Newsmax has dropped its antitrust complaint against Fox Corp. In a notice of voluntary dismissal last week with the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida (docket 25-cv-81091), Newsmax said it was dismissing its claims without prejudice, meaning it's leaving the door open for refiling. Newsmax had a Thursday deadline to refile its suit -- alleging monopolization of the right-leaning pay-TV news space -- after it had been dismissed for procedural errors (see 2509050007).

Paramount Skydance will reportedly make a bid to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery, according to a Wall Street Journal article Thursday. The deal would include all the company’s cable networks, including CNN and HBO, the article said. Because Warner Bros. doesn’t own broadcast stations, the deal likely wouldn’t require FCC approval, communications attorneys told us. However, if it's consummated, it could make it easier for FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to apply pressure to a wider swath of media through the agency's open news distortion proceeding. Paramount recently hired a news ombudsman to appease the FCC (see 2509090065). Carr has said the agency will be monitoring Skydance Paramount’s commitments against diversity initiatives and its news policies, and he has targeted large media companies over their smaller broadcast divisions in the past (see 2412270039). It’s not yet clear how such a combination would fare at the DOJ, attorneys told us.

Rival subscription video-on-demand services are taking a wait-and-see approach as to how Netflix's games strategy plays out before following suit, but giving Netflix such a head start is risky, nScreenMedia's Colin Dixon wrote Monday. He said Looper Insights consumer survey data indicates that a pairing of video with gaming could have value in reducing churn and retaining subscribers. Without games, the long-term viability of video service providers "is in question," as the next generation of potential subscribers "may opt for an Xbox Game Pass or PlayStation Plus membership over Netflix or Disney+."

Judge Aileen Cannon of the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida on Friday dismissed without prejudice Newsmax's antitrust lawsuit against Fox Corp. and gave Newsmax until Thursday to file an amended complaint. Cannon said in the order (docket 9:25-cv-81091) that the problem with Newsmax's suit as written is that the second, third, fourth and fifth counts in the complaint incorporate the preceding allegations, which isn't permitted. In the suit filed last week, Newsmax alleged that Fox is unlawfully monopolizing the right-leaning pay-TV news marketplace (see 2509030015).

Face the Nation will conduct only live interviews from now on after recent complaints from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, CBS said in a statement. "In response to audience feedback over the past week, we have implemented a new policy for greater transparency in our interviews," it said. Face the Nation "will now only broadcast live or live-to-tape interviews (subject to national security or legal restrictions). This extra measure means the television audience will see the full, unedited interview on CBS, and we will continue our practice of posting full transcripts and the unedited video online." Face the Nation's interview with Noem was the subject of a recent letter to the FCC from the Center of American Rights (see 2509020066).

Vimeo is laying off nearly 10% of its workforce, CEO Philip Moyer wrote Wednesday. While the company has made investments that have resulted in growth, "we know we can perform and operate even better. We undertook this decision to become leaner and more efficient and to support the next phase of Vimeo’s potential."

If not for Fox Corp.'s anticompetitive maneuvers against other right-leaning pay-TV news operations, Newsmax would have greater pay-TV distribution, and its audience and ratings would have grown more quickly, the network asserted in a federal lawsuit Wednesday.

Dish Network disagrees with, but will comply with, a Better Business Bureau National Advertising Division recommendation about ad claims challenged by DirecTV, NAD said Tuesday. It said the Dish ad claims about customers' savings when switching from Dish to DirecTV didn't make clear enough that the price comparisons were between specific plans and not DirecTV's entire line of offerings. The ads also didn't disclose material differences between the plans that were being compared, NAD said. Dish indicated it would follow NAD's recommendation to modify its ad claims, the organization added.

LiveVideo.AI is fighting a magistrate judge's recommended dismissal of its claims against National Amusements and its president, Shari Redstone, related to Skydance Media's purchase of Paramount Global. In an objection last week (docket 1:24-cv-06290), LiveVideo.AI told the U.S. District Court for Southern New York that U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses' report and recommendation -- which, along with dismissal of the suit, called for LiveVideo.AI and its counsel to face monetary sanctions and for an injunction to prevent LiveVideo.AI from further "frivolous" claims (see 2508130001) -- omits antitrust violations and acts of security fraud that have come to light recently. It said the recommendation wrongly turns "harmless docketing issues into case-ending defaults" and recommends sanctions "despite colorable, good-faith arguments."

YouTube has reached a carriage agreement with Fox that keeps its channels on YouTube TV, the Google subsidiary said last week. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr had put pressure on Google during the companies' negotiations (see 2508270014).