MEDIA

Axios - Left-leaning apps, news websites and social networks are experiencing a spike in engagement, further dividing the internet along political lines, Axios Media Trends author Sara Fischer writes.

• Bluesky, an alternative to Elon Musk's X, has seen a 519% spike in daily users in the weeks after the election.
• Lefty, a dating app for progressives, has experienced a 453% surge in downloads in the two weeks since the election, founder and CEO Alex Felipelli told Axios.
• Slate and The Guardian both saw significant new numbers of paid subscribers, as people who supported Vice President Harris look for more explicitly liberal takes on the news

Thom Hartmann - Without the rightwing media juggernaut, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t be president next year and wouldn’t have won in 2016. That said, the progressive media landscape looks like it might be about to get a whole lot worse.Comcast, which owns NBC and its subsidiaries CNBC and MSNBC (among other media outlets) announced this week that they’ll be spinning off MSNBC (among others) next year.

And the consequences are already showing up. It was reported this week that Rachel Maddow just took a substantial annual pay-cut because of the uncertain future of the network.In part, this probably reflects a belt-tightening at Comcast, but is also an indication of how legacy media — which now includes cable properties — are taking a hit from newer digital media, from social media to podcasts to web-based networks and programs.

The principal analyst and VP of content for the market research company eMarketer, Paul Verna, told the AP that:“The writing is on the wall that the cable TV business is a dwindling business,” and, the AP noted, is “predicting future consolidation of the networks or acquisitions through private equity.”