WGA West: TV and film writer earnings fell ~32% to $1.29B in 2023, the lowest level since the 2007-08 strike, and employment fell 19.5% to 5,501 working writers (Gene Maddaus/Variety)

Mediagazer: WGA West: TV and film writer earnings fell ~32% to $1.29B in 2023, the lowest level since the 2007-08 strike, and employment fell 19.5% to 5,501 working writers (Gene Maddaus/Variety)

Top News:

New York Times:

Sources detail how Elon Musk undermined CEO Linda Yaccarino's efforts to repair X's business over the past year; X's US revenue fell 53% YoY to $114M in Q2— Linda Yaccarino, the C.E.O. of X, has worked hard to bring back advertisers and fix the platform's business.
Discussion: @hay_banda, @ron_fournier, @self.agency, @jeffjarvis, @nonlinear@social.praxis.nyc, @reddirtsport, @elistuy@threads.net, @crumbler@threads.net, @so_treu, @moskov@threads.net, @cachiporra.bsky.social, @amydiehl@mstdn.social, @hunterwalk@threads.net and @renee.diresta@threads.net, more at Techmeme »

Discussion:
@hay_banda: LOL, so much for “free speech”🙄. A “free-speech absolutist” as long as the free speech isn't directed at him and doesn't require him to answer uncomfortable questions. Effing lily-livered hypocritical man baby. Plus a fascist in bed with war criminals. https://www.nytimes.com/... @self.agency: this is an article about how the ambitiousness of otherwise decent people will cause them to compromise all their values and relationships in the pursuit of feeding their ego [embedded post] @jeffjarvis: Just like writing puff pieces about Usha Vance and Melania Trump: Horrid men and the women who support them. How Do You Solve a Problem Like Elon? https://www.nytimes.com/... @nonlinear@social.praxis.nyc: @Mediagazer oh well, she was a figurehead and she knew it. dude would brainstorm new rules on mic, and she'd only know when journalists told her. — there's no way she didn't know that. I hope she got her coins, because she traded for her reputation.

Ethan Illfelder /
@elistuy@threads.net: NYT says X US revenue fell 53% YoY in their Q2 to $114M. This is down from $661M, dropping 83% from 2Q22- the last report before Elon took Twitter private. 💸 https://www.nytimes.com/...

Casey Newton /
@crumbler@threads.net: Linda Yaccarino torched her reputation so she could be “CEO” of a company whose revenues declined 53 percent year over year. A down side of a career spent sucking up to power is that power doesn't care about your problems, and will happily spit you out when the time comes

Dustin Moskovitz /
@moskov@threads.net: Just last week someone said “Twitter proved you can cut 80% of staff and it's fine” and I responded “but they also lost 80% of revenue”. The next turn in the conversation is usually to insist the two facts have nothing to do with each other and I think that radically misunderstands the *business* purpose of trust and safety, among other things. @cachiporra.bsky.social: In case you need the nuts and bolts timeline of how Linda Yaccarino became a lead roach in Trump's media operations, here it is. Stop defending her. — cw: The New York Times [embedded post]

Amy Diehl, Ph.D. /
@amydiehl@mstdn.social: Elon is a problem. But notice the framing of this headline, picture and article. Assigning responsibility for fixing him to a woman, his workplace subordinate. — https://www.nytimes.com/... @hunterwalk@threads.net: “After the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, for instance, Ms. Yaccarino told several major advertisers that she and X would work to fight antisemitism. The next month, Mr. Musk approvingly replied to an antisemitic theory on the site.” after some point, you're not a victim, you're complicit

Renee DiResta /
@renee.diresta@threads.net: “The mark of a good C.E.O. is not how many punches you can throw, but how many you can take. She is the Muhammad Ali of C.E.O.s,” said Ari Emanuel, the chief executive of the entertainment agency Endeavor, which is an investor in X. Except those punches usually come from, you know, your competitors — not members of your own exec team. …

Wall Street Journal:

