Fearing political retribution and strained by new business challenges, media companies that once covered President-elect Trump with skepticism — and in many cases, disdain — are reconsidering their approach.

Why it matters: Trump's decisive victory in November has forced media executives to put their business interests ahead of their personal politics.

Case-in-point: Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, a longtime Democrat whose wife served as the ambassador to the Bahamas during the Obama administration, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago this past week.

• "Morning Joe" co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, who railed against Trump for years, met with Trump in an hour-plus meeting at Mar-a-Lago last month, infuriating their loyal audience. Scarborough said the reaction showed "a massive disconnect ... between social media and the real world."

State of play: Amid a record media trust deficit, outlets once critical of Trump are now making overtures to the former and future president, and the majority of American voters who voted for him.

• TIME magazine not only named Trump "Person of the Year," but the magazine's CEO, Jessica Sibley, chanted "USA! USA!" alongside the president-elect as he rang the New York Stock Exchange opening bell.
• A week after Trump's victory, two executives from TelevisaUnivision, the parent of the largest U.S.-based Spanish-language broadcaster, flew to Mar-a-Lago so the president-elect could personally thank them for election support, The Wall Street Journal reported.
• L.A. Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong vowed (on Fox News, no less) to balance out his editorial board with conservative voices. He also has discussed plans to add a digital "bias meter" for editorials and opinion columns.
• Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos (who, like Soon-Shiong, overruled his staff to kill a Harris endorsement) said at The New York Times' DealBook Summit earlier this month that he's "actually very optimistic" about Trump's second term.

The big picture: Compare that to the resistance media era that started in 2016, with outlets like The Washington Post garnering tough-on-Trump reputations (and thousands of subscriptions).

• This time around, national outlets — struggling to regain viewers and subscribers — are trying to signal they're no longer out for blood.

Between the lines: Another business consideration for news outlets reversing course is the legal risks associated with getting on Trump's bad side.

• ABC's $15 million defamation settlement with Trump shocked some legal experts who say ABC could've easily won the case. ABC has declined to say why it settled. But media onlookers see the settlement as a possible effort to avoid further scrutiny and legal attacks from the president-elect.
• The settlement comes amid a barrage of major lawsuits being lobbed at media companies by Trump. Those costly lawsuits sap outlets of time, legal resources and morale.

What we're watching: Tech titans facing historic regulatory scrutiny are also scrambling to be inside Trump's tent this time around.

• Meta, Amazon and Open AI have each donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Bezos have all met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago since the election.
• TikTok faces a potential ban in the U.S., barring a Supreme Court intervention. Meta faces a historic government antitrust trial next year that seeks to unwind its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram.
• Google has been found guilty of one major antitrust investigation around its search business and is facing another antitrust case around its ads business. Both cases threaten to break up the company.

News organizations are on high alert after President-elect Trump filed yet another defamation lawsuit on Monday — and vowed to continue suing new outlets and influencers over their coverage.

Why it matters: While there are political levers that Trump can pull to target media companies, harassment campaigns and lawsuits that drain companies of time, money, resources and trust are often easier and just as punitive.

State of play: ABC's $15 million defamation settlement with Trump, announced Saturday, shocked some legal experts who say ABC could've easily won the case.

• The lawsuit stemmed from a March 2024 interview with star ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), a rape survivor.
• Stephanopoulos repeatedly said Trump was liable for rape, when in reality he was liable for assault and defamation. Trump sued ABC in a Florida federal court shortly thereafter.
• ABC has declined to say why it settled, but media onlookers see the settlement as a possible effort to avoid further scrutiny and legal attacks from the president-elect ahead of his second term.

Between the lines: Trump's victory over ABC prompted him to consider more legal action against news outlets he claims defamed him.

• On Monday, Trump filed suit against the Des Moines Register over a poll it ran showing him possibly losing the presidential race.
• He vowed to continue suing new outlets and influencers for defamation. "It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press," he said at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago.

