Mediagazer: Why Apple rental plan alienated most studios (Andrew Wallenstein/Hollywood Reporter)

3:10 PM ET, September 2, 2010

Top News:

Has Rupert Murdoch's paywall gamble paid off? — Advertisers don't like it. Analysts are unconvinced. The paywall at News International may not be winning many fans, but the man behind it is determined to keep it standing. — As the fugitive businessman Asil Nadir flew back to Britain …

Discussion: Lost Remote, For The Media, Editors Weblog, mediabistro.com, Silicon Alley Insider and Jon Slattery

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Analyst: Paywall Subscribers Worth A Quarter Of Print Readers — Even if newspapers migrate every print reader to paying online, they will still face big losses, according to one analyst. — Annual income per paywall subscriber on TheTimes.co.uk and WSJ.com is just a quarter that from subscribers …

Discussion: Romenesko, Press Gazette and Soup

New York Times:

Tabloid Hack Attack on Royals, and Beyond — IN NOVEMBER 2005, three senior aides to Britain's royal family noticed odd things happening on their mobile phones. Messages they had never listened to were somehow appearing in their mailboxes as if heard and saved.

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Nick Davies / Guardian:

Report links Coulson to phone-hacking — New York Times publishes allegations that PM's media adviser ‘actively encouraged’ unlawful practice while editor — The prime minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, freely discussed the use of unlawful news-gathering techniques while editor …

Discussion: Press Gazette, The Staggers, New York Observer, Crikey and Media Law Prof Blog

Vanity Fair:

Rupert Murdoch's War On The New York Times — Photo illustration by R. Mutt Studios. “I read the Journal a little less now. I find that I can skim it in a way I couldn't before. If the Journal is gaining market share I'd guess it is more at the expense of USA Today than the Times,” …

Discussion: Gawker, Romenesko, The Wire, New York Magazine and Gothamist

Andrew Wallenstein / Hollywood Reporter:

Why Apple rental plan alienated most studios — Holdouts fear 99-cent price endangers business model — Don't look for rival studios to join Disney and News Corp. for Apple's announced 99-cent TV rental offering anytime soon. — Unveiling a new Apple TV product Wednesday …

Discussion: Reuters, Company Town, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times

Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Here's The Difference Between Apple TV And Google TV

Discussion: Search Engine Land, Epicenter, Fortune, TomsTechBlog.com, broadstuff, Gadget Lab and The Wire, more at Techmeme »

Avner Ronen / Boxee Blog:
How Boxee Sees the Apple TV

Discussion: Mashable!, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Engadget, paidContent, Washington Post, Faster Forward, Fast Company, The Next Web, CrunchGear, Gizmodo and Apple, more at Techmeme »

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline.com: Apple To Offer ABC & Fox Shows For $.99; Other Networks & Studios Oppose Rental Plan

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Apple TV: $99 Device; $4.99 First-Run Movies; 99-Cent TV

Discussion: Fortune, Local Media Watch, Lost Remote, Mashable!, Media News, blogs.tampabay.com, Gizmodo, Boy Genius Report, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, rbr.com, AppleInsider, MediaPost and paidContent:UK, more at Techmeme »

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

Twitter breaks story on Discovery Channel gunman — The news broke around 1 p.m. with a few sketchy details. Gunman. Shots. Hostages. Discovery building. — Within minutes, there were photos, including an astonishing one of a man clad in shorts, carrying a rifle and stalking through what looked like an office courtyard.

Discussion: The Nation, Technology Liberation Front, Hit & Run, TBD All News, Romenesko, Post Now, eMedia Vitals, CyberJournalist.net and Chickaboomer

Dave Levy / State of the Fourth Estate:
Discovery Channel Stand Off: The Day The Old/New Media Line Ceased to Exist

Discussion: Lost Remote and DCist

Josh Kosman / New York Post:

Trib creditors zero in on Zell — Tweet — Tribune Chairman Sam Zell's bid for immunity from legal claims arising from the disastrous buyout of the company could be slipping away. — The judge overseeing the Tribune bankruptcy case yesterday appointed a mediator to try to hammer …

Discussion: NewscastStudio Blog and Bloomberg

Shira Ovide / Wall Street Journal: Tribune Talks to Be Guided by Mediator

Joe Pompeo / Silicon Alley Insider:

Forbes Is Going To Start Digging Up Dirt On Everyone On Its Billionaires List — It's been a month since Forbes.com launched a new landing page for its blogs, to which every editorial staffer and a growing number of external writers now contribute. — As part of that expansion …

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

AOL and Facebook Get the New Yorker Treatment — Within the next several weeks, the New Yorker magazine will be publishing big pieces about a pair of digital icons located on the East and West coasts-an assessment of the turnaround at AOL by staff writer Ken Auletta and a profile …

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

AOL And Google Renew Search Deal For 5 Years, Expand Partnership To Mobile, YouTube — AOL CEO Tim Armstrong hinted that this was coming, but this morning Google and AOL announced a five-year renewal of the search deal between the two companies. Google will continue to power search across AOL's content network and properties.

Discussion: GigaOM, paidContent, Crain's New York Business, NewTeeVee, BoomTown and Fortune, more at Techmeme »

Mark Suster / Both Sides of the Table:

Mafia Sourcing - How Insiders Game User Generated News for Money — The Web. Open, democratic, leveling, freeing information from closed networks. The wisdom of the crowds. Or so it seems. — I originally came from the entreprise software world (for 10 years) and before that I was …

Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:

AOL Already Spending ~$45 Million Per Year On New Patch Employees — AOL made 900 hires over the summer with 50% of the new people going to local blogs network Patch, CEO Tim Armstrong just told employees in a company wide meeting. — Figure all-in costs for each new employee is $100,000 per year …

Discussion: Romenesko

James Macintyre / New Statesman:

“There was massive left-wing bias at the BBC” — In his first major interview since giving the MacTaggart Lecture in Edinburgh, Mark Thompson talks about political pressures, the need for budget cuts, and how his religion affects his role — My first conversation with Mark Thompson …

Discussion: The Staggers

Adrianne Jeffries / ReadWriteWeb:

Billboard Magazine, Est. 1894, Tries to Boost Its Digital Cred — Billboard is best known for charts that rank the most popular music and musicians, which the weekly industry magazine started publishing in 1913 as a list of the most popular sheet music. Since then, topping the Billboard Hot 100 …

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

Fwix Shifts From Local News To Places: “We Are Automating Patch” — For the past two years, Fwix has been building a hyperlocal news site for cities and neighborhoods around the country in a very automated fashion. Its homepage for every city has been three columns filled with recent news …

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

WSJ's digital ops will eventually be larger than print — TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE — Editor's note: This is the third in a series of interviews with major players in business journalism to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Talking Biz News. — As executive editor of WSJ.com …

Discussion: The Wire

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Shameful News Industry Willing To Sacrifice Wikileaks To Get Shield Law — A few weeks ago, we noted, with some disappointment, that the politicians who had been pushing for a much needed federal shield law for journalism, Senators Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, were taking …

New York Times:

Of Two Minds About Books — SAN FRANCISCO — Auriane and Sebastien de Halleux are at sharp odds over “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” but not about the plot. The problem is that she prefers the book version, while he reads it on his iPad. And in this literary dispute, the couple says, it's ne'er the twain shall meet.

Discussion: ReveNews

David Folkenflik / NPR:

The Saudi Prince, The Mosque And Fox News … The proposed construction of an Islamic center and mosque close to ground zero in New York City has inspired intense scrutiny from news outlets this month — and few have outstripped the Fox News Channel in their interest.

Discussion: International Media