Filing: the US DOJ says TikTok collected data about its users' views on gun control, abortion, and religion, and censored content at ByteDance's direction— Justice Department defends new law requiring the sale or ban of the popular app — TikTok collected data about its users' views …

Discussion:
The Hill, @tiktokpolicy, Engadget, Bloomberg, The Guardian, Financial Times, New York Times and Reuters, more at Techmeme »

Discussion:
@tiktokpolicy: Our statement on the DOJ brief filed today: “Nothing in this brief changes the fact that the Constitution is on our side. The TikTok ban would silence 170 million Americans' voices, violating the First Amendment. As we've said before, the government has never put forth proof of

Cheyenne MacDonald /
Engadget: DOJ says TikTok collected users' views on issues like abortion, gun control and religion

David Shepardson /
Reuters: USDOJ tells court to reject TikTok challenge to crackdown law

RELATED:
Bloomberg: How TikTok is trying to fend off a potential US ban, including through ad campaigns, lobbying, and funding lawsuits by creators

Discussion:
@jamietarabay, Tech Xplore, Associated Press, CNN, The Hill and CNBC

Discussion:

Jamie Tarabay /
@jamietarabay: Backed by its Chinese parent company, @tiktok_us is deploying lawyers, lobbyists and social-media influencers to reverse a new US law barring the popular video-sharing app unless its Chinese owner divests https://www.bloomberg.com/... via @technology

Glenn Chapman /
Tech Xplore: US defends law forcing sale of TikTok app Associated Press: TikTok collected US user views on issues like abortion and gun control, Justice Dept. claims CNN: Justice Department responds to TikTok lawsuit, argues algorithm could allow Chinese government to influence US elections

Variety:

WGA West: TV and film writer earnings fell ~32% to $1.29B in 2023, the lowest level since the 2007-08 strike, and employment fell 19.5% to 5,501 working writers— TV and film writer earnings fell $603 million last year, or about 32%, as the end of “Peak TV” coincided with a 148-day strike by the Writers of Guild of America.

Discussion:
Writers Guild America West, WGA Contract 2023, The Wrap and Deadline

Discussion:
WGA Contract 2023: What We Won — We set out in this negotiation to address critical issues across our membership …

Deadline:

Nielsen and Adobe Analytics: the Paris Olympics opening ceremony drew 28.6M viewers on NBC and Peacock, up 60%+ from Tokyo, plus 666K on Telemundo Deportes— Good news for NBCUniversal: The Paris Olympics are off to a great start with a big win out of Friday's Opening Ceremony.

Discussion:
The Hollywood Reporter, Bloomberg, NBCSports.com, New York Times, Sportico, Vanity Fair, TVLine, Sports Media Watch, Variety, The Desk, The Wrap and Reuters

Discussion:

Rick Porter /
The Hollywood Reporter: TV Ratings: Olympics Opening Ceremony Draws Biggest Audience Since 2012 NBCSports.com: THE OLYMPICS ARE BACK! PARIS OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY ON NBC AND PEACOCK IS MOST WATCHED SINCE 2012, WITH 28.6 MILLION VIEWERS

Richard Deitsch /
New York Times: Olympic opening ceremony draws total audience of 28.6 million viewers, most since 2012

Eve Batey /
Vanity Fair: Paris Olympics 2024 Opening Ceremony Serves Lady Gaga, Celine Dion, and a Drag Last Supper

Matt Webb Mitovich /
TVLine: Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony Delivers Nearly 29 Million Viewers — Grade It!

William Earl /
Variety: Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony Delivers 28.6 Million Viewers for NBCUniversal, Most Watched for Summer Games Since 2012

Loree Seitz /
The Wrap: Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony Hits 28.6 Million Viewers Across NBC, Peacock - 60% More Than Tokyo

The Hollywood Reporter:

WBD sues the NBA over the league's “unjustified” decision to sell a package of media rights to Amazon, to which WBD claims to have a “contractual right”— The company had sought to match a proposal from Amazon Prime Video, but the league said that it “did not match the terms” of the deal.

