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Four actors of Asian descent — Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan and Hong Chau — received Oscar nominations Tuesday morning.

Why it matters: It's the largest group of performers of Asian descent to be recognized in primary acting categories in a single year, Variety notes.

Yeoh, Hsu and Quan are nominated for their performances in "Everything Everywhere All at Once," and Chau for her performance in "The Whale."

Yeoh is also making history as the first, self-identified actress of Asian descent nominated for the lead actress award in the Oscars' nearly 100-year history.

What they're saying: "It's taken a long time. But I think this is more than me,” Yeoh told The Hollywood Reporter after the nominations were announced.

"Having Asians walking up to me saying, ‘You can do it, you’re doing it for us.’ It’s like, ‘I understand. I totally understand.’ All this time, they’ve not been recognized, they’ve not been heard.”

As nominations were announced, Yeoh said she was afraid of letting so many people down if her name wasn't called.

"It’s been my nightmare for the last two days, because it could happen, right? How am I gonna walk out that door? And all these disappointed Asian faces looking: ‘Why did you not do it for us?’”

The big picture: The Oscars’ best actress category has been one of the awards body’s "whitest and least diverse ... among the four acting races," according to THR.

The academy has been trying to diversify its membership following   #OscarsSoWhite outcries in 2015 and 2016, The New York Times notes.

Our thought bubble: While the makeup of a nominating organization is important, the full creation pipeline — from story selection and scripts, to producers, casting and marketing — needs to exist in a way that builds opportunities for talent of different backgrounds to shine.

What to watch: The ceremony for the 95th Academy Awards is expected to air on ABC on March 12.

Viewership for the live broadcast has plummeted by more than 72% since its highs in the late 90s.

Oscar Best Picture nominees have highest total box office numbers

Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu make 2023 Oscars history

For the first time in its nearly 100-year history, an Asian-identifying performer has been nominated for lead actress.

"Everything Everywhere All at Once" stars Michelle Yeoh (left) and Stephanie Hsu. Photos: Amy Sussman/Getty Images (left),  Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Oscars

Media

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

Media Trends

Axios Media Trends

The Justice Department and eight states on Tuesday filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google's parent company Alphabet, accusing the tech giant of illegally abusing its dominance in digital advertising and violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Why it matters: It's the second major antitrust lawsuit filed against Google by the Justice Department in the last three years, and if successful it could force Google sell off much of its ad business. 

The DOJ and a coalition of state attorneys general sued Google in 2020 for allegedly using anticompetitive tactics to illegally monopolize the online search and search advertising markets. That lawsuit is ongoing. 

Details: "Competition in the ad tech space is broken, for reasons that were neither accidental nor inevitable," the filing reads. "One industry behemoth, Google, has corrupted legitimate competition in the ad tech industry by engaging in a systematic campaign to seize control of the wide swath of high-tech tools used by publishers, advertisers, and brokers, to facilitate digital advertising."

Bloomberg reported Monday that the lawsuit was imminent. 

The suit is seeking a judgment that Google has unlawfully monopolized both the publisher ad server market and advertiser ad network in the U.S. and acted unlawfully by tying products together.

What they're saying: "Today’s lawsuit from the DOJ attempts to pick winners and losers in the highly competitive advertising technology sector. It largely duplicates an unfounded lawsuit by the Texas Attorney General, much of which was recently dismissed by a federal court. DOJ is doubling down on a flawed argument that would slow innovation, raise advertising fees, and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow," a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

The big picture: Google is already under heavy antitrust scrutiny around the world and faces anger from U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The case is also a major test for President Joe Biden's antitrust officials, who have been vocal about wanting to rein in the power and dominance of the biggest tech companies.

By the numbers: Google earned $209 billion in ad revenue in 2021, making it the largest advertising company in the world. By comparison, Meta — the second-largest ad company globally — made around $115 billion in ad revenue that same year. 

The vast majority of Google's revenue (81% in 2021) comes from advertising. 

Last year, Google's ad business took a hit thanks to economic headwinds impacting the growth of the global ad market.

