Media Insider: Dotdash To Buy Meredith, Twitter To Sell MoPub, Supply-Chain Disruption Delays Books

Welcome to Media Insider, PR Newswire’s roundup of media news stories from the week.

REUTERS | SUBRAT PATNAIK
IAC’s Dotdash to buy magazine publisher Meredith in $2.7 bln deal

IAC’s digital media arm Dotdash agreed to buy Meredith Corporation for $2.7 billion. As one of IAC’s most rapidly growing businesses, Dotdash currently reaches about 100 million online consumers monthly. The deal will combine Meredith’s 40+ brands with Dotdash’s digital labels. The combined company will be called Dotdash Meredith and be led by Dotdash CEO Neil Vogel.

Listen: HuffPost’s Danielle Belton sees the editor-in-chief role as being newsroom therapist.

TECHCRUNCH | TAYLOR HATMAKER
Twitter is selling MoPub to AppLovin for $1.05 billion

Twitter announced it will sell MoPub to AppLovin for $1.05 billion. In 2013, Twitter bought MoPub for $350 million and the mobile ad platform has helped Twitter bring in around $188 million in the last year. In a press release, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said, “This transaction increases our focus and demonstrates confidence in our revenue product roadmap, accelerating our ability to invest in the core products that position Twitter for long-term growth and best serve the public conversation.”

Related: Scroll is officially shutting down in 30 days to become part of Twitter Blue.

THE NEW YORK TIMES | ELIZABETH A. HARRIS
‘The Beginning of the Snowball’: Supply-Chain Snarls Delay Books

The disruption in the global supply chain has reached the world of book publishing. With the holiday season around the corner, publishers and bookstores struggle not only to put new releases on the shelves but also to stock reprints of older books. Worker shortages and low vaccination rates are slowing down operations at warehouses and distribution centers. Once that hurdle is overcome, publishers are faced with the inability to find shipping containers, which used to cost about $2,500 but can now be as much as $25,000. Once books get into a shipping container, the ship carrying the container is likely to face major delays waiting in line to dock at a backed-up port.

ICYMI: Over 100 prominent Latin American figures are urging The New York Times to continue publishing Spanish opinion journalism.

THE NEW YORK TIMES | MIKE ISAAC AND SHEERA FRENKEL
Gone in Minutes, Out for Hours: Outage Shakes Facebook

Facebook has been under a lot of scrutiny lately, but its 3.5 billion users learned just how dependent they are on the app after Facebook’s entire network of apps experienced a five-hour outage this week. Most people visit Facebook to communicate with friends and family but there are many people around the world that also rely on Facebook for their businesses and in some countries, like India, Facebook is synonymous with the internet. For many business owners the outage meant losing thousands in sales and for those in countries where Facebook is the only internet, the outage meant hours without a way to communicate.

More on Facebook: Former Facebook data scientist, Frances Haugen, testified in front of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, advocating for stricter government oversight on Facebook.

NEW YORK POST | Alexandra Steigrad
‘WOW’ Women of Wrestling to launch new weekend episodes after ViacomCBS deal

ViacomCBS signed a multi-year distribution deal Women of Wrestling (WOW). Reruns of WOW will be available on CW Seed and Pluto TV platforms this December and new episodes will launch beginning in fall 2022. AJ Mendez, former WWE champion, will provide commentary during each broadcast and serve as an executive producer. Dan Cohen, president of ViacomCBS Global Distribution Group added: “This series offers audiences unique, compelling and creative entertainment that features female ‘superheroes’ in the ring, behind the cameras and in all aspects of the business.”

Read Next: Playboy puts first openly gay male bunny on cover of October issue.

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Erin Wade is a Senior Customer Content Specialist with PR Newswire. She is also an animal lover and aspiring world traveler. Tune into her insights as a social curator at @TotalCSR.