Mediagazer: A&E stocks up on celebrity reality projects (James Hibberd/Hollywood Reporter)

10:10 AM ET, May 6, 2010

Top News:

Newsweek's Jon Meacham On ‘The Daily Show’: It's Time To Flip The Switch From Print To Digital — On Wednesday night's episode of “The Daily Show,” Newsweek editor in chief Jon Meacham laid out what you'd think should be a no-brainer strategy for any news organization toggling between the print and digital worlds.

Discussion: TeleRead

John Koblin / New York Observer:
Meacham on Buying Newsweek: 'I'm Going to Take a Look at This'

Discussion: New York Times, The Biz Blog, Slate, Media News, The Wire, AdAge, The Daily Beast, Newsonomics, Romenesko, FishbowlNY, Publishing Executive News, On Media's Blog, MediaPost, Wonkette, Media Money … and Gawker

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent: Don Graham On Newsweek: 'We'll Get A Buyer'

Newsweek:
Washington Post Co. to Sell Newsweek

Chris Rovzar / New York Magazine:
Can Jon Meacham Save Newsweek Now?

Discussion: Guardian

Jeff Bercovici / DailyFinance:
‘Newsweek’ Is For Sale, But Buyer Will Be Hard to Find

Discussion: Newser, paidContent, the Econsultancy blog and The Wire

Rafat Ali / paidContent:
Newsweek by Some-Really-Crazy Numbers

Discussion: Economy Watch, Seth's Blog, FishbowlNY, Romenesko and Mediaite

David Kaplan / paidContent:

CBS Interactive Display Revs Rise 19 Percent — As CBS and the other broadcast nets head into the heart of the upfront season, the ad recovery appears to be gaining momentum. The company's revenues and profits were up by healthy amounts. But one of the clearest signs of a turnaround …

Discussion: Poynter Online, rbr.com and Broadcasting & Cable

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Simon & Schuster's Digital Publishing Revenue Up Sharply — Today's standout standout but still small digital number from earnings reports: CBS (NYSE: CBS) Publishing aka Simon & Schuster reports a roughly 233 percent increase in digital publishing revenue for Q1, to $12 million from $3.6 million.

James Hibberd / Hollywood Reporter:

A&E stocks up on celebrity reality projects — Eight new series included in latest upfronts — A&E is stocking up on celebrity reality projects with new series starring David Hasselhoff, Bob Saget, Dee Snider and Tony Danza. In addition, the network is also ordering both a spin-off …

Discussion: PopWatch and TV Tattle

Marisa Guthrie / Broadcasting & Cable:

Upfronts 2010: A&E Plans Unscripted Projects With Danza, Hasselhoff and Saget — Coming off record ratings quarter, new originals to compliment 12 renewed series — A&E unveiled 2010-11 programming slate heavy on original non-scripted series including an Intervention spin-off …

Discussion: MediaPost and Multichannel

Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal:

Yahoo Launches New Ad Blitz — Campaign Promoting Site as One-Stop Web Destination Makes a Jab at Google — On the heels of a disappointing ad campaign, Yahoo is hoping to increase traffic to its home page and win back share in the Internet-search market with a new ad blitz that takes a shot at larger rival Google.

Discussion: The Wire, BoomTown, Silicon Alley Insider, Mashable! and paidContent

Guardian:

Will Lewis out at Telegraph Media Group — Editor-in-chief and digital managing director understood to have departed after disagreement with chief executive — Greenslade: Why Lewis really fell out with MacLennan — Will Lewis has been pushed out of the Telegraph Media Group …

Discussion: Press Gazette, Beehive City, Financial Times, paidContent, Journalism.co.uk, Media Week, Jon Slattery and Editors Weblog

Daniel Lyons / Newsweek Blogs:

Apple vs. the Web: The Case for Staying Out of Steve Jobs's Walled Garden — Long before Apple even announced its new iPad, media companies were going nuts about the device, for two reasons. First, they believed they would be able to create apps that would be gorgeous and stunning …

Discussion: The Wire, FishbowlNY, Shane Richmond, Soup and MediaPost

Gerry Storch / Forbes:

All The News That's Fit To Buy — Why papers should charge for online content. — The advent of the iPad means two things for medialand. It means failing newspapers can save themselves if they have the guts to do so, and it means the sudden and well-deserved demise of the once-dominant …

Carol Fisher / Media Week:

I-level placed into administration — LONDON - I-level, the digital media agency led by co-founder Andrew Walmsley and group chief executive Stephen Rust, has fallen into administration today. — Walmsley: co-founded i-Level in 1999 — The 10-year-old agency lost the Government's multi …

Discussion: Brand Republic and paidContent

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

Media mogul launches Saban Brands — Media mogul Haim Saban wants to become a brand mogul, too. — Saban, who first earned a fortune with “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” and now is chairman and chief executive of Saban Capital Group, which counts the powerful Spanish-language broadcast …

Discussion: Media Decoder

Sharon Waxman / The Wrap:

Variety 2.0: Save the Good Stuff For Print — Variety appears to have settled on a strategy to change its declining fortunes, and all indications have been that in the age of online the trade is betting on print. — New evidence of this from Variety.com editor Chris Krewson's blog (which …

Discussion: Chris Krewson

Stuart Elliott / Media Decoder:

Effort to Integrate Madison Avenue Turns to Super Sunday — A long-running attempt to bring more racial diversity to the advertising industry is shining a spotlight on the biggest day of the year for advertising — Super Bowl Sunday — in an effort to bring its arguments to life.

Discussion: Media Buyer Planner

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Irony Alert: Slate Group Claims Q1 Ad Revs Rose More Than 50 Percent — Not all of the Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) Company's publications are seeing a long list of declines: On the same day that its parent announced plans to sell struggling print Newsweek and Newsweek.com …

Joanne McNeil / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Tracking memes on their native turf: Viral anthropology at ROFLcon — If ROFLcon isn't the world's largest gathering of Internet celebrities, it at least appears to have the highest concentration. In the audience was Matt Harding, who danced around the world in his series of videos, Where the Hell is Matt?

Discussion: Tomorrow Museum

Michael Lacey / sfweekly.com:

An Opportunity to Stand Up — Village Voice Media is underwriting the cost of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona's forthcoming litigation against Senate Bill 1070, as well as two other immigration lawsuits. — Senate Bill 1070 mandates that a police officer who has …

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

Craig Kilborn to Return With a New Syndicated Show — Craig Kilborn, the original host of “The Daily Show” and then a late-night host for CBS in its 12:35 a.m. “Late Late Show” is about to return to television in a prospective syndicated show for 20 TV, the syndication arm of Fox's television stations.

Discussion: Show Tracker, Variety, rbr.com, Broadcasting & Cable and PopWatch

Jack Loechner / MediaPost:

... Yet Without Information, We Are Nothing — A new study, conducted by the International Center for Media & the Public Agenda (ICMPA) and students at the Phillip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, “24 Hours: Unplugged,” asked 200 students at the College Park campus to give up all media for 24 hours.

Ben Smith / The Politico:

Washington Post shifts leftward online — The once-cautious Washington Post has begun to invest heavily in the liberal blogosphere, transforming its online presence - through a combination of accident and design - into a competitor of the Huffington Post and TalkingPointsMemo as much as the New York Times.

Discussion: Salon, Romenesko, New York Observer, Queerty and The Atlantic Online

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Time Inc. Publishes Good News: Ad Dollars, Subscription Revenue Up — Maybe the magazine business really did touch bottom last year. At least at Time Warner's giant Time Inc. unit: The publisher says ad revenue and subscription dollars actually increased in the first three months of 2010.