the future is here and it is picking images for news alerts

introducing the exciting new product from the people who destroyed cable television: cable television

Not just for actors, everyone. If your account is public, your content is at risk.

Hey squad, The Beat is finalizing SDCC coverage and we have a few openings for reporters! Duties include covering panels, activations, booth tours and so on. There is a LITTLE bit of pay. We cannot pay for accommodations but we will provide a press badge. DM or email - heidi at comicsbeat com

"Google is extracting 100% of the value from the websites it summarizes, and giving nothing back in return."

"Mistakenly, we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product." Holy cow, Ford bought the AI hype, believing they could go "hey computer, make me a good car" and it would.

The arm on NBA star Kelsey Plum, who throws a rolled-up jersey to her dad sitting in the upper bleachers. www.reddit.com/r/AbsoluteUn...

PlayStation is deleting 551 purchased movies from its customers' accounts, reminding us nothing digital is ever truly ours https://kotaku.com/playstation-store-movies-digital-studio-canal-terminator-2000711013

Media studies folks—new visualization for classes!

Something unusual is happening with movie theater operators: For the first time in a long time, they're in a very good mood. www.wsj.com/business/med...

Never change AI

What remains one of the best life hacks I’ve ever learned: at any chain that has a phone number-based rewards system needed for discounts (CVS, Duane Reade, etc.), simply put in the local area code followed by 867-5309. There is always already an account. You will always get the discount.

Just need everyone to know that the Belgium men's soccer team has new jerseys based on the art of Rene Magritte and this is the official photo shoot

Will be curious to see if/when a YouTuber breaks through with a theatrical film that isn’t in the horror genre—and what that might be.

This weekend’s box office feels like a the start of a moment in the vein of the late 60s and late 90s—truly a generational shift. And with The Mandalorian as the main point of comparison? Demo data in early reports is 👀 Awaiting the think pieces to come… deadline.com/2026/05/box-...

Between the box office performance of Obsession and Backrooms (as well as several other recent films), it feels like something about American moviegoing tastes and habits are shifting very quickly in a way for which most of the people with the money to finance movies are completely unprepared.

TMZ reporting on the pope’s encyclical was not on my bingo card.

Just noticed this (lesser-discussed) data point re: the potential Paramount/WB merger: "Research house Parrot Analytics has found that if the two services had been combined in the first quarter of 2026, it would have a 25.1% share of demand for unscripted content across the SVOD services."

NEW: Astronaut Reid Wiseman shares a video of ‘Earthset’ that was taken with his iPhone “This is uncropped, uncut with 8x zoom which is quite comparable to the view of the human eye…” Wiseman said. This has to be the greatest iPhone video of all time.

Good for those teaching business of media: streamers pushing us to ad tiers.

I misread the headline as one movie and got very excited for a moment…

Watching the 1995 science fiction classic Waterworld starring Jennifer Aniston.

The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me. It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."

NYT on the steady decline in reality TV production...now I gotta just get my own article on the the end of peak reality TV written. Summer? 🙏 www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/b...

Streaming subscription revenue tripled in 5 years, from $50 to $150 billion. And they're using unfettered price hikes to "nudge" subscribers to ad tiers — which are even more lucrative. www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus... #Streaming

Did you know that there's a third-party TweetDeck equivalent for Bluesky? Try the excellent @deck.blue

27 years later, every show on this list—other than 90210–is still around.

Aesop: I TOLD YOU

This is a great list of techniques for getting real information out of a Google search and avoiding AI slop and paid results. (One thing not included is that if you add "-ai" to a search, you block the AI summary) cardcatalogforlife.substack.com/p/google-has...

"Mainstream media" is increasingly a misnomer when applied to outlets that publish content created by people they employ. That's now a niche in a media market dominated by online megaplatforms that aggregate and monetize content provided for free by others. www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/dig...

Famed CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite while he was a student at UT-Austin. Walter was born in Missouri but moved to Texas when he was 10 years old. He went to elementary school, jr. high, and high school in Texas, then on to UT-Austin. He dropped out after two years to focus on being a journalist.

Amazing, no notes, I do not desire to learn anything else about this story, for it would only detract from the perfection on this headline.

Well, hey, how cool is this? 👏👏👏

I’m thrilled to announce the publication of a new report, “Roadmap to the Texas Media Industries: The Passage of the 2025 Film Incentive and Beyond.” This report includes more than a dozen articles produced by a team of researchers from UT-Austin and beyond. moody.utexas.edu/media/roadma...

City of Austin adding an additional incentive boost on top of the increased state film incentives. Exciting news! www.kvue.com/article/news...

This timeline is spurring my desire to get that article about the growing points of intersection of unscripted TV and creator culture written...

Our fifth and final podcast from the Texas Entertainment & Media Industries symposium is now live! Check out this interview with a key figure who has shaped the Texas media industry ecosystem, Elizabeth Avellan, in conversation with RTF chair @cindymccreery.bsky.social!