Mediagazer: Bloggers quitting what they call a demanding task with few rewards (Lisa Bertagnoli/Chicago Business)

6:50 PM ET, January 18, 2011

Top News:

Cecilia Kang / Post Tech:

FCC, Justice approve Comcast and NBC joint venture — Federal regulators on Tuesday approved Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal, allowing for a joint venture that puts a vast library of television shows and movies under the control of the nation's biggest cable and broadband Internet service provider.

The United States Department of Justice:

Justice Department Allows Comcast-NBCU Joint Venture to Proceed with Conditions … WASHINGTON - The Department of Justice announced today a settlement with Comcast Corp. and General Electric Co.'s subsidiary NBC Universal Inc. (NBCU) that allows their joint venture to proceed conditioned …

Discussion: MediaMemo, rbr.com, Lost Remote, Media Money …, Mediaweek, Media & Entertainment, paidContent, Reuters, Light Reading, Company Town, Susan Crawford blog, All Things Digital, The Huffington Post and Reuters, more at Techmeme »

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
DOJ's Approval Of Comcast-NBCU Contingent On Giving Up Role In Hulu

Discussion: rbr.com and Susan Crawford blog

Tom Junod / Esquire:

Why Does Roger Ailes Hate America? — An exclusive and unbiased investigation into the highly paid operative of a foreign-born tycoon, a man who reengineered political and media culture and fomented a revolt that threatens the very stability of our country — Today, here at Esquire …

Discussion: CJR, TVNewser, Poynter, On Media's Blog, New York Magazine, Mediaite, FishbowlNY, The Wire, Ben Smith's Blog, The Awl, Gawker and Runnin' Scared

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Under Pay Model, Little Effect Seen on Papers' Web Traffic — While newspapers around the world are anxiously asking themselves what would happen if they started charging readers to view articles online, a few answers have started to emerge. — Steven Brill's Journalism Online experiment …

Discussion: Poynter, CJR, Gawker, About.com Journalism, The Rural Blog, NetNewsCheck Latest, ReadWriteWeb, The Next Web, Editors Weblog, Noted, eMedia Vitals and Stowe Boyd

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Strong Ratings for Piers Morgan's Debut — CNN's “Piers Morgan Tonight” premiered to 2.1 million viewers on Monday, according to preliminary ratings from The Nielsen Company. — CNN said that Mr. Morgan's audience was 219 percent bigger than the channel's average audience during …

Discussion: Guardian, The Wire, ArtsBeat, Washington Post, Show Tracker, The Huffington Post, TV Squad, Gawker, On Media's Blog and New York Observer

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:
CNN's Piers Morgan puts Twitter to work for TV debut

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

WSJ denies rumor that editor's leaving for Australia — A thinly-sourced report in today's Sydney Morning Herald suggests that Robert Thomson, managing editor of News Corps' Wall Street Journal and one of Rupert Murdoch's top lieutenants, may be packing his bags for a move back to Australia.

Stephen Mayne / Sydney Morning Herald:
Change afoot for Murdoch's minions

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

Venerable Lefties at Harper's Divided by Union — Harper's, one of the last bastions of old-line liberalism and a lonely defender of a certain idea of what literary culture should be, has long been supported by the largesse of its owner and patron, John “Rick” MacArthur …

Discussion: Poynter, The Huffington Post, New York Observer, FishbowlNY and Publishing Executive …

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:

Facebook's 3rd Biggest Advertiser is a Bing Affiliate Scam (With Updates) — Matt Cutts is the head of Google's anti-webspam team and tonight he came across what looks like a huge trove of scammy, spammy spam - on Facebook. And it involves Microsoft. Advertising publication AdAge reported tonight …

Discussion: Search Engine Land, MediaPost, New York Observer, Fortune, Pulse2, TechCrunch and Mashable!, more at Techmeme »

Edmund Lee / AdAge:
Facebook Books $1.86B in Advertising; Muscles In on Google Turf

Discussion: eMarketer, CNET News, John Battelle's Searchblog, Between the Lines Blog, SlashGear, Inside Facebook, VatorNews, All Facebook, C-Scape, Fast Company, SAI, Inquirer, The Equity Kicker, TechCrunch, Mashable, Noted and eMedia Vitals, more at Techmeme », Thanks:edmundlee

Lisa Bertagnoli / Chicago Business:

Bloggers quitting what they call a demanding task with few rewards — Jim Harbison launched a blog thinking it would be a showcase for his love of mid-century-inspired art and design—and maybe spawn a book deal or guest editorship somewhere. — “I wanted to participate in a world …

Discussion: The Awl, Runnin' Scared and Chris Mohney

Stuart Elliott / New York Times:

H.P. Updates TV's Old Product Demos — A mainstay of early television — live commercials demonstrating products like Polaroid cameras and Timex watches — is making a comeback, updated for a new century by migrating to new media. — Hewlett-Packard is teaming up with the YouTube …

Lauren Indvik / Mashable!:
HP Launches Live Improv Comedy Show on YouTube

Discussion: Mashable and Data Central

Market Wire:

Digital Publisher Vook Closes $5.25 Million Financing — Established Leader in Publishing Content for Tablets, Smartphones and E-Readers Builds on Its Momentum for 2011 — Vook, the leading digital publisher of mixed-media reading, announced it closed $5.25 million in Series A financing …

Discussion: VatorNews, The Vook Blog and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Stephen J. Dubner / Freakonomics:

Yes, This Blog Is Leaving NYTimes.com — As reported in Forbes on Friday, the Freakonomics blog will be leaving NYTimes.com on or around March 1 and returning to its indie roots. — The Forbes piece and most of the followup coverage drew the seemingly obvious connection between …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab

John Carney / CNBC:

Did Goldman Just Admit That It Leaked The Facebook Offering? — While the news that Goldman Sachs is restricting its Facebook investment fund to investors outside the US is already prompting cries that US securities regulations have become perverse, the media seem to be missing an important part of this story.

