Mediagazer: News Corp.'s Full-Year Profits Soar on Back of ‘Avatar’ (Dylan Stableford/The Wrap)

6:10 PM ET, August 4, 2010

Top News:

Dylan Stableford / The Wrap:

News Corp.'s Full-Year Profits Soar on Back of ‘Avatar’ — News Corp. said on Wednesday that the company finished its 2010 fiscal year with $4 billion in operating income - an increase of 11 percent - thanks, mostly, to the ridiculous box office success of “Avatar” and a recovering ad market.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, paidContent, TheStreet.com, NEWS.com.au, Business Wire, BBC and FOXBusiness.com

Jemima Kiss / Guardian:

Murdoch: tablets are the future — Rupert Murdoch was cosying up to Apple again today as he spoke at a media debate in Sydney earlier today, saying tablets are “a perfect platform” for cheap, convenient and up-to-date News Corp content. — News Corp has “tens of thousands of readers” …

Discussion: MediaMemo, Press Gazette, TeleRead, Silicon Alley Insider, Garcia Media, Gawker, MediaPost, Poynter Online and TheAustralian

Joe Pompeo / The Business Insider:
Rupert Murdoch Really Is Obsessed With The iPad, Thinks London …

Discussion: Show Tracker

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

Time Warner CEO Talks Up Conan, iPad Apps, Broadband HBO On Demand — On a conference call this morning, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes talked up the “strong ad uptick” that helped boost his company's second quarter profits to $562 million, up 7% from $524 million a year earlier …

Discussion: AdAge, Variety, paidContent, The Wrap, Crain's New York Business and Company Town

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

iPad Apps Are Fun! But Boring Old Magazines Are Still Big Business For Time Inc. — iPad apps are fun to talk about. They may even but the future of the magazine business! But for now, magazine publishing is still a print and ink proposition, and that's not necessarily a terrible thing.

Discussion: Digits and paidContent

John Koblin / New York Observer:

The Savior of Condé Nast: Scott Dadich Is The New It Boy of the Mag World — Someday, when they tell the story of how digital magazines saved Conde Nast, it will begin in San Francisco's Caffé Centro sometime in May 2009. — It was there that Wired creative director Scott …

Discussion: Crain's New York Business, FishbowlNY, Romenesko, MediaMemo, MediaPost, paidContent and New York Magazine

John Koblin / New York Observer:
Conde Nast Hires Joe Simon to New Executive Tech Position

Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider and Runnin' Scared

Brian Womack / Bloomberg:

Facebook Advertisers Boost Spending 10-Fold, Sandberg Says — Facebook Inc.'s biggest advertisers have boosted spending by at least 10-fold in the past year as the social network crossed the half- billion user mark, becoming more alluring to marketers that want to reach a broad online audience.

Discussion: MediaPost, TechCrunch, The Social, Media Buyer Planner and Noted, more at Techmeme »

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

AOL Earnings Train Wreck Driven By Bebo and Ad Revenue Shortfall — After warning analysts that its financial results for the latest quarter would be disappointing, AOL couldn't even manage to hit those lowered expectations, thanks in part to a $1.4 billion writedown on assets — primarily Bebo …

Discussion: The Social, AOL Corp, AdAge and MediaPost, more at Techmeme »

FishbowlNY:
AOL Swings to a 2Q Loss on Charges; Ad Revenue Falls 27%

Discussion: MediaMemo and The Wrap

Tim Carmody / Snarkmarket:

The generative web event — Last week, a bunch of digital humanists got together at the Center for History and New Media to make a new tech tool that the broader academic AND nonacademic communities could use for their work. The catch: they had to conceive, design, and ship the thing in JUST one week.

