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The New York Times is acquiring sports media platform The Athletic in an all-cash deal that values the company at $500 million. Launched in 2016 by Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann (who will be staying on after the deal). The Athletic employs approximately 600 people, with around 400 editorial staffers. The subscription-based platform says that it has more than 1 million subscribers. Adding those subscribers is a plus for the Times as it works toward the goal of 10 million paid digital-only subscribers by 2025. According to Axios, The Athletic was being pressed to sell due to the amount the cash it has lost in the last two years.
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WarnerMedia and ViacomCBS are putting the CW Network up for sale. Nexstar Media Group which is the largest owner of WB affiliate stations following its 2019 acquisition of Tribune Media, is said to be the main candidate to pick up the network. However, Deadline reports that several other suitors are in the mix. In a memo to staff, CW chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz said that “ViacomCBS and Warner Bros. are exploring strategic opportunities to optimize the value of their joint venture in The CW Network.” The CW has never been profitable on its own, but there is considerable value in the shows it produces for its studio parents, which are also distributed internationally and on streaming platforms.
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| Deborah Turness |
The BBC hires former president of NBC News International Deborah Turness as CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs. Turness joins the BBC from Independent Television News, where she has served as CEO since April. At NBC, she was the first woman in the US to serve as president of a network news division. Turness succeeds 40-year BBC veteran Fran Unsworth, who has led the network’s news division since January 2018, and is retiring at the end of this month. BBC chief executive Tim Davie called Turness “a passionate advocate for the power of impartial journalism and a great believer in the BBC and the rolw we play, in the UK and globally.”
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.
