Mediagazer: Guarded Pals In a Critical TV Rivalry (Brian Stelter/New York Times)

9:40 AM ET, October 7, 2010

Top News:

Richard Johnson LA-bound — Tweet — It's the end of an era — Richard Johnson is leaving Page Six after nearly 25 years as editor of the world's most famous gossip column. — Emily Smith, who cut her teeth on Fleet Street before coming to New York five years ago …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, New York Observer, FishbowlNY, Ben Smith's Blog, Romenesko, Gawker, New York Magazine and LA Observed

Chris Rovzar / New York Magazine:

What Would a Tina Brown-Helmed Daily Beast-Newsweek Hybrid Look Like? — This morning, to celebrate the two-year anniversary of the Daily Beast, founding editor Tina Brown interviewed herself. As to the hot rumor of the moment, that she may become editor of Newsweek and bring the Beast along …

Tina Brown / The Daily Beast:
The Daily Beast Turns 2!

Discussion: MediaPost, New York Observer, Gawker and The Awl

Nicholas Carlson / The Wire:
Daily Beast - Newsweek Merger Talks Heat Up - Staffers Feel Like It's A “Done Deal”

Discussion: Press Gazette, Folio, Runnin' Scared and FishbowlNY

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Daily Beast's Tina Brown Brags About “Interesting Discussions” With Newsweek

Discussion: J-Source, The Wrap, New York Times and Guardian

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Memo Hints at Name Change for MSNBC.com — NBC Universal and Microsoft, the parents of MSNBC.com, are holding high-level talks about a name change, something that could be a risky endeavor for the second most popular news Web site in the United States. — The two parents have determined …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Inside Cable News, Mediaite, paidContent, The Wrap, The Huffington Post, New York Magazine, NewscastStudio Blog, WebNewser and Collective Talent

Jason Fell / Folio:

Next Issue Media Names Tech Team, Hints at Digital Newsstand Plans — Nabs three former Nokia executives for tech ‘dream team.’ — Next Issue Media, the digital publishing consortium including some of the magazine industry's biggest players, has expanded its senior technology team and …

Discussion: paidContent and eMedia Vitals

Lucia Moses / Mediaweek: Next Issue Media CEO Guenther Short on Details

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:

Reed Hastings' Six Lessons for the Newspaper Industry — Reed Hastings has been on a rollercoaster ride in the 13 years since he founded Netflix. From punchline to genius to toast to genius and back, several times over, it seems. In a talk Tuesday night in his hometown of Santa Cruz …

Discussion: Romenesko

Wall Street Journal:

Hasbro Aims to Show TV Channel Isn't One Big Commercial — Hasbro Inc. is set to launch a children's cable network Sunday, in its evolution from a toy maker to a full-fledged entertainment company where playthings like My Little Pony and Transformers morph into TV shows and movies.

Discussion: AdPulp

Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Time Warner Sees Ally in Web

Discussion: MediaPost, NewTeeVee, Online Video News, Company Town, New York Observer and Hollywood Reporter

Michael Cieply / Media Decoder:

Ex-Variety Critic McCarthy Lands at Hollywood Reporter — LOS ANGELES — Todd McCarthy, fired as Variety's chief film critic seven months ago, has landed — again. Shortly after losing his long-standing gig with Variety in a round of cost-cutting last March, Mr. McCarthy joined …

Discussion: The Wrap, Hollywood Reporter, Thompson on Hollywood and New York Magazine

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Guarded Pals In a Critical TV Rivalry — “Welcome to 8,” read the Twitter message from Dan Harmon, an executive producer of “Community,” to Bill Prady, his counterpart on “The Big Bang Theory.” — It was May 19, and CBS had just made the biggest television scheduling move of the season …

Gillian Reagan / Capital New York:

Taking time to read on the web: Instapaper gets ready for the big show — Photo via davidville's flickr stream. — A couple of years ago, Marco Arment, who was then the lead technologist of the social-blog platform Tumblr, became frustrated with the way the web made his ideal reading diet difficult.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, ReadWriteWeb and Tomorrow Museum

Media Week:

IPC profits fall 37% in recession-plagued 2009 — Time Warner-owned IPC Media, publisher of Now, In Style, Look and Wallpaper magazines, has reported a 37% drop in pre-tax profits for the year to 31 December 2009. — IPC: latest results reveal 37% fall in annual pre-tax profits

Discussion: Press Gazette

Henry Unger / The Biz Beat:

Ted Turner worried about right-wing alternative to CNN long before Fox — Ted Turner is a pretty good prognosticator. — Years before Rupert Murdoch launched Fox News, Turner thought the biggest threat to his CNN operation would come from “a right-wing news alternative,” he said Wednesday.

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

News Video on Twitter to Expand as Brightcove Completes Implementation — NEW YORK — With last month's launch of the new Twitter Web page, selected beta users have been able to embed videos from YouTube and Vimeo. — Now, Brightcove has been authorized by Twitter to have its videos embedded.

Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:

Newsweek's Final Price: $1 In Cash And $47 Million In Liabilities — Confirming what was widely reported but never publicly acknowledged, a Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) SEC filing shows that billionaire Sidney Harman paid $1 in cash for Newsweek and also assumed about $47 million in liabilities.

Joy Mayer / RJI:

What “engagement” means to Tracy Record and West Seattle Blog — Lately, I've been immersed In a sea of motivated, passionate, scrappy people making a go of it in community news, trying a bunch of techniques and wondering what will work. It was therefore a yank into another world …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Ben Parr / Mashable!:

Mark Zuckerberg's Take on “The Social Network” — Despite previous statements that he had no plans to see The Social Network, Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg did, in fact, watch the film on the company's field trip to the movies last Friday. — I just wrapped up an interview …

Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider

Deggans / blogs.tampabay.com:

EX-CNN anchor Rick Sanchez releases statement, says comments “never intended to suggest any sort of narrow mindedness.” — Former CNN anchor Rick Sanchez just released a statement saying his comments from last week were not intended to be “narrow-minded” and “should not have been made.”

Discussion: Mediaite, The Wrap, Slate, Romenesko, MIJE.org, New York Magazine, Riptide 2.0, PopEater, The Moderate Voice and Hit & Run

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

BW Digital Alum Neal Joins NYC Media Lab As First Executive Director — We've peeked in from time to time at the New York City Economic Development Corp.'s efforts to jump start the city's struggling media industry by encouraging innovation and creating new jobs.

Steve Myers / Poynter Online:

How Disruptors with Nothing to Lose Paved the Way Online for Old Media Stars Like Howard Kurtz — Who should Howard Kurtz thank for his new job at The Daily Beast? Tina Brown, his new boss? Barry Diller, the head of the site's parent company? — How about Josh Marshall …

Discussion: Seattle PostGlobe, Romenesko, Howard Kurtz and The Politico