The Brief – Thursday 7 April: Disney, Reach, NYT earnings; publishers sue Meta; OpenAI rolls out Ads Manager

🐭 Disney reported 7% year-on-year revenue growth to $25.2bn in its fiscal year Q2. The company’s entertainment segment, inclusive of linear TV, streaming and theatrical releases, reported 10% year-on-year growth to $11.72bn. Advertising revenue grew 5%, while subscription and affiliate fees also grew 14% to $7.8bn, boosted by streaming price hikes. (Disney)

📰 Reach plc reported an 8.1% year-on-year decline in digital revenue in Q1, which the publisher attributed to the ongoing disruption in search and referral volumes. Total print revenue also declined by 6.6%, led by a 12.8% year-on-year drop in print advertising revenue. (Reach)

📈 The New York Times added 310,000 digital-only subscribers in Q1 to surpass 13m subscribers. Total revenue grew 12% year on year to $712.2m, with digital advertising revenue jumping 31.6% to $93.3m. Adjusted operating profit grew 27.2% to $117.9m. (New York Times)

📖 Five major publishers — Cengage, Elsevier, Hachette, Macmillan and McGraw Hill — as well as author Scott Turow have sued Meta, alleging the tech giant pirated millions of their works and used them to train its Llama large-language model. (The Guardian)

🤖 OpenAI has started to roll out a beta self-serve Ads Manager that allows advertisers in the US to sign up and purchase ads directly to appear in ChatGPT. It’s also introducing cost-per-click (CPC) bidding and expanded measurement tools. (OpenAI)

⬆️ The Isba Council has appointed Mark Given, Sainbury’s chief technology, marketing and data officer, as president. It is the first new appointment made by Isba director general Simon Michaelides. (Isba)

📌 Pinterest has appointed former X Europe and Africa sales VP Greg Owens as VP of international. Based in Dublin, Ownes will report to chief business officer Lee Brown.

📺 CNN founder and American cable news pioneer Ted Turner has died, aged 87. (CNN)