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| Kevin Delaney |
Kevin Delaney, who left his position as editor and co-CEO of Quartz in October, is joining the New York Times Opinion department, where he will lead what Times editorial page director James Bennet is calling “the department’s next big project.” Before helping to launch Quartz in 2012, Delaney was a reporter in Paris and San Francisco for the Wall Street Journal, and also served as managing editor of WSJ.com. He remains a senior advisor to Quartz. Taking the editor-in-chief slot at Quartz is Katherine Bell, who most recently served as editor-in-chief of Barron’s magazine and was previously the top digital editor at Harvard Business Review.
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| Mike Bloomberg |
Mike Bloomberg is on track to become the biggest buyer of advertising in the history of U.S. presidential campaigns. A Politico report from last week said that the former New York City mayor has already spent over $120 million since declaring himself a candidate in November. The ad buys include $13 million each in California, Texas and Florida. “We’ve never seen spending like this in a presidential race,” Jim McLaughlin, a Republican political strategist who worked as a consultant for Bloomberg’s mayoral bids, told Politico. “He has a limitless budget.” Bloomberg’s advertising bill is more than twice the amount of all other Democratic candidates, with the exception of fellow billionaire Tom Steyer, who has shelled out $83 million.
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Comcast is in negotiations to buy Xumo, a free, ad-supported over-the-top video app that has more than 190 content channels, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The potential deal comes ahead of the April launch of Comcast’s Peacock streaming service, which will reportedly offer a free version with ads as well as subscription-based options. Peacock joins an increasingly crowded field of streaming services, which includes recent entrants Disney+ and AppleTV+. Xumo was formed in 2011 by Viant Technology LLC, then known as Interactive Media Holdings. One of its shareholders is magazine and TV company Meredith Corp.
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.
