Top News:
New York Times:
At the Last Minute, a Disney-Cablevision Truce — The Oscar statuette became a pawn in a public brawl between the Walt Disney Company and Cablevision on Sunday, a dispute that prevented more than three million viewers from watching the beginning of the Academy Awards show until …
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Joe Flint / Company Town:
Disney's deal with Cablevision is good news for broadcasters [Updated] — And the Oscar for biggest gamble goes to ... Walt Disney Co.'s ABC. — Risking political backlash and hits to its ratings, advertising revenue and public goodwill, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger drew a line in the sand …
Fred / A VC:
Monopolies, Retransmission Fees, and Screwing Customers — There's been a battle going on between the “broadcast” TV networks and the cable networks over something called “retransmission fees.” Cable networks have traditionally paid for “cable network programming” but not “over the air programming.”
Discussion:
MediaMemo
Dirk Smillie / Forbes:
Digital Lift-Off — Web ads to get a 10% boost in 2010. For the first time advertisers will spend more on digital than print. — We've been waiting for this: A study by Outsell, to be released Monday, reveals that U.S. advertisers are spending more this year on digital media than on print.
Lucia Moses / Mediaweek:
Bloomberg BusinessWeek's Bullish — Taking sharp aim at its rivals, Bloomberg BusinessWeek is prepping for a relaunch April 23 that it boasts will “reinvent” the category, with shorter stories, 20 percent more editorial pages and three more issues for a total of 50. — The moves come as others are retrenching.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
“OMG It's Steve Jobs! I'm the Only One Yelling at Him!” — That's the most excellent caption for this photo, posted Sunday night by blogger Wayne Sutton. — Squint and you can see the Apple (AAPL) cofounder and CEO in the middle of shot, standing next to the woman in the white dress (click to enlarge).
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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.
Discussion:
The Public Editor's Journal
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David Carr / New York Times:
Breaking the Story That Isn't — Reporters have always kept an eye on other reporters. For a journalist, the only thing more interesting than what you are working on is what your competitor is working on. — But what if watching your competitor becomes your whole story?
Lucia Moses / Mediaweek:
Foodie Site, Magazine Target Men — One doesn't have to be a die-hard fan of Iron Chef to know that men have their own way of cooking and that it often involves meat, tongs and a grill. — This demo has been largely underserved by traditional media, but now, two publishers are firing up products aimed squarely at the male chef.
Steve Pond / The Wrap:
Analysis: How ‘Hurt Locker’ Became the $21M Movie That Could — It wasn't an Oscars for the unexpected. It was an Oscars for the unprecedented. — In the end, “The Hurt Locker” shrugged off the barrage of last-minute criticism and came out of awards season in exactly the same …
Discussion:
The Wire
Chris / cdixon.org:
News is a lousy business for Google too — There is a widespread myth that search engines have taken profits away from news websites. A few months ago, Rupert Murdoch said: “Google has devised a brilliant business model that avoids paying for news gathering yet profits off the search ads sold around that content.”
Discussion:
Kirk LaPointe's …
Mark Sweney / Guardian:
Ad rules to take in Twitter and Facebook — Proposal would extend Advertising Standards Agency role to include marketing activity on social media and microsites — Tighter controls on the how Twitter accounts and Facebook profiles are used in company promotions are set to be introduced under …
Discussion:
Faster Future