Ownership

As Facebook and Alphabet's Google continue to dominate digital ad sales, publishers are increasingly teaming up to give themselves a better shot at competing with the tech giants. New York Media, PopSugar and Rolling Stone are all joining Concert, a digital advertising marketplace operated by Vox Media. Concert shares ad revenue with publishers in the network, but declined to disclose the share each party keeps. Concert, which is a joint venture of Vox Media and Comcast’s NBCUniversal, still lags far behind the biggest tech giants in terms of global audience size.

President Donald Trump blasted TBS over comedian Samantha Bee’s recent use of a vulgar slur to describe first daughter Ivanka Trump.  In an early morning tweet, President Trump questioned why Bee hasn’t been fired for calling his daughter a “feckless c—.” “Why aren’t they firing no talent Samantha Bee for the horrible language used on her low ratings show?” he tweeted. “A total double standard but that’s O.K., we are Winning, and will be doing so for a long time to come!”

Sinclair provided the Federal Communications Commission with information in response to the commission's request for information following Sinclair's latest, and expected to be last, variation on its Tribune merger proposal.  The FCC was apparently looking for historical data on retransmission consent and ad revenue.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) went after Google for displaying “Nazism” as one of the ideologies of the California Republican Party. A search on the site for “California Republican Party” apparently returned with a sidebar result listing Nazism as an ideology alongside “conservativism” and “market liberalism.” Majority Leader McCarthy noted the sidebar in a tweet at the company.

Ivanka Trump sparked online outrage recently when she tweeted a photo of herself with her younger son around the same time as reports circulated that the US government had lost track of nearly 1,500 migrant children in 2017. During a segment May 30 criticizing the administration’s immigration practices, “Full Frontal” host Samantha Bee directed choice words at the first daughter. “You know, Ivanka, that’s a beautiful photo of you and your child,” Bee said. “Let me just say, one mother to another, do something about your dad’s immigration practices, you feckless c—. He listens to you.”

President Donald Trump is continuing to react to the controversy over the cancellation of “Roseanne,” which was taken off the air May 29 after lead actress Roseanne Barr posted offensive and racist tweets. President Trump on May 31 repeated his complaint that Disney chief Bob Iger has not apologized to him for anti-Trump comments made by ABC personalities, something he believes is a double standard since Iger got in touch with Valerie Jarrett, the former top aide to President Barack Obama who was the target of Barr’s racist comments.

Sprint Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure tweeted that Sprint will build "one of the best networks in the world" even if it isn't allowed to merge with rival T-Mobile USA. "Merger or no merger, Sprint presses ahead with KC network buildout. Kansas City will have one of the best networks in the world," Claure tweeted. So why does Sprint need to merge with T-Mobile?

Washington and Silicon Valley are united at the moment in trying to get a better handle on how, exactly, Justice Department antitrust chief Makan Delrahim will handle the American tech industry and its iconic companies, from Amazon to Google. May 31 they'll have another chance, with a DOJ roundtable meant to shed light on the relationship between regulation and competition.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is selling off nearly two dozen TV stations to comply with federal ownership rules — but that may not stop the company from reaching millions of those stations' viewers with its conservative programming. Four of the sales include provisions that would leave the giant broadcaster with a role in the stations' programming, finances and operations, even when it no longer owns them. Sinclair has made these kinds of arrangements before as it has sold off some of its outlets.

Very few Americans have enjoyed steadily rising pay beyond inflation over the last couple of decades, a shift from prior years in which the working and middle classes enjoyed broad-based wage gains as the economy expanded. Now, executives of big US companies suggest that the days of most people getting a pay raise are over, and that they also plan to reduce their work forces further. John Stephens, chief financial officer at AT&T, said 20% of the company's employees are call-center workers. He said he doesn't need that many.