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Google is said to be in talks with publishers about a news product that would pay a licensing fee for content. The move comes as Facebook, Google, and now Amazon maintain their grip on the lion’s share of digital advertising revenues. Market research company eMarketer predicts that by the end of this year, the big three will account for about 70 percent of all digital advertising dollars in the U.S. In October, Facebook introduced Facebook News to showcase original reporting and to pay for it. But Google’s plan may have little effect on U.S. news outlets. The Wall Street Journal reports that most of the publishers that Google is negotiating with are located outside the U.S.
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ViacomCBS is planning two rounds of layoffs, according to a report in Variety. The cuts are expected to mainly affect employees in the television division of the company, specifically in areas such as marketing, distribution, and consumer products, where there are significant overlaps. In addition, several positions in the company’s corporate diversity and inclusion department are expected to be eliminated. Variety says that it has learned from multiple sources that the first round of cuts, projected to affect around 100 people, could take place as early as Feb. 26, with a second set of cuts expected to begin on or around March 31. In August, Viacom and CBS said the merger would yield $500 million in cost savings. ViacomCBS stock has slid 13.4 percent since the merger closed Dec. 4.
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Dennis Publishing is launching a version of its newsweekly The Week aimed at children from 8 to 14. Headed up by former Prevention editor Andrea Barbalich, The Week Junior, a subscription print magazine, will feature articles, photos, puzzles and activities. Dennis started up a UK version of the kids’ publication in 2015, which it says has become the country’s fastest-growing print magazine. Since the announcement of The Week Junior’s US launch in January, Dennis says that more than 10,000 subscriptions have been purchased. The US edition of The Week, which launched in 2001, currently has over 550,000 paid-for print subscribers, according to Statista.
The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach an agreement that will make a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars available for use by Sora, OpenAI’s short-form generative AI video platform... CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has moved Tony Dokoupil, a co-host at “CBS Mornings” since 2019, into the anchor’s chair for the “CBS Evening News,” following the departure of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois... USA Today editor-in-chief Caren Bohan has left the paper.
Michael Kaminer, who was responsible for the Observer’s “Power List” for the past 13 years, has cut ties with the publication... The New York Times Company continues the march toward its goal of 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027... The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is providing more than $6 million in funding to eight organizations working to address the challenges local news and information environments face along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Conservative outlets Fox News, Newsmax and the Daily Caller are holding back from signing Pete Hegseth’s edict restricting press access in the Pentagon... CBS News sees the first executive departure of the Bari Weiss era as head of standards and practices Claudia Milne exits... Indiana University shuts down the print version of The Indiana Daily Student.
Rothschild family plans to unload 26.7 percent stake in The Economist... STAT, a digital media company that focuses the life sciences, brings back Damian Garde, who anchored its biotech newsletter and podcast from 2016 to 2024... High Times officially resumes print publication (following its 2024 shutdown) with the release of a limited-edition, collectible 50th anniversary issue. 
CBS News is set to hand over its reins to The Free Press co-founder Bari Weiss as Paramount acquires her site for $155M... C-SPAN comes on board as an official media partner of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, which is charged by Congress to lead the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence... A new Gallup survey says that the level of trust that US audiences have in the media has hit a new low.
