Mediagazer: Oprah's Cable Channel Flickers to Life (Brian Stelter/Media Decoder)

2:45 PM ET, January 1, 2011

Top News:

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Oprah's Cable Channel Flickers to Life — At precisely twelve o'clock on New Year's Day, Oprah Winfrey welcomed television viewers to OWN, a cable channel that she says will espouse her “live your best life” mantra. — OWN, short for The Oprah Winfrey Network, flickered to life …

Brian Stelter / New York Times:
Shaping a Network With Oprah's View

Discussion: St. Petersburg Times, MIJE.org, Company Town, Guardian, Inside TV and New York Times

Associated Press:

Ohio judge drops newspaper website comments suit — CLEVELAND (AP) — An Ohio judge taken off a high-profile murder trial has dropped her $50 million lawsuit against a Cleveland newspaper and reached an undisclosed financial settlement with an affiliated company that runs the publication's website, an attorney said Friday.

Mike Reynolds / Multichannel:

Time Warner Cable: We Hold Big 4 Programming Cards In Sinclair Retrans Dispute — Negotiations Continue As Midnight Deadline Nears — As a midnight deadline nears, Time Warner Cable, armed with Big 4 programming, says it is continuing to negotiate a retransmission-consent renewal deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and The Wrap

Elinor Comlay / Reuters:

Time Warner Cable, Sinclair yet to reach deal — (Reuters) - Time Warner Cable and Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc have yet to renew a carriage agreement ahead of an end-of-year deadline, but the second largest U.S. cable operator agreed to carry the four broadcast networks despite the dispute.

Discussion: Company Town

David Higgerson:

DATA: Without adding context, a journalist with data can be dangerous — If you believe the predictions, 2011 will be the year when journalists have more access to data than ever before. Of course, much of the data will also be accessible to the public in general but I suspect more people …

Reporters Sans Frontières:

JOURNALISTS IN 2010 TARGETS AND BARGAINING CHIPS — Figures in 2010 — 57 journalists killed (25% fewer than in 2009) — 62 countries affected by Internet censorship — Fewer killed in war zones — Fifty-seven journalists were killed in connection with their work in 2010, 25% fewer than in 2009, when the total was 76.

Steven Bulwa / Mediaite:

Does Fox News Make You Invest Stupider? How Partisan News Sources Can Limit Porfolio Performance — Everyone likes to be right and the easiest way to be right is to surround oneself with people and opinions that are predisposed to be similar to ours. When investing, it pays to be contrary.

Discussion: The Huffington Post

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Nonprofit News May Thrive in Comcast Takeover — Included in Comcast's promises regarding its acquisition of NBC is a little-noticed plan that may stimulate the growth of nonprofit news organizations. — Comcast is pledging to establish partnerships between news nonprofits and at least five …

Todd Shields / Bloomberg:
Comcast Should Provide Program Contracts to the FCC, Groups Say

Discussion: MediaPost

Gabe Rivera / Techmeme News:

The 50 biggest tech stories of 2010 — If the year is winding down, and real tech news is slowing to a trickle, you know it's time to reflect on the past 12 months in tech. Again this year we crunched Techmeme's historical data, cancelling out the influences of our editors …

more at Techmeme »

John Plunkett / Guardian:

Beware of contempt, AG warns UK press — Dominic Grieve warns UK media not to prejudice any future trial with its coverage of murder suspect Chris Jefferies — The Attorney General issued a warning to newspaper editors today not to prejudice any future trial with their coverage …

Steve Green / Las Vegas Sun:

Judge questions whether nonprofit's Web posting harmed R-J — A judge was skeptical Tuesday about claims the Las Vegas Review-Journal was harmed when an entire Review-Journal story was posted without authorization on an Oregon nonprofit's website. — U.S. District Judge James Mahan commented …

Discussion: MediaPost

Alicia Shepard / NPR:

NPR Apologizes for WikiLeaks Mistake; Nina Totenberg and Teena Marie — Thanks to one persistent listener, NPR published a correction admitting that it has mistakenly - and more than once - inflated the number of State Department diplomatic cables released recently by WikiLeaks.

Discussion: The Nation, Poynter and Yahoo! News

BBC:

BSkyB takeover: Ofcom submits report to Jeremy Hunt — Responsibility for ruling on the takeover was passed to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt — Media watchdog Ofcom has submitted its report on News Corporation's takeover bid for broadcaster BSkyB to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, it has said.

Discussion: Guardian