BuzzFeed Q1 Revenue Declines 27%, CEO Says Company ‘Leaning Into’ AI and Creators After BuzzFeed News Shutdown

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor DirecTV announced a multiyear deal to sell the NFL’s Sunday Ticket out-of-market games package to commercial venues in the U.S., starting with the 2023 season. Under the pact with the NFL’s EverPass Media, DirecTV will continue to offer the Sunday football games to customers including casinos, restaurants, bars, hotel lounges and retail shops. The announcement comes after DirecTV lost its 28-year hold on Sunday Ticket for consumers, with Google securing a seven-year deal with the NFL to sell the package via YouTube. The satellite TV operator didn’t announce pricing for Sunday Ticket — which includes all Sunday day games broadcast by CBS and Fox — under the new commercial agreement. In past years, DirecTV’s pricing for the package has been tiered based on fire code occupancy (FCO) rates starting at $650/season for establishments with a certified FCO of 1-100, stepping up to $6,000/season for establishments with capacity of 101-200 and even higher for larger venues.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The four-season run of “Succession,” HBO’s highbrow family corporate drama, is coming to its conclusion — with the show giving viewers no clear tea leaves on what the future holds for Waystar Royco or the media conglomerate’s internecine clan. Will one of the Roy progeny ultimately take the throne as the new CEO, fulfilling the prophecy implicit in the show’s title? Or will Waystar Royco wind up in the clutches of GoJo? Ahead of the series finale’s airing on Sunday, May 28 (on HBO and the newly relaunched Max), wagering site DraftKings drew up hypothetical odds for the likeliest outcomes. SEE ALSO: Jeremy Strong’s ‘Succession’ Method Acting Was So Intense That He’d Practice Asking Strangers Where the Bathroom Was

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Semafor, the digital new startup launched last fall, announced that it has raised $19 million in a new financing round, bringing its total raised to $34 million. The New York-based company was co-founded by Ben Smith, previously media columnist for the New York Times and editor in chief of BuzzFeed News, and Justin B. Smith, former CEO of Bloomberg Media Group. (The two are not related.) Semafor said the additional investments are an extension on the same terms of the company’s previous financing round. The new total also takes into account the repurchase of the approximately $10 million in funds from Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of cryptocurrency company FTX whom federal prosecutors have charged with fraud, money laundering and campaign finance offenses. The funding from Bankman-Fried will be returned to FTX creditors as directed by officials, according to Semafor.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Jeffrey Katzenberg took a massive swing at the streaming biz with Quibi — and despite the startup’s shutdown just six months after it launched, he says he’s still proud of the effort. Katzenberg, an investor, Hollywood producer and former top studio chief, founded Quibi with former eBay and Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman. The streaming service had positioned itself as the HBO of short-form mobile video and had raised $1.75 billion before it closed its doors in late 2020 after failing to attract subscribers. Katzenberg reflected on Quibi in an interview with LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky on the latest episode of the business-focused social network’s “The Path” series. “I’m humbled by the failure,” Katzenberg said. “But I’m proud that what we tried was a moonshot.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor With cord-cutting at an all-time high, Comcast is introducing a new streaming subscription option to keep broadband customers in the video fold. On Tuesday, Comcast announced Now TV, a new streaming offering that includes more than 40 live cable entertainment channels from A+E Networks, AMC, Hallmark and Warner Bros. Discovery — but no local broadcast TV or sports channels — plus 20-plus integrated free, ad-supported television (FAST) channels from NBC, Sky and Xumo Play. In addition. Now TV includes a bundled subscription to Peacock Premium with ads. Now TV will be available to Comcast’s Xfinity Internet customers within the next few weeks, priced at $20 per month. Now TV does not require an additional set-top box and lets customers sign up or cancel at any time.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor It’s the beginning of the end for Showtime as a standalone brand. Paramount Global will launch the newly integrated Paramount+ With Showtime service in the U.S. on June 27, establishing it as the company’s top-tier streaming product without commercials. As previously announced, the Paramount+ With Showtime plan will cost $11.99 per month — up 17% from $9.99/month, but still less than the standard ad-free packages from rivals like Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max (nee HBO Max) and Netflix. At the same time, the price of the Paramount+ Essential Plan (without Showtime) will increase from $4.99 to $5.99 per month.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor With HBO Max turning into Max, Warner Bros. Discovery is introducing a higher-priced plan — $19.99 per month — with an expanded bouquet of 4K Ultra HD content aimed at pushing customers to the pricier package. On Monday, the company announced that the 4K tier will feature more than 1,000 films and episodes in 4K UHD, an increase of nearly eightfold over what has been available in HBO Max. The 4K UHD content on Max will include “Game of Thrones,” “The Last of Us,” the Harry Potter films, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Dark Knight trilogy, the Matrix films and more. Additionally, all Warner Bros. movies released this year and going forward will be available in 4K UHD when they arrive on Max following their theatrical windows.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday issued unanimous rulings on two cases that could have upended the existing legal-liability shield internet companies have regarding user posts on social media. The decisions left untouched Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. As currently interpreted, Section 230 grants internet companies broad legal protections for user-posted content on their services. The two related cases, which had been appealed to the Supreme Court, threatened to erode the protections of Section 230. In the first case, Twitter v. Taamneh, plaintiffs claimed that Twitter was liable for allegedly “aiding and abetting” an attack in Istanbul by ISIS because Twitter failed to adequately block or remove content promoting terrorism (even though Twitter had no specific knowledge that any particular post furthered a terrorist act). In its ruling, the Supreme Court held that hosting, displaying and recommending videos, without more, is not aiding and abetting terrorism. The court noted that all content is sorted by algorithms and that using content-agnostic recommendation algorithms is insufficient to create liability.