Zoom out: Trump has been suing media companies for years, but leading up to his second term, he's taken a more aggressive stance.

• Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS over allegedly doctoring its "60 Minutes" interview with Vice President Harris. CBS has filed motions to dismiss the complaints.
• The parent company to Trump's Truth Social network, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), filed a $3.8 billion defamation lawsuit against The Post, claiming an article falsely accused the company of securities fraud.

Yes, but: While Trump has a long history of filing lawsuits against media companies, he doesn't have a winning track record.

• A $475 million lawsuit against CNN was dismissed by a Florida federal judge last year.
• New York's State Supreme Court tossed a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump's re-election campaign against the New York Times over an op-ed.

Trump has also lost several key legal battles against the media over the past few years, including pulling press credentials for reporters he doesn't like, blocking people online and deleting online posts that are considered official presidential records.

The big picture: Trump has been involved in thousands of lawsuits throughout his business career, but media cases began to spike significantly during his first presidential campaign, per an analysis from USA Today.

• In the past, Trump has threatened to "open up" libel laws to be able to further target the press. The federal standard for libel, established by the 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan case, sets a very high bar for libel.

What to watch: Press freedom advocates warn that Trump's lawsuits against the press will create a significant chilling effect, forcing media companies to pull punches to avoid legal scrutiny.

President-elect Trump on Monday sued the Des Moines Register and its top pollster for "brazen election interference" and "fraud" over a poll the newspaper published showing him on track to lose Iowa in the 2024 presidential election, according to the complaint.

Why it matters: The new lawsuit is a part of Trump's broader effort to target media companies with legal action for coverage he believes is unfair.

• While there are political levers that Trump can pull to target media companies, harassment campaigns and lawsuits that drain companies of time, money, resources, and trust are often easier and just as punitive.
• "It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press," he said at a Monday press conference at Mar-a-Lago. He vowed to continue suing new outlets and influencers.

Driving the news: The lawsuit filed in Polk County, Iowa names the Des Moines Register, its parent company Gannett and J. Ann Selzer, the pollster.

• It cites the newspaper's coverage of the poll shortly before the election, which showed Trump trailing Vice President Harris by three percentage points in the historically red state.
• He ultimately won the state by more than 13 percentage points.

What they're saying: In a statement, Des Moines Register and Gannett spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton said,"We have acknowledged that the Selzer/Des Moines Register pre-election poll did not reflect the ultimate margin of President Trump's Election Day victory in Iowa by releasing the poll's full demographics, crosstabs, weighted and unweighted data, as well as a technical explanation from pollster Ann Selzer. We stand by our reporting on the matter and believe a lawsuit would be without merit."

Zoom in: The lawsuit alleges a violation of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, arguing that Trump and all Iowa and American voters were misled by the poll "for the improper purpose of deceptively influencing the outcome of the 2024 presidential election."

• Trump is asking the court for unspecified damages "due to the need to expend extensive time and resources, including direct federal campaign expenditures, to mitigate" the harm he alleges.
• The lawsuit additionally argues that Trump is entitled to statutory damages three times the actual damages suffered.

Zoom out: The lawsuit comes days after ABC agreed to a $15 million defamation settlement with Trump.

• The settlement stemmed from a May 2024 interview by ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos in which he incorrectly said Trump was liable for rape, when in reality he was liable for assault and defamation.

The big picture: Trump is linked to several active lawsuits against media companies.

• Those include a $10 billion deceptive trade practice lawsuit against CBS and a $3.8 billion defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post from Trump's social media company.

The intrigue: Selzer announced she was ending political polling for the DSM Register shortly after November's election, a decision she said had been in the works for more than a year.

• Carol Hunter, the paper's executive editor, announced her retirement last week.

The situation at the Washington Post is so dire that two candidates to run the paper — Cliff Levy of the New York Times and Meta's Anne Kornblut, a former Post editor — both withdrew from consideration for the top newsroom job over the paper's strategy, sources involved in the process say.