The company will report its full-year earnings report next week. It's still expected to bring in more than $200 billion in ad revenue for the full year. 

Catch up quick: Google's advertising dominance stems, in part, from a handful of ad tech acquisitions that regulators argue have given it a leg up on ad-serving over its competitors.

In 2007, it purchased DoubleClick — an ad-serving company — for $3.1 billion, giving it access to a vast online marketplace where Google could sell display ads to place on the websites of thousands of online publishers.

In 2010, it acquired AdMob — a mobile ad network — for $750 million in stock, allowing Google to plant a flag in the quickly-growing mobile ad business that grew with the iPhone market.

Be smart: The lawsuit could meaningfully slow advances in Google's ad business at a time when it's starting to show signs of weakness thanks to the economy and growing competition from e-commerce companies like Amazon and streaming firms.

The company announced last week that it plans to lay off 12,000 workers to offset its rapid expansion during the pandemic.

The biggest proponents of antitrust action against Google's ad business have long been online publishers and smaller tech firms. 

Flashback: Google has been hit with numerous antitrust penalties over the past five years in the U.S. and Europe, worth many billions of dollars. It has also paid hundreds of millions in data privacy settlements in the U.S. 

2017: European antitrust officials charged Google $2.7 billion fine for abusing its search practices, more than double what was expected.

2018: European antitrust officials again charged Google €4.1 billion for abusing the dominance of Android. The penalty was upheld, although slightly reduced, last year after Google tried to appeal the ruling. 

2019: European antitrust officials charged Google $1.7 billion for abusing its advertising dominance. 

2020: The U.S. DOJ and state attorneys general sued Google over its search dominance. 

What's next: Google now has a chance to respond to the DOJ's initial complaint, and the process will be slow. Typical antitrust suits of this scale can take years to resolve, and some have taken more than a decade.

Editor's note: This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Justice Department sues Google over alleged search monopoly

Google, DOJ square off over search dominance

Here's what the U.S. antitrust case charges Google with

Google denies DOJ's antitrust claims in filing

Justice Department sues Google for "corrupting" ad market

It's the second major antitrust lawsuit filed against Google by the DOJ in the last three years.

Illustration of a gavel with the Google logo on the block

Google

Big Tech

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

The Associated Press has hired a new leader to oversee the development of its digital presence as it looks to bolster its consumer traffic and make advertising a more substantial part of its revenue stream, its executive editor Julie Pace and chief revenue officer Kristin Heitmann told Axios. 

Why it matters: "Most people interact with our content through other news organizations, and that's the core of our business," Pace said. But furthering AP's direct relationship with consumers through digital products presents an enormous growth opportunity, she added.

By the numbers: The nonprofit news agency makes the vast majority of its revenue (82%) from licensing its stories to other newsrooms. Less than 10% today comes from advertising.

"Global digital advertising revenue has grown substantially in recent years, and projections show that — despite recent pressures — digital advertising will dominate in the future," Heitmann said. "Our customers already generate income this way, and so must we."

Driving the news: The company has brought on Saeed Ahmed, previously with the BBC, to serve as vice president of digital platforms, a new job "aimed at trying to improve and modernize" AP's direct relationship with its audiences, Pace said. 

Ahmed will be responsible for making the company's consumer-facing channels, including its website, app and social media accounts, more engaging.

"We're trying to make sure that people understand and can interact with that broad set of content that we have," Pace said. 

Much of that effort will include thinking about ways the company can better package and present its content, including its visual journalism, on its website.

Ahmed will hire new roles to bolster AP's digital team while working across the company to better prioritize digital engagement writ large. 

Be smart: The 177-year-old newswire began investing in building its own direct audience about 10 years ago, but it's now starting to think strategically about how to monetize it. 

The company plans to redo its website later this year, hoping to drive more page views and time spent on its site, Heitmann said. 

"Increasing traffic will certainly be something we look at as we build out the new site," she added. 

In addition to a better editorial product experience, AP has also begun to hire business-side roles to bolster its ad product. 