Discussion:
Engadget, Puck, New York Times, @wallachlegal, Wall Street Journal, @wallachlegal, @brandonthurston, @pkafka, @morningbrew, @sherman4949, @mmccarthyrev, @bkoo, The Information, Washington Post, Bloomberg Law, USA Today, Axios, Associated Press, Forbes, Yahoo Finance, ESPN, Front Office Sports, Variety, New York Times, Quartz, Sports Media Watch, Business Insider, Los Angeles Times, Sportico, CNBC, Deadline, New York Post, CNN, The Wrap, Awful Announcing, The Streamable, Los Angeles Times, Awful Announcing, Next TV, Reuters and StreamTV Insider, more at Techmeme »

Discussion:

Will Shanklin /
Engadget: Warner Bros. Discovery sues the NBA in a last-ditch effort to block Amazon's new streaming package

John Ourand /
Puck: How Zaz Lost the NBA

Andrew Marchand /
New York Times: Charles Barkley to consider ESPN, NBC, Amazon deals if TNT doesn't honor full $210 million contract

Daniel Wallach /
@wallachlegal: BREAKING: TBS and Warner Brothers Discovery have just filed a lawsuit against the NBA in New York County Supreme Court over the league's rejection of WBD's attempted match of the Amazon media rights bid (h/t @ls87NY) [image]

Daniel Wallach /
@wallachlegal: WBD and TBS are seeking the following relief: 1) Declaratory judgment that it matched; 2) Specific performance by the NBA; and 3) Preliminary and permanent injunctive relief (if the issues presented in the Complaint not be resolved well in advance of the 2025-26 NBA season). [image]

Brandon Thurston /
@brandonthurston: WBD's TV rights contract with the NBA has been filed as an exhibit to the lawsuit WBD is filing against the league. Most of the other filings are sealed. https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/ ... [image]

Peter Kafka /
@pkafka: I wrote about the potential outcomes for WBD in its lawsuit with the NBA. One is bad. The others are very bad. [image] @morningbrew: Warner Bros isn't giving up the NBA without a fight WBD filed a lawsuit today that says TNT should be able to broadcast games after matching Amazon's winning bid this week Charles Barkley is less than pleased about all of it [image]

Alex Sherman /
@sherman4949: Reading this WBD lawsuit: For a company that said “we don't have to have the NBA,” most of this lawsuit argues why Turner Sports has to have the NBA.

Michael McCarthy /
@mmccarthyrev: Here's NBA' statement on WBD lawsuit via league spokesman Mike Bass: “Warner Bros. Discovery's claims are without merit and our lawyers will address them.”

Ben Koo /
@bkoo: Regarding the WBD NBA lawsuit, I wrote this in mid May and could already tell this was going to be a major clusterfuck. https://awfulannouncing.com/ ... [image]

Martin Peers /
The Information: Why Warner's NBA Suit Is Pointless

Tim Baysinger /
Axios: Warner Bros. Discovery sues NBA over media rights dispute

Antonio Pequeño IV /
Forbes: Warner Bros. Discovery Sues NBA Over Amazon Deal

Alexandra Canal /
Yahoo Finance: Warner Bros. Discovery sues NBA over ‘unjustified rejection’ of matching media rights bid

Baxter Holmes /
ESPN: Warner Bros. Discovery sues NBA over losing rights to Amazon

Brian Steinberg /
Variety: Warner Bros. Discovery Launches Stealth Marketing Campaign Against NBA, Amazon

Tania Ganguli /
New York Times: Warner Bros. Discovery Sues N.B.A. Over Rights Deal

Jon Lewis /
Sports Media Watch: WBD files suit against NBA

Peter Kafka /
Business Insider: WBD is suing the NBA so it can stay in business with the NBA. Yikes.