Rebecca Dana / The Daily Beast:

Newsweek's Hidden Problem — Not only is Newsweek's new owner new to the media world, the money-losing magazine is holding on to the CEO who devised its business strategy. Plus, view the confidential memo obtained by The Daily Beast. — As 91-year-old radio magnate Sidney Harman begins …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, The Politico, DailyFinance, On Media's Blog, eMedia Vitals and Silicon Alley Insider

Aaron Rutkoff / Metropolis:

So What Will Happen to the Conde Nast Cafeteria? … When Condé Nast vacates its current home at 4 Times Square, an outcome the company now considers “highly likely,” as The Journal reported this week, the publishing giant will be leaving behind what is perhaps the most famous corporate cafeteria in New York City.

Discussion: Gawker and Curbed NY

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:
Down-town & country

Discussion: WWD, New York Observer, Gawker, MinOnline, Gothamist and New York Times

John Cook / Yahoo! News:

Federal records show CNN, Chicago Tribune hosted active-duty Marines as interns — Much has been made of the media's practice of “embedding” reporters in military units, allowing them to file immersive reports on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while under the total care and control …

Simon Dumenco / AdAge:

Boy, Could the Former Editor of Maxim Ever Tell You Some Stories — Q&A With Keith Blanchard, Now of Story Worldwide — For this latest edition of Dumenco's Media People — an ongoing series of conversations with media grandees — I interviewed longtime print guy Keith Blanchard …

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Romenesko

The Huffington Post:

Michael Hastings, Reporter Whose Rolling Stone Article Felled McChrystal, Denied Afghan Embed — WASHINGTON — The author of the Rolling Stone article that ended the military career of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former top commander in Afghanistan, has been denied permission …

Discussion: Mediaite and Gawker

Wall Street Journal:

On the Web's Cutting Edge, Anonymity in Name Only — You may not know a company called [x+1] Inc., but it may well know a lot about you. — From a single click on a web site, [x+1] correctly identified Carrie Isaac as a young Colorado Springs parent who lives on about $50,000 a year, shops at Wal-Mart and rents kids' videos.

Discussion: Stephen Baker, Deal Journal and Voices on All Things Digital

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:

Forbes Sells Investopedia To ValueClick In $42 Million Deal — Online marketing services company ValueClick is buying financial information and investing education website Investopedia from Forbes for approximately $42 million in cash. — The reasons for the purchase: content, traffic …

Discussion: Business Wire, paidContent and DailyFinance, more at Techmeme »

Nielsen Wire:

Report: How People Watch - The Global State of Video Consumption — Video consumption across multiple platforms is now a global phenomenon. Consumers in all regions are proving their insatiable appetite for video information and entertainment - thus far adding screens to their media mix, not replacing them.

Discussion: rbr.com

Los Angeles Times:

On the Media: Struggling KCET examines its options — The public TV station might form a consortium with other area PBS affiliates, sell its studios or even leave the network to improve its financial fortunes, programming slate and public profile. — ByJames Rainey

Discussion: Show Tracker, TVWeek.com and L.A. NOW

Joseph Plambeck / New York Times:

Content to Connect Brands With the Hip Crowd — VICE is happy to be known as a hipster media company. From its headquarters in a former warehouse in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, the company oversees magazines covering youth culture in 23 editions distributed in 26 countries, an online television network and a record label.

Matthew Belloni / Hollywood Reporter:

GAWKER PAYS TO SETTLE ‘MCSTEAMY’ COPYRIGHT SUIT — A legal battle on the cutting edge of celebrity media and copyright law has ended with gossip blog conglom Gawker Media agreeing to pay actors Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart and take down a homemade threesome video featuring the couple.

Discussion: Don Surber and Mediaite

Joseph Frydl / AdAge:

How HSN and ‘Eat Pray Love’ Turn Content Into Commerce — Shopping Network's Promotion of Upcoming Julia Roberts Film Offers Marketers Lessons in Branded Entertainment — The business of marketing and the business of entertainment are fundamentally about the same thing: Turning audience attention into commerce.

Lauren Goode / Digits:

Groupon Moves Into TV Land, Does Deals With Top Chefs — Groupon.com, a website that offers local daily deals through group coupons, is teaming up with restaurants owned by Top Chef contestants from the show on the Bravo TV network. — From August 4 through August 8 …