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AT&T is spinning off its DirecTV business, following the sale of a 30 percent stake in the unit to private equity firm TPG. TPG is paying $1.8 billion for its stake in DirecTV, which the deal values at $16.25 billion. AT&T paid $49 billion when it purchased the unit in 2015. After the transaction, the U.S. services of both DirecTV and AT&T TV will form an entity jointly run by AT&T and TPG. AT&T says that almost all current employees will be unaffected. AT&T executive Bill Morrow will be CEO of the new unit, in addition to serving on its board along with two representatives from each of the owners. AT&T finance chief John Stephens told the Wall Street Journal that “the disruption in pay TV” (i.e. massive cord-cutting) led DirecTV’s performance to fall far short of original projections. One benefit for AT&T: spinning off the unit means that losses from the company’s video operations will no longer be included in its consolidated financial reports.
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Twitter is launching what it calls a “super follow” feature later this year. The feature will allow Twitter account holders to charge for exclusive additional content not seen on their regular feeds. The company says that the extra content can include subscriber-only newsletters, videos, deals and discounts. Users would pay a monthly subscription fee to access the extra content. In a statement, Twitter said that such funding opportunities as the super follow feature “will allow creators and publishers to be directly supported by their audience and will incentivize them to continue creating content that their audience loves.” The company did not detail what percentage of the revenue it would share with those who sign up paying subscribers.
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| Cameron Barr |
The Washington Post names Cameron Barr, one of its four managing editors, to be acting executive editor following Marty Baron’s Feb. 28 exit. Barr, managing editor in charge of news and features, is thought to be a leading candidate for the top job. Before joining the Post in 2004, he served as Tokyo bureau chief and Middle East correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. He has also worked at the American Lawyer magazine and NBC News. Publisher Fred Ryan said that “the search for the next Executive Editor is actively underway with a broad and diverse group of exceptional journalists.”
Trump Media & Technology Group today reported a $58.2M net loss on $4.1M in 2023 revenues, a disclosure that drove its stock price down 22.6 percent to $47.96.
Barry Pollack, an attorney at Wall Street’s Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler, has registered Julian Assange as a client with the Justice Dept. “out of an abundance of caution.”
Paramount Global to slash 800 jobs in what chief executive Bob Bakish calls part of an effort to “return the company to earnings growth"... Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman is exiting at the end of the month due to disagreements with chief executive Gus Wenner over the direction the magazine is taking... The New York Times broke the $1 billion barrier in annual revenue from digital subscriptions in 2023... Press Forward is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms.
The majority of news articles are read within the first three days of publication, according to a recent report.
The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to 115 people or 20 percent of its newsroom staff... TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which is approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff... The Baltimore Banner, which was launched by Stewart Bainum in 2022 after he failed to buy the Baltimore Sun, added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following Sinclair Broadcast Group's deal to purchase the Sun.
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