Mediagazer: Ad Spending Could Change With AT&T Deal (Stuart Elliott/Media Decoder)

1:25 AM ET, March 23, 2011

Top News:

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

NY Times Asks Twitter to Shut Down Paywall Dodgers — There are plenty of ways to tunnel under or through The New York Times's new online paywall, but if you're not careful about how you do it, the Times will shut you down. — That's what's about to happen to FreeNYTimes …

Discussion: The Understatement, Media & Entertainment, Reuters, FishbowlNY, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Mashable!, @dannysullivan, @freenyt, @dandotlewis, @doctorow, @jeffbercovici, Techdirt, SAI, Poynter, The Awl, Future of Journalism and broadstuff, more at Techmeme »

Glynnis MacNicol / SAI:

Lincoln Is Offering “Smarter” Readers Free Access To NYT.Com For The Rest Of The Year — Reader and frequent contributor Matt Kroll writes to inform us he just received an email from the New York Times offering them free access to the site once the paywall goes up, courtesy of Lincoln.

Discussion: The Wire, @scottkarp and Betabeat

Bob Buch:
Stop Calling it Content

Discussion: Fast Company and The Wire

New York Times:

4 Times Journalists Held Captive in Libya Faced Days of Brutality — As the four of us headed toward the eastern gate of Ajdabiya, the front line of a desperate rebel stand against the advancing forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, a car pulled up alongside. — “They're in the city!” the driver shouted at us.

Discussion: Poynter

David Kaplan / paidContent:

WSJ Launching Single-Issue Downloads For iPad — Looking to get more subscribers for its iPad app, The Wall Street Journal will start selling single-issue digital versions of its morning paper for $1.99 in the within the existing free app. In a conversation last week with Alisa Bowen …

Discussion: MacStories, Talking Biz News, BusinessJournalism.org … and FishbowlNY

Stuart Elliott / Media Decoder:

Ad Spending Could Change With AT&T Deal — The advertising implications for the acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T will take some time to unfold. — Advertising for T-Mobile is created by the Seattle office of Publicis Worldwide, an agency that is owned by the Publicis Groupe of France.

Discussion: VentureBeat, rbr.com and paidContent

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

T-Mobile's $412 Million Media Hole — Those “AT&T is a crappy network” ads will go away if regulators sign off on the carrier's $39 billion deal for T-Mobile. And so will some $412 million a year in ad spending. — Or, perhaps $600 million. Depends on which estimate you want to use for T-Mobile's annual marketing outlay.

Discussion: Deal Journal and Betabeat

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

AOL Folds 30 Brands, Including Politics Daily — First it was the people. Now it's the brands. AOL just notified staffers of a major consolidation of its portfolio of content sites, undertaken as part of its merger with the Huffington Post. All told, some 30 brands will be “integrated” …

Discussion: BoomTown, Mediaite, Yahoo! News, @nick, Pulse2, FishbowlNY and The Wrap, more at Techmeme »

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

New ranking combines print-digital reach of metro papers, reveals surprising winