Sources: Disney is lowering ad CPM rates for Disney+ in a bid to win overall commitments during the upfront market; rivals fret about matching Disney's rates (Brian Steinberg/Variety)

Mediagazer: Sources: Disney is lowering ad CPM rates for Disney+ in a bid to win overall commitments during the upfront market; rivals fret about matching Disney's rates (Brian Steinberg/Variety)

Top News:

Axios:

At Cannes, X CEO Linda Yaccarino says the platform is in conversations with sports leagues about producing more docuseries, like the NWSL series The Offseason— - About 70% of the conversation ahead of the Paris Olympics this summer is about women's teams, she added.
Discussion: @xnews, The Hollywood Reporter, @axios, Awful Announcing, @warriorrabbit.bsky.social and The Information

Discussion:
@axios: X is in conversations with sports leagues about producing more docuseries on the platform, CEO Linda Yaccarino tells Axios at Women's Sports House in Cannes. https://www.axios.com/...

RELATED:
Bloomberg:

Elon Musk tried to repair his often strained relationship with the ad industry through an appearance at the Cannes Lions, after Twitter skipped 2023's event— Elon Musk attempted to repair his often strained relationship with the advertising industry with an appearance at the Cannes Lions conference in France on Wednesday.

Discussion:
PRWeek, Adweek, Fast Company, Axios, Business Insider, Electrek, CNN, Quartz, @pkafka, The Daily Beast, Financial Times, @kerrymflynn, @benatipsos, @dimazeniuk, @megancgraham, @joeatlarge@mastodon.world, Ad Age, The Media Leader, @jonlax@threads.net, Arlo Brady on LinkedIn, New York Post, Wall Street Journal, The Drum, MediaPost and Deadline

Discussion:

Lucy Shelley /
PRWeek: Elon Musk on artistic ads, ‘foolish’ posts and telling advertisers to go fuck themselves

Jameson Fleming /
Adweek: Mark Read and Mark Penn Defend Meeting With Elon Musk at Cannes

Jeff Beer /
Fast Company: Elon Musk burned a bridge with advertisers. His new pitch isn't enough to rebuild it

Peter Kafka /
Business Insider: Elon Musk really wants advertisers' money. But he also wants to keep tweeting. He can't have both.

Peter Kafka /
@pkafka: Saw folks describing Elon's Cannes ad pitch as a walkback/retreat etc. And, true: This time he didn't tell advertisers to go fuck themselves. But ad buyers' biggest problem with Twitter is the guy who owns it, and what he says on it. And that's not going to change. [image]

Laura Bradley /
The Daily Beast: Elon Musk Tries to Make Nice With Advertisers at Cannes

Kerry Flynn /
@kerrymflynn: My dispatch from @elonmusk's appearance at @Cannes_Lions “What is not cool is insisting that there can be no content they disagree with on the platform,” Elon Musk told advertisers at Cannes https://www.axios.com/...

Ben Page /
@benatipsos: Elon here in Cannes “I do shoot myself in the foot from time to time but at least you knownit is genuine, not from the pr dept” #musk @elonmusk [image]

Dima Zeniuk /
@dimazeniuk: WPP CEO Mark Read at Cannes Lions conference: “In November, you told us to go f*ck ourselves.... Why did you say that, and what did you mean?” “It wasn't to advertisers as a whole; it was with respect to freedom of speech.” - Elon Musk [image]

Meg Graham /
@megancgraham: At @Cannes_Lions, WPP's Mark Read asks Elon Musk: “In November, you told us to go fuck ourselves.... Why did you say that and what did you mean?” Musk: “it wasn't to advertisers as a whole, it was with respect to freedom of speech...” [image] @joeatlarge@mastodon.world: Can't wait for X/Twitter/whatever to finally die already and take its owner with it. — https://www.axios.com/... #Twitter #twittermigration #x

E.J. Schultz /
Ad Age: Cannes Today—Musk meets marketers, Marcel explains 'WoMen's Football'—plus the Grand Prix winners

Arif Durrani /
The Media Leader: How Elon Musk tried to woo back brands at Cannes

Jon Lax /
@jonlax@threads.net: Elon trying to convince advertisers to spend money on X while running ads telling users to pay for premium because ads are a waste of their time is really something.

