Mediagazer: Not even the internet could save ‘Party Down’ (Meghan Keane/Capital New York)

7:00 PM ET, July 1, 2010

Top News:

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

2 Suitors for Newsweek Are Said to Be Ruled Out — WITH a 5 p.m. Thursday deadline approaching for the final round of bids, at least two people were preparing to make offers for Newsweek while two others were told by the magazine's owners that their bids would not be considered.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Romenesko, CNBC, Strupp, Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, DailyFinance, Media Research Center and Tech Trader Daily

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

Newsmax Media, Two Others Are Out Of The Running For Newsweek — A spokesman for Newsmax Media just sent us the following statement about the company's failed bid to buy Newsweek: — Newsmax Media made a serious bid to acquire Newsweek, which we believe is an extraordinary publishing property …

Discussion: Media Life Magazine, FishbowlNY, Folio, The Wrap and Romenesko

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

Marc Lasry's Avenue Capital Is Among Newsweek Finalists, Drasner Would Be A ‘Tough’ Owner — Here's what we know as the 5 p.m. July 1 deadline for final Newsweek bids approaches. — Chris Ruddy's Newsmax Media is out, as are hedge funders Thane Ritchie and Phil Falcone.

Discussion: FishbowlNY and New York Post

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Study: Newspapers stopped describing waterboarding as ‘torture’ during Bush years — Is waterboarding torture? If you picked up a major U.S. newspaper before 2004, the answer would likely be ‘yes,’ according to a new Harvard University study. — But in the post-9/11 world …

Discussion: The Plum Line, FishbowlNY, The Huffington Post, Romenesko, The Daily Dish, American Prospect and Salon

Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
The Legacy Media And Torture

Discussion: Romenesko, Chicago Reader, Mediaite, Philly.com, The Atlantic Wire, Gawker and Mother Jones

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

UK Times Goes Tentatively Paid From Friday At £1-A-Month — We've covered every step in Times Newspapers' conversion to paid websites - the initial plan, the confirmation, the blocking of stories from search engines and the launch in May of the two new websites behind a registration wall on a free preview basis.

Discussion: Guardian, Bloomberg, Media Week, Company Town, magCulture.com/blog, Press Gazette, Jon Slattery, WebNewser and ResourceShelf

Jennifer Van Grove / Mashable!:

Groupon to Offer Exclusive Deals through Local Newspapers — The quickly growing deal-a-day site Groupon has entered in to a partnership with The McClatchy Company — owner of The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee and several other newspapers — to outsource exclusive Groupon deals to McClatchy websites in 28 U.S. markets.

Discussion: MarketWatch, paidContent, eMedia Vitals and Old Media, New Tricks

Chris Ariens / TVNewser:

Anderson Cooper ‘Very Happy at CNN’ with ‘No Plans to Leave’ — Anderson Cooper, reporting from the Gulf, has taken the time to email his staff about an online story earlier this week which claimed he was unhappy at CNN and ready to bolt the network. From The Wrap:

Discussion: Romenesko, Media Buyer Planner and MediaPost

Rupal Parekh / AdAge:

Alex Bogusky Resigns From MDC Partners — Creative Legend to Focus on Projects Outside of Advertising and Marketing — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Advertising celebrity and MDC Partners' star employee Alex Bogusky has resigned from the holding company to pursue efforts outside the ad world.

Discussion: Media Decoder, Fast Company, Gawker and AdScam/The Horror!

Anton Troianovski / Wall Street Journal:

China Agency Nears Times Square — China's state news agency could soon be the newest Times Square neighbor of media giants Thomson Reuters and Conde Nast. — Xinhua, one of the Chinese government's main news outlets and propaganda arms, is finalizing a deal to move to the top floor …

Discussion: Gawker, BBC, Nieman Journalism Lab, Journalism.co.uk and The Wire

Dylan Stableford / The Wrap:

L.A. Times Sells King Kong a Mock Editorial Wrap-Around Section — The L.A. Times is at it again, allowing an advertiser to overtake an editorial section. — On Thursday, the paper published a fake four-page wrap-around advertising section designed to look like the paper's LATEXTRA section, which was buried inside.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, LA Observed, The Huffington Post, Romenesko, Charles Apple and B2B Memes

David Zurawik / Z on TV:

Spitzer, King: Why changes at CNN matter so much — I had been questioning myself in recent days as to whether or not I was making too much out of the Eliot Spitzer hiring at CNN. Last night, as I was writing about Larry King stepping down, I decided I was not.

