Media Weekly News Today

A former star of The Project is moving onto great things.

Welcome to the hottest rundown in media town, as we take a look at some of the biggest trending stories of the week… There’s news of a special appearance due to be made by the King of Spain at tomorrow’s World News Media Congress, while Netflix looks to diversification to boost growth. But first, let battle commence…

For this editor, a lifelong dream was realised on Sunday night, when Will Smith took to the hallowed Academy Award’s stage to collect his long overdue Oscar. But overshadowing the accolade… DRAMA! As Big Will - independently of Dru Hill - went Wild Wild West and delivered a Rock Bottom live on global television…

Two weeks ago, we looked at how Putin’s propaganda machine was, perhaps for the very first time, beginning to show signs of vulnerability as it met with reality on the frontlines. Yesterday, Marina Ovsyannikova - an editor at Russia’s state-run Channel One - interrupted a live broadcast to tell the channel’s audience the truth…

A strong box office end to 2021 hints at a potential return to normality in 2022, and for FIPP’s part, we’re counting down the days until real-world Congress in June… Meanwhile, Nike is moving in the opposite direction as it morphs into the metaverse, and the BBC enters its centenary year. Welcome back!

As we move into the holiday season, we look back on a year of change. The Economist launched its first NFT, Amazon bought MGM, and in Afghanistan the media landscape shifted seismically as a female anchor was broadcast interviewing a Taliban spokesperson. Meanwhile, as the rest of us endeavoured to return real-world events, Facebook went Meta, and there were BIG deals too throughout the traditional magazine universe. The Media Weekly morphs into the Media Year this week, as we take a whistlestop...

The paint had barely dried on Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta rebrand, when Jack Dorsey announced his resignation from Twitter last week. They say Alexander the Great sat down and wept, for he had no more worlds to conquer. Was Dorsey’s departure influenced by his rival’s decision to turn attentions towards the metaverse? Probably not, since Meta is a US$800bn company, and Twitter weighs in at a humble $13bn. But it’s interesting timing isn’t it!