Arlo Brady /
Arlo Brady on LinkedIn: Elon Musk's Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity interview with WPP's Mark Read today was fascinating on many levels. Four things that stuck me: …

Ariel Zilber /
New York Post: Elon Musk clarifies ‘go f-k yourself’ comment as he tries to woo advertisers at Cannes Lions

Megan Graham /
Wall Street Journal: Elon Musk Pitches Advertisers on a Return to X, Months After Telling Some to ‘F’ Themselves

Kendra Barnett /
The Drum: Elon Musk on why he told advertisers to ‘go fuck yourself’ - and why he wants them back

Variety:

Sources: Sony is acquiring Queen's music catalog, excluding live performances, for £1B; Disney retains recorded music rights in the US and Canada— The Queen music catalog, along with a number of other rights, is in the process of being acquired by Sony Music for £1 billion …

Discussion:
Hits Daily Double!, Forbes, Metro.co.uk, Rolling Stone, Digital Music News, CMU, New Jersey Online, Breitbart, PinkNews, UPROXX, NME, Music Business Worldwide, TMZ.com and Consequence

Discussion:
Hits Daily Double!: QUEEN OF DIAMONDS — THEY ARE THE CHAMPIONS: Word has it that Sony Music has prevailed …

Laura Harman /
Metro.co.uk: Legendary 70s rock band's catalogue of hits being sold for $1,270,000,000

Dylan Smith /
Digital Music News: Queen Catalog Sale Inches Towards Reality — Sony Music Reportedly Set to Pay a Staggering $1.27 Billion

Saleah Blancaflor /
New Jersey Online: Legendary classic rock band sells recordings for $1.27 billion, largest sale ever

Simon Kent /
Breitbart: Sony Buys Queen Music Catalog for $1 Billion

Marcus Wratten /
PinkNews: Queen's Brian May says calling Freddie Mercury ‘queer’ would've ‘upset’ him

Megan Armstrong /
UPROXX: Is Queen's Catalog Sale For $1.2 Billion The Biggest Deal Of Its Kind Ever?

Surej Singh /
NME: Queen sell music catalogue to Sony Music for over $1billion

Mandy Dalugdug /
Music Business Worldwide: Queen catalog to be acquired by Sony Music in $1.27bn deal (report)

The Guardian:

Sources: WaPo's Will Lewis advised Boris Johnson and others to “clean up” their phones during UK's COVID-era Partygate scandal in December 2021 and January 2022— Sources' claim suggests advice by Will Lewis, an informal adviser to then prime minister, contradicted instructions to staff

Discussion:

Dan Kennedy /
Media Nation: Drip, drip, drip — Three new data points in the ongoing implosion of Washington Post publisher Will Lewis:

Jason Pedlow /
@jasonpedlow: Corruption at the highest levels of government. Deleting evidence. And, judging by the number of times @RishiSunak & @BorisJohnson said they “couldn't recall” while they gave evidence to the Covid enquiry, they deleted their memories too. https://www.theguardian.com/ ...

Peter Jukes /
@peterjukes: Lewis was a member of a so-called “brain trust” of Johnson's close political allies who were leading an effort - codenamed Operation Save Big Dog. Lewis was awarded a knighthood in 2023 for his political service to the conservative prime minister https://www.theguardian.com/ ...

David Beard /
@dabeard: In terrible news for the battered ⁦@washingtonpost⁩, now we know the justice-obstructing “service” its new publisher performed for the UK's disgraced conservative prime minister. And why he got a knighthood. https://www.theguardian.com/ ...

Jenn Gidman /
Newser: New WaPo Publisher Was Part of ‘Operation Save Big Dog’

Will Bunch /
@will_bunch: Just like the time Ben Bradlee advised Richard Nixon to burn the White House tapes

Gabe Fleisher /
Wake Up To Politics: Trump, Biden prep for high-stakes debate

Adam Bienkov /
@adambienkov: A reminder that there were 5,000 WhatsApp messages missing from Boris Johnson's phone when he gave it to the Covid Inquiry. Deliberately destroying evidence demanded by a public inquiry is a serious criminal offence punishable by up to a year in prison https://www.theguardian.com/ ... [image]

David Rothkopf /
@djrothkopf: They need to fire this guy and rescind the offer to his colleague asap. The longer this goes on, the longer Bezos appears indifferent to it, the deeper and more lasting the damage to the Post.

