Mediagazer: Steve Levitan: Take ‘Modern Family’ offline (James Hibberd/The Hollywood Reporter)

10:55 PM ET, August 2, 2010

Top News:

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Harman Signs Deal to Buy Newsweek From Washington Post Co. — It's Official: Audio Tycoon to Take Control of Storied Newsweekly — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — It's official: Sidney Harman, the businessman who made his fortune selling stereo equipment, has secured a deal to buy Newsweek …

Washington Post:

Dr. Sidney Harman to Purchase Newsweek from The Washington Post Company — Companies: — Related Quotes — SymbolPriceChange — WPO — 433.89 — WASHINGTON—(BUSINESS WIRE)—The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO - News) announced today that it has signed a contract to sell Newsweek to Dr. Sidney Harman.

Discussion: Newsweek, The Huffington Post, Romenesko and Mediaite

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Newsweek editor Meacham expected to leave after sale — Newsweek Editor-in-Chief Jon Meacham is expected to exit after the deal to sell the magazine to stereo-mogul Sidney Harman is completed, The Post has learned. — “Meacham has told [Harman] he should look for a new editor and is ready …

Discussion: The Wrap, AdAge, paidContent, Romenesko, MediaMemo, Gawker and FishbowlNY

Michael Corkery / Deal Journal:
The 411 on Newsweek Buyer Sidney Harman

Discussion: New York Observer, FishbowlNY and New York Magazine

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News: Newsweek's Fineman helped bring Harman to the table

Jon Friedman / MarketWatch:
Newsweek's new owner should make changes

Discussion: Media Decoder

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:
Newsweek's Meacham prepares to leave the magazine

Discussion: Romenesko and Washington Post

Scott Rosenberg / Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard:

You are not an eyeball: Why tracking is the ad biz's last gasp — Marketers are following you around on the Internet. They don't know your name but they know what you do, what you buy, where you buy it, what you're interested in, and more. The sites you visit collect this information …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, cyber.law.harvard.edu and CJR

Nick Wingfield / Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft Quashed Effort to Boost Online Privacy

Discussion: MSDN Blogs, Epicenter, AdAge, Online NewsHour, Engadget, Gizmodo, Stephen Baker, Fast Company, ReadWriteWeb, The BLT, Digits, THINQ.co.uk, Consumer Reports … and eMedia Vitals

David Kaplan / paidContent:
Ad Tracking Is Getting More Detailed - But Is That A Problem For Consumers?

Discussion: iMediaConnection Blog and NetNewsCheck Latest

Lucia Moses / Mediaweek:

Wired to Produce Short Films For iPad — Wired, the magazine about the intersection of tech and culture, launched its iPad edition in June with a buffet of multimedia, including videos, audio and interactive graphics. — With its August issue, it's going one step further …

Discussion: SteveOuting.com, Media Buyer Planner and eMedia Vitals

Gawker:

Will Wired Proclaim ‘The Web is Dead?’ — Word from inside Wired is the magazine is prepping a cover story in which editor Chris Anderson declares that “the Web is Dead.” At a magazine founded by digital utopians, that would be something close to sacrilege.

more at Techmeme »

Richard Morgan / The Awl:

Seven Years as a Freelance Writer, or, How To Make Vitamin Soup — People like my resume—here's a PDF! But a resume is only the skin of a career. And, even then, it's skin with a lot of make-up on it. People live their lives, knowing the interior of their existence …

Discussion: New York Magazine

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Hey, Newspaper Paywall Fans: News is Not Like HBO or Talk Radio — Fans of newspaper paywalls like to roll out a number of defences for their position, including the fact that some publications — such as the Wall Street Journal and the Economist — charge for their content, and therefore, every newspaper should be able to.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

Forbes Blogs To Get A Big Upgrade, Every Reporter Will Have One — Forbes.com will complete a major upgrade of all its blogs by tomorrow afternoon, we hear from several sources familiar with the plans. — The blogs will relaunch on a completely revamped WordPress installation that's expected …

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:

Free Content Isn't a Right, Nor Is His Job, CEO Says — As NBC Universal prepares for a planned takeover by cable giant Comcast Corp., its chief executive, Jeff Zucker , may be auditioning for a big job: his own. — After years of slashing costs at NBC and saying broadcast television is broken, Mr. Zucker sees a brighter outlook.

