Mediagazer: Weather Channel Creates Private Ad Network (Edmund Lee/AdAge)

3:00 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, George Brock, TeleRead, Boing Boing and Guardian

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

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: Gawker, Media Decoder, AdAge, New York Times, The Daily Beast, Vanity Fair and SportsGrid

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.

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: DailyFinance and Crave

Matthew Lynley / VentureBeat:

So you think you're a journalist? Sell your stories on eByline — eByline, an online service that brings together freelance journalists and publishers looking for stories, announced today it has raised $1.5 million in its first round of funding from The E.W. Scripps Company.

Discussion: VatorNews and paidContent

Johnny Diaz / Boston Globe:

Facebook sues Phoenix Media over patent rights — Global social networking site Facebook Inc. is suing Phoenix Media/Communications, which owns The Boston Phoenix and WFNX-FM 101.7, for allegedly infringing on two patents that it says help the media company manage content online.

Discussion: Romenesko

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: Gawker and Company Town

James Wolcott / Vanity Fair:

The Sound of Sanity — Not only is National Public Radio a last bastion of calm, reliable reporting, it reaches more people than Fox News. But as NPR celebrates its 40th anniversary, it suffers from one glaring bias: against the author. — It isn't until I leave New York City and turn …

Discussion: Romenesko

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

Weather Channel Creates Private Ad Network — As Others May Follow, Fair Weather Ahead for Online Publishers? — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Online publishers have long suffered under the control of ad networks, criticized as “black-box” trading desks where advertisers have little power …

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!

Discussion: CJR

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: Mixed Media, Mediaite, Washington Post, Inside Cable News, Gothamist, Gawker, Romenesko, Salon, TPM LiveWire 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.

Janet Paskin / CJR:

Serious Fun With Numbers — We're drowning in data, but few reporters know how to use them — The story was already great, even before Daniel Gilbert opened his first spreadsheet. Thousands of citizens in the southern Virginia area Gilbert covered for the Bristol Herald Courier …

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

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.

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

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Meet Intersect, where storytelling, time, and location get all mashed up — It's near impossible to tell a story that doesn't have a place or a time. As readers and just as humans we have a difficult time connecting with a story — be it a friendly anecdote or a news article — that doesn't tell us where it happened and when.

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

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