Why it matters: The Post is scrambling to find a new executive editor, the chair once held by Ben Bradlee, amid shrinking paid readership and revenue. Publisher and CEO Will Lewis, handpicked by owner Jeff Bezos to save the Post, hasn't impressed the candidates with his vision for the future, the sources tell us.

• One person involved in the search told us Lewis' pitch was foggy and uninspiring.

Zoom in: Levy, who pulled out last week, and Kornblut, whose conversations ended in September, declined to comment. Other candidates include current interim executive editor Matt Murray. But it's hard to imagine this monthslong process unfolding so publicly — only to end with the same guy in charge.

• A few candidates were asked to write six-page memos — a hallmark of Amazon culture — about their journalistic vision for the paper, using AI and how to grow the Post's audience.
• Levy is a two-time Pulitzer winner who was an early advocate for digital innovation, and now is deputy publisher of two prized Times properties, The Athletic and Wirecutter. He started talking to the Post in August after the paper's search firm, Egon Zehnder, reached out.

Kornblut, who declined to move forward with the process after initial conversations, is Meta's VP of global product content operations.

• She had a formidable newspaper career before moving to the Bay Area as a tech executive: She was a Washington correspondent for the Boston Globe and the New York Times before becoming a Washington Post reporter and editor for eight years.
• Kornblut rose to deputy assistant managing editor for national news, where she was the lead editor on Pulitzer-winning coverage of Edward Snowden's NSA revelations.

Matea Gold — a respected, popular managing editor many reporters wanted in the top job, and who conceived of and ran the Post's Pulitzer-winning investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — announced last week that she's moving to the New York Times as Washington editor, making her deputy to the bureau chief.

• There's lots of anxiety in the Post newsroom right now about whether the paper is still committed to that kind of fearless accountability reporting.

Axios confirmed that the search firm also reached out to Kevin Merida and Steven Ginsberg, two former Washington Post managing editors. Neither expressed interest in the role.

• Merida stepped down as editor of the L.A. Times earlier this year. Ginsberg is executive editor of The Athletic, the N.Y. Times sports outlet that Levy oversees.

The big picture: Bezos has said little about what he wants for a revived Post. He is scheduled to dine with President-elect Trump at Mar-a-Lago this week — two months after killing a Post endorsement of Trump's rival, Vice President Harris.

• Bezos' various business interests — Amazon and the Blue Origin space company — stand to gain or suffer from Trump's presidency.
• The Post has announced no major shifts or innovations under the Lewis regime. Toss in a demoralized staff and invigorated labor unions, and you have a mighty challenge for the next top editor.

Between the lines: The Post has lost a ton of talent this last year, and several stars are talking to competitors about leaving soon. One hot rumor inside the Post: The Atlantic is licking its chops over political writers who are increasingly poachable. Other Posties are eying the New York Times, long known at the Post as "Brand X."

• People involved in the process say Bezos has been mostly MIA at the Post, leaving matters to Lewis, who is unpopular in the newsroom.
• Several people familiar with the Post's search were baffled by the apparent absence of editorial vision or business strategy. "I'm not sure it's salvageable," one of them said.

Behind the scenes: A huge source of newsroom agita has been a decision by Lewis to scale back the traditional ceremony for the annual Eugene Meyer Awards, which recognize employees with 10+ years of service, and the Ben Bradlee Award for Courage in Journalism, honoring the relentless pursuit of truth.

• The year-end festivities were a huge deal at the paper: Honorees were called onstage and gave speeches, often tearful, before their families, colleagues and friends. Post legends Don Graham and Sally Quinn always attended. There was booze and a buffet supper.
• The extravaganza will be replaced by a smaller awards dinner in the new year for the winners, including revered sportswriter Sally Jenkins, and their families. A scaled-back toast to the newsroom winners will be held today at 2:30pm, along with a sendoff for Gold.

