Your Media Morning: How Much Did CBS Boss Les Moonves Take Home in 2016? Amazon Readies For War With Netflix...

R I P  GLENN O'BRIEN, MAGAZINE LEGEND, DIES O’Brien, 70, was a media renaissance man of sorts, whose career reinvention from magazine editor and writer to creative director and ad man, and even TV personality, astounded his contemporaries. Driven by his passion for art, music, culture and beauty, O’Brien chronicled some of the more important moments in New York’s cultural landscape beginning in the early Seventies. Post it Tweet it Share it Forward it Good Media Morning to you. Here's what's going on elsewhere. But first, FORWARD THIS ISSUE» FOX NEWS SEX SCANDALS THREATEN RUPERT MURDOCH'S PLANS TO BUY BRITISH  SATELLITE AND NEWS GIANT SKY Rupert Murdoch has long sought to add Sky, the British satellite and news giant, to his stable of global media outlets that includes movie studios, newspapers and cable networks like Fox News. Yet after the sexual harassment scandal at Fox News that led to the ouster of Roger Ailes, its chairman, and the revelation of several settlements involving Bill O’Reilly and allegations of inappropriate behavior, Mr. Murdoch and 21st Century Fox now face renewed scrutiny over their plans to buy the 61 percent stake in Sky that they do not own. TIME INC'S STOCK CONTINUES TO WEAKEN Time Inc has hit some technical weakness in its momentum, and while it has not broken down all the way through support -- watch the key levels that we discuss below and further, watch the stochastics and technical oscillators for any kind of momentum gaps.         CALLING OUT CORPORATE BULLSHIT The third example comes from Jim Norton, who has the delightfully bullshitty title of chief business officer, president of revenue at Condé Nast. Last week he outlined his new strategy to all staff in a memo that began “Team” and proceeded with a stream of corporate nonsense about playbooks and journeys and wide arrays of differentiated solutions. It glossed over sackings as “hard personnel decisions”, only to declare the new corporate plan: “Condé Nast One”. AMAZON SETS ASIDE $4.5 BILLION TO GO TO WAR WITH NETFLIX Even so, Amazon would still sit below Netflix’s $6 billion content budget for 2017. But $4.5 billion would make Amazon a major, major player in the market. For reference, HBO spent around $2 billion on programming in 2016, and while Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said that budget would rise a bit this year, he characterized the 2017 HBO programming budget as a “couple of billion dollars” in December. LEADING DIGITAL PUBLISHERS LIKE MASHABLE, BUZZFEED AND REFINERY29 ARE SERIOUS ABOUT SHOW BUSINESS Within BuzzFeed Entertainment, BuzzFeed has the 40-person BuzzFeed Motion Pictures Group, which is responsible for developing and producing original shows and films. Mashable, which last year made a major pivot toward video, has the 50-person Mashable Studios, a third of which is based in L.A. and entirely focused on original content. Last year, Bleacher Report formed B/R Entertainment, led by veteran TV and comedy writer Neil Punsalan, who oversees 12 writers and producers with entertainment backgrounds. RECODE CO-FOUNDER AND ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL TECH JOURNALISTS WALT MOSSBERG IS RETIRING I didn’t make this decision lightly or hastily or under pressure. It emerged from months of thought and months of talks with my wise wife, my family, and close friends. It wasn’t prompted by my employer or by some dire health diagnosis. It just seems like the right time to step away. I’m ready for something new. NETFLIX'S CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER IS LEAVING AFTER 18 YEARS The video streaming company said this week that its chief product officer Neil Hunt will step down in July. Greg Peters, who has been with Netflix for nine years, will become the new chief product officer. During his stint at Netflix, Hunt helped the company branch out of its once-core business of renting DVDs to users by debuting in 2007 its popular on-demand video streaming service THE ATLANTIC TELLS AD BLOCKER USERS TO PAY $3.99/MONTH TO ACCESS CONTENT OR TURN OFF THEIR AD BLOCKERS Starting today, the news and culture publisher will require people using ad-blocking software to pay $3.99 a month or $39.99 a year for an ad-free version or turn off their ad blockers and view an ad-supported version of the site. The Atlantic planned the move to follow its converting the site to https. Publishers have been undertaking that process to provide secure connections for visitors and in anticipation of Google giving preference to https sites in its search results. MIC RAISES $21 MILLION FROM TIME WARNER AND OTHERS The new funding puts the company’s valuation in the range of the “mid hundreds of millions” of dollars, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mic has now raised $52 million since it launched in 2011. The fresh funding will go toward building out Mic’s new channels, which include the women’s-issues-focused Slay and the gamer-aimed Multiplayer, as well as more premium video content, said Chris Altchek, Mic’s co-founder and chief executive. PUBLICATIONS, PRINT/DIGITAL JUMPING INTO POLITICS Politics and pop culture have long been intertwined, but it’s true more than ever in the era of Trump. As such, publications of all editorial stripes are capitalizing on audiences’ interest, deploying more staffers to capitalize on readers’ interest in the Trump election and its aftermath. Data from Chartbeat, which measures article production and consumption across hundreds of online publishers, found that beyond Election and Inauguration Day spikes, showed a rise in both political coverage and readership. DISNEY'S 2017 VERSION OF 'BEAUTY AND THE BEAST' APPROACHING WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE SALES OF  $1BILLION Over the weekend, Walt Disney Co.’s  2017 version of “Beauty and the Beast” broke into the top 30 grossing films ever. Another strong weekend at the box office yielded $61 million. Worldwide, its total has reached $977.4 million, which puts it in 29th place. BOB GUCCIONE JR. FOUNDER OF SPIN AND SON OF PENTHOUSE MAGAZINE FOUNDER BOB GUCCIONE, IS BACK WITH AN ONLINE PUBLICATION CALLED 'WONDERLUST' “We are going to be the one thing that I can’t believe they’re not: entertaining, with humor. We don’t take ourselves too seriously... We are not going to forget that, and certainly not think we are better than our readers,” Guccione said. Wonderlust will live online only, a surprising move from a seasoned print magazine publisher. NEW YORK TIMES DITCHES FACEBOOK'S INSTANT ARTICLES Some publishers have cut back on Facebook’s Instant Articles because they were struggling to profit from the program. The New York Times no longer posts stories on Instant Articles, according to Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman. “We’re focused on building our subscription business.” NEWS CORP'S CEO HITS GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK AGAIN IN OP-ED “Google’s commodification of content knowingly, wilfully undermined provenance for profit. That was followed by the Facebook stream, with its journalistic jetsam and fake flotsam. Together, the two most powerful news publishers in human history have created an ecosystem that is dysfunctional and socially destructive,” wrote Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp, wrote in the today’s Times newspaper. TWITTER BOSS JACK DORSEY CONTINUES TO FOREGO DIRECT COMPENSATION Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey continued to forego direct compensation and Peter Fenton, a board member since 2009, will leave after the company’s annual meet in May, a regulatory filing showed on Friday. Twitter has been struggling to return to profitability. GOOGLE ADDS FAKE NEWS CHECK IN SEARCH RESULTS Google is rolling out a new feature that places “Fact Check” tags on snippets of articles in its News results. The Alphabet unit had already run limited tests. On Friday, it extended the capability to every listing in its News pages and massive search catalog. GANNETT'S VALUE COLAPSES Shares of Gannett traded in the low $8 range during most of March. The company has lost roughly 45 percent of its value since it split from Gannett’s 46-station broadcast division in June 2015. The broadcast unit, now called Tegna, got the better deal. Don't forget to share this morning's issue with colleagues and friends by clicking/tapping the button below SUBSCRIBE

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