Roundup: Ten wavers on Mildura, child-safety rules, The Bear breaks records

The Albanese government has thrown a last-minute lifeline to keep Network Ten on air for 500,000 people in Western Australia, after a joint venture between Seven West Media and WIN Corporation came within days of turning off the signal, reports Nine Publishing’s Sam Buckingham-Jones.

In May, Seven and WIN announced they would shut down a loss-making broadcast signal airing in Mildura, in north-western Victoria. The company, Mildura Digital Television, broadcast the Ten signal to an area the size of Belgium – an audience of about 70,000 people – and was “unable to justify” the expense.

Australia is giving the internet industry six months to come up with an enforceable code detailing how it will stop children seeing pornography and other inappropriate material online or face having a code imposed on it, a regulator said on Tuesday, reports Reuters.

The eSafety Commissioner said it wrote to members of the online industry demanding a plan by Oct. 3 setting out how they plan to protect minors from seeing high-impact material before they are ready, also including themes of suicide and eating disorders.

The billionaire Barry Diller is exploring a bid to take control of Paramount, the parent company of CBS, MTV and Nickelodeon, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, according to The New York Times‘ Lauren Hirsch and Benjamin Mullin.

Diller’s digital-media conglomerate, IAC, has signed nondisclosure agreements with National Amusements, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, the people said. Nondisclosure agreements are a key step in deal making, allowing both sides to exchange confidential information.

After several stops and starts, Paramount Global appears to be renewing its effort to sell off its BET Media Group assets, reports The Hollywood Reporter‘s Erik Hayden.

The Shari Redstone-controlled media company is in talks with CC Capital chief Chinh Chu, whose private equity firm is backing BET president Scott Mills in a bid for the BET assets, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. A rep for Paramount declined to comment and CC Capital did not reply for comment.

Privacy Sandbox, Google’s upcoming replacement for third-party cookies, will reduce publishers’ revenue from programmatically-sold online ads by 60%, according to new research from advertising platform Criteo, reports Press Gazette‘s Jim Edwards.

Meanwhile, trade group the IAB Tech Lab has warned Sandbox would “throttle” smaller news publishers and restrict the media industry’s growth.

A spokesperson for Google said it was too early to judge the system.

Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation has launched its ad-supported streaming service, Tubi, in the UK, reports The Guardian‘s Jamie Grierson.

The platform will compete with services such as Netflix, Disney+, ITVX and Channel 4’s streaming platform as well as BBC iPlayer.

Fox says the service will launch with more than 20,000 films and TV episodes on-demand, featuring content from Disney, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal and Sony Pictures Entertainment, in addition to its own originals.

Imagine Entertainment, the Hollywood production company known for the Oscar-winning film A Beautiful Mind and hits such as The Da Vinci Code, is exploring a sale, reports The Wall Street Journal‘s Sarah Krouse and Jessica Toonkel.

The company, led by director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer, is working with an investment bank to help find a buyer after receiving some inbound interest from a potential suitor, according to people familiar with the matter.  

After more than a decade of superheroes saving the world on the movie screen, Eddie Murphy is bringing back the character he describes as “every man”, reports Reuters‘ Rollo Ross.

 Murphy returns as Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, a new installment in the action comedy franchise that debuted 40 years ago in 1984. The movie lands on Netflix on Wednesday.

“For 10-15 years, everything was CG (computer-generated), big visual effects and superheroes and people saving the day wearing capes and tight suits,” Murphy said in an interview.