What we're watching: Given Gold's experience at the Post and what sources have described to Axios, Lewis appears most interested in hiring candidates from outside the organization.

• Insiders say Lewis' search for fresh faces is a possible sign that he distrusts the newsroom — especially after the internal meltdown over an aborted plan to appoint Robert Winnett, the top editor of The Telegraph in London.

TikTok asked the Supreme Court on Monday to temporarily block a law that would effectively ban the social media app in the U.S.

Why it matters: This is TikTok's last resort as the request follows a denial by a U.S. Appeals Court to grant an injunction on the ban law until the Supreme Court decides whether or not to take up the case.

Driving the news: TikTok's emergency appeal says the law violates the company's First Amendment rights and its over 170 million American app users.

• "Because TikTok Inc. is a U.S. company exercising editorial discretion over a U.S. speech platform, the First Amendment fully protects it from Congress's attempt to ban its operation of the platform based on its purported susceptibility to foreign influence," lawyers for TikTok wrote.

Zoom out: The TikTok ban law is set to go into effect on Jan. 19. Barring an appeal, tech companies like Google and Apple will be legally required to remove TikTok from their app stores.

• Congress could also choose to repeal the law, but that seems unlikely. President-elect Trump, who has flip-flopped on the issue, could try to urge his DOJ not to enforce the ban.

The law requires TikTok to sell the app to a U.S. company by Jan. 19 to prevent the ban from taking effect, but no potential buyers appear poised to complete a deal by the deadline.

What to watch: Trump said he has a "warm spot" in his "heart for TikTok" and would look at whether to stave off the looming ban.

• However, he doesn't take office until Jan. 20.
• Trump is expected to meet with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Mar-a-Lago today.

Go deeper: What to know about TikTok's future under Trump

A Nevada commissioner has ruled against Rupert Murdoch's legal attempt to alter his family trust so that his eldest son, Lachlan Murdoch, will control the family's media and business empire when he dies, the NYT reports.

Why it matters: Barring a successful appeal, the decision ensures Murdoch's media empire will be left equally to his four oldest children, who are not all ideologically aligned with the conservative views of Rupert and Lachlan.

• Notably, James Murdoch — once considered a contender to take over the family business — resigned from the board of News Corp. in 2020, citing disagreements over editorial content published by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.

Zoom in: Commissioner Edmund J. Gorman Jr. ruled against Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch, arguing they acted in "bad faith" by trying to alter the terms of the trust, according to the NYT, which obtained a copy of the sealed court document.

• Media outlets petitioned for access to the closed-door trial but were ultimately denied by a judge who argued that the matter should be litigated privately and that the high-profile nature of the trial presented security risks.
• The trial concluded in September.
• A spokesperson for Fox Corp. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The big picture: Changing the trust would have ensured that Lachlan could continue to carry out Fox Corp.'s strategy of catering to conservative audiences.

• The trust, established in 1999, was created as a compromise amid Rupert Murdoch's divorce from his second wife, Anna Torv Murdoch Mann.
• Lachlan and his three siblings — Elisabeth, James and Prudence — are equal beneficiaries of the trust, which has roughly 40% of voting stakes in News Corp. and Fox Corp.
• Rupert Murdoch, 93, stepped down as chairman of Fox Corp. and News Corp. last year and named Lachlan as his corporate successor.

The intrigue: Murdoch's children started doing secret PR planning for how to handle their father's death last year after an episode of "Succession," the HBO series that draws on the Murdoch family drama, according to The Times.

• In that episode, the patriarch dies and chaos ensues for the family and for the business.

What's next: Rupert Murdoch's lawyer told The Times he plans to appeal the decision.

Project Liberty, founded by billionaire Frank McCourt, has pulled together participants for a consortium of investors interested in pursuing a "peoples bid" for TikTok, McCourt told Axios.

