Mediagazer: News International publishes paywall figures, claims 105,000 online customers (Laura Oliver/Journalism.co.uk)

Laura Oliver / Journalism.co.uk:

News International publishes paywall figures, claims 105,000 online customers — Tweet — News International has released its first figures for subscriptions to the Times and Sunday Times websites since introducing a paywall to the sites five months ago.

Discussion: paidContent:UK, Guardian, paidContent, blogs.independent.co.uk, BBC, Beehive City, The Next Web, SAI, Telegraph, Boing Boing, THINQ.co.uk, Jon Slattery and Media News, more at Techmeme »

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

It's Official: News Corp.'s Paywalls Are a Bust — After months of speculation about the impact of reader paywalls at two News Corp. newspapers in Britain — the Times and the Sunday Times — the media giant finally released some official numbers today, and they don't paint a very pretty picture.

Discussion: BBC and Guardian, Thanks:mathewi

Steve Myers / Poynter Online:

Washington Post Sponsors Election Day Trending Topic on Twitter — It's a pretty safe bet that the election will be a hot topic on Twitter on Tuesday, and The Washington Post plans to capitalize on users' interest by sponsoring an election-related trending topic.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, New York Observer, MediaMemo, GalleyCat, GigaOM, newsfeed.time.com, Gothamist, paidContent, ReadWriteWeb, Journalism.co.uk, The Next Web, Tech Daily Dose, Twitter Blog and The Atlantic Online, more at Techmeme »

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

Twitter Begins Publishing Ads in Users' Streams — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Starting today, Twitter will drop advertising into individual users' Twitter streams, also known as timelines, according to people familiar with the matter. Longstanding Twitter advertisers Virgin, Starbucks and Red Bull have bought into this new service.

Discussion: HootSuite blog, Twitter Blog, The Next Web, VentureBeat, GigaOM, eMedia Vitals, paidContent, ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch

Dean Starkman / CJR:

Felix Salmon is the Columbia Journalism Review's New Peterson Fellow — Will blog about media coverage of fiscal and economic policy — Felix Salmon, the finance blogger for Reuters and a leading voice on financial and economic issues, has been appointed the Columbia Journalism Review's …

Larry Kramer / American Journalism Review:

Navigating the Future — While nostalgia may nudge some of us to see the news media's present financial crisis as the chaotic collapse of a once great, solid and rational system, the truth is that the old business models that paid for traditional media were always jury-rigged …

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Editor of Daily Variety Is Pushed Out — The editor of Daily Variety has been pushed out after less than a year on the job. — Leo Wolinsky, a Los Angeles Times veteran who was hired by Daily Variety last year to help it survive in the rapidly changing Hollywood media market, confirmed that he was let go on Monday.

Discussion: Romenesko, New York Magazine and LA Observed

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Bang! Publishers Say Giant Web Ads Have “Stopping Power” — Bigger really is better! — So say Web publishers who have been running supersized, don't-you-dare-look-away-from- me ads for the past year. — Even better, the ad sellers insist-they have scientific proof to back up their claim.

Discussion: Mediaweek, MediaPost and mediabistro.com

Jenna Sauers / Jezebel:

How Justin Long Affably, Reasonably Ended An Internet Flamewar — After a critic panned his movie, and cruelly joked about his looks, Justin Long derided her on national television. But when the critic wrote back, Long left her what must be the kindest, humblest comment in an Internet fight, ever.

Discussion: newsfeed.time.com, The Life and Times …, New York Magazine and Movieline

Phil Rosenthal / Tower Ticker:

Don Meek to head reorganized, rechristened Tribune Digital — Tribune Co. is renaming its Tribune Interactive division Tribune Digital, in a reorganization that places Don Meek, who had been chief revenue officer for the company's publishing and interactive operations, in charge as executive vice president.

Discussion: Romenesko

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

A Gold Mine in Attack Ads on Local TV — In Waco, Tex., $350 will usually buy 30 seconds of advertising time on a local evening newscast. But not this week. — In a scene being repeated in markets across the country, the Democratic congressman who represents Waco and the surrounding region …

Discussion: New York Magazine

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

O'Donnell receives most coverage of 2010 candidates — Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell didn't get too much national media coverage before upsetting the Republican establishment and winning the Delaware primary in September. But since then, O'Donnell's been all over the news …

Discussion: Romenesko, Ezra Klein, Ben Smith's Blog and http://www.fosterkamer.com/

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Zucker the ‘Good Guy’ Honored and Roasted — “Some would say this lunch has a kiss of death about it.” — So said the NBC anchor Brian Williams at the Center for Communication's annual Frank Stanton award luncheon Monday in Manhattan, where the outgoing chief executive of NBC Universal, Jeff Zucker, was being honored — and roasted.

Discussion: Company Town and Speakeasy

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Media Guardian retreats from B2B territory — The appointment of Dan Sabbagh as the new head of the Guardian's media and technology team coincides with its retreat from seeking to compete with established trade players such as Press Gazette, Broadcast and Media Week.

Vinny Minchillo / AdAge:

What Internet Election? Why Online Advertising Didn't Matter In 2010 — Online's a Fine Place to Start, but TV Is the King of Results — Remember 2008? The battle for the presidency was waged via Facebook and the campaigns battled over Google search terms. This was supposed to be the future of political advertising.

Discussion: MediaPost

Ben Fritz / Company Town:

Disney merges television distribution into home entertainment [updated] — Walt Disney Studios is shaking up its distribution group in a move that brings television sales together with DVDs and digital for the first time. There will be an unspecified number of layoffs along with the shift …

Discussion: TVWeek.com and paidContent

Katie Manning / The Georgetown Dish:

Bob Woodward admits to starting a rumor during the Q&A Cafe — Bob Woodward answers questions from the Georgetown Dish — Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Bob Woodward joined “Q&A Cafe ” host Carol Joynt on Friday at the Ritz-Carlton in Georgetown where he admitted to starting …

Bill Mitchell / Newspay:

Winners of Poynter's Entrepreneurial Journalism Prize Announced — Two ventures focused on civic affairs — I-News and Localocracy — have been selected as winners of the Poynter Promise Prize, an incubation project in entrepreneurial journalism run by The Poynter Institute and funded by the Ford Foundation.

Discussion: I-News Network

Skrentablog:

Anatomy of blekko's press launch … After the Wall Street Journal broke our press embargo 5 hours early, someone on Hacker News asked why we were launching the site on a Sunday afternoon. — But if you want to be in the Monday morning press, a writer's story needs to be done and ready by Sunday.

more at Techmeme »

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

So, How Do Networks Decide to Call a Race? — During election night,. you can be certain that every network will, at some point or another, call a race for a candidate. How do they decide when to call it, and who to call it for? — That is where Sheldon “Shelly” Gawiser comes in.

Discussion: GalleyCat

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

CNN's Newest Hire on Replacing Larry King and Beating Fox News — Piers Morgan. Image by thisiscow via Flickr — If CNN manages to pull up out of the slump it's been in, it will be in large measure because of what it does at 9 p.m., where British television personality Piers Morgan …

Discussion: MarketWatch, Romenesko and TVNewser

Discussion: Mediaite, Media Decoder, New York Observer and Broadcasting & Cable