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ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have called time on Venu Sports, their proposed joint sports streaming service, before its kickoff. In a joint statement on Jan. 10, the three companies said that the service will be discontinued immediately. “In an ever-changing marketplace, we determined that it was best to meet the evolving demands of sports fans by focusing on existing products and distribution channels,” they said. After plans for the service were announced in February 2024, a legal challenge from streaming service Fubo, which focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports, resulted in Venu being put temporarily on hold. On Jan. 6, Disney and Fubo said they would combine Disney’s Hulu+Live TV business with Fubo, ending the litigation and setting the stage for Venu’s cancellation. ESPN has indicated that it is planning its own DTC consumer service (code named “Flagship”) that is likely to launch in August.
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| Piers Morgan |
Piers Morgan, through his Wake Up Productions media company, is acquiring “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” the talk show that started broadcasting on Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV in 2022 before moving to its current home on YouTube (where it has more than 3.6 million subscribers). Murdoch’s News UK, which has also shifted TalkTV to online-only status, will hold on to a commercial interest in the program for the next four years. Morgan stopped broadcasting on TalkTV last February, saying the daily schedule of the show put him into an “unnecessary straitjacket.” He says that “owning the brand allows my team and I the freedom to focus exclusively on building Uncensored into a standalone business.” Red Seat Ventures, which has produced shows for Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, will work with Morgan on developing partnerships and other revenue-boosting initiatives for the brand.
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HuffPost joins the wave of media companies handing out pink slips, laying off 39 employees on Jan. 8. The axed employees include David Wood, who won the platform its only Pulitzer in 2012 for a series on the American troops severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. The layoffs follow the creation of Oath, a new digital unit at Verizon, HuffPost’s parent company. That move is expected to result in as many as 2,100 layoffs across the company. In response to the layoffs, HuffPost editor-in-chief Danielle Belton handed in her resignation. In a staff memo, Belton said that “I could not, in good faith, ask others to make this difficult decision without doing the same.”
MSNBC president Rashida Jones is stepping down, after close to four years in the job... Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is preparing for what he says will be “an intense year” by dumping staffers that he terms “low performers.” ... CBS News is putting Susan Zirinsky, who served as its president from January 2019 until April 2021, back in the driver’s seat as its interim executive editor.
Donald Trump’s campaign got a sneak preview of the questions for a Fox News town hall in January 2024, according to an upcoming book from POLITICO national political reporter Alex Isenstadt....The Washington Post laid off roughly 100 employees across its business division on Jan. 7....Getty Images and Shutterstock plans to merge under the corporate name of Getty Images Holdings, Inc.
President-elect Donald Trump has sued pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling firm, The Des Moines Register and Gannett, the Register’s parent company for poll that predicted he was going to lose Iowa's presidential vote... Forbes, which has been in the magazine business since 1917, is launching a private members’ club in Madrid’s financial district... “Sesame Street” seeks new distribution partner after it is dropped by Warner Bros. Discovery. 
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation pledges $20 million to support newsrooms and provide journalism infrastructure as part of its commitment to revitalize local reporting... Paul Krugman, who has written on political and economic topics for the New York Times for nearly 25 years, has retired... The Onion now faces a major roadblock in its attempt to buy Info Wars, the hotbed of conspiracy theory founded in 1999 by Alex Jones. 
With streaming platforms growing, half of young adults in the United States now say they don't watch any traditional TV at all, according to Statista.
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