Mediagazer: Buzz Bissinger Makes $13,000 a Year From Friday Night Lights (Molly Fischer/New York Observer)

12:10 AM ET, August 5, 2010

Top News:

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: paidContent, Variety, Multichannel, The Wrap, Crain's New York Business, MediaPost and AdAge

Shira Ovide / Digits:

Time Warner Looks to Tie Tablet, Print Magazine Subscriptions — Time Warner already has “TV Everywhere.” Could “Magazine Everywhere” be next? — Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes hinted Wednesday that he wants to make tablet-computer subscriptions for the company's magazines available to people …

Discussion: Poynter Online and Engadget, more at Techmeme »

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
IPad Apps Are Fun! But Boring Old Magazines Are Still Big Business For Time Inc.

Discussion: paidContent

David Carr / Media Decoder:

Jack Griffin To Replace Ann Moore At Time Inc. — The shake-up of the magazine industry's corner offices will continue next week as Time-Warner is expected to announce that Jack Griffin, the former Meredith Corporation executive, will become chief executive at Time Inc., replacing Ann S. Moore.

Discussion: New York Post, Gawker, Romenesko, paidContent and New York Magazine

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: Strupp, CJR, Los Angeles Times, The Politico, On Media's Blog and eMedia Vitals

Rick Edmonds / Poynter Online:

Does Newsweek Have a Future as a Nonprofit? — So Newsweek has been sold to a fabulously wealthy angel, Sidney Harman. That is one of the scenarios I have considered likely since the magazine went on the block in early May. — Washington Post CEO Don Graham made good on his pledge …

Discussion: The Daily Beast, Paste Magazine, 5 Blogs Before Lunch and This Just In

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

AOL's Turnaround Turns Into a Tough Slog — Ad Revenue Down Steeply at CEO Armstrong's ‘Sick Patient’ — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Need a reminder how tough AOL's turnaround is going to be for CEO Tim Armstrong and his team? Look no further than the company's second quarter …

Discussion: AOL Corp, Media Week and Associated Press, more at Techmeme »

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

Discussion: The Wrap and MediaMemo

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
AOL Earnings Train Wreck Driven By Bebo and Ad Revenue Shortfall

Discussion: The Social and MediaPost

Patrick Gavin / The Politico:

WHY BRISTOL WENT TO PEOPLE — As the Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston relationship drama has unfolded in the public spotlight, especially in the past few months, People and Us Magazine have duked it out for exclusive interviews and scoops on the Alaskan couple. — People reported on July 26 that Bristol was “taking Levi Back.”

Discussion: Indecision Forever and New York Observer

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.

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: Multichannel, paidContent, Broadcasting & Cable, Guardian, MediaMemo, Business Wire, ReadWriteWeb, Company Town, Dow Jones Newswires, NEWS.com.au, Media Money …, TheStreet.com, FOXBusiness.com and BBC

Joe Pompeo / The Business Insider:
Rupert Murdoch Really Does Love Those iPads, Thinks London Times …

Discussion: Show Tracker and Silicon Alley Insider

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: TechCrunch, the Econsultancy blog, MediaPost, The Social and Media Buyer Planner

Jeff Bercovici / DailyFinance:

Deadspin Pushes Ethical Envelope Again With Brett Favre Story — Fading football star Brett Favre is all over the news today thanks to another one of his patented “Will he or won't he?” performances. If you're a sports blogger, what better time to whip out a meaty bit of gossip …

Discussion: Deadspin, Romenesko, NBC Sports and The Big Lead

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

Judge Strikes Down CA's Prop 8, Leaked Ruling Sends Scribd Traffic Skyrocketing — Minutes ago, San Francisco federal judge Vaughn Walker struck down the infamous Proposition 8, a measure that banned same-sex marriage in California. Twitter and Facebook are abuzz with the news (as you'd expect) …

Discussion: New York Times, New York Magazine, Mediaite, GigaOM, Gawker, The Daily Beast, FiveThirtyEight, Culture, The Wrap, LA Observed and in the fade

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 …

Discussion: Romenesko

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.

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: Romenesko and FishbowlNY

Steve Green / Las Vegas News from the Las Vegas Sun:

Legal attack dog sicked on websites accused of violating R-J copyrights — Websites and blogs that post Las Vegas Review-Journal content, however innocent their intent, can expect to be sued without warning — Steven Gibson is CEO of Righthaven, which buys copyrights from the Las Vegas Review-Journal …

Discussion: Romenesko

Louie / Technically Journalism:

Newspaper photog uses iPhone 4 to cover immigration protest — Working where I do allows me some great opportunities. The coolest one is working next to supremely talented people who will try anything in the name of getting and presenting the news. — It's what that in mind that I post …

Discussion: Poynter Online

rbr.com:

CBS still looking to sell some stations; launching local websites — CBS Corporation hasn't divested any broadcast stations lately, but CEO Les Moonves told analysts that he's still interested in selling some of the company's smaller market radio at TV stations - but only if the pricing is right.

Discussion: Company Town, Wall Street Journal, Media Buyer Planner, Broadcasting & Cable, Variety and Media Money …

Jon Healey / L.A. Times Tech Blog:

Kazaa is resurrected, but why? — How appropriate: The day that Rdio goes live, Kazaa comes back from the dead. — Rdio is the new music streaming service from Janus Friis with Niklas Zennström, the entrepreneurs who brought the Kazaa file-sharing software to market as the music industry …

Discussion: Techdirt

Marisa Guthrie / Broadcasting & Cable:

Peter Horton: ‘GMA’ Consultant — The divide between news and entertainment may be a sacrosanct one - at least as it relates to standards and practices if not storytelling. But even a news program can use a little Hollywood stardust. To that end, ABC News has enlisted Peter Horton …

Discussion: TVNewser

Nick Bilton / Bits:

Wired Woos iPad Readers With Exclusive Videos — When Wired unveiled its long-awaited iPad application earlier this year, the experience of using it was akin to reading the print magazine, with beautifully designed pages and perceptive storytelling. But at $5, even with its beautiful design …

Discussion: WebNewser

Molly Fischer / New York Observer:

Buzz Bissinger Makes $13,000 a Year From Friday Night Lights — Recent Twitter-convert Buzz Bissinger would like to get one thing straight: He is not rich. — After Dan Colvert insinuated otherwise (wondering pointedly whether “becoming rich by writing about others is more noble” …

Kelly Truong / Chronicle of Higher Education:

For College Newspapers, Prepackaged Online Versions Are Yesterday's News — The Daily Texan needed its Web site to change with the times. Journalism has been moving from print to the Internet, and the student editors at the University of Texas at Austin publication were struggling to develop a unique online presence.

Discussion: Romenesko

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

“AdSense for online subscriptions”: Meet MediaPass, the platform that wants to put pores in your paywall — In a post over at Poynter yesterday, Rick Edmonds analyzed the paid-content experience of Spokane's paper, the Spokesman-Review — and made, in the process, a case for a mixture …

Discussion: TeleRead and The Biz Blog