Stephen Battaglio /
Los Angeles Times: Warner Bros. Discovery sues NBA over new media rights deal, saying it matched Amazon

Deadline:
NBA Slams Warner Bros Discovery Suit Over TV Rights As “Without Merit”; Media Giant Accuses League Of “Direct Breach” In Awarding Games To Amazon - Update

Ryan Glasspiegel /
New York Post: Warner Bros. Discovery sues NBA over matching rights clause with league preferring Amazon to TNT

Lucas Manfredi /
The Wrap: Warner Bros. Discovery Sues Over NBA's ‘Unjustified’ Rejection of Matching Rights Proposal

David Satin /
The Streamable: The Ball Is in Your Court! Warner Bros. Discovery Files Lawsuit Against NBA Over Broadcast Rights

Meg James /
Los Angeles Times: Benched by the NBA, Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav faces tough questions

Daniel Frankel /
Next TV: Warner and Turner Sue the NBA Over Failed Renewal Deal

Bevin Fletcher /
StreamTV Insider: Warner Bros. Discovery cries foul in NBA rights deal

The Hollywood Reporter:

Charter lost 393K residential pay TV subscribers in Q2, compared to a loss of 189K in Q2 2023; overall video customers were 13.3M, down 9.5% YoY— The cable giant, led by CEO Chris Winfrey, also shed 154,000 broadband customers after the end of government subsidies.

Discussion:
The Desk, Charter Communications, StreamTV Insider, MediaPost, Media Play News, Next TV, Reuters and TVNewsCheck

Discussion:

Matthew Keys /
The Desk: Charter lost 393,000 Spectrum TV customers during Q2

Wayne Friedman /
MediaPost: Charter Sees Steeper Q2 Video Subscriber Declines, Broadband Fares Better

Erik Gruenwedel /
Media Play News: Charter Loses 393,000 Video, 154,000 Internet Q2 Subscribers

Jon Lafayette /
Next TV: Internet, Video Losses Continue for Charter

Harshita Mary Varghese /
Reuters: Charter Communications posts fewer broadband subscriber loss, profit beat

Etan Vlessing /
TVNewsCheck: Charter Loses 393,000 Video Subs In Second Quarter

The Telegraph:

Sources: Apple met with UK TV ratings body Barb to discuss options for tracking ads on Apple TV+, in another sign that it plans to introduce ads on the service— Apple has held talks with the UK's TV ratings body in the latest sign that the tech giant is planning to introduce adverts on its streaming service.

Discussion:
@carnage4life@mas.to, more at Techmeme »

Discussion:

Dare Obasanjo /
@carnage4life@mas.to: Apple TV+ is the only major streaming without ads but it looks like that will soon be changing. The company met with UK TV ratings company to discuss options for tracking ad viewership on its platforms. — So much for the “privacy is a human right” slogan if they go down this path. …

Press Gazette:

Mail Online, The Independent, Daily Mirror, and Daily Express roll out “consent or pay” walls charging users £1.99 to £4 per month for cookie-less access— Mail Online, The Independent and the websites of the Daily Mirror and Daily Express have begun requiring readers …

Discussion:
@p0st_news, @johnspurlock, @dougfisher and @paezha@mastodon.online

Discussion:

Chris Brown /
@p0st_news: Consent or pay up... https://pressgazette.co.uk/...

John Spurlock /
@johnspurlock: ‘Rising consumer concerns around internet privacy, and the requirement that publishers easily allow readers to opt-out of cookies, have seen the number of people accepting them drop substantially Consent or pay strategies seek to address this challenge’ https://pressgazette.co.uk/...

Doug Fisher /
@dougfisher: British newspapers are rolling out “consent or pay” policies in a way to outflank the GDPR. Want to reject tracking cookies? Pay up. But even then, you still see ads. just not targeted ones. Sort of like what we're seeing in streaming. https://pressgazette.co.uk/...

