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Media
Coverage of the publishers, platforms, and people shaping the media business in the AI era.
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Google Keeps Its Ad Monopoly, OpenAI Gets Washington’s Backing — Publishers Lost Both Fights This Week
A federal court let Google keep the ad exchange at the center of its monopoly and the U.S. government lined up behind OpenAI against…
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The Money Is Flowing Back Into Media — and It’s Betting Against the Pageview
Venture money is flooding back into media at valuations of $250 million and up — but only for the subscription, events, and commerce businesses,…
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The Pageview Economy Is Unwinding, and Publishers Are Rebuilding on Agents, Archives, and Loyalty
An AI “seller agent” closed a Vox Media ad buy in under two minutes while Amazon’s ad auctions drew a 22-state lawsuit — and…
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Scripps Is Betting Local TV Doesn’t Need Anchors — and the Rest of Media Is Quietly Making the Same Bet on People
Scripps is running “anchorless” AI newscasts in a dozen markets and betting viewers won’t miss the person on screen — while a startup pitching…
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In Media’s Biggest Deals, the Journalism Is the Cheap Part
CoStar paid $800 million for a data business at 20x earnings while its magazines were dumped a day earlier — and Puck’s $250 million…
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Media Stopped Selling Reach and Started Selling Devotion
New Pugpig data finds 15% of a publisher’s app users now drive 75% of its engagement — and from private-equity firms snapping up comic-cons…
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The Zero-Click Story Was Wrong — AI Traffic Surged, It Just Skipped the Publishers
ChatGPT referral traffic leapt 157% overnight once OpenAI added ads to its answers — but the new clicks flowed to brand homepages while news…
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The Clicks Are Full of Bots — and the Escape Route Runs Through Readers Who Actually Show Up
A new report finds up to 58% of newsletter clicks come from bots, pushing advertisers to demand verified humans — while SFGATE skips the…
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The Times Sued OpenAI. Now It’s Building an Answer Engine of Its Own.
The New York Times, still suing OpenAI, quietly began testing an AI answer engine built on its own archive — while a weekend of…
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Australia Stopped Negotiating With Platforms and Started Legislating Them
Australia turned “pay publishers” into law — forcing platforms to cut news deals or pay a levy — while MS NOW’s $7.99 membership, a…
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