Discussion: NewTeeVee, Deal Journal, Company Town and BLTv

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

CBS, Comcast ink 10-year content deal — Comcast gets greater on-demand access to CBS, Showtime — NEW YORK — CBS Corp. and Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable operator, on Monday unveiled a 10-year content and carriage agreement that provides for retransmission consent of CBS TV stations until the year 2020, among other things.

Discussion: TVNewser

Richard Gray / Telegraph:

Minority Report-style advertising billboards to target consumers — Advertising billboards similar to those seen in the film Minority Report, which can recognise passers-by, target them with customised adverts and even use their names, are being developed by computer engineers.

Discussion: Media Buyer Planner

James Hibberd / The Hollywood Reporter:

Steve Levitan: Take ‘Modern Family’ offline — If it was up to Steve Levitan, his ABC hit “Modern Family” wouldn't be available online. — During an ABC-sponsored coffee break at TCA, Levitan said he's unsuccessfully lobbied Disney-ABC TV Group president Anne Sweeney to remove online versions of his hit show.

Discussion: NewTeeVee, MediaMemo, PopWatch, TVbytheNumbers and TV Tattle

Bill Mitchell / Newspay:

GlobalPost to Test ‘Soft Meter’ with Journalism Online — Phil Balboni believes in his bones that consumers will eventually pay for online news. — But the runway he envisions — maybe 10 or 15 years — is too long to count on, even for the well-financed GlobalPost venture he founded 19 months ago in Boston.

Discussion: paidContent

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Following up on the need for follow-up — Matt Thompson, currently of NPR and always of Snarkmarket, left a comment on my post from Friday about the need for follow-up journalism — including a link to a Snarkmarket post he'd written back in 2007. After reading that entry …

Max Read / Gawker:

A Guide to Old Media Tumblrs — The hip microblogging service Tumblr isn't just for photo blogs about dogs wearing human clothes anymore! As The New York Times writes today, it's also for media companies flailing about on the internet. Are they succeeding? Let's find out! — Are you familiar with Tumblr?

Discussion: The Hill, CNBC, The Atlantic Online and DealBook

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Newsonomics of membership, part 2 — [Each week, our friend Ken Doctor — author of Newsonomics and longtime watcher of the business side of digital news — writes about the economics of the news business for the Lab.] — New news organizations have embraced the membership model …

Discussion: Romenesko and MinnPost

Trip Gabriel / New York Times:

Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age — At Rhode Island College, a freshman copied and pasted from a Web site's frequently asked questions page about homelessness — and did not think he needed to credit a source in his assignment because the page did not include author information.

Discussion: The Volokh Conspiracy, Hot Air, Matthew Yglesias, Gawker, City Room, Media Nation, iOwnTheWorld.com and Still Not Going To Do …

Will Richmond / VideoNuze:

Howcast is Innovating in Crowded How-to Video Market — Last week I got a heads-up on milestones that Howcast, a player in the how-to video market, has recently achieved, from Sanjay Raman, Chief Product Officer and co-founder. Howcast is now doing about 25 million playbacks per month …

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

Elizabeth Spiers Is Launching 4 New Blogs, Working On Conde's Gourmet App — Elizabeth Spiers, the blogger maven and founding editor of Gawker, is launching four new sites for the Toronto-based blog network b5media, she announced today in her email newsletter, SpiersList.

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Yahoo Restructures U.S. Ad Sales Force-With No New Head (But Apparently a Lot of Prince Charmings) — Yahoo announced today that it was restructuring its advertising sales force, after being without a head of its key U.S. unit since mid-March. — Big news: No new top ad sales exec.

Discussion: paidContent and Silicon Alley Insider

Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:

Effron leaves The Week to join Thomson Reuters — MESSAGE FROM STEPHEN ADLER, SVP & EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, PROFESSIONAL DIVISION — Colleagues: — I'm delighted to share the good news that Eric Effron, most recently executive editor of The Week magazine and formerly editor and publisher of Legal Times …

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Silicon Alley Insider / The Wire:

Fake Steve Jobs Interviews Henry Blodget About Digital Media And Business Insider — The Transcript — Newsweek tech editor Dan Lyons (a.k.a., Fake Steve Jobs) was kind enough to send Henry Blodget a bunch of questions a few weeks ago in connection with an article on digital media businesses.

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Defying Magazine Trend, Cosmo Nudges Its Big Rate Base North — Newsstand Sales Still Cosmo's Most Important Source of Circulation — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Hearst's Cosmopolitan is increasing the paid circulation guarantee it gives advertisers by 100,000 copies, to 3 million copies from 2.9 million …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, MinOnline and Media Buyer Planner