Digital

Politico, the 15-year-old digital media company covering politics and policy, is being sold to German publishing giant Axel Springer. The price was more than $1 billion, according to a source familiar with the terms. Axel Springer also will also acquire the remaining 50% share of its joint venture Politico Europe, and the tech news website Protocol from current owner Robert Albritton.

Wireless subscriber growth has been off the charts over the past year, with second quarter increases nearing records as mobile service providers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile blanket the market with free offerings. But as subscriber numbers have surged, MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett wrote in a research report that those new customers are a volatile bunch, meaning the industry may soon have to decide whether to keep heavy promotions going just to maintain the status quo, or risk losing them by turning off the promotional spigot.

The social network has contacted academics to create a group to advise it on thorny election-related decisions, a move that would allow it to shift some of its political decision-making to an advisory body.

With the addition of 10 live-streamed sports channels to the AVOD service, expect lots of cannibalization from pay TV networks as the game progresses.

Former President Donald Trump on Monday urged a federal court to order YouTube to quickly restore his former channel on the online video-sharing platform. In a 39-page request for an injunction, Trump’s lawyers argue that his permanent suspension from YouTube is causing him “irreparable injury,” because he is being deprived of “his donor and merchandising platforms,” as well as his ability to endorse political candidates.

He will oversee all aspects of the Fox streaming news service, including content, product, marketing and distribution.

CBS News and Stations has launched CBSN Baltimore, the 12th of 13 local direct-to-consumer streaming news services within the group. WJZ Baltimore is the station behind CBSN Baltimore.

New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include openings in news, sales, marketing, digital, engineering and media analysis.

Last year, Facebook Inc. did something U.S. technology giants have done countless times before: It bought a smaller company and closed the deal without notifying competition regulators. But this transaction — the $400 million acquisition of image library Giphy Inc. — was particularly bold. At the time, Facebook was under investigation by antitrust enforcers for what the government says was an illegal practice of buying companies in order to eliminate them as potential threats to its monopoly power. Maneuvers like Giphy’s make policing deals all the more challenging at a time when authorities are being called on to take more aggressive steps to curb the growth of dominant companies, especially in the technology industry.

The same tricks that nearly destroyed online journalism now threaten to take over the streaming service.

The purchase of the national political platform “complements Nexstar’s leading digital platform,” the company said.

When Paw Patrol: The Movie hits theaters and the Paramount+ streaming service today, it will kick off one of ViacomCBS’s most ambitious efforts to take on Disney in the streaming wars. The release of the feature film based on the animated children’s series about a group of rescue dogs who protect their community, will be backed by an “eight figure” marketing blitz, with 1,800 TV ads across channels like Nickelodeon. It involves partnerships with almost 200 companies — from Kellogg’s cereal to Best Western hotels — on tie-ins for toys and other products, many of which will come with a free trial of Paramount+.

For the second consecutive week Netflix’s Virgin River was the most watched program on the major U.S. SVOD services, attracting 1.270 billion viewing minutes during the week of July 19-25, according to Nielsen. Virgin River was the only SVOD program to garner over 1 billion viewing minutes for that week.

TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp talks with David Chu, co-founder and CEO of Digital Media Rights, about the viability of niche-oriented AVOD options on streaming.