The bottom line: "We are a news organization that has traditionally lived in one space, which is the content licensing space," Pace said. 

"Now, we also want to take part in what I think a lot of the rest of the industry has already done, which is the digital advertising revenue stream. We have not taken advantage of that. This is our step forward into that space."

Exclusive: AP goes after ads with website redesign

Less than 10% of the Associated Press' revenue today comes from advertising.

Illustration of pile of money with hovering cursor

Media trends

Local journalism groups representing more than 3,000 local newsrooms have come together to create a new nonprofit that aims to save local news through bipartisan public policy initiatives.

Why it matters: If successful, the Rebuild Local News coalition believes its efforts could create thousands of local news jobs across the country.

Details: Rebuild Local News aims to deliver $3 billion–$5 billion in relief for local news companies through philanthropy, business initiatives and government proposals that are focused mostly on tax credits, said Steven Waldman, a longtime local news advocate who is leading the coalition. 

If even a fraction of that money was used to hire and retain journalists, the number of local reporters in America "would likely double," RLN argues.

Waldman most recently served as president of Report for America, a nonprofit he co-founded that places emerging journalists in local newsrooms. 

The coalition will build on policy work he's been doing for the past two years, including lobbying federal agencies for antitrust reform and pushing banking regulators to make it easier for small media companies serving low-income communities to receive credit and financing to continue to operate. 

All policy proposals are created with protections for the First Amendment in mind, Waldman noted.

The group's members include local journalism coalitions that represent thousands of outlets, such as the Institute for Nonprofit News and the Local Media Consortium, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, the National Association of Hispanic Publishers and Local Independent Online News. 

It also includes several statewide local news groups, such as the Wisconsin Newspaper Association and the Mississippi Press Association, as well as major journalism philanthropic groups, such as the Lenfest Institute for Journalism and the American Journalism Project.

The NewsGuild-CWA, one of the largest news labor unions in the country, is also part of the coalition.

By the numbers: The coalition has raised around $1 million from philanthropic groups such as the Ford Foundation, Knight Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and others.

Microsoft is the only for-profit backer of the group. 

How it works: The group will focus on creating and lobbying for policies at the federal, state and local levels that can win bipartisan support. 

At the federal level, RLN will ask policymakers to consider things like payroll tax credits for local news companies and consumer tax credits to incentivize citizens to buy subscriptions to local news organizations. It will also push the government to spend more of its advertising dollars with local news outlets. 

At the local level, the group will create model laws, bills or proposals that address key issues targeting local news, such as state investments in local news programs, and make them available to people who would want to model their local policies from those templates. The group is also eyeing reforms, like tax credits for nonprofits or local businesses, that would help incentivize community groups to buy legacy newspapers from hedge funds.

Be smart: The news industry is already represented by a few trade groups, but none are designed to focus solely on local journalism.

The News Media Alliance represents thousands of media publishers, including local and national newspapers and magazines. Digital Content Next represents premium digital media brands. The National Association of Broadcasters represents radio and television broadcast companies across the country. 

There are also public interest groups like Free Press and PEN America that advocate for local journalism as a part of what they do. 

The big picture: Pressure is mounting on the government to address the country's local news crisis through policy changes, as commercial efforts prove mostly moot.

Newspaper employment has fallen by around 70% since 2006. Newspaper revenues have fallen around 60% to $20 billion since 2005. 

Waldman recalls other points in history where public policy was used to protect local news, like The Postal Act of 1792, which subsidized the delivery of newspapers, and The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which subsidized local broadcast stations. He argues now is the right time for the government to take further action.

The bottom line: Before the pandemic, "no one was really talking or thinking much about what role government policies could play in this," said Waldman. "We were all focused on new business models, and the increased role for philanthropy and nonprofit journalism." 

Now, "we've just all became convinced that public policy was the big missing piece of the discussion," he added.

