Media & Communication

Media businesses are eyeing the revenue potential for AI licensing – but they need to make their news content suitable for action-focused agents.

Battle far from over after Paramount and Warner Bros deal creates new global entertainment powerhouse “It feels like the calm before the storm,” says an executive at Skydance, the newly minted media empire formed from the megamerger of Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD). “David has got what he wanted, but now there is a price to pay.”Earlier this month, David Ellison, Skydance’s chief executive, sealed the $110bn (£82bn) deal, creating a global powerhouse spanning two Hollywood studios each more than a century old, the TV networks HBO, MTV and Discovery, and news outlets CBS and CNN. Continue reading...

BBC series deliberately uses ‘more organic’ shots to assure viewers animals are not AI-generated, producers sayThe David Attenborough-narrated series Blue Planet III deliberately includes cloudier, less polished footage to counter AI fakery and assure viewers it is “authentic”, its producers have said.Nearly a decade after Blue Planet II shone a light on plastic pollution, and 25 years since the first Blue Planet aired, the hit BBC series is returning with more animal behaviour and cutting-edge technology, including the world’s first underwater CCTV camera – dubbed “stonefish” cam. Continue reading...

Dom Phillips warned that Jair Bolsonaro would make life more dangerous for reporters and the Amazon rainforest, and that his sons were even more extreme“Bolso shows all signs of fascism, as do his supporters,” the murdered British journalist Dom Phillips told me before his death. “His sons are all more extreme if anything.”These words were written in 2018 by the Guardian contributor shortly before the election of the far-right former army captain Jair Bolsonaro as president of Brazil – a prospect that Dom viewed with dread. Continue reading...

Vertical dramas are a global phenomenon made in bite-sized addictive chunks to watch on phones. But Channel 4 has made a slow-release syrupy tale in five parts – without tension or actual drama Vertical dramas – that is, short-form content made specifically for phones – are big business in 2026. They are particularly popular in countries such as China and India, and the global market is expected to be worth $26bn by 2030. It makes sense: much has been made of the double-screening epidemic, and of people scrolling so much that Netflix has to remind them what is going on on their TV screens every few seconds. Why not just cut out the middleman and ditch the telly bit altogether? Enter ..

In this week’s newsletter: Stalling subscriber numbers have led to a corporate bloodbath, but the streaming giant has an inherent quality problem that will be a lot harder to fixIn all the fevered hype around a certain three-hour, form-breaking documentary portrait of a disgraced tech CEO, another big Hollywood story this week has been relatively sidelined: the drama at Netflix, where sluggish subscriber numbers and a general lack of Wall Street enthusiasm has led to a remarkable spree of sackings. A thousand employees, or 6% of its entire workforce, have been laid off – including some very big names. Among a clutch of other execs, chief content officer Bela Bajaria – the figure most s..

CNN Business INTL Edition

President Trump’s novel deal-making is on display in upstate New York, where the administration is funneling Japanese funds into a government-owned chip factory.

WAN-IFRA asks Meta to suspend the provision for news publishers before 30 October and to negotiate a fair framework for the use of journalism.

Redundancies come after paper was bought in June by European media group Axel SpringerThe new owners of the Daily Telegraph have made large numbers of staff redundant, telling them the title will be transformed from a newspaper “into a global, AI-powered premium media and intelligence business”.In an all-company briefing and email on Friday morning, staff were told the title would rely increasingly on technology, data and AI to “reinvent the reader experience”. Newsroom insiders said they expected as many as 100 people to lose their jobs. Continue reading...

Campaigners call lack of progress ‘staggering’, as Ofcom also admits little change in severity of harm to children encountering unsafe contentLandmark online safety measures have failed to limit the proportion of children suffering harm from social media, the UK’s online regulator has admitted, in an assessment branded “staggering” by campaigners.The proportion of children being fed unsafe content that often left them frightened, confused and upset, was almost unchanged, according to an Ofcom review of the first nine months of supposedly strict requirements on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. Continue reading...

Cate Blanchett and Hannah Waddingham join William on sofa for special edition to celebrate prince’s Earthshot prizeThe Prince of Wales has braved the chatshow sofa, making a surprise appearance on The Graham Norton Show.In the pre-recorded show, to be aired on Friday on BBC One, William made a surprise appearance in a special Earthshot prize edition to promote his environmental initiative, which has an annual awards ceremony due to be staged in Mumbai, India, next month. Continue reading...

Conservative media personalities who have long benefited from boosting the president will be forced to wrestle with the likely fallout of Republican losses in next month’s US midterm electionsNothing lasts forever. Jesse Kelly knows his meteoric rise through conservative radio will end one day – just like Donald Trump’s power over the Republican party.Every day, the 6ft 8in Kelly walks a tightrope between sycophancy and criticism of the US president: the same fine line many rightwing hosts have attempted to tread throughout Trump’s rise, fall, and then resurrection from the political graveyard after his 2020 presidential election defeat. Continue reading...

