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Meredith is giving 180 employees (about 3.6 percent of its workforce) pink slips, according to a report in the New York Post. About 130 of the job losses will come from the company’s television stations, with the other 50 hitting its national media group, which includes such magazines as People and Better Homes & Gardens and their related websites. Meredith’s TV operations will consolidate at its Atlanta location, where all graphic and creative services will be centralized. The move follows last week’s proposal of a change to Meredith’s corporate charter that will allow the company to divide its magazine holdings and TV stations into two separate businesses.
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| Chris Spadaccini |
Chris Spadaccini is exiting his post as chief marketing officer at WarnerMedia Entertainment. Spadaccini is the latest in a wave of departures from WarnerMedia resulting from a major revamp of the company led by CEO Jason Kilar, who came on board in May. Before assuming the CMO spot in 2019, Spadaccini had been with HBO since 1999, most recently serving as EVP, marketing. His duties will be divided up between several company employees. Kilar’s restructuring is intended to merge WarnerMedia’s content creation into one operation, with “efficiencies” expected to follow. It will also create a separate focus on HBO Max, which is expected to assume a pivotal role in the company’s future.
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Penske Media, which runs Variety, Rolling Stone, WWD and Deadline, has formed a partnership with The Hollywood Reporter parent company MRC. The partnership will create two joint ventures, with both companies holding significant ownership stakes in each. The first venture, PMRC, will be led by Penske Media and encompass trade and consumer brands from both companies. The second is a content partnership managed by MRC and operating out of its office. Intended to “activate the power of the production infrastructure and expertise of MRC across PMRC intellectual property," the partnership will include television, film and event production. No leadership changes at either PMC or MRC are expected to result from the partnership, and both companies will continue to operate independently.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which has roots going back to 1786, is going out of business, the paper’s owners, Block Communications, announced on Jan. 7... GQ editor Will Welch is stepping down to take on a new Paris-based role with the musician Pharrell, who is also men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton... Semafor says it has raised $30 million on a $330 million valuation, following its first profitable year. 
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. 
