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| Jason Kilar |
WarnerMedia has named Hulu co-founder Jason Kilar CEO, effective May 1. Kilar succeeds John Stankey, who was promoted to AT&T president and chief operating officer in September. (Warner Media became part of AT&T in June 2018.) In addition to serving as CEO of Hulu from 2007 to 2013, Kilar was co-founder and CEO of video streaming service Vessel and senior vice president of worldwide application software at Amazon. His appointment comes ahead of AT&T’s May launch of streaming service HBO Max. Kilar’s “experience in media and entertainment, direct-to-consumer video streaming and advertising is the perfect fit for WarnerMedia,” said Stankey.
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Bustle Digital Group, which includes such properties as Nylon and Elite Daily, has laid off 24 staffers, according to a report on website TechCrunch. In addition, the company has shut down The Outline, a culture site that it acquired in 2019 and its seven staffers are all among those who have been axed. A BCG spokesperson said that it will still host The Outline’s archives online and that the site’s founder, Josh Topolsky, will explore other options that would allow it to continue. “The unprecedented impact of COVID-19” was cited as a major factor behind the decision.
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The News Media Alliance, a nonprofit organization that represents nearly 2,000 news organizations across the US, is part of group of industry leaders that have asked the United States Postal Service to institute a five-cent-per-piece rate reduction for the next 90 days—or until the end of the COVID-19 crisis, according to a report on MediaPost. The group’s letter says that the failure to do so could hurt the USPS as well as the industries that depend on it. “The long-term viability of the Postal Service will depend on preserving commercial and nonprofit mail volume,” it notes. The move follows a request in March from a coalition including the Association of Magazine Media that the USPS reconsider proposed rate hikes that “would authorize a cumulative 41 percent rate increase on magazines and periodicals over five years that will cost mailers about $8 billion per year.”
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.
Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison has named Kenneth Weinstein, former head of the conservative Hudson Institute, as ombudsman for CBS News.
