Warner Bros. Discovery stock fell by 3% on Friday following a Reuters report that several U.S. states plan to file a lawsuit to block the $110 billion acquisition of the firm by Paramount Skydance, TIKR reports. And Paramount shares fell by 4.3%. California Attorney General Rob Bonta is pushing the idea of suing based on what he alleges is the Trump administration’s “abdication” of federal antitrust enforcement, and filing of the suit is expected in the coming weeks.

CBS News management has reached out to the three remaining full-time "60 Minutes" correspondents — Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim — following the firing of Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, the Guardian reports. And staffers wonder how the show will be reconstituted. “It is not going to look like ’60 Minutes’ in the fall,” one said. Another commented that the departures created a “deep, deep wound.”    

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has sued the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), charging that it blocked three PETA ads on the system because of a rule that prohibits “advertisements intended to influence members of the public regarding an issue on which there are varying opinions.” The complaint states, “For reasons unknown to PETA, but that seem to only be explicable as stemming from a deeply held ideological bias against what it perceives as PETA's underlying mission WMATA, under the leadership of Defendant Randy Clarke, appears to have instituted a blanket ban on any ads from PETA.”

Dow Jones advised staffers this week that it plans to merge Publishing Editors and Platform Editors into “a single multiskilled digital production department,” Talking Biz News reports based on input from the IAPE union. The company also plans to reduce staff by ten positions and is inviting editors to volunteer for layoffs. Four members from Global Business Operations were cut. One layoff recipient told the union, “It was striking to see the number of highly qualified, deeply capable, and long-tenured women on the list.”

News now accounts for 8.6% of all FAST viewing hours, with some households consuming news content almost exclusively, according to a new report from Wurl, Demand Gen Report writes. But many advertisers still rely on broad genre- and channel-level exclusions that limit access to news inventory entirely, said Wurl CEO Dave Bernath. “Brand safety has historically forced advertisers into an all-or-nothing approach with news,” Bernath added in a statement. “But the reality is far more nuanced. Today, with scene-level contextual analysis, advertisers can evaluate the actual moment before an ad break rather than making assumptions about an entire channel or …

New York Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger lashed out at AI companies during a speech at the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress, saying that they are “consolidating their outsize control over our data and our attention,” according to a transcript published by Reuters. Sulzberger charged, “Their hijacking of the public square is made possible by the original sin that animates their A.I. products — a brazen theft of intellectual property that has occurred at an unprecedented scale. Tech giants strip-mine news websites without permission or compensation. They repackage these stolen goods as their own, siphoning off the audiences and revenue that otherwise would go to …

The Illinois General Assembly has authorized the Chicago City Council to impose a digital advertising tax within the city, WTTW reports. The measure was included in a $56 billion budget bill. Mayor Brandon Johnson had called for this action to help Chicago fill a projected $1.16 billion gap in the city’s 2027 budget. “As the economy continues to shift, and the digital medium becomes more dominant, it is essential that the big tech corporations earning untold billions through targeted advertising are part of the solution as we work to respond to the challenges our residents face on a daily basis,” …

Consumers feel “ambushed and annoyed,” by digital advertising -- and some are tuning out, according to The Harvard Business Review. But tests showed that consumers are less likely to feel that way when they have control of content or timing. Of two groups tested, the one able to exercise control showed 9-15% more attention to the ads and suffered 8-17% less annoyance than the no-choice group. In general, digital ads annoy 70% of consumers, 18% of whom use ad blockers for streaming content. In addition, 37% have canceled a subscription because of advertising. 

OpenAI has no plans to share ChatGPT advertising revenue with publishers, Varun Shetty, vice president of media partnerships for OpenAI, said on Tuesday, Press Gazette reports. Appearing at the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress in Marseille, Shetty was asked whether revenue would be shared. “Not at this point,” he said. Shetty added that he did not see traffic as the “core value” for publishers appearing within ChatGPTsearch.

“60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley was fired the day after a heated confrontation with the show’s new  executive producer Nick Bilton, The Washington Post reports. ““I know how much Scott meant to many of you, and I don’t say this lightly. I made repeated attempts to have direct conversations with him over the weekend, and this afternoon I tried to find common ground,” Bilton said in an email to the staff. “That was not the path Scott chose.” Pelley said the staff has been fighting political interference under the new owner Paramount Skydance.