Natalie Brunell

AI licensing isn’t just for publishers and media companies. Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement with authors and book publishers has spotlighted a rapidly growing AI-licensing market—one that’s jumped from $75 million two years ago to $20 billion this year, with the potential to double again next year. The big question: Should your company be licensing its data to AI developers? In my latest newsletter, I explore the opportunity, the risks, and the practical steps leaders should take to evaluate whether they're ready for this market. Subscribe to HBR Executive to get my newsletter every week—and much more.https://https://lnkd.in/eXdW3WXn

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Sinclair announces it has initiated a strategic review of its broadcast business, which the company says could potentially lead to acquisitions, strategic partnerships, and mergers with companies in the broadcast and broader media and technology ecosystem. Simultaneously, Sinclair is evaluating the separation of Ventures through a spin-off, split-off, or other transaction. In 2023, Sinclair reorganized its company into two operating units: Sinclair Broadcast Group and Sinclair Ventures. Sinclair is one of the largest owners of TV stations, and its website states that the company currently owns 178 TV stations in over 80 markets. In the first six months of this year, Sinclair reported a net loss of $220 million, on sales of $1.56 billion, representing a 4% year-over-year decline. The company had $4.1 billion in debt and $616 million in cash and cash equivalents, of which $224 million was SBG cash and $393 million was Ventures cash. Press release: https://lnkd.in/eUcni79C - #sinclair #tvstations #paytv #sinclairbroadcast #streamingmedia

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The Science Based Targets initiative's updated net-zero standard proposes a significant overhaul of how Scope 3 targets are set and achieved. I asked Patrick Flynn, Sarah Leugers and others for their thoughts on the new direction. They mostly had praise to share: * Accepting that Scope 3 emissions are different to Scopes 1 and 2 is critical. * More flexibility in tackling Scope 3, principally through indirect mitigation (aka insetting), is a positive step. * There is an opportunity for the SBTi to build on the work done by The Advanced and Indirect Mitigation (AIM) Platform, Value Change Initiative and others. The one area of pushback I'm seeing is the SBTi's proposal that companies require tier 1 suppliers to have net-zero targets. See Kim Carnahan's recent post and associated comments for more on that. My piece: https://lnkd.in/grW68Qua What are your thoughts? LMK in the comments or direct to jg@trellis.net.

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Seekho raises $28 million funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners Edutainment video platform Seekho announced on September 3 that it has secured $28 million in Series B funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners to build new interactive content formats and invest in artificial intelligence (AI)-powered learning experiences. Goodwater Capital and existing investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners and Elevation Capital also participated in the funding round. This brings Seekho's total funding to about $40 million, which includes an $8 million round in December 2024. Founded in 2020 by Rohit Choudhary, Keertay Agarwal, and Yash Banwani, Seekho offers bite-sized regional learning content designed to provide consumers with practical knowledge that can help with their career development and personal growth. https://lnkd.in/gZF2kBRB

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In the pursuit of "making podcasts more discoverable," the podcast industry has welcomed YouTube with open arms. I believe we've fundamentally misdiagnosing how YouTube fits into consumers' lives (and underestimated the risks). This video features me and Jeremy Enns digging into the realities of algorithmic discovery, social media addiction, generational threats, audio podcasts vs video podcasts, and how the podcast industry might respond to YouTube as a platform. #podcast #podcasting #podcastindustry #genz

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Exclusive: AudioShake has raised $14 million in Series A funding to grow its platform that splits audio into components. 🎧 The tech has supported major film studios, music labels, sports leagues and other content owners in improving their own audio usage. NFL Films and other sports clients have used AudioShake to enhance dialogue clarity and remove unlicensed music from footage. 💰 Shine Capital led the round, which brought AudioShake's total funding to $19 million. Thomson Reuters Ventures, Origin Ventures, Background Capital and existing investors Indicator Ventures and Precursor Ventures participated. ✨ "If we're going to live in a world where the machines are going to help us with a wide range of tasks ... those machines are going to need to be able to hear like humans, and they can't today," CEO Jessica Powell tells me. More details on Axios: https://lnkd.in/ewVbYhnD

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