Why it matters: A U.S. court has until January 19 to decide whether TikTok should be banned if it does not find a U.S. buyer.

• With Big Tech under record antitrust scrutiny, a wealthy U.S. investor group could be a plausible buyer for the app — which could be worth anywhere from $20 billion to $100 billion, depending on how the U.S. part of the business is split from its parent.

State of play: McCourt launched Project Liberty, which includes both a for-profit company and a non-profit institute, in 2021 to help build and advocate for a safer and more equitable internet. He announced his intentions to assemble an investor group to buy the app in May.

• Participants in Project Liberty's investor group, who are not yet being disclosed, have made informal commitments of more than $20 billion of capital, a spokesperson said.
• Project Liberty has held conversations with a diverse set of stakeholders across the financial, business and investment sectors and will begin an investor roadshow early next week in New York City and San Francisco.

Of note: Project Liberty says that its bid has the support of several internet pioneers, including World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory senior research scientist David Clark.

• The group is working in consultation with Guggenheim Securities, the investment banking and capital markets business of Guggenheim Partners, and Kirkland & Ellis, a global law firm, on its bid.

Between the lines: McCourt believes Project Liberty "is uniquely positioned to assume stewardship of TikTok" because of the tech and governance protocols it has built to prioritize user privacy and safety.

• "This landmark acquisition would catalyze our long committed desire to usher in the era of an upgraded internet — one that prioritizes safety, democracy, and civil discourse," McCourt told Axios in a statement.
• "The technology we are building respects individuals by returning to them ownership and control of their identity and their data, not by surveilling them."
• "This is possible because we're not influenced by foreign actors, we're not beholden to Big Tech, and we've built the necessary technology that can support this powerful platform loved by more than 170 million Americans."

Zoom in: Alongside its research and policy efforts, Project Liberty has also developed its own blockchain-based, decentralized web infrastructure to make social media safer and more secure.

• In 2022, MeWe, a free and subscription-based social media platform that bills itself as a privacy-focused alternative to Facebook, became the first social network to launch using Project Liberty's decentralized social networking protocol (DSNP).

Yes, but: McCourt and other interested bidders may be eager to get their hands on TikTok, but the Chinese government has pushed back aggressively against the idea of selling it.

• Congress passed a bill in April that President Biden signed into law requiring TikTok parent ByteDance to divest the U.S. arm of the app or face a ban.
• TikTok has filed a legal challenge of the law.
• President-elect Trump, who has reversed his position on TikTok and now says he doesn't support a ban, could try to get a Republican-led Congress to repeal the law or pressure the DOJ not to enforce a ban.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to show Project Liberty is partly a for-profit company and partly a nonprofit institute (not just a nonprofit initiative).

AI-driven deepfakes weren't the disinformation catastrophe that tech companies and global governments feared ahead of a slew of major elections this year, Meta president of global affairs Nick Clegg told reporters Monday.

Why it matters: The spread of broader conspiracy theories has proven to be a much more challenging misinformation threat than AI-doctored photos or videos.

• "From what we've monitored across our services, it seems these risks did not materialize in a significant way, and that any such impact was modest and limited in scope," Clegg said.

By the numbers: While Meta said its systems did catch several covert attempts to spread election disinformation using deepfakes, "the volumes remained low and our existing policies and processes proved sufficient to reduce the risk around generative AI content," the company said.

• During the election periods of major races globally this year, content verification ratings from Meta's international fact-checking partners on AI content related to elections, politics and social topics represented less than 1% of all fact-checked misinformation, per Clegg.

State of play: Meta introduced new policies this year to prevent everyday users from inadvertently spreading election misinformation using its Meta AI chatbot, including blocking the creation of AI-generated media of politicians.

• The company said its systems rejected 590,000 user requests to generate AI images of President-elect Trump, Vice President-elect Vance, Vice President Harris, Governor Walz, and President Biden in the month leading up to the election.
• Clegg said he didn't see much activity in terms of bad actors trying to game Meta's rules around labeling AI-generated imagery in ads.