The local news crisis is deepening America's divides

Rural areas hardest hit by death of American newspapers

The News Divide: Where the death of local news hits hardest

Dozens of journalism groups join coalition to save local news

If successful, the coalition believes it could create thousands of local news jobs across the country.

Illustration of a location pin icon with a newspaper in the center

Media Deals

A slew of media companies and tech firms have begun to announce sweeping job cuts as the economy continues to face uncertainty. 

Why it matters: For millions of people across both industries, the layoffs feel like whiplash. 

Flashback: An unprecedented number of jobs were cut early on in the pandemic, as a response to temporary advertising headwinds. Now, it looks like those fears are trickling back. 

Details: After a rough winter with cuts at entertainment giants like Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney, digital media brands like Morning Brew and Vice Media and newspapers like Gannett, more media companies started the year with news of layoffs.

Adweek, a trade publication covering the ad industry, told staff it was cutting about 10% of its workforce, impacting 14 people. 

Vox Media, which owns The Verge, Thrillist and New York magazine, laid off 7% of its staff. That amounts to about 133 roles. 

Fandom, an entertainment news company, laid off workers across some brands it had acquired last year including Giant Bomb, GameSpot and Metacritic. The company had employed fewer than 500 people and the cuts affected less than 10%, per Variety. 

NBC News and MSNBC laid off about 75 staffers across divisions, per Adweek. These cuts followed a broader structural reorganization. 

The Washington Post has been bracing for layoffs. The Jeff Bezos-owned company is expected to cut a single-digit percentage of its workforce soon, as announced by the paper's publisher and CEO in December. 

The big picture: Dramatic cuts also have extended across the tech industry. Several companies have attributed the layoffs, in part, to over-hiring during the pandemic.

In January alone, Spotify (600), Google (12,000), Microsoft (10,000), Salesforce (8,000), Amazon (18,000), Coinbase (950) and Vimeo (140) have let go of staffers, amounting to nearly 50,000 tech workers in total. 

Twitter, now under the management of Elon Musk, has continued to cut staff. Musk said Twitter has about 2,300 employees, down from 7,500 when he took over in October. 

What we're watching: Companies have enacted other cost-cutting measures. In November, Vice Media CEO Nancy Dubac said her company planned to cut costs by "up to 15%." 

In December, NPR canceled its summer internship program as it attempts to make $10 million in budget cuts. 

Bad winter coming for U.S. media companies

Media layoffs loom large over 2023

For millions of people across both industries, the layoffs feel like whiplash.

Illustration of a stack of pink slips with a pointing finger cursor holding them up

The rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Dall-E and Stable Diffusion is forcing journalists to reckon with ways automation could improve their jobs, or displace them.

The big picture: For years, automation was perceived as a threat mostly to physical labor and operations work, not creative types, but the latest wave of AI has flipped that script. 

Why it matters: Artificial intelligence has proven helpful in automating menial news-gathering tasks, like aggregating data, but there's a growing concern that an over-dependence on it could weaken journalistic standards if newsrooms aren't careful. 

Driving the news: CNET last week said it will pause an AI publishing experiment after being called out for inaccuracies in articles it has posted that were written by AI tools.

CNET and its sister company Bankrate, a personal finance website, both stopped publishing AI-generated stories last week, Futurism reported, after quietly publishing dozens of explainers and list articles. 

While both sites included disclosures on their AI-generated stories, CNET leaders suggested on a staff call that they could've been more transparent in explaining the project, per The Verge. 

State of play: Newsrooms have been using automation for years to strengthen their journalism and free up time for strategic functions that require more human judgment, like investigative reporting.

The Associated Press uses AI to produce data-driven sports stories and templated game recaps. McClatchy has used automation to cover real estate listings at the local level.

Financial newswires like Dow Jones, Bloomberg and Reuters have experimented with automation to streamline coverage of earnings reports and the stock market. 

Yes, but: Now that the technology has become so advanced and accessible, it's become harder for newsrooms to draw the line between leveraging AI and over-relying on it.

"[N]ot all content is equal, so the impact will not be equal," said Eddie Kim, founder and CEO of Memo, a company that uses AI to analyze new articles. 