Discussion: New York Observer, Techdirt and Wall Street Journal

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Goldman Blames Media Attention For Killing Off Its U.S. Facebook Offering

Discussion: SAI, New York Observer, Bloomberg, ClickZ, BoomTown, broadstuff, Felix Salmon, VentureBeat, DealBook, New York Observer and On Media's Blog, more at Techmeme »

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

Exclusive: Ad Tech Startups Banding Together To Take On Google And Microsoft — As the online ad technology industry consolidates, it is becoming tougher for startups to stand out among the giants. The 500-pound gorillas like Google and Microsoft keep integrating in new technologies …

Discussion: New York Observer

The Huffington Post:

Regis: It's Over — Regis Philbin says he's leaving the show that bears his name. — “This will be my last year on this show,” the 79-year-old host said Tuesday morning on “Live! with Regis and Kelly.” “It's been a long time, it's been 28 years since I've been here.

Discussion: Mediaite, ABCNEWS, NY Daily News, Media Decoder, Moraes on TV, New York Magazine, newsfeed.time.com and AOL News

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

Scribd Raises Another $13 Million, Aims To Bring Social Reading To Every Device — Scribd, the document sharing hub that launched as a ‘YouTube For Documents’ and has since added other key features, including an online bookstore and a publisher analytics platform, has raised another big round of funding …

Discussion: paidContent, Softpedia News, TeleRead, VentureBeat and NetworkEffect, more at Techmeme »

MediaShift Idea Lab:

Which Metrics Matter for Measuring User Engagement? — Gail Robinson's recent post on traffic in a post-loyal era got me thinking about measures of web traffic and, more broadly, how to measure the impact of non-profit journalism. — I certainly don't disagree with Gotham Gazette's decision …

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Nielsen view of new TV just doesn't rate — While more viewers are getting up from the TV set and watching shows on the go, ratings giant Nielsen is stuck on the couch. — Video viewing on Apple's iPad and other mobile devices is exploding. Just last week, Google's YouTube …

Sam Petulla / Nieman Journalism Lab:

New Yorker web editor: The site is “guided by what's on paper” — In a 2006 post at Design Observer, Michael Bierut praised what he termed the “slow design” of The New Yorker: “the patient, cautious, deliberate evolution of a nearly unchanging editorial format over decades.” — It's an apt description.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:

Exclusive: Entertainment News Company TheWrap Acquires ItsOnTheGrid.com — TheWrap, a venture capital-backed news organization focused on the business of entertainment and media, has acquired ItsOnTheGrid.com (IOTG), TechCrunch has learned. — TheWrap made the acquisition for an undisclosed amount of cash and stock.

Discussion: paidContent and The Wrap

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

The Atlantic Pretties Up With Photos — The rise of the Atlantic's Web site is a good story, but that tale doesn't have much to do with pictures, only words. — That's supposed to change next month, when the site adds a new “In Focus” photo blog, curated by Alan Taylor.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Poynter, mediabistro.com and Gedankengang, Thanks:jaredbkeller

Sergio Hernandez / Runnin' Scared:

Inside the Great Cathie Black Media Blitz — Today in How Reporters Report: Everyone got their panties in a twist when former city schools chancellor Joel Klein resigned last November and Mayor Bloomberg appointed Cathie Black — a publishing exec with no discernible skills, background, or preparation for the job — as his replacement.

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Ex-AOL CEO Randy Falco Lands At Univision As COO — Nearly two years after being ousted as AOL's chairman and CEO and replaced by Tim Armstrong, Randy Falco has a new job as EVP/COO of Spanish language media network Univision Communications. Falco, who also once served as COO of NBC Universal …

Discussion: Media & Entertainment, TechCrunch, rbr.com, Company Town, Moneywood, AdAge, Multichannel, mediabistro.com and The Wrap

Gavin O'Malley / MediaPost:

IAC's Electus Acquires Engine Entertainment, Forms Global Distribution Arm — Multimedia entertainment studio Electus on Tuesday announced the acquisition of Engine Entertainment. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 2009 by former NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman …

Laura Kusisto / New York Observer:

HuffPo Bloggers Will Soon Shop More at Trader Joe's — The lefty blog that your neighbor contributes to, The Huffington Post, plans to set up new digs in one of Chelsea's most desirable buildings. — Staffers have been told that the high-end aggregator is moving to 675 Sixth Avenue, the Mattel Building.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:

Digital Marketing Company (And Lycos Owner) Ybrant Digital Raises $48 Million — Looks like investors are increasingly looking at India for financing fast-growing Internet companies. Helion, Accel Partners and Tiger Global just pumped $6 million into ecommerce site LetsBuy.com …

Discussion: MediaNama and paidContent:UK