Zoom out: Meta has invested heavily in broader threat intelligence over the past few years, which Clegg said has helped the company identify coordinated disinformation networks, regardless of whether they use AI or not.

• "We seek to build policies and enforcement practices that are agnostic about the origin of the content, whether it's synthetic or human," Clegg said.
• "That's why I don't think the use of AI and generative AI in and of itself was a particularly effective tool for them to evade or trip our wires, because it's not the means by which we try and identify them in the first place."

The big picture: Nearly half of the world's population lives in countries that held major elections this year, prompting concerns about AI deepfakes from intelligence officials globally.

• But even in places where there have been concerns about disinformation, deepfakes don't seem to be the primary challenge.
• In Romania, authorities are probing whether poor policy enforcement or fake accounts on TikTok may have aided the far-right presidential candidate Călin Georgescu's win in the first round of voting.
• In India, AI-generated content was used to spread disinformation, but it was also used by candidates to help translate campaign content into different local languages.

Reality check: Images and videos created using generative AI still lack precision and that makes it possible, at least for now, for experts to debunk them.

• Most mis- and disinformation that goes viral today features manipulated context, such as a mislabeled photo location, rather than doctored media.
• Coordinated inauthentic networks that intentionally use deepfakes to spread disinformation often struggle to build authentic audiences, Clegg said, rendering their AI-generated images and videos ineffective.

The bottom line: The most problematic deepfakes aren't necessarily the most believable ones, but rather, the ones shared by people in power to help propel narratives or conspiracies that support their campaigns.

• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan showed a video on stage at a political rally linking a rival to a militant organization considered a terrorist group by the Turkish government.
• President-elect Trump shared AI-generated images on social media during his campaign that falsely depicted Taylor Swift and her fans endorsing his campaign for president.

Go deeper: Generative AI adds to election distrust without fooling many voters

PG-rated films have made up one-third of ticket sales at the domestic box office this year, the highest percentage since 1995.

Why it matters: "PG is the new PG-13," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. "It no longer has the stigma of not being hard-edged enough."

• Family-friendly films — and animated movies in particular — have dominated the 2024 domestic box office.

Startling: As of Dec. 2, one-quarter of all domestic box office ticket sales this year were for animated films, according to an Axios analysis of data from Box Office Mojo. Four of the 10 highest-grossing domestic films this year are animated.

• Disney's "Inside Out 2" set multiple records in its $155 million domestic debut earlier this year. The film, which has gone on to become the highest-grossing animated film of all time, had the highest global debut for any animated film ever in June. It's the highest-grossing film in North America so far this year.
• Disney's "Moana 2" led to a record-breaking Thanksgiving box office weekend, bringing in a whopping $221 million in domestic sales over the five-day Holiday weekend.
• Universal's "Despicable Me 4" brought in a whopping $122 million in its July Fourth holiday weekend domestic debut. The film has driven "Despicable Me" to become the first animated franchise to cross $5 billion in global box office sales.
• Universal's "Kung Fu Panda 4" dominated the Oscar weekend box office in March during its domestic debut, toppling analyst expectations.

Zoom in: Family-friendly hits have brought much-needed momentum back to the box office, following a fall slump.

• Universal's "Wicked," rated PG, set a record for the biggest opening weekend for a Broadway adaptation last weekend with a $114 million domestic debut.
• Combined with Paramount Pictures' "Gladiator II," which debuted last weekend, "Moana 2" and "Wicked" helped drive $420 million in domestic ticket sales over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend — a new record.

Between the lines: Despite steady increases in ticket prices over the past few years, families with children have leaned into movie-going as a cheaper alternative to weekend trips away.

• "It's like a mini vacation," Dergarabedian said.

Flashback: Family-friendly films struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic, as more studios, especially Disney, moved their movie debuts to streaming platforms.