Kara Swisher /
@karaswisher: The hits keep on coming: Washington Post publisher alleged to have advised Boris Johnson to ‘clean up’ phone during Partygate Covid scandal | Will Lewis | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/ ...

Jack Shafer /
@jackshafer: “Washington Post publisher alleged to have advised Boris Johnson to ‘clean up’ phone during Partygate Covid scandal” https://www.theguardian.com/ ...

Clara Jeffery /
@clarajeffery: This should be the final nail in the coffin... should be https://www.theguardian.com/ ...

Dan Ladden-Hall /
The Daily Beast: Washington Post CEO Advised Boris Johnson to ‘Clean Up’ Phone in COVID Party Scandal: Report

Tim Dickinson /
@7im: Democracy is Deleted in Darkness @dougiec3@libretooth.gr: Three sources say Will Lewis told Tories to delete evidence from their phones to cover up Partygate. — https://www.theguardian.com/ ... #Partgate #BorisJohnson #Tories #England #COVID #Lockdown

Jeff Jarvis /
@jeffjarvis@mastodon.social: Call him Sir Won't Lewis. You won't be publishing incriminating news about me, now will you? You won't read emails from New Corp's hacking scandal; they're gone. You won't have Boris Johnson's Covid party texts; they gone. He won't soon be CEO of the Post. Or Will he? …

Isabella Ramírez /
Politico: Jeff Bezos weighs in on Washington Post leadership saga

Oliver Darcy /
CNN: Jeff Bezos moves to calm concerns at The Washington Post as new publisher faces mounting ethics questions

Sara Fischer /
Axios: Washington Post turmoil reels in familiar faces

Wired:

Analysis: Perplexity seems to scrape sites using surreptitious methods, ignoring robots.txt, with a Perplexity-tied machine doing so on Wired and other sites— A WIRED investigation shows that the AI-powered search startup Forbes has accused of stealing its content is surreptitiously scraping—and making things up out of thin air.

Discussion:
Gizmodo, Jonathan Usher on LinkedIn, @rafat, @jessicalessin, @carnage4life, @katiedrumm, @olifranklin, @dmehro, @clive@saturation.social, @johnvoorhees@mastodon …, @technicallymims@threads.net, @benedictevans@threads.net, @johnkoetsier@threads.net, @noahshachtman@threads.net, @bernie_michalik@threads.net, @LeftistLawyer@kolektiva …, @howelloneill@infosec.exchange, @timmarchman.bsky.social and Axios

Discussion:

Jonathan Usher /
Jonathan Usher on LinkedIn: What on earth is Perplexity up to? As reported by WIRED it is seemingly ignoring requests from website admins not to crawl their sites …

Jessica Lessin /
@jessicalessin: Killer reporting from @WIRED. Hopefully this is a wake-up call to publishers about AI companies not being into the business of news. https://www.wired.com/...

Dare Obasanjo /
@carnage4life: Wired has discovered that Perplexity's crawler ignores robots.txt directives that block AI crawlers. Given the choice of spending millions licensing content like Google & OpenAI or having outdated info, it's sad but not surprising some startups are taking the third option. [image]

Katie Drummond /
@katiedrumm: A @wired investigation found that Perplexity is ignoring robots.txt — despite vowing to honor block requests. Perplexity has published a list of IP addresses its crawlers use. The company seems to be scraping sites using an IP address *not* on that list. https://www.wired.com/...

Oli Franklin-Wallis /
@olifranklin: Incredible @WIRED investigation shows Perplexity, the much-hyped, AI-powered Google search alternative funded by Bezos and others, is intentionally ripping off publishers' copyrighted work - and reveals exactly how they're doing it. https://www.wired.com/... [image]

Dhruv Mehrotra /
@dmehro: NEW: Perplexity is ignoring the Robots Exclusion Protocol (robots.txt), using a secret server to regurgitate news articles and investigations that take reporters years to create, often without giving us credit. W/ @timmarchman https://www.wired.com/...

Clive Thompson /
@clive@saturation.social: A terrific investigation at @WIRED finds that Perplexity scrapes and (sometimes with bullshit added) summarizes web sites that it has been explicitly told, by those web site owners, not to visit — https://www.wired.com/... Excellent work by @dmehro and @timmarchman @johnvoorhees@mastodon.macstories.net: Wired has corroborated what @robb discovered over the weekend while helping us prevent AI crawlers from accessing @macstories: — Perplexity is straight up shady. @WIRED's story: https://www.wired.com/...

