Mediagazer: Netflix, NBC Universal content deal brings Battlestar Galactica … (Richard Lawler/Engadget)

10:10 PM ET, September 24, 2010

Top News:

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

Zucker Announces Departure From NBC — Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal, told the company's employees in an e-mail Friday morning that he would step down from his position upon the completion of the takeover of NBC by Comcast. — The fate of Mr. Zucker …

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Zucker: Why Announce Exit Now? No Reason To Hold Back In A Twitter World — Why did Jeff Zucker announce his pending exit as CEO of NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) months before the merger with Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) is likely to close? “Once you have something like that done in a world like we live in today …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Variety and Multichannel

Shira Ovide / Deal Journal: Comcast's Burke: NBC Title Contender or Behind the Scenes Power?

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Jonathan Klein to Leave CNN — Jonathan Klein, the president of the beleaguered CNN/U.S. cable channel, is being replaced by Ken Jautz, the president of the tabloid-friendly sister channel HLN. — Mr. Jautz's title will be the executive vice president of CNN/U.S. Scot Safon …

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

CNN's Klein: ‘I Got Shot’ — CNN president Jonathan Klein didn't come into work this morning. — “I didn't want to put people in an awkward situation,” he told me. Two days ago, he learned he was out of a job. — On Wednesday afternoon, CNN Worldwide president Jim Walton …

Discussion: Gawker, The Huffington Post, Mediaite, The Wire, DailyFinance and Inside Cable News

Nick Douglas / The Awl:

The Rise of Reddit: 4chan and Digg Get the Credit While Reddit Booms — Of the three main drivers of internet culture—blogs, social networking sites and forums—most people in the media and in the general Internet-using public only understand two. Blogs work in a very obvious way: they're like magazines or newspapers, but light.

Discussion: New York Observer, Search Engine Land, CNET News, Robin Goad - UK and ReadWriteWeb, more at Techmeme »

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

Layoffs Come Down At Newsweek — As expected, there were layoffs at Newsweek this afternoon. — We hear that emails informing staffers of whether or not they would be keeping their jobs went out at 1 p.m. — A tipster tells us: — Everybody is just kind of walking around asking each other if they're OK, giving nods.

Charlie Rose / Business Week:

Google's Eric Schmidt Talks to Charlie Rose — Google's CEO on the power of Facebook, the rivalry with Apple (where until recently he sat on the board), and trying to do the right thing in China — How does Google see the future? — There's such an overwhelming amount of information now …

Discussion: Search Engine Land, Silicon Alley Insider, The L Magazine and TechFlash, more at Techmeme »

Tim Glanfield / Beehive City:

The Times lose another 120,000 online readers behind paywall — The Times online readership declined by 120,000 from July to August according to data supplied to the Beehive by marketing analysts comScore. — In August 2010, its second month behind a paywall, The Times received 1.459 …

The Wall Blog:
Has the Times paywall killed its blogs?

Discussion: Harry's Place

Wall Street Journal:

For Facebook, Movie Damage Control — Executives Sought to Influence ‘The Social Network,’ Which Harshly Portrays CEO Zuckerberg, Offered Another Version — Facebook Inc. executives have sought to discredit a new film's unflattering portrayal of Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg …

Discussion: Speakeasy, Inc.com, Digits, MediaMemo and Los Angeles Times

Brooks Barnes / Media Decoder:

Disney's Internet Chief Resigns — The Walt Disney Company's top Internet executive, Steve Wadsworth, resigned late Thursday following a difficult tenure in which Disney's Web strategy underwent repeated retrenchments. — Mr. Wadsworth, whose title was president of the Disney Interactive Media Group …

Discussion: NewTeeVee, paidContent, Variety, The Wrap, Company Town, rbr.com and Hollywood Reporter, more at Techmeme »

Arianna Huffington / Guardian:

Leonard Downie's downer — Old media sniping about the Huffington Post as a ‘parasite’ aggregator just shows they don't get the new link economy — Once again, some in the old media have decided that the best way to save, if not journalism, at least themselves, is by pointing fingers and calling names.

Discussion: DailyFinance, The Wire, Soup, New York Observer, WebNewser, The Wall Blog and Cision

News & Tech:

Hearst: Ad campaign ‘mission accomplished’ — Nearly five months after publishers Condé Naste, Hearst Magazines Meredith Corp., Time Inc. and Wenner Media launched the ad campaign “Magazines, The Power of Print,” the campaign seems to be working based on information from syndicated research firm GfK MRI.

Michael Miner / Chicago Reader:

Net News in Chicago: Still Poor, Still Striving — No one's getting rich. Hardly anyone's getting paid at all. — So we're told by The NEW News 2010, the second annual survey by the Community Media Workshop of what it calls “the Chicago area's online news ecosystem.”

Discussion: Romenesko

Ryan Lawler / NewTeeVee:

YouTube to Mobile Operators: Partner Up With Us — Consumers are flocking to mobile YouTube videos, with viewership growing more than 160 percent in 2009 and on pace for similar growth this year, a YouTube exec told an audience at Huawei's Global Mobile Broadband Forum.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, GSMA Mobile Business Briefing and RCR Unplugged

Kim Masters / Hollywood Reporter:

Lauren Zalaznick plays contract waiting game — EXCLUSIVE: Insiders bet Bonnie Hammer gets cable in reorg — With the Comcast acquisition of NBC Universal drawing nearer to completion, insiders scrutinizing the tea leaves are beginning to offer several informed predictions about the shape of the company's future management.

Pete Wells / Diner's Journal:

Gourmet Is Reincarnated, This Time as an iPad App — Tonight, with the introduction of an iPad app, Condé Nast continues its attempt to prove that there is life after print for Gourmet. — The new product, described in press materials as “an innovative app and digital content experience …

Discussion: Gourmet Live, Poynter Online, WebNewser, Gizmodo, Grub Street New York and Spiersblr

Richard Lawler / Engadget:

Netflix, NBC Universal content deal brings Battlestar Galactica, SNL and more to Watch Instantly — Just in case a throwaway mention of a streaming-only subscription for US customers wasn't enough, an agreement adding plenty of recognizable content from NBC to its Watch Instantly service …

Discussion: VideoNuze, Splitsider, Oh No They Didn't!, PR Newswire, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, Movieline, New York Magazine and Hacking NetFlix, more at Techmeme »

Gillian Reagan / Capital New York:

Printing in pixels: The ‘Times’ lead designer and others on the next-generation web — The New York Times recently launched a redesign of its online opinion section, the silo where some of its most popular and well-trafficked writers—David Brooks, Maureen Dowd—display their columns.

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Cash for cameos: ‘Wall Street’ pays — Tweet — Oliver Stone's latest movie, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” is all about traders' love of making big bucks, but Gordon Gekko would choke on his cigar if he knew about the investment plans of the folks who have cameos in the finance-focused feature.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Company Town and DealBook

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

As another magazine charges for access, where's the proof of paywall success? — The great paywall debate centres on the decision of big publishers to charge for access. So most of the noise has been generated by Rupert Murdoch's online paywalls at The Times, Sunday Times, and now the News of the World.

Andrew Clark / Guardian:

Andrew Clark — When film-makers use real-life stories, like Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg's, blurring fact and fiction means we get factionalism — Gazing down from billboards across New York, the pale, furrowed face of a computer geek in deep concentration is adorned by the words: “Punk.

Discussion: The New Yorker Blog, George's Bottom Line and New York Magazine

Nat Worden / Wall Street Journal:

Apple TV Splits Networks — Top Media Executives Question Whether 99-Cent Rentals Hurt Pay Model — NEW YORK—Media executives gathered this week at a conference here sounded a note of caution on Apple Inc.'s 99-cent digital-rental service for TV shows amid a division in the industry on whether to participate.

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Ars Technica, Online Video News and Digits

Adrian Chen / Gawker:

Catfish and the Death of Online Anonymity — The new documentary Catfish, which follows a New York 20-something's strange relationship with online strangers, might seem to be about the cloak of anonymity provided by the Internet. It's not. It's about the new impossibility of being anonymous online.

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

Microsoft Taps Demand Media to Promote Bing — Content Company Is Dependent on Google's Search Algorithms, but They'll Take Ads From Anyone — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Demand Media depends on Google's search algorithms, but now it's in business with Microsoft's Bing.