Mediagazer: Cable Ratings: Breaking Bad Does Good For AMC (Marisa Guthrie/Broadcasting & Cable)

10:50 AM ET, March 23, 2010

Top News:

Rafat Ali / paidContent:

Local Blog Network Gothamist Being Bought by Cablevision's Rainbow Media — Gothamist, the local city blog network that is best known for its New York City edition, is being acquired by Cablevision-owned Rainbow Media, paidContent has learned. The price is between $5 million to $6 million …

Discussion: The Awl, Silicon Alley Insider, Techdirt, FishBowlNY, We Love DC, State of the Fourth Estate, WebNewser, NYConvergence, Gawker, Lost Remote, Media Decoder, New York Magazine, The Wire and DealBook

Foster Kamer / Runnin' Scared:
BlogBeat: Gothamist Sells Out to Cablevision, James Dolan Presumably …

Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider

Geoffrey A. Fowler / Digits:

Let the E-Reader Price War Begin? Sony Drops to $169 … Sony says it is cutting the price on its entry-level e-book reader, dubbed the Pocket Reader, to $169 — perhaps the first in a coming price war for the devices. — Sony's $30 discount only lasts through April 4 …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, Kindle Review, DailyFinance, All Things Digital, TeleRead and Electronista

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

News site visitors look like early tech adopters — Far from being fuddy-duddy Luddites, newspaper website visitors actually appear to be early and passionate technology adopters. — The surprisingly high interest in high tech among online news consumers is revealed in a ground-breaking poll …

Discussion: Fitz & Jen, New Media Hub and Online

Dave Itzkoff / ArtsBeat:

Fake Area Newspaper Gets Real Television Show — The Onion, the satirical news organization that broke the fake story that the smoke monster from “Lost” would receive its own spin-off series and cheekily reported that television critics who praised “The Wire” had never seen the show, is itself headed to the small screen.

Discussion: The Wire, Romenesko, FishBowlNY, New York Magazine and Mashable!

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Show by Rosie Is Envisioned as Replacement for Oprah — LOS ANGELES — Rosie O'Donnell's forthcoming talk show will be squarely positioned as a suitable replacement for Oprah Winfrey, her producers said on Monday, adding a new twist in an effort by local stations to revamp their lineups in a post-Winfrey era.

Discussion: TVWeek.com, TVbytheNumbers, MediaPost and Media Decoder

Jason Fry / Reinventing the Newsroom:

Facebook and the Future of Refrigerator Journalism — Last month I wrote about how finding information and choosing what to read makes the Web a more personal medium, an idea that came to me after reading a Q&A with Batavian publisher Howard Owens. In the comments, Roy Peter Clark raised a good point that's nagged at me ever since:

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Mark McLaughlin / Media on HuffingtonPost.com:

Audiences Don't Pay for Content — The media industry needs to get healthy but we won't get there if we think about the Internet as the reason that consumers have stopped paying for content. Instead, we need to take a dispassionate view of mass media content and ask ourselves why the Internet …

Owen Bowcott / Guardian:

Legal reform bill to tackle ‘libel tourism’ — The government plans to prevent claims stemming from online publication and protect investigative journalism — Foreign claimants will find it more difficult to initiate libel cases in UK courts and a “public interest” defence should be introduced …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Marisa Guthrie / Broadcasting & Cable:

Cable Ratings: Breaking Bad Does Good For AMC — Third season premiere delivers series best ratings — . The third season premiere of AMC's Breaking Bad March 21 was the show's highest rated episode ever. — The premiere pulled in 2 million viewers (posting a 1.4 household rating) for it's 10 p.m. bow, according to Nielsen.

Discussion: Multichannel, The Live Feed | THR and Variety

Steven Levy / Wired:

How the Tablet Will Change the World — Everyone who jammed into the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on January 27, 2010, knew what they were there for: Apple CEO Steve Jobs' introduction of a thin, always-on tablet device that would let people browse the Web, read books, send email, watch movies, and play games.