• R-rated films spiked during that time but subsequently took a hit.
• The only R-rated film to reach the top 10 in domestic ticket sales so far this year has been Disney's "Deadpool & Wolverine." With more than $636 million in total domestic ticket sales this year, the film has driven most of the R-rated genre's momentum.

The big picture: Kids and their parents like known brands, Dergarabedian said, which helps explain the box office success of several animated sequels this year.

What to watch: Family-friendly hits are expected to continue carrying the box office into the new year.

• Disney's "Mufasa: The Lion King," a photo-realistic animated film, debuts Dec. 20.
• Paramount's "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" premieres on the same day.
• Warner Bros.' anime fantasy film, "The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim," debuts Dec. 13.

Left-leaning apps, news websites and social networks are experiencing a spike in engagement following President-elect Trump's election win, further dividing the internet along political lines.

Why it matters: It's not unusual for resistance media to rise in response to contentious elections. But the internet itself is becoming more politically divided than ever, driving Americans further into echo chambers.

Driving the news: Bluesky, an alternative to Elon Musk's X, saw downloads rise by 430% during election week, according to Sensor Tower.

• Usage of the Bluesky app in the U.S. grew by 519% in the weeks after the election, compared to the first 10 months of the year, per SimilarWeb.
• The social network's growth is linked to users "either leaving X or investing more time in exploring a promising alternative," SimilarWeb's editor of insights news and research, David Carr, noted.

Between the lines: Lefty, a dating app for progressives, has experienced an unprecedented 453% surge in downloads in the two weeks since the election, founder and CEO Alex Felipelli told Axios.

• "The surge in downloads since the recent Trump victory underscores a profound shift among progressives who are seeking like-minded partners in a deeply polarized political climate," he said.

Zoom in: New data from CivicScience, a polling firm, found that people who voted for Vice President Harris are more active than Trump voters on Threads, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok, while Trump voters are much much more likely to be active on X.

• Certain streaming apps, such as Disney+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video, are also much more popular among Harris voters than Trump voters.

State of play: Some progressive news outlets are leaning even heavier into resistance coverage — a business move that proved effective in 2016.

• Slate said daily subscription sign-ups were seven times higher than normal on the day after the election.
• The Guardian raised $2.4 million in two days after the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post pulled their Harris endorsements at the last minute.

Zoom out: Conservatives tried to build their own alternate internet ecosystem toward the end of the Trump administration, particularly after Jan. 6, when most of the internet's biggest platforms de-platformed then-President Trump.

• Musk bought X. Peter Thiel and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance invested in Rumble, a YouTube alternative for conservatives, which has since gone public. President-elect Trump launched Truth Social, which is now public.
• Thiel backed the creation of The Right Stuff, a conservative dating app that now has 3.4 million followers on TikTok.
• Conservatives launched their own internet hosting company, RightForge, a new "Magacoin" cryptocurrency, and began investing in their own entertainment companies and streaming services.

The big picture: For platforms and media outlets looking to become more neutral, playing to everyone's interests may present business challenges.

• CNN's election night ratings fell below MSNBC's for the first time this year amid a broader pivot to more centric coverage.
• Ratings for MSNBC's "Morning Joe" plummeted after co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski told viewers they visited Trump. The show drew just 680,000 viewers on Tuesday, down from an average of more than 1 million.
• The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times both saw subscribers flee in response to orders from their owners Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong to axe Harris endorsements.

What's next: All signs point to online tribalism increasing as the barrier to entry for new digital products lowers, challenging mainstream institutions.

Comcast plans to spin off NBCUniversal's cable networks into a separate, publicly traded company, the company said Wednesday.

Why it matters: The move will allow NBCUniversal to focus on higher growth opportunities, like streaming, theme parks and entertainment.

• While most major streaming services are beginning to turn a profit, NBCU's streaming service Peacock is still losing money.