CBC News:

Canada's Postmedia plans to buy the SaltWire newspaper chain, which has been under protection from creditors since March, and hopes to close the deal in August— SaltWire would remain committed to local journalism, Postmedia says — Postmedia has entered an agreement to purchase SaltWire …

Discussion:
Canadian Press, CWA Canada and Postmedia

TorrentFreak:

Music industry group IFPI has been working to get Musi, a free streaming app that sources music from YouTube, removed from the App Store and weighs legal action— App stores are littered with apps that promise free access to music, but only few live up to expectations. Musi is one of them.

The Guardian:

Journalists strike at outlets owned by Australia's Nine; ~20 of the company's journalists who traveled to Paris to cover the Olympics are among those striking— Age reporter questions expense of flying TV personality to Europe while up to 90 staff are cut from newsrooms. Plus: Murdoch's real-life succession drama

Discussion:
@niltiac, @kishor_nr, Al Jazeera and Mumbrella

Discussion:
@niltiac: They say this is about revenue decline because of the loss of Meta money and the slump in ad revenue. It could also be about the Nine share price, which has tanked in part because of the revelations of sexual misconduct and bullying in the TV division, which we've reported on.

@niltiac:
Nine Publishing, the newspaper division of Nine that publishes the former Fairfax papers like SMH, is a “really profitable business” according to our execs. They've said without the 70-90 job cuts it would still be profitable, just not quite as profitable.

@niltiac:
I feel for my colleagues on strike, who'll lose pay over this. I feel for my colleagues in exempt positions struggling to put out the news. I feel for my colleagues in Paris longing to bring you the best Olympics coverage, bar none. This is not fun. We decided it was necessary.

Kishor /
@kishor_nr: My colleagues and I are striking because Nine won't offer us fair wages. Meanwhile the CEO is living his best life at the Olympics and refuses to answer questions about the terrible optics of this [image]

Financial Times:

Freelancer.com, iFixit, and others say Anthropic's crawler has aggressively scraped their websites, potentially breaching their terms of service— Web publishers say developer is swarming their sites, collecting content to train models and ignoring orders to stop

Discussion:
404 Media, The Verge, Engadget, @ianb@mastodon.well.com, @glenngabe, @jason_koebler, @matt_barrie, @barelylingual, @bobkitten, @kwiens, @ericholscher, @matt_barrie, @rahll, @readthedocs, @jordancmeyer, @dangoikhman, @dappierai, @kwiens, PC Gamer, MSPoweruser, Read the Docs, Wired, Hacker News, Slashdot

Discussion:

Jess Weatherbed /
The Verge: Anthropic's crawler is ignoring websites' anti-AI scraping policies

Mariella Moon /
Engadget: Websites accuse AI startup Anthropic of bypassing their anti-scraping rules and protocol

Ian Betteridge /
@ianb@mastodon.well.com: Will Dario Amodei be facing 35 years in prison for this illegal scraping of data, as Aaron Swartz did when he scraped JSTOR? — https://www.ft.com/...

Glenn Gabe /
@glenngabe: ifixit wasn't blocking via robots.txt though. Now they are, so it *should* stop :) -> Anthropic's crawler is ignoring websites' anti-AI scraping policies “ClaudeBot, the web crawler that Anthropic uses to scrape training data for AI models like Claude, has hammered iFixit's [image]

Jason Koebler /
@jason_koebler: Anthropic's AI scraper bot hit iFixit's website a million times in a day in violation of its terms of service ... even if you specifically spell out that you don't want to have your stuff stolen it is often stolen anyway https://www.404media.co/... @barelylingual: @kwiens @AnthropicAI We've had to block what we assume are ai companies spamming our APIs instead of downloading our freely available database dumps over here at Wikipedia @bobkitten: @kwiens @AnthropicAI Post a fake fixit for a fake device so you'll be able to track who misappropriated your data. Mapmakers insert fake towns and roads to detect copying, Trivial Pursuit had 2 fake Q&As out of 6k in the Genus Edition. “How to replace the battery in the Dipsogenic Hampoon...”

Eric Holscher /
@ericholscher: @kwiens @AnthropicAI Yea, they were hammering us over at @readthedocs as well. We were planning to write a blog post on it, since this behavior is definitely gonna get all AI crawlers blocked because of abuse, not even because of the copyright issues.

