Business of Media
News Corp cuts 20 journalists, with The Australian and Herald Sun Spared
More staff members at News Corp’s Australian titles are being made redundant this week, as management finalises plans to make savings across the company’s mastheads, reports Nine Publishing’s Calum Jaspan.
Twenty editorial staff would lose their jobs, said people with direct knowledge of the plans, speaking on condition of anonymity. Ten of the staff would be taking voluntary redundancies.
Titles affected include The Courier Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Hobart Mercury, Adelaide Advertiser and News Corp’s free news and lifestyle division, which includes the news.com.au website. Managers emailed staff on Tuesday evening to set up meetings about the decision.
NBA finalises $76 bln broadcasting deal with Disney, Amazon, Comcast, the Athletic reports
The National Basketball Association has finalised a $76 billion deal that will make Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Amazon.com’s Amazon Prime Video new partners, and it will maintain Disney’s ESPN as the home of the NBA finals, the Athletic reported on Wednesday, citing source, reports Reuters.
The deal will extend for 11 seasons, the report said, citing executives with direct knowledge of the deals.
The new agreement, which is more than three times the current deal, comes as sports become a powerful draw for media companies trying to expand premium viewership.
NBA has always been a star-driven sport with talents such as Michael Jordan, LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal dominating the games and viewership.
Streaming was supposed to kill off online piracy. Instead, the problem is skyrocketing
Streaming services like Netflix have been credited for reducing rates of online piracy, by improving access to large libraries of movies and TV shows, but a cost of living crunch, combined with password sharing crackdowns, rising prices and the re-introduction of ads have combined to contribute to a new surge in copyright infringement, reports Nine Publishing’s Nell Geraets.
In 2021, 30 per cent of Australians infringed copyright through the way they consumed content online, according to federal government data. By 2023, the most recent year data is available for, that figure increased to 41 per cent.
Australians pirate a range of content, including movies, TV shows, video games, music and sports broadcasts. Chair of Creative Content Australia Chris Chard says cost of living pressures are causing more people to justify downloading content on torrents or watching illegal streams.
CNN to cut about 100 jobs, launch Its first CNN.com subscription product
CNN said it is cutting about 100 jobs and will launch its first CNN.com subscription product later this year as it looks to lessen its dependence on its cable-TV channel, reports The Wall Street Journal‘s Isabella Simonetti and Joe Flint.
In a memo sent to employees Wednesday, CNN chief executive Mark Thompson said the network’s television newsgathering and digital-news divisions would be merged into a single unit as the company shifts more of its focus on digital expansion.
“We recognize its potentially enormous impact on the individuals affected,” Thompson said in an interview. CNN, which has more than 3,500 employees, said the cuts would happen across the company.
Television
‘Desperate for attention’: Prince Harry reveals new show amid award backlash
Prince Harry will appear in a new documentary about phone hacking in Britain titled Tabloids On Trial, reports News Corp’s Justin Vallejo.
The announcement of the ITV documentary comes on the eve of Prince Harry’s appearance at a glitzy ceremony in Los Angeles to accept the Pat Tillman Award for Service.
The Duke of Sussex has “no plans” to reject the ESPY award on Thursday (local time) despite shock from the mother of Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan after leaving his NFL career after the 9/11 terror attacks.
JoJo Siwa gets docuseries about her life from ‘Dance Moms’ creator
JoJo Siwa is reuniting with Dance Moms creator Jeff Collins to create a new docuseries looking at the star’s personal and professional life. The untitled unscripted series will come from Collins’ Resilient Content, which he recently launched as part of an overall deal at Sony Pictures Television – Nonfiction, reports Variety‘s Michael Schneider.
News of the new series comes as Siwa is set to release a new EP, Guilty Pleasure, on July 12. The release, featuring Siwa’s hit Karma, includes four other songs — including the title track Guilty Pleasure, which will be released with an official music video on Friday.
According to Resilient Content, the “coming-of-age premium docuseries will follow the personal and professional life and career of JoJo Siwa.
Dream Home winners Rhys and Liam Almond reveal future plans after winning grand final and taking home $100,000
Dream Home winners Rhys and Liam Almond have revealed their plans after winning the inaugural season of the show and pocketing $100,000 in prize money, reports Seven West Media’s Caleb Taylor.
Only half a point separated Rhys and Liam from runners-up, Lara and Peter Bird, who scored 37 out of 40 for their Belrose backyard during the nail-biting finale.
Liam’s dilapidated Deception Bay Queenslander received a stunning renovation on the show, with the property now estimated to be worth a staggering $1.6 million.
Entertainment
‘Release of Kevin Costner’s next ‘Horizon’ film Is canceled
Kevin Costner’s audacious experiment seems to have failed, reports The New York Times‘ Nicole Sperling.
Costner tried something rare this summer, releasing the first chapter of his western saga Horizon – which he directed, starred in, co-wrote and partly financed – in theatres across the country on June 28. The plan was for the second chapter in the sprawling story to be released six weeks later.
But thanks to paltry box office returns, that plan has been scuttled. On Wednesday, New Line Cinema, a subsidiary of Warner Bros., said it was canceling the theatrical release of Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 2, which was scheduled to debut in theatres on Aug. 16.