Christopher Mims /
@technicallymims@threads.net: perplexity is ignoring robots.txt prohibitions against scraping content

Benedict Evans /
@benedictevans@threads.net: Probably not a good thing that Perplexity appears to be breaking robots.txt and lying about it. I hope it's not the new Stability. https://www.wired.com/...

John Koetsier /
@johnkoetsier@threads.net: Whoa Looks like Perplexity AI is scraping content behind robots.txt barriers from hidden IP addresses not publicly acknowledged by the company. So ... Unethically ripping off content , but also doing it in an unethical way. https://www.wired.com/...

Noah Shachtman /
@noahshachtman@threads.net: .@perplexity.ai is using a secret server to steal journalists' work, often without credit https://www.wired.com/...

Bernie Michalik /
@bernie_michalik@threads.net: If you still think Perplexity is good and you should use it after this, idk (via @technicallymims ) @LeftistLawyer@kolektiva.social: The hits are coming hard and fast now. With good reason, nobody trusts the tech sector anymore. Nvidia is now the most *valuable* company in the world. Is anyone seeing a pattern? The bubble will explode soon. — https://www.wired.com/...

Patrick Howell O'Neill /
@howelloneill@infosec.exchange: The fact that there hasn't been stronger legal action from publications against AI-branded plagiarists is wild to me. You have to protect your work when it's being stolen. https://www.axios.com/...

Tim Marchman /
@timmarchman.bsky.social: New from me and @dmehro.bsky.social: Despite claiming it isn't, Perplexity, the billion dollar AI search startup Forbes has accused of plagiarism, is scraping websites, including WIRED, from which developers have tried to block its crawlers.

Business Insider:

MoffettNathanson: Q1 2024 was the worst quarter the pay-TV business has ever seen, losing 2.37M subscribers, down 6.9%, and even YouTube TV slightly shrank— - Pay TV just suffered its worst quarter in history — a stunning 6.9% drop. — The TV industry used to hope digital services …

Discussion:
The Streamable, Nielsen, Awful Announcing, @penenberg, The Overspill, @nicksologist, @chrifamouamo1, @pkafka, @thatniggaephy, @chrifamouamo1, @pkafka, Next TV, Cord Cutters News and The Hill

Discussion:

David Satin /
The Streamable: YouTube TV Loses Estimated 150,000 Subscribers in First Quarter; Has the Streamer Peaked?

Arthur Weinstein /
Awful Announcing: Pay-TV providers suffered record subscriber losses in Q1 2024

Adam L. Penenberg /
@penenberg: @pkafka It's dismal and has gotten more expensive. Talking to you, @Ask_Spectrum It's like you're begging customers to pull the plug, like we'd be doing you a favor.

Charlesarthur /
The Overspill: Start Up No.2238: Qualcomm settles shareholder lawsuit, Apple lessens Vision Pro?, weight-loss jab trouble, cable TV slumps, and more

Nick Hennen /
@nicksologist: @pkafka @DylanByers I dumped @YouTubeTV . — as much as I love it it is way over priced @chrifamouamo1: @pkafka Shocked that xfinity and the others haven't offered genre packs or tiny tiers They're still playing the all or nothing game

Peter Kafka /
@pkafka: @mhudack Slowly and then all at once

Some Black Guy /
@thatniggaephy: @pkafka Wrote about the trend from an spend POV in South Africa https://techcabal.com/...

@chrifamouamo1:
@pkafka The fact that over 1M people **successfully** canceled comcast/spectrum/dish in just 12 weeks is truly impressive Think about the 2M that likely called and were relegated to new promos or talked out of it....

Peter Kafka /
@pkafka: It's boring to keep saying cable TV is collapsing but boy oh boy is cable TV collapsing. Pay TV - including digital substitutes like YouTube TV and Hulu Live - lost a record 2.37 million subscribers in Q1. That's a drop of 6.9%.

