Media News: Fox Leads Cable, Tech Challenges Kids Law, Amazon Scans Books for AI

Fox News Tops Cable Networks Season to Date

Fox News Channel is the top cable network for the 2025-2026 TV season so far, averaging 2.5 million primetime viewers from Sept. 22, 2025, through Aug. 16, 2026, according to Nielsen live-plus-seven-day data. ESPN ranked second with 1.7 million viewers, followed by MS Now, HGTV, and CNN. However, ESPN led all cable networks in overall advertising revenue across all dayparts, with an estimated $2.6 billion from 282,132 commercial airings, according to iSpot. ESPN also dominated key 25-54 and 18-49 demographics, while Fox News ranked second among 25-54 viewers. (Read More) (Mediapost Rating)

Platforms Seek to Block California Kids Recommendation Law

Meta and Google petitioned the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to block enforcement of California’s Protecting Our Kids From Social Media Addiction Act, which restricts algorithmic recommendations to minors under 18 without parental consent. Meta argued the law would force it to fundamentally change its services and interfere with its First Amendment rights to curate and distribute protected speech. Google made similar arguments about YouTube’s personalized recommendations. The case follows earlier challenges by NetChoice and individual lawsuits by Google, Meta, and TikTok after a federal judge rejected claims that personalized recommendations are protected expressive speech. (Read More) (Mediapost Rating)

Amazon Worker Describes Book Scanning for AI Training

An Amazon employee described warehouse operations where books are cut apart, scanned, and discarded for AI training data. The account follows 404 Media’s earlier investigation tracking a shipment of rare books to Amazon’s VGT3 warehouse in Las Vegas. The employee said workers handled books in multiple languages, library materials, government documents, and rare or obscure volumes before bindings were removed and pages were fed through high-speed scanners. The employee said Amazon initially suggested the work was for Kindle, but they later believed it was connected to AI training, raising concerns about copyright, preservation, and the destruction of physical books. (Read More) (404 Media Rating)