Axios

The New York Times is partnering with Snapchat to create a daily edition of their popular Morning Briefing product on Snapchat's Discover platform. The content will be published Monday-Friday and will available to users in North America.

What's in it for the NYT? A distribution vehicle to reach younger audiences. In its 2020 plan released last week, the Times called the Daily Briefings products "among the most successful products [it] has launched in recent years." It hopes to take that approach to Snapchat.

What's in it for Snapchat? The Times' brand equity. Snapchat currently works with over 30 content partners, ranging from The Wall Street Journal to Refinery 29. What separates Snapchat from competitors, and what will surely be an appeal to investors as Snapchat readies for an upcoming IPO, is Snapchat's selectivity about its Discover partnerships, which allows them to weed out potential spam or misleading information.

Gut Check: The Times has boasted of renewed interest from younger readers. But while there's been huge growth in The Times' millennial audience - up 12% from 2015, there's still a large discrepancy in Snapchat's reach and The Times' audience.

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Data: comScore, Statista; Chart: Lazaro Gamio / Axios

CBS Corp. announced a surprise merger between CBS Radio and Entercom Communications Corp. today, which has been in planning for weeks. The merged company, will host 244 stations. Financial terms have not been disclosed, but Entercom has shot up from closing share price $14.30 yesterday to initial trades at $16.55 this morning.

The surprise: CBS was planning to launch an IPO stand-alone spinoff of its radio platform after it was dragging down its earnings. This merger moves comes because nobody bit at the offer.

Why it matters: Entercom just landed second place for largest radio firm with 23 of the top 25 markets covered, including New York, L.A., and Chicago. That includes CBS news and sports strongholds with rights to broadcast 45 pro sports teams (think the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, and the Patriots). Plus, CBS Sports Radio Network adds hundreds of stations from around the country.

The bottom line: CBS shareholders will have 72% of Entercom, and to make the whole transaction tax-free they will be offered a Reverse Morris Trust transaction, which lets them exchange CBS shares with Entercom shares. With post-merger revenue at $1.7 billion and EBITDA $500 million, the company will be set up for a strong balance sheet and free cash flow generation.

Morgan Stanley and Centerview Partners are serving as financial advisors to the deal, which must be approved by Entercom shareholders. It is expected to close in the second quarter.

The New York Times added 276,000 net new digital news subscriptions in Q4, more than all of 2013 and 2014 combined. Digital-only subscriptions increased 21.9% from Q4 2015.

The truth behind the Trump bump: Times CEO Mark told investors on their quarterly earnings call that the increase was largely due to piqued interest in coverage of Trump after the election, including from international subscribers.

Blackstone Group's Invitation Homes went public today, selling 77 million shares at $20 each. Since trading opened has been fluctuating above the issue price, with an early peak of $20.42.

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Data: Money.net; Chart: Lazaro Gamio / Axios

Why this matters: This is the largest stock market debut by a U.S. real estate investment trust (REIT) since 2014, when Paramount Group Inc. raised $2.29 billion. Invitation raised $1.54 billion.

A new study shows mobile adblock usage increased 40% in the Asia-Pacific region in 2016. For perspective, 58% of Indonesians block mobile ads compared to 1% of Americans.

The study, commissioned by PageFair, shows that mobile adblock usage significantly outpaces desktop worldwide by a 2 to 1 margin.

Overall, adblock use increased by 30% globally in 2016, with 11% of all Internet users employing adblock technology on their mobile or desktop devices.

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Data: PageFair; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon / Axios