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor YouTube’s biggest ad innovation for 2023? It might be borrowing a well-worn page from old-fashioned linear TV. At the YouTube Brandcast upfront event Wednesday in New York, execs announced the introduction of 30-second unskippable ads in top-performing YouTube content on TVs — you know, just like the commercials that have run on broadcast and cable networks for decades. YouTube also will start testing new “Pause Experiences” for YouTube on TV screens, showing an ad when viewers pause a video akin to the pause ads Hulu first bowed four years ago. In their pitch to Madison Avenue types, YouTube execs also boasted of the streaming service’s massive reach: More than 150 million unique viewers in the U.S. watched YouTube and YouTube TV on televisions for the month of December 2022, according to Nielsen estimates. YouTube remains the No. 1 most-watched service on TV screens in America (across both streaming platforms and traditional TV networks), and in April was one of the only streamers to see month-to-month growth, per Nielsen.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney has pegged total cash content spending at around $30 billion for this year — but the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike may drive that down, CFO Christine McCarthy said. “If you haven’t noticed we’re in the middle of a writers strike,” McCarthy said, speaking Wednesday at MoffettNathanson’s Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in New York. The WGA walkout may reduce Disney’s cash spending on content for the balance of the year, she said. At the MoffettNathanson conference, MCarthy appeared alongside Disney president of ad sales Rita Ferro. The two Disney execs spoke a day after the media conglom’s upfront presentation in the Big Apple to ad buyers and brands — which was noticeably light on scripted fare, given the writers strike. Marvel’s Kevin Feige previewed upcoming Disney+ series “Secret Invasion,” featuring Samuel L. Jackson and Don Cheadle, and announced premiere dates for “Loki” Season 2 and “Hawkeye” spinoff “Echo.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Elon Musk, after dramatically slashing Twitter’s headcount following his takeover of the social platform, said the company will try to rehire some of them — acknowledging that the job cuts were too deep. Musk has slashed Twitter’s headcount by about 80%, from 7,800 to about 1,500, as he has attempted to cut costs and get the company in the black. “Some people who were let go probably shouldn’t have been,” Musk said during an interview with CNBC anchor David Faber following the 2023 Tesla annual shareholder meeting Tuesday at the car maker’s headquarters in Austin, Texas. “Desperate times call for desperate measures… Unfortunately, if you do it fast, there are some babies who will be thrown out,” Musk said. Twitter now will probably try to rehire some of the Twitter employees that were let go, he said.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor In what may have been an highly unconventional job interview, NBCUniversal ad chief Linda Yaccarino hosted a discussion with Elon Musk about Twitter’s content policies and approach to working with marketers at an industry conference one month before Musk announced that he’d hired her as the social network’s CEO. The April 18 keynote conversation was billed as a talk about Musk’s “Twitter 2.0: From Conversations to Partnerships” at MMA Global’s Possible marketing event in Miami. Yaccarino told Musk that marketers want “protection for their ad campaigns,” with content moderation policies ensuring that “provocative speech” is properly labeled. She applauded Twitter’s announcement last month to promote “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach,” under which the company said it will limit the reach of tweets that violate policies concerning hateful conduct and violent speech.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor NBCUniversal is swinging its suite of free NBC and Telemundo 24-hour local news channels in major markets to Amazon’s Fire TV. Under the deal, U.S.-based customers with Fire TV and Amazon Echo Show devices can now access local breaking news coverage and original content on the free, ad-supported TV (FAST) channels of NBCU’s 15 NBC- and Telemundo-owned stations in top markets The agreement builds on NBCU’s existing deals to distribute Peacock on Fire TV, as well as Today All Day and Dateline 24/7 FAST channels. In addition, NBCU network apps including NBC, Bravo, E!, Oxygen, Syfy, USA, Universal Kids, MSNBC, NBC News, CNBC, NBC Sports and Telemundo are available on Fire TV.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Elon Musk claims he’s hired someone to replace him as CEO of Twitter. But for now, the tech tycoon isn’t revealing who that is. “Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter,” the mega-billionaire tweeted Thursday. “She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.” Back in December, Musk said he would step aside as Twitter’s chief executive once he found “someone foolish enough” to take over the role. Even then, however, the billionaire will retain control of the social network and remain closely involved in running it. Musk closed a $44 billion deal for Twitter in October 2022, but he’s since said he now values the company at less than half that — at $20 billion.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Listen up! While podcast advertising revenue remains relatively small, it’s growing quickly — and the sector is poised for a strong double-digit gain this year, despite economic headwinds. In 2023, U.S. podcast ad revenue is expected to total $2.28 billion, up 43% year over year, according to new research conducted by PwC for the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB). Last year, the segment increased 26%, to hit $1.8 billion, per the study. By 2025, podcast advertising revenue in the U.S. is projected to reach about $4 billion. Overall, podcasting continues to be one of the fastest-growing digital channels, growing two times faster than digital advertising overall — although for 2022 it remained less than 1% of the total pie (which PwC pegged at $209.7 billion).