Daniel Frankel /
Next TV: Amid Another Worst Quarter Ever for U.S. Pay TV, Even YouTube TV Lost Subscribers in Q1, Analyst Says

Luke Bouma /
Cord Cutters News: YouTube TV Reportedly Lost 150,000 Subscribers in The 1st Quarter of 2024 As Every Major Live TV Provider Saw Subscribers Drop

Variety:

Sources: Disney is lowering ad CPM rates for Disney+ in a bid to win overall commitments during the upfront market; rivals fret about matching Disney's rates— In a bid to win overall commitments, Disney has been striking deals that call for significant “rollbacks” in the rates it charges …

Discussion:

Brian Steinberg /
@bristei: MORE: Despite the upcoming presidential election, media buyers indicate advertisers are not lining up for news programming, and pullbacks by some pharma cos could further undermine support https://variety.com/...

Brian Steinberg /
@bristei: ALSO: Disney, NBCU and Fox seem to be writing the most ad deals in current upfront market, per execs familiar with negotiations. WBD, trying to get big money for Max, is having some issues.... https://variety.com/...

Committee to Protect Journalists:

Interviews with Ethiopian journalists who fled the country due to civil war and conflict and who remain in exile, sometimes struggling to afford food and rent— When Belete Kassa's friend and news show co-host Belaye Manaye was arrested in November 2023 and taken to the remote Awash Arba military camp known …

Discussion:
Reporters Without Borders

Bloomberg:

A French journalist says India refused to renew his journalism permit and forced him to leave this week, making him the third journalist to leave India in 2024— India has allegedly refused to renew a French correspondent's permit, making him the third journalist to leave India this year …

Discussion:
@sebfarcis and Committee to Protect …

Discussion:

Sébastien Farcis /
@sebfarcis: After 13 years working as a correspondent in India, the authorities have denied me a permit to work as a journalist. I have thus been forced to leave the country. Here is my statement. [image]

TechCrunch:

Spotify now lets all podcasters upload videos, rather than only creators who signed up to Spotify for Podcasters hosting; Spotify has 250K+ video podcasts— Spotify is now letting non-hosted podcasters upload videos to the platform. The company quietly rolled out the new feature last week …

Discussion:
Neowin

Discussion:

Aditya Tiwari /
Neowin: Report: Spotify now has 250K video podcasts on its platform

American Prospect:

A look at Talking Points Memo's origins, its revenue models over the years, and why “both-sides” framing is due to political journalism's economic structure— The book I'm working on now is about how the last 25 years of American politics brought our democratic republic to the brink of collapse.

Discussion:
@lolgop, @bjkeefe, @joshtpm, @texmexelsa, @theprospect, @joshtpm and @jalefkowit@vmst.io

Discussion:
@lolgop: “If you rev the economy that hard, the people who benefit the most are not going to let you win the elections that let you fix everything after the fact.” https://prospect.org/...

Josh Marshall /
@joshtpm: Perhaps the most flattering part is I suspect there's so little imagery of me from the news services they were reduced to using a photo of me that's probably 20 years old if not older. Not that I have held up okay but still. @texmexelsa: @joshtpm Us old folks remember. TPM and many other great online places for citizen journalism to bloom. Daily Kos, and a few other sites where regular folks could write about what was happening locally. So when something happened anywhere, some one there could add to the information. @theprospect: In this week's installment of The Infernal Triangle, @rickperlstein details how political journalism can meet the moment, using @joshtpm's independent success as a case study. https://prospect.org/...

Josh Marshall /
@joshtpm: Here's a kind of fun, interesting piece on the origins of TPM, running a tabloid for smart people, the origins of bothsides journalism and more. Much more interesting I think then the original interview it's based on since Ric brings so much smarts to it. https://prospect.org/...

Jason Lefkowitz /
@jalefkowit@vmst.io: “What the Internet did is create a new D.C.-based political journalism space—the Politicos, the Axioses. All of that is funded by a subset of the national corporate lobbying budget. You advertise in Politico, you sponsor Politico's events, because ‘I need to be talking to the staffers who write the legislation.’ So your publication can't be left, or even right. …

Bloomberg:

Netflix ramps up local production in Southeast Asia to attract new subscribers as US rivals pull back; Asia Pacific accounted for just ~11% of its 2023 revenue— - Streaming giant is backing big-budget shows in Indonesia — Thai production rises to 10 titles this year, from six in 2023

Discussion:
@lucas_shaw, Sohee Kim on LinkedIn and The Hollywood Reporter

Discussion:

Lucas Shaw /
@lucas_shaw: While most US Entertainment companies pull back on spending in other markets, Netflix is plowing ahead. It will make 10 shows in Thailand this year. @soheefication https://www.bloomberg.com/...

Sohee Kim /