The Brief – Tuesday 12 May: TikTok launches ad-free tier, Ofcom investigates GB News, Wordle to become a game show

📱 TikTok has launched an ad-free paid subscription tier in the UK. Users can pay £3.99/month to avoid seeing paid ads (organic ads are still viewable). It follows Meta introducing a similar subscription tier last September. (TikTok)

🔍 Ofcom is investigating GB News over its November interview with US President Donald Trump after the regulator received complaints that Trump’s claims about climate change, Islam and immigration had gone unchallenged. Rather than investigating the original interview, Ofcom is investigating an edition of The Weekend, a programme that repeated the interview in full the day after it aired. (The Guardian)

✂️ Amazon Prime Video has followed Netflix in launching a vertical short-form video feed on the streaming service. The feature, dubbed Clips, is billed as “part of Prime Video’s broader focus on improving the mobile experience”. (Prime Video)

⌨️ “Datacentres are the new studios”: Amid a slowdown in TV commissioning, property developers have switched from investing in production studios to building AI datacentres. (The Guardian)

✉️ US Federal Communications Commissioner (FCC) Anna Gomez, in a letter to Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro, wrote that network ABC has been a victim of a “sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control” by the Trump administration. (Wall Street Journal)

🏇 Mediahuis has joined SPUR, a coalition of news organisations aiming to develop shared AI licensing standards. Its founding members include the Financial Times, Guardian, Telegraph, BBC and Sky News. (Press Gazette)

📺 Netflix drama Adolescence made history at the Bafta TV Awards over the weekend, breaking the record for most wins in a single year with four, including best limited series. BBC‘s The Celebrity Traitors and Amazon Prime Video’s Last One Laughing also won two prizes each. (BBC)

🏈 US President Donald Trump criticised the NFL’s media rights deal, warning the cost of watching the league across several streaming services could “ruin the game”. The US Department of Justice recently opened an investigation into the American football league over whether it is engaging in anticompetitive tactics and overcharging customers by splitting games between traditional networks and streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. (The Athletic)

🔠 Popular New York Times game Wordle is being made into a primetime game show on NBC, slated to air next year. NYT will serve as a production partner, alongside late night comedian Jimmy Fallon. (New York Times)