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Fans of “The Voice” will soon be able to jump into a new immersive virtual world where they can create music, show off their dancing skills, compete in battles, win digital merch — and even audition to be on an upcoming season of the reality-competition series. “The Voice Studios,” from ITV Studios and metaverse developer Virtual Brand Group, is set to debut May 12. The global launch of the Roblox-style virtual world is timed for the final weeks of Season 23 of “The Voice” on NBC. Free for anyone to access, “The Voice Studios” will be located in Vegas City, the entertainment destination in metaverse platform Decentraland (at this link). Its launch follows a virtual pop-up event for “The Voice” last year at the Decentraland Metaverse Music Festival that also was created by VBG.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Coulda, woulda, shoulda? Ten years ago, Yahoo was looking for a “transformative” acquisition, former CEO Marissa Mayer said in a recent interview with Tech Brew. Among the targets the internet company was looking at: Netflix and Hulu. Yahoo ended up buying blogging site Tumblr for $1.1 billion in 2013 — which, to put it mildly, did not pan out as expected. “We looked at a transformative acquisition, and we bought Tumblr,” Mayer said. “At the same time, we were also considering whether it was possible to buy Hulu or, ironically, Netflix. And I think Netflix was $4 billion and Hulu was at $1.3 billion at the time. And either of those, with hindsight being 20/20, would have been a better acquisition.” (Netflix’s market capitalization in May 2013 was $12.7 billion; as of Friday, it was about $143.5 billion.)

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The FTC alleges Meta failed to comply with a 2020 privacy order — and as such, the agency wants to impose new restrictions on the social giant, including prohibiting Facebook, Instagram and its other services from monetizing data from users under 18. The FTC also is proposing to prohibit Meta from releasing new or modified products, services or features without “written confirmation” from the third-party assessor overseeing its privacy programs. Under the 20-year settlement with the FTC (reached in 2019 and approved the following year) Meta agreed to pay a record-breaking $5 billion fine and to submit to new oversight by the commission. That was to settle claims that the company violated a 2012 FTC order “by deceiving users about their ability to control the privacy of their personal information.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Roku is reinvesting in — and bulking up — its originals lineup, announcing a new season of “The Great American Baking Show” and an unscripted comedy featuring singer-songwriter Charlie Puth among the shows coming to the Roku Channel. Notably, the content announcements at Roku’s 2023 NewFronts presentation — coming on Day One of the WGA writers strike — were unscripted/reality formats. Also at the event in New York Tuesday, the streaming platform unveiled a suite of new ad solutions, including sponsorships for its popular Roku City screensaver. The company announced that it has renewed reality competition series “The Great American Baking Show” for Season 2. The news came ahead of the premiere Friday, May 5, of the new six-episode run of the show featuring Paul Hollywood, Prue Leith, Ellie Kemper and Zach Cherry (pictured above, left) on the Roku Channel. “The Great American Baking Show,” produced by Love Productions USA, ran for five seasons on ABC as a spinoff of original hit “The Great British Baking Show” before it was picked up last year by Roku. The streaming company previously acquired U.S. rights to dozens of episodes in the “Great Baking Show” franchise for a FAST channel. Roku will also bring back the holiday special of “The Great American Baking Show,” which will feature all-new celebrity bakers and debut this upcoming holiday season.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Jeff Shell, the former chief executive of NBCUniversal, forfeited stock grants and options worth $43.3 million after he was fired for cause earlier this week, according to a Comcast regulatory filing. Shell was terminated as CEO of NBCU over the past weekend after an internal investigation into his relationship with Hadley Gamble, an international correspondent for CNBC. “As previously disclosed, Mr. Shell’s employment was terminated with cause on April 23, 2023. As a result, he did not receive any supplemental payments or benefits in connection with his termination,” Comcast said in its 2023 proxy statement. “He will receive only his accrued but unpaid base salary and vacation time, vested employee benefits and reimbursement for any unreimbursed business expenses in accordance with his employment agreement.”