 |
Hearst scooped up Rodale’s magazine and publishing business in yet another example of the consolidation trend of reshaping the business. Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Runner’s World, Bicycling and Prevention are among the titles in deal worth in the $225M range. The transaction is expected to close in early ’18. Rodale, which has been on a profit slide, sold off real estate and went through multiple rounds of staff reductions before the entire company was put up for sale earlier this year.
 |
Verizon is under increasing pressure to release its own streaming service, as consumer flight from basic cable to those services picks up steam. While the company added 66,000 net Internet connections during Q3 2017, it lost 18,000 net Fios Video connections, more than the 15,000 it lost in the second quarter and its dip of 13,000 in the first. Verizon’s new online TV service is now scheduled for a spring 2018 launch, According to Bloomberg, the debut of the service has been delayed at least twice. Verizon earlier this year acquired Yahoo, which it is combining with AOL to form the new Oath unit.
 |
VidAngel, a service intended to filter out offensive content such as nudity and violence from movies and programs on outlets such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in an attempt to hit the pause button on its copyright battle with several major studios. The company is at loggerheads with Disney, 20th Century Fox, Lucasfilm, Warner Bros, New Line Cinema, Marvel and Turner Entertainment, all of whom claim that the 2005 Family Movie Act—which allows filtering in the home—does not apply to modern streaming devices such as iOS, Android and ROKU. VidAngel launched a new platform in June that covers those devices. VidAngel CEO Neal Harmon said that the filing “gives us breathing room to reorganize our business around the new streaming platform, promote and perfect the new technology, and seek a legal determination that the new system is fully legal and not subject to the preliminary injunction entered in California.”
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.