Matt Barrie /
@matt_barrie: @kwiens @AnthropicAI We have the same issue @AnthropicAI scrapers absolutely smashing our servers, feel like sending them a bill.

Reid Southen /
@rahll: Anthropic AI is ripping off @iFixit en masse against their ToS and tying up their resources. These thieving AI companies need to be held accountable, this shit is out of control. @readthedocs: AI crawlers have downloaded over 100 TB in the last couple months, partially from bugs and abusive behavior. We ask AI crawlers to include rate and bandwidth limits, and ask them to partner with us to mitigate impact and support our work. https://about.readthedocs.com/ ...

Jordan Meyer /
@jordancmeyer: A single scraper cost readthedocs over $5k in May by downloading 73TB of data. Most image, music, and video datasets for AI only contain links to the media files. Downloading them externalizes the network costs to the hosts... https://about.readthedocs.com/ ...

Dan G /
@dangoikhman: @kwiens @kwiens thanks for drawing attention to this issue! We're working on a solution @DappierAI would love to chat with you about it and get your feedback @dappierai: @kwiens We do want to have that conversation! 😁 The current state of AI data scraping is untenable for devs and content owners Our solve is a marketplace approach: turn your content into an AI-ready data model & RAG API, & ensure you get paid whenever your content is used to generate

Kyle Wiens /
@kwiens: @jrhunt @AnthropicAI Our TOS banned ML training before their crawl, afterwards we added them to robots.txt.

Kyle Wiens /
@kwiens: Hey @AnthropicAI: I get you're hungry for data. Claude is really smart! But do you really need to hit our servers a million times in 24 hours? You're not only taking our content without paying, you're tying up our devops resources. Not cool.

Kyle Wiens /
@kwiens: If any of those requests accessed our terms of service, they would have told you that use of our content expressly forbidden. But don't ask me, ask Claude! If you want to have a conversation about licensing our content for commercial use, we're right here. [image]

Jacob Fox /
PC Gamer: iFixit CEO takes shots at Anthropic for ‘hitting our servers a million times in 24 hours’ and even the AI company's own chatbot disapproves

Rafly Gilang /
MSPoweruser: Anthropic washes hands over claims that its AI scraper hits iFixit's site a million times daily

Eric Holscher /
Read the Docs: AI crawlers need to be more respectful

Bloomberg:

A look at Joe Rogan's comedy club in Austin, called The Mothership, and the network of comedians and podcast hosts he has supported and attracted to the city— The world's most controversial podcaster opened a comedy club there, snatched the stand-up title from Los Angeles and shook up an entire industry.

Discussion:
@pkafka, @daniellesacks, @matthewfoldi, Newsweek, Newser and Mediaite

Discussion:

Peter Kafka /
@pkafka: Very jealous of this story: How Joe Rogan moved from LA to Austin and created an entire comedy ecosystem there. (Featuring cameos from would-be comedian Elon Musk) https://www.bloomberg.com/...

Danielle Sacks /
@daniellesacks: “Musk and Rogan palled around like a pair of happy-go-lucky Longhorn undergrads, smoking pot, sharing far-out thoughts on astrophysics, ordering anchovy-pineapple pizza and shooting an arrow at a Tesla Cybertruck.” https://www.bloomberg.com/...

Matthew Foldi /
@matthewfoldi: Are these quotes from @joerogan or @JohnAshbrook?? Chimps in the Congo: “They'll tear you apart.” Wolves: “They can run 45 miles an hour and chase you down and eat you.” Orcas: “They're teaching each other how to sink boats.” https://www.bloomberg.com/...

Matthew Foldi /
@matthewfoldi: “We're in a Rogan moment.” — @TuckerCarlson https://www.bloomberg.com/...

Ryan Smith /
Newsweek: Tucker Carlson Scores Win Over Joe Rogan

Jenn Gidman /