Mediagazer: First look: ‘Alice in Wonderland’ opens to record-setting $210 million (Ben Fritz/Company Town)

8:20 PM ET, March 7, 2010

Top News:

Disney Pulls ABC From Cablevision After Deal Fails — The Walt Disney Company pulled its ABC station from Cablevision at 12:01 a.m. Sunday after failing to reach an agreement with the cable provider on a new contract, potentially leaving about three million cable customers in New York …

Drew Grant / Mediaite:

Exclusive: Cablevision Fights Back Offering Best Picture Movies All Night — Well that's one way to end a dispute: Tonight Cablevision will be offering their subscribers exclusive On Demand movies at no charge, including Academy Award nominees The Hurt Locker and District 9.

Discussion: The Wrap and Cynthia Littleton On The Air

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Pre-Oscar Drama: Disney Sends ‘New’ Proposal; Cablevision Offers Binding Arbitration — Last-minute dramatics this afternoon as the next “deadline” approaches for Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Cablevision: tonight's Academy Awards. Disney says it's sent a new proposal and the ball is in the cable operator's court.

Discussion: Company Town, Long Reply and Save ABC7

Venuri Siriwardane / New Jersey Online:
ABC pulls signal from Cablevision just hours before the Oscars

Discussion: Lost Remote, Reuters, Epicenter, Hollywood Reporter, Save ABC7 and paidContent

Clark Hoyt / New York Times:

Journalistic Shoplifting — ZACHERY KOUWE, a Times business reporter for a little over a year, resigned last month after he was accused of plagiarizing from The Wall Street Journal. An internal review of his work turned up more articles — he said he was shown four — containing copy clearly lifted from other news sources.

Discussion: The Wire

Felix Salmon:

Link-phobic bloggers at the NYT and WSJ — Clark Hoyt, the NYT's public editor, has a good post-mortem on l'affaire Zachary Kouwe, and asks whether “the culture of DealBook, the hyper-competitive news blog on which Kouwe worked” was partly to blame for his plagiarism.

Stephanie Clifford / New York Times:

The National Enquirer Earns Some Respect — The call came into The National Enquirer's Los Angeles tip line — the kind advertised in the supermarket tabloid with the promise “We'll Pay Big for Your Celebrity Gossip” — in late September 2007. The caller's message was that a woman named Rielle Hunter …

Ben Fritz / Company Town:

First look: ‘Alice in Wonderland’ opens to record-setting $210 million — Disney discovered an opening weekend in “Wonderland” the likes of which had never been seen before, taking in an eye-popping $210.3 million around the world in its debut. — Director Tim Burton's 3-D adaptation …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap, New York Times and Speakeasy

Magda Abu-Fadil / Media on HuffingtonPost.com:

Arab Print Media Weather Financial Crunch Better Than Western Counterparts — Print media in the west may be struggling for survival but newspapers in the Arab world, which took a few hits, are nonetheless thriving and expected to grow, a recent study showed.

James Camp / Mediaite:

HBO to Dramatize The Financial Meltdown In All Its Gory Details — Like those who enjoy their car-chases, their full-frontal nudes, their dance-and-song ensembles, the strip of the populace tickled by the thought of Hank Paulson cringing over a toilet is now, evidently, sufficient to launch a movie.

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

BBC boss says cuts will help rivals — BBC's web cuts, which will involve closing about 200 sites, are not simply an exercises in clearing dead wood, digital chief says — Erik Huggers, the BBC digital chief, has promised its closure of 200 websites is not simply an exercise in cutting dead wood and will help rivals.

Dave Rosenberg / Software, Interrupted:

Has business press lost touch with the tech industry? — A new report by ITDatabase that examines tech coverage over the last six months from eight top business news publications raises some questions, in particular: Does the business press factor companies' revenue and profits into their tech editorial agenda?