Meta Platforms has asked a Los Angeles judge to throw out a $4.2 million addiction verdict reached against it in March and to order a new trial, Reuters reports. The jury found Meta and YouTube parent Google were negligent in designing their platforms, and that they failed to warn users about the dangers. Google was hit with $1.8 million in damages. 

Kismet Media has formed a partnership with Wheelhouse as it prepares to launch the reality series Calabasas Confidential, Deadline reports. The arrangement will combine Kismet’s producing and casing expertise with Wheelhouse’s production, investment and brand-building strengths. 

Gray Media has closed its $80 million acquisition of Block Communications, Stock Titan reports. The previously announced deal brings television stations in Louisville, Kentucky, Springfield-Decatur, Illinois and Lima, Ohio. Gray claims to reach 37% of television households in the United States. 

Sports teams advertising in today’s three-pillared television scene should take a holistic approach where linear TV, free ad-supported TV (FAST), and other ad-supported streaming (Non-FAST AVOD) are seen as a single, scalable ecosystem. Nielsen states in a new guide. The guide explores the gap between the ways diverse audiences consume media and where many brands allocate ad spend and how to close it. 

A new bill in California would require state agencies to commit 40% of their annual advertising and marketing budgets to ethnic and community media outlets, Calo News reports. Authored by State Senator Susan Rubio (D – Los Angeles), SB 1358 would move California away from a top-down, volume-driven planning model that prioritizes audience reach to an approach that embraces hyperlocal, in-language media. This follows a 2024 bill signed by Governor Newsom that calls for state agencies to emphasizes ethnic and community media outlets, but does not specify a percentage. California is home to 1,270 distinct ethnic groups.

The Federal Trade Commission has entered into a legal settlement with Media Matters that would end its investigation into the a progressive media watchdog according to a press release from Media Matters, Huffington Post reports. The settlement ending the months-long legal battle was signed on Monday.

James Murdoch, the youngest so of Rupert Murdoch, is in talks to buy Vox Media’s New York magazine and the Vox podcast division, according to sources familiar with the talks, The Wall Street Journal reports. But the purchase by Murdoch’s Lupa Systems, an investment company, is not yet final. Rupert Murdoch owned New York magazine from the late 1970 to 1991. In 2019, it was acquired by Vox for $105 million.

Rhode Island’s Ocean State Media has launched a more powerful signal at 103.7 WVEI-FM, facilitating consistent statewide coverage, Inside Radio reports. The statewide frequency is designed to replace a patchwork of signals the organization has historically used to reach listeners throughout the state.

Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, calls Australia’s social media ban an “unmitigated disaster” that is teaching kids to accept surveillance from tech companies, the Guardian reports. Wales, who founded Wikipedia, in 2001, says many ills of social media existed even in the early stages of the internet.“Before social media, before Wikipedia, there was Usenet, which was like a giant, unmoderated message board,” he said. “It was unbelievably toxic: flame wars constantly and personal attacks and just general horribleness.

Commerce media is expanding and moving toward greater convergence, Beet TV reports from the IAB Connected Commerce Summit. Michael Foulkes, head of customer success, retail media, at Pacvue, said that in the old model, brands  treated social media as brand advertising and turned to retail media for conversion. “The next phase of shopper media that we’re seeing is that there’s a real convergence of social and commerce,” he said.