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Civilized, a lifestyle brand aimed at the “bright, creative, hardworking people” who “enjoy cannabis responsibly,” is teaming up with Cannabis Club TV to distribute its original content via CCTV’s on-demand streaming service at 175 point-of-sale locations in 11 states. Cannabis Club currently features a lineup of over 13,000 unique videos that include talk shows, sports, comedy and reality TV. Civilized TV is launching a full slate of programming, with such entries as “Ask a Budtender” and “First High.” “The overarching goal is to change the narrative surrounding cannabis,” said Cannabis Club TV CEO Danny Keith. “Together we can deliver top-quality content directly into dispensaries across the United States.”
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Both Dish Network and DirecTV took a hit in their subscriber numbers in the fourth quarter of 2018. While Dish’s over-the-top internet television service, Sling TV, saw a rise of 50,000 subscriptions, its traditional satellite network shed 386,000 subscribers over the same period. The drop left the company with 12.32 million subscribers at the end of 2018, down from a total of 13.20 million at the end of Q3 2017. Dish cited its ongoing carriage dispute with Univision and HBO as a main source of the subscriber exodus. Things are no better at AT&T’s DirecTV. CNBC reports that DirecTV Now, the company’s streaming service, lost 14 percent of its base (267,000 subscribers) during the fourth quarter, down to 1.6 million subscribers. Its traditional system lost 391,000 customers. AT&T is currently preparing a new streaming service, which will feature HBO as a lead brand and will host all of WarnerMedia’s other properties, including movie and TV franchises.
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NewsMatch, a national matching-gift campaign to grow fundraising capacity in nonprofit newsrooms and promote giving to journalism among U.S. donors, says it helped to raise $7.6 million in 2018 for 154 nonprofit news organizations, representing 42 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The organization says it has raised more than $14 million for newsrooms since it was launched in 2016 by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. A grassroots-funding drive that ran from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31 resulted in donations from 240,000 people, with more than 50,000 of them being new donors. Small and medium-sized newsrooms were the biggest beneficiaries of the giving surge, with increases of more than 30 percent in both individual donors and dollars raised. “These results are a bright spot, showing how individuals from coast to coast are committed to supporting quality news,” said Institute for Nonprofit News executive director and CEO Sue Cross.
Underscore Media, a new creator-led media venture dedicated to New York sports, is built around three established New York sports personalities, Sal Licata, Jimmy Traina, and John Jastremski.
McClatchy, which owns 29 daily papers across 14 states (including The Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee and Kansas City Star), launches a wave of layoffs that extends to at least 13 of those papers... The Toledo Blade, which was founded in 1835, is set to shut down on Dec. 31, unless owner Block Communications manages to find a buyer for it... A bill awaiting approval by California governor Gavin Newsom would give local newsrooms a boost. 
Fox News Media issued a pretty sparse release to announce the departure of one of its stars. “Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with FOX News Media,” it reads.
Brunswick Group partner John Simons has joined CNN as senior director of business & media. He held top jobs at Time and the Wall Street Journal.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