Celia’s guffs, Richard’s gaffes, Claudia’s glorious knitwear – The Traitors has become the most successful show on the planet. The creators and the queen of the castle herself talk exploding pirate ships, becoming evil and Barry the owlIt all began on a Dutch trading ship in 1628. No, really. When the Batavia set sail from Amsterdam, it crashed and the shipwrecked survivors were left stranded on a tiny island off the coast of Western Australia. As mutineers eyed the Batavia’s stash of silver, shipmates, friends and families turned on each other. About 100 people were brutally murdered, making it one of the most violent chapters in maritime history.Nearly 400 years later, in 20..

Show features live chat sessions with breeders, a podcast and updates on dogs’ progress from birth to weigh-insA 24-hour Finnish TV show dedicated entirely to the live progress of a dog and her six newborn puppies is drawing millions of viewers.As well as a 24-hour webcam, Pentulive (Puppy Live) includes live evening chat sessions with the dogs’ breeder, a podcast and an instant notification service that updates followers on the puppies’ progress – from their birth to weigh-ins and first nail trims – for eight weeks. Continue reading...

Duchess of Sussex’s decision to cut ties with elderly father cast in new light as he faces sexual abuse image claimsMeghan ‘deeply distressed’ by allegations against fatherThe depiction of the Duchess of Sussex by certain sections of the media has often been one of a fame-hungry daughter casting off an elderly father in his declining years and keeping him from his grandchildren as she embraces the international celebrity stage.Their estrangement has been the subject of countless headlines since her marriage to Prince Harry. But her statement today, released after child sexual abuse image allegations made against Thomas Markle Sr, 82, suggests deeper, darker fears as the cause. Continue..

Jack Lowden, Callum Turner and Josh O’Connor are rumoured to be the final candidates taking screentests this weekend. So how can they best prepare? And who is likely to triumph?This weekend, the identity of the next James Bond is finally expected to be known – to the insiders, at least. According to reports, a number of youngish British actors – definitely three, possibly five – will have their final screen tests.To say it has been a long time coming is an understatement. It is five years since Daniel Craig was killed in a hail of missiles at the end of No Time to Die, and in that time – even long before it – a swarm of actors have been tipped to replace him, only to age out of t..

Readers on taking back their lives – and brains – from social media algorithmsI couldn’t agree more with Georgina McNamara (The one change that worked: I deleted Instagram – and embraced the joys of a truly private life, 19 October).Reading about the sheer relief of stepping away from Instagram resonates deeply with my own feelings over the last few years. There is an incredible quiet joy in reclaiming a truly private life, entirely free from the pressure to document, curate and perform our daily routines for an invisible audience. Continue reading...

PM and the Liverpool mayor prove to be naturals at watching TV, with a genuine connection and sense of funOn nights like this a man can feel like he’s slipped through the looking-glass. I’m sitting on the sofa watching the TV, poised to make some gags about the prime minister and the mayor of Liverpool, who are themselves sitting on a sofa at No 10, poised to make some gags about what they are watching on TV.Life doesn’t get more meta. The saving grace is that this episode of Gogglebox is a charity special for Stand Up to Cancer. Andy Burnham has requested that any journalist writing about the programme makes a donation to SU2C. I’m happy to oblige. Cancer is costing me a great deal ..

Susie Fowler-Watt will anchor BBC Look East for the last time in December.

Susie Fowler-Watt says it has been a "privilege" to have "grown up" alongside audiences.

Every week the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is compiling a list of the top news articles from across the world in which it is mentioned. Check all the international media coverage of IFJ, divided by language, in the period from 16 October to 23 October.

On 22 October, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), together with 44 other international, European, regional and Albanian organisations, issued a joint statement raising serious concerns over reported violations of fundamental rights following the student-led protests that began on 13 October in Albania. We call on Albanian authorities to ensure accountability, protect journalists and media workers, and safeguard fundamental rights and democratic freedoms amid escalating tensions.

Between September 28 and 30, Egyptian security forces arrested six journalists working for Matsada2sh, an Egyptian fact-checking and news verification outlet. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) calls on its affiliates worldwide, the trade union movement and the public to sign the petition, demanding the release of Matsada2sh journalists and all media workers wrongfully imprisoned in the country.

Four years after senior Pakistani investigative journalist and television anchor Arshad Sharif was shot dead by Kenyan police while living in self-imposed exile, no perpetrator has been arrested or prosecuted. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), call for an end to the continued impunity denying Sharif’s family and colleagues justice and the prosecution of the officers responsible for his murder.