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

NBC's Meet The Press Gets An iPhone App Courtesy Of Zumobi — Just in time for the passing of the U.S. government's massive health care legislation, NBC is launching a branded iPhone app for one of its key political news shows. NBC's popular political and public affairs show …

Discussion: TechFlash

Laura McGann / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Lauren Victoria Burke's WDCPIX: A photojournalist builds business by aiming at sites that can't afford wires — Lauren Victoria Burke's strategy for success in the world of political photography is simple: undercut the Associated Press. — Burke runs a one-woman photography wire service in Washington …

Discussion: BusinessJournalism.org …

Dirk Smillie / Forbes:

Hearst's Big Bounce — Ad sales for May are up 17%—and climbing. — It's only March, but Hearst Magazines' chief marketing officer, Michael Clinton, expects ad sales for his titles will be burning up this summer. — Sales for April rose 12% compared to the same period last year.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

The Official Google Blog:

A new approach to China: an update — On January 12, we announced on this blog that Google and more than twenty other U.S. companies had been the victims of a sophisticated cyber attack originating from China, and that during our investigation into these attacks we had uncovered evidence …

The Official Google Blog:

European Court of Justice rules in Google's favour — Google aims to provide as much information as possible to users so that they can make informed decisions. For this reason, we have been awaiting a series of decisions by the European Court of Justice that explore the extent …

Discussion: Guardian, TechCrunch Europe and Fast Company

Mercedes Bunz / Guardian:

How investigative reporting makes use of the internet — With the help of reporting readers the political blog Talking Points Memo revealed the political pattern behind the sudden departures of United States attorneys in the Bush era, as readers accumulated evidence from around the country on who the axed prosecutors were.

Media Decoder:

Perseus Signs an EBooks Deal for the iPad — Apple's iBookstore on the forthcoming iPad is set to get larger. The company has just signed a deal with the largest distributor of independent publishers to sell electronic versions of it books on the new device.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, GalleyCat, TeleRead, Silicon Alley Insider, Publishers Weekly, Electronista and Daring Fireball

Richard Sandomir / New York Times:

TV Sports: Woods's Interviewers Had Limited Time but Missed Chances — In five minutes on ESPN and six on the Golf Channel, Tiger Woods did not say much that was new Sunday night. — But that does not matter. Whatever Woods does now is more interesting than it was before his glorious golf career turned …

Discussion: Media Decoder, TVNewser, New York Magazine and Collective Talent

Jason Boog / GalleyCat:

Adult Hardcover Sales Down 8.1 Percent in January — In a release today, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) reported that overall book sales for January 2010 had dropped 0.7 percent to $814.9 million. Adult hardcover sales dropped 8.1 percent over that same period …

Discussion: Gawker

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Print Vets Looking to Go Digital Find Switch Difficult — Changing Times, Greater Competition Make for a Difficult Transition to the Other Side — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — A few months ago, a longtime print publisher exploring new employment in digital media met with Greg Coleman …

Discussion: Romenesko and Kirk LaPointe's …

Knight Foundation:

Initiative Will Seek New National Model For Investigative Journalism — $400,000 grant from Knight Foundation will fund project at New England Center for Investigative Reporting — BOSTON — Boston University's New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR) is launching a new initiative …

Discussion: KnightBlog

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:

News Corp. Throwing Away The Crown Jewel: Fox Audience Network — News Corp. isn't beating around the bush with its digital assets. Rotten Tomatoes has been sold off to Flixster. Photobucket went to Ontela. IGN had 20% staff cuts, and MySpace is dealing with co-presidents.

Discussion: paidContent

Jane Martinson / Guardian:

Elisabeth Murdoch on Shine, family succession and ambition — Interview: Elisabeth Murdoch reveals her plans for her independent producer, Shine — Elisabeth Murdoch sits down, eyes the voice recorder, and says “I have to be careful”. The head of Shine, the UK's largest independent producer …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter

Steve Buttry / Pursuing the Complete Community …:

Wanted: Vision for community engagement — One of the exciting things about my new job is that we're going to try some things that haven't been done before. We're going to try some things that haven't been done before on the scale we're doing them. We're going to try different ways …