"For example, publishers who create content at scale for the sole purpose of SEO capture will be at greater risk of AI disruption. Content that is evergreen and informational will also be at risk," Kim said.

"I do think that the less crucial to our democracy, the less politically sensitive, the less divisive the topic of news, the more you can afford to try something," said Ariane Bernard, a media product expert who leads the Smart Data Initiative at the International News Media Association. 

"There's not as much at stake," she added, offering sites that are experimenting with automating recipes as an example.

Between the lines: For many news brands, using AI to write stories would not be worth the risk to reader trust. 

"The ability to audit how the AI did what it did is very thin, and that's always going to be a concern for the news industry," Bernard said.

"We will never have an article written by a machine," said Neil Vogel, CEO of Dotdash Meredith, one of the largest print and digital publishers in the country and a rival to CNET parent Red Ventures. 

"We're not denialists," Vogel told Axios in an interview Monday. "We actually think it's an incredible opportunity for us," he added, noting that the company has already begun to bake AI into many of its workflows, like sourcing images.

Be smart: Journalism has faced technological disruption for years, and while some brands have struggled to figure out their business models in the wake of those changes, others have relied on their authority and trust to carry them through. 

"[T]he power of many editorial publishers will endure," Kim said, noting the scarcity of thoughtful judgment and curation in today's bloated information ecosystem. "This has parallels to the great promise of blogging forever disrupting journalism that never came to fruition," he added. 

The bottom line: "I think the anxiety of our profession, over whether the news industry is going to support as many people in the future, is a big part of how we express our concerns about any form of automated anything," said Bernard.

Newsrooms reckon with AI following CNET saga

For newsrooms, the rise of generative AI tools is an opportunity and a threat.

Illustration of a circles, squiggly lines, an arrow, and a question mark and quotation marks

Artificial intelligence

Spotify on Monday said it is laying off 6% of its staff as part of cost-cutting measures and a broader organizational restructuring. 

Why it matters: The moves, which will impact roughly 600 employees, are meant to help the company "control costs and speed up decision-making." In a challenging economic environment, "efficiency takes on greater importance," Spotify's CEO Daniel Ek said in a memo.

Catch up quick: Spotify hasn't been impacted as heavily by the economic downturn as other tech firms, in part because its business isn't fully dependent on advertising. But it's been punished by Wall Street over the past few years for the heavy investments in podcasting that have weighed down its profit margins. 

"To offer some perspective on why we are making this decision, in 2022, the growth of Spotify’s OPEX [operating expenses] outpaced our revenue growth by 2X," Ek said. 

"That would have been unsustainable long-term in any climate, but with a challenging macro environment, it would be even more difficult to close the gap."

Details: With the cuts, Ek also announced a new executive restructuring that he argues would allow the company to move faster and would give Ek more time to focus on Spotify's future. 

Dawn Ostroff, Spotify's chief content and advertising business officer, will depart, Ek announced. Ostroff, who had been with the company since 2018, oversaw the growth of Spotify's podcast and advertising businesses. 

Ek named Gustav Söderström, the company's product and tech lead, as chief product officer, and promoted Alex Norström, who previously oversaw Spotify's free ad-supported business model, to chief business officer. Norström will oversee both content and ads. 

Laid-off employees will receive five months of severance pay, he noted, with health care benefits covered during that time. 

Ek, who co-founded the Swedish company in 2006, said in the memo, "I take full accountability for the moves that got us here today."

Flashback: Spotify made cuts to its podcasting division earlier this year, foreshadowing some of its efforts to become more efficient in areas that are less profitable. 

The big picture: Layoffs have hit the tech sector as companies push to rein in costs following huge investments in hiring during the pandemic. 

The slowdown in the advertising market has impacted the revenues and profits of many major tech firms. 

Go deeper: Why the tech layoffs are happening and what's next

Spotify cuts 6% of staff

In a challenging economic environment, "efficiency takes on greater importance," Spotify's CEO said.