State of play: The deal would see NBCU's suite of cable networks, including USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel, spun off into a separate company, alongside some of NBCU's digital assets, such as Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and Sports Engine.

• Those networks collectively generated approximately $7 billion in revenue over the past 12 months, Comcast said.
• The tax-free spinoff won't include the NBC or Telemundo broadcast networks.
• For now, the company will be called SpinCo. It will have the same dual-class share structure as Comcast.
• SpinCo will be led by longtime NBCU executive and current chairman Mark Lazarus as its CEO. Anand Kini, currently the CFO of NBCUniversal and EVP of Corporate Strategy at Comcast, will serve as CFO and COO.

Zoom in: NBCU's popular reality TV cable network Bravo will not be spun off with NBCU's other cable networks.

• In a statement, Comcast said the spinoff structure positions NBCU with assets that will power Peacock.

The intrigue: In announcing the news, Comcast alluded to a possible strategy in which it acquires or combines SpinCo with other "complementary media businesses,' implying a rollup strategy for distressed cable networks.

• The company, Comcast said in a statement, will be "well-capitalized" and "have significant scale as a pure-play set of assets anchored by leading news, sports and entertainment content," reaching approximately 70 million U.S. households that still pay for cable.

What they're saying: "When you look at our assets, talented management team and balance sheet strength, we are able to set these businesses up for future growth," said Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast.

• "With significant financial resources from day one, SpinCo will be ideally positioned for success and highly attractive to investors, content creators, distributors and potential partners."

Flashback: Comcast has explored opportunities to reshape its media unit, but it hasn't made a big move since it acquired Sky in 2018 and divested its stake in Hulu to Disney in 2023.

• The company declined the opportunity earlier this year to explore a merger with rival Paramount.
• NBCUniversal chief Mike Cavanagh last month said that the company would rather consider partnerships in streaming, "despite their complexities," over a merger.
• The last media company to part ways with a significant chunk of its cable portfolio was Fox, which sold its cable channels, like National Geographic and FX, to Disney as part of a broader spinoff of its entertainment assets in 2019.

Zoom out: Comcast is no stranger to streaming joint ventures and partnerships.

• It was part of a streaming joint venture for Hulu with Disney and AT&T until Disney acquired the remainder of Hulu last year.
• Reports suggest the firm had considered a streaming joint venture with Paramount before Paramount agreed on a merger deal with Skydance Media.

The big picture: Comcast's rivals facing similar challenges with their cable businesses have considered spinning off their linear assets, but ultimately backed down.

• Cable television — while facing heavy viewership declines due to cord-cutting — is still mostly very profitable. Despite investor angst around the declining medium, those profits are critical for streaming investments.
• Disney CEO Bob Iger last year teased the possible sale of the firm's linear TV assets, including its broadcast network ABC, but later suggested interest in that idea had cooled.
• Warner Bros. Discovery had reportedly explored splitting its linear assets from its streaming portfolio but ultimately decided selling smaller assets was a better solution than breaking up the company, per the Financial Times.

Editor's note: This story was updated with new details about Comcast's plan.

Elon Musk's X platform continues to be the dominant social discourse app in America, garnering 30 times more daily visits in the U.S. on average during the general election than rival platforms, according to data from Similarweb.

• X also saw a larger usage bump on Election Day than its rivals.

Why it matters: The relationship between Musk and Trump is growing closer by the day, Axios' Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei report.

• Trump has already begun to leverage Musk's authority on the platform to successfully amplify his demand for Senate Republicans to allow recess appointments for his Cabinet picks.

Of note: The post-election week saw users, including The Guardian, leave X in a small protest and join Bluesky, which has seen over a million downloads in a few days and crossed the 15 million user mark.

What to watch: Trump's publicly traded social media platform Truth Social is currently valued at over $6 billion, but still barely makes money.

• It's unclear how Trump plans to leverage the platform as president, but his posts typically garner more interactions on X.