Megaphone
Russia calls U.S. allegations over Putin-directed election meddling ‘baseless’
Russia on Wednesday described U.S. intelligence allegations that President Vladimir Putin had likely directed efforts to try to swing the 2020 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump as baseless. A 15-page American intelligence report, released on Tuesday, added heft to longstanding allegations that some of Trump’s top lieutenants were playing into Moscow’s hands by amplifying claims made against then-candidate Joe Biden by Russian-linked Ukrainian figures in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election. “The document prepared by the U.S. intelligence community is another set of baseless accusations against our country for interfering in American domestic political processes,” Russia’s embassy in the United States said in a statement on Facebook. “The conclusions of the report on Russia conducting...
Spotify Scoops Up Podcast Ad Platform Megaphone in $235M Acquisition
It is little surprise that Spotify is making another big acquisition in the podcast space, following big deals with companies like Gimlet, Anchor and Parcast in the past two years. Since the beginning of 2019, CEO Daniel Ek has referred to audio as the future of the company, envisioning a world where Spotify was less dependent on music — and the content costs of such music — to gain and retain users, listener hours and, ideally, subscribers. In the past two months, Spotify announced a partnership with Chernin Entertainment to provide a pathway for its podcasts to turn into film and TV projects, and, through its Anchor platform, now allows music to be embedded into its shows without further licensing requirements. In late October, the company announced in its third quarter earni...