Photo Illustration: Onur Dogman/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Spotify

Disney's highly anticipated Avatar sequel "The Way of Water" has surpassed $2 billion in global box office sales, according to Comscore, clearing director James Cameron's self-imposed benchmark to declare the film profitable.

Why it matters: Investors were initially skeptical that the film would perform as well as the original, which hit the $2 billion mark at the end of January 2010 — six weeks after its debut. But the sequel is now pacing ahead of the first title and is on track to become one of the highest-grossing films of all time. 

The film is the highest-grossing movie of 2022, surpassing "Top Gun: Maverick," which earned $1.48 billion at the global box office last year. 

It's held the top spot for domestic box office sales for six weekends straight since the film debuted last December. 

Zoom out: "The Way of Water" has become only the sixth movie in history to pass $2 billion in global ticket sales and will soon overtake "Avengers: Infinity War" ($2.05 billion), "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" ($2.07 billion) and Cameron's "Titanic" ($2.1 billion) to become the third-highest grossing movie ever.

The first “Avatar” overtook “Titanic” to become the highest-grossing film ever during its initial run in 2010. It was surpassed by “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019, but took back the top spot after multiple re-releases added to its total, bringing its worldwide box office sales to more than $2.9 billion to date. 

Between the lines: Whether "The Way of Water" will ultimately surpass the original is unclear.

"Hitting $3 billion is akin to breaking the box office sound barrier, and though if anyone has the track record to get to that milestone, it is indeed Cameron," Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian told Axios.

Still, "that’s a tall order considering the enormity of that task, particularly given the current weekend global gross of $76 million, and how many more of these types of performances it would require to get to that unicorn of a revenue milestone," he added. 

Be smart: The film's success also means that the franchise is likely to live on past its second installation. 

“It looks like with the momentum that the film has now that we’ll easily pass our break even in the next few days, so it looks like I can’t wiggle out of this and I’m gonna have to do these other sequels,” Cameron told CNN's Chris Wallace earlier this month. “I know what I’m going to be doing the next six or seven years.”

Cameron has three additional sequels planned after "The Way of Water." 

By the numbers: "The Way of Water" and the original "Avatar" both debuted on the third weekend in December in 2009 and 2022, respectively. 

"The Way of Water" was Cameron's first movie to make $100 million in its opening weekend in the U.S., though its $134 million debut fell short of analysts' expectations, which made the film initially feel like a disappointment.  

But it outpaced its predecessor each week since the opening, even as it suffered larger week-over-week declines compared to the first "Avatar."  

The first "Avatar" is the only film to top $250 million in Imax sales. "The Way of Water" is currently the second-highest in Imax history with over $227 million. 

Yes, but: What should have added to the film's success was its availability in China, which granted "The Way of Water" permission to be released in the country early enough to allow distributors to do some marketing in the region. 

The Chinese release was a critical milestone for Disney, considering China had been blocking most other Disney films from the country for the past two years. 

But continued COVID-19 lockdown drama in the region has prevented "The Way of Water" from reaching its potential. The film is expected to bring in $220 million in Chinese ticket sales before it exits theaters towards the end of January. The original made around $265 million in China 13 years ago. 

The big picture: A lot is riding on the success of "The Way of Water" as an indicator of the overall health of the box office in wake of the pandemic-driven shift to streaming. 

In North America, the box office earned roughly $7.4 billion last year, down 34% from 2019 and down 37% from its all-time high of $11.8 billion in 2018. 

What's next: Along with "The Way of Water," strong performances from horror film "M3GAN" and "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" has given the theater industry optimism that 2023 will be better than last year.  

Highly anticipated third installments for Marvel's "Ant-Man" and MGM's "Creed" franchises come out in February and March, which should further wake up the box office from its pandemic-era doldrums. 

All eyes on Avatar to save struggling box office

"Avatar: The Way of Water" disappointing debut irks Disney investors

Avatar sequel becomes 6th film ever to surpass $2B in global sales

The film's success also means that the franchise will likely live on past its second installation.

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