Digital

TikTok has launched its first TV app on Amazon Fire TV devices. “More on TikTok” features curated video playlists and compilations from the mobile TikTok app, as well as interviews with creators, along with other content that runs over the one-minute limit on the phone app. The app is a view-only channel, so users won’t need to log in, and it won’t enable them to upload videos.

The twin executive orders issued Thursday — one for each app — add to growing U.S.-Chinese conflict over technology and security. They take effect in 45 days and could bar the popular apps from the Apple and Google app stores, effectively removing them from U.S. distribution. China’s foreign ministry expressed opposition but gave no indication whether Beijing might retaliate.

Over the last 15 years, Ken Doctor has made his living as a critic of the news industry. A onetime media executive who started out as a publisher and editor of an alt weekly, Doctor regularly warns against hedge-fund ownership of news outlets in a column he writes for Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab. Media companies hire him as a consultant, and he is often quoted in articles on the dismal state of local news coverage in America. Now, at age 70, Doctor is leaving his life as an armchair expert and starting a local news company.

ViacomCBS has raised the curtains on its long-anticipated global streamer, with plans set for an early 2021 launch in Australia, Latin America and the Nordics. Having teased the prospect of a “broad pay streaming product” back in May, ViacomCBS Networks International has unveiled plans for a premium SVOD service for all audiences, underpinned by major output deals with Showtime and CBS All Access and a “super-sized” selection of content from ViacomCBS brands including CBS, MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and some first-run Paramount films.

The post in question featured a link to a Fox News video in which Trump says children are “virtually immune” to the virus. Facebook said Wednesday that the “video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation.”

Executives from NBCUniversal, E.W. Scripps, Sinclair and CBC will share their latest approaches to monetizing their streaming channels as pandemic audiences grow but TV’s advertising fortunes have been more challenged. Register here.

Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, rolled out a new product to compete with TikTok that lets people create 15-second videos and share them.

The New York Times’ digital revenue surpassed its print revenue for the second quarter of 2020 for the first time in history. The Times added 669,000 net new digital subscribers during the quarter, according to Wednesday morning’s earnings release from the company. Overall in the quarter, the Times brought in $185.5 million in digital subscription and ad revenue and $175.4 million in print revenue.

ViacomCBS is combining  its three big connected digital video offerings into ViacomCBS EyeQ, which the company said will give ad buyers simplified access to large-scale audiences. EyeQ includes video from CBS Interactive, Viacom Video and Pluto TV at a time when advertisers are looking to connected TV to reach viewers with targeted advertising as young consumers are cutting the cord and turning to streaming programming.

Applications show the TMobile device could be based on the same dongle as Dish’s AirTV Mini.

Charter’s Spectrum Networks has launched the Spectrum News App, offering video- and text-based stories and live linear video feeds from its more than 30 TV news networks. The mobile-first service, free for all of Charter Spectrum’s 28 million residential internet, TV and mobile customers, is intended as a value-add to help maintain and grow Spectrum’s broadband and video customer base.

The social media company says the agency was examining whether it had misused people’s personal information to serve ads.

The FCC has put out for public comment the Trump Administration’s request that it come up with a regime for regulating social media and other website content to prevent what the president claims is anti-conservative bias.

In a statement Sunday, Microsoft said it and Chinese company ByteDance have provided notice of their intent to explore a deal resulting in Microsoft owning and operating the TikTok service in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The company said it expects those talks to conclude by Sept. 15.

Jean Ellen Cowgill, GM of Bloomberg’s soon-to-launch streaming service, will headline TVNewsCheck’s virtualized OTT News Summit in a keynote interview unpacking QuickTake’s approach to reaching a younger, larger demographic for global business news. Register here.

Disney+ content chief Agnes Chu is leaving the Mouse House to head up Condé Nast Entertainment’s video push. Chu, who was SVP, content for the nascent streamer, is set to become president of the publishing company’s studio and distribution division. She joins in September and reports to Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch.

Low-cost, sports-free streaming television service Philo said it has reached a deal with Google and is now available via Chromecast. Philo also said it rolled out Philo Connect, which will help Philo users connect and watch programming all of their devices.

In releasing a draft of a mandatory code of conduct, the government aims to succeed where other countries have failed in making the global digital giants pay for news siphoned from commercial media companies.