Mediagazer: Ads, Politics Blur Media Lines (Wall Street Journal)

12:00 PM ET, November 9, 2010

Top News:

The Times' Paywall and Newsletter Economics — It is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. — In early July, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation placed its two London-based “quality” dailies, the Times and Sunday Times, behind a paywall, charging £1 for 24 hours access, or £2 a week …

Discussion: Jon Slattery, Guardian, George Brock, Boing Boing and TeleRead

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

Olbermann Apologizes to Viewers, But Not to MSNBC — 6:15 p.m. | Update In an aggressive statement questioning the legitimacy of his two-day suspension from MSNBC, Keith Olbermann addressed his fans Monday night, saying that they were responsible for his scheduled return to the air on Tuesday …

Discussion: Mediaite, Mixed Media, Inside Cable News, Gothamist, Washington Post, Gawker, Romenesko, TPM LiveWire, Salon and New York Times

Wall Street Journal:

Ads, Politics Blur Media Lines — Talk Show Hosts Help Raise Cash and Attention for Advocacy Groups That Advertise — Cable-news network MSNBC briefly suspended liberal host Keith Olbermann last week for crossing a line between the media and politics when it learned he donated $2,400 each to three Democratic Party candidates.

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:

Same-Day E-Book Sales Propel Grisham's Thriller — In recent years, even some of the biggest authors have lost gravitational pull with readers. But for John Grisham's 24th adult book, “The Confession,” the e-book version has helped propel first-week sales beyond that of his last legal thriller.

Discussion: TeleRead

Paul Bond / Hollywood Reporter:

Former Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin Returns to Media Business … Gerald Levin is getting back into the media business, though in a far more subdued manner than before. — Levin, who once brokered controversial megadeals as CEO of Time Warner, is set to announce Tuesday that he has joined Oasis TV as a senior adviser.

Discussion: Company Town

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Yahoo! on KKR radar — Tweet — The list of private-equity firms circling Yahoo! is getting longer. — PE giant KKR & Co. is among the parties interested in either taking Yahoo! private or helping finance a deal if the struggling Internet pioneer decides to go that route, The Post has learned.

Discussion: Crave

Tanzina Vega / New York Times:

Plucked From Their Web Writing to Promote a Vaseline Brand — IF you've been complaining about dry skin on the Internet, Vaseline may have heard you. With winter just around the corner, the brand is announcing a new advertising campaign for its Vaseline Intensive Rescue skin cream product, sold by Unilever.

Discussion: Gawker

Laura McGann / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Center for Public Integrity changes up its audience strategy to build a new revenue stream from readers — Nonprofit news outlets reach an audience in different ways. To borrow an analogy, imagine that there are two camps: wholesalers and retailers. Under the wholesale umbrella …

Discussion: Editors Weblog

Yinka Adegoke / Reuters:

Time Warner Cable targets rivals, Hulu with Look Back — (Reuters) - Time Warner Cable will launch on Monday a service to allow subscribers to watch some of their favorite shows three days after they've originally aired as it aims to stay ahead of the growing threat of cheaper Web video services like Netflix Inc and Hulu.

Discussion: MediaPost

New York Observer:

Woodward, Bradlee Star in Slick WaPo Promotion — “Hey, was that Robert Redford?” someone asks as a camera follows Bob Woodward around the offices of The Washington Post. The recently posted video is meant to promote the paper's iPad app. We can't speak to the quality of the app but this video sure is polished!

Steve Krakauer / Mediaite:

Conan O'Brien's First TBS Monologue: Still Bitter About The NBC Break-Up — Conan O'Brien made his return to late night TV tonight with the first episode of TBS' Conan. In some ways, the opening monologue of the premiere picked up from where he left off in the two weeks of his former NBC show …

Discussion: Media Decoder, Vanity Fair and The Daily Beast

Lacey Rose / Moneywood:
Meet The Man Who Lured Conan O'Brien To Cable

Discussion: The Wire and New York Times

WWD:

W Film Debuts... Net-a-porter Names U.S. Editor... COMING ATTRACTIONS: When word got out last summer that W magazine had invited a film crew into its offices, the fashion commentariat took to wondering if Stefano Tonchi and company had their own “The September Issue” in store. The answer is: Not quite.

Sarah Rabil / Bloomberg:

The Man Who Blacked Out News Corp. World Series Says Politicians to Blame — News Corp.'s Chase Carey, the man who oversaw Fox's talks with Cablevision Systems Corp. during a two- week blackout, has advice for government officials who want to keep more TV channels from going dark: Stop meddling.

Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:

New Study Shows Newspapers Don't Have to Sue to get Pirated Content Removed — When users first began to share music online, the music label's first reaction was to sue them. While this did little to deter music sharing, it ruined the public's opinion of these labels.

Discussion: TeleRead and Mixed Media

Katy Bachman / Adweek:

Comcast-NBCU to Cost Consumers — To the tune of $2.4 bil. more over the next nine years — That consumer cable bills will continue to climb is a sure bet. If regulators approve Comcast's control of NBC Universal, it will cost consumers even more — $2.4 billion more over the next nine years.

Discussion: MediaPost

Dan Frommer / The Wire:

Amazon Opens The Door For An Apple Newspaper Store — Amazon just announced changes to its Kindle platform for newspaper and magazine publishers that could open the door for a similar store from Apple. — Specifically, Amazon just announced a new program that would allow newspaper …

Discussion: Amazon.com and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Salon Names New Editor — Salon, the Web site that helped pioneer online journalism before many newspapers and magazines had even thought about the Internet, is changing editors. — Joan Walsh, the noted commentator who has been editor in chief of Salon since 2005, is stepping down to write a book.

Discussion: New York Observer, mediabistro.com, MediaPost, GalleyCat and The Huffington Post

Lauren Kirchner / CJR:

Local Ad Networks Bring Home the Bacon — Community sites team up to hire sales staff and share ad revenue — When Washington, D.C. local news site TBD.com launched in August, it got a fair amount of attention for the blog network with which it shares content and, potentially, advertising.

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

What Hyper-Local News Sites Can Learn From SB Nation — When it comes to being passionate and engaged, nothing (with the possible exception of some religious cults) matches the kind of devotion that sports fans have to their local teams. Those fans are the heart and soul …

Thanks:mathewi

Macer Media:

Sacramento Press Parent Castle Press Transforms into Macer Media; New Identity Symbolizes Lean Operations and Sustainable Growth — Aiming to advance local online media networks throughout California and beyond — SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Nov. 9, 2010 — Looking to help communities elsewhere build successful …

Discussion: Newspaper Death Watch

Liz Shannon Miller / GigaOM:

Next New Swaps Programming Chops for AOL Distribution — Next New Networks has expanded its roster of distribution partners today with the launch of The One, a daily web series, to be featured on the AOL front page, that spotlights “the one thing we're thinking about today.”

Discussion: The Huffington Post and Beet.TV