Mike Fleming / Deadline.com:

Larry King Heading Into Bagel Biz; Will He Have To Answer To Nate N' Al? — When Larry King steps down from his CNN gig later this year, he'll need something to fill his downtime. Bagels will play a role. Just before he announced his exit, King closed a deal to become a financial partner …

Discussion: Mediaite, The Huffington Post and New York Magazine

Will Richmond / VideoNuze:

Revision3 is Achieving Unaided Advertising Recall of Up to 99% — When Revision3, the independent network of online video programs, has surveyed its viewers, it has discovered that 99% of them are able to identify at least 1 of its advertisers. That incredibly high level of unaided recall …

Discussion: WebNewser

Meghan Keane / Capital New York:

Not even the internet could save ‘Party Down’ — Starz' mockucomedy may have been a niche product—New York magazine called it “TV's greatest-ever catering comedy”—and it was beloved around the web. The ratings, however, told a different story. — The second-season finale last Friday brought in only 74,000 viewers.

Discussion: Best Week Ever

Lloyd Grove / The Daily Beast:

A New Magazine for Terrorists — Blogs and Stories — The man who inspired the Fort Hood shooter, the Christmas Day attacker, and the Times Square bomber is launching an online magazine in English aimed at aspiring jihadists. Lloyd Grove on why it has American officials worried.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, The Atlantic Online, Associated Press, Mediaite, The Wire and Gawker

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

When a journalism gig is paid for by outsiders — In the sea of good pieces last week about the Dave Weigel imbroglio, his own explanation of events stood out. And there was one paragraph that particularly interested me: … I was familiar with the Collegiate Network from my own college days …

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:

Paper.li Lets You Read Twitter In Daily Newspaper Form, Raises More Funding — Exclusive - SmallRivers, a fledging Internet startup based out of Switzerland that has developed a Web app called Paper.li that basically lets you turn Twitter streams, tags and lists into daily online newspapers …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and WebNewser

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Huckabee Trying Out a Daily Show for News Corp. — Mike Huckabee, the weekend Fox News Channel host and possible 2012 presidential candidate, is getting a six-week tryout as a daily talk show host. — Called “The Huckabee Show,” it will have a preview run on weekdays for six weeks …

Discussion: Romenesko, TVNewsCheck, Ben Smith's Blog, New York Magazine, TVNewser, The Huffington Post and Variety

David Kaplan / paidContent:

The New Republic Adds Blogs, Claims Ad Success Amid Hybrid Pay-Free Site — Just two months after adding a paid-only online subscription product, The New Republic has been trying to round itself out with four new, free-to-access blogs this month. The latest is Citizen Cohn …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Wired's Dadich Adds Corporate Digital Mag Role — Wired Creative Director Scott Dadich's role is expanding to corporate Conde Nast following the initial success of the magazine's iPad app. As Executive Director, Digital Magazine Development, he'll work at the corporate level …

Discussion: New York Observer

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:

BBC's Interactive TV Exec Chakkara Heads To TalkTalk — After Anthony Rose, another BBC iPlayer exec may be Canvas-bound for his next challenge. — BBC future media TV platforms controller Rahul Chakkara is leaving after six years with Auntie to be online director at TalkTalk.

Andrew Wilson / Media Week:

Apple launches iAds ad platform — Apple is to launch its iAds mobile advertising platform later today (1 July), as it seeks to attract advertisers to its range of products including the iPhone and iPad. — The system has already attracted some criticism, with rivals now urging regulators …

Discussion: GigaOM and Poynter Online