Opens in Foreign Theaters
Bloomberg: The Warner Bros. superhero flick "Wonder Woman 1984" opened in 32 markets around the world this weekend, bringing in $38.5 million in box-office receipts. The movie will appear in US theaters on Christmas Day, with a simultaneous debut on the streaming...
Vivendi Inks Deal with Tencent Over Universal Music
Bloomberg: A Tencent-led consortium will acquire an additional 10% of Universal Music Group, in a deal that values the world's biggest music company at nearly $37 billion. The purchase will bring Tencent's holding in the music group to 20% following a deal last year...
Sony Pulls Game from PlayStation After Complaints
New York Post: Sony has yanked "Cyberpunk 2077" from its PlayStation store following widespread complaints about glitches in the futuristic video game. Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that it was removing the game from its digital store "until further...
Disney Taps TikTok Stars for Reality Series on Hulu
Los Angeles Times: TikTok superstars Charli and Dixie D'Amelio are gearing up to conquer a new medium: TV. Hulu is developing an unscripted series starring the social media sister act and their parents. Scheduled for a 2021 debut, "The D'Amelio Show" will chart its...
Univision Plans Streaming Service for Debut in 2021
Bloomberg: Univision plans to launch a fresh streaming service in the first half of next year, a bet by new leadership that the Spanish-language broadcaster can attract more viewers with a bigger online presence. The service is expected to include advertising and rely...
Netflix Films, TV Series on Obama List of 2020 Faves
Los Angeles Times: Step aside, Oprah: Former President Obama has plugged more than two-score films, TV series and books in his annual list of his favorite things. Topping his visual-storytelling list were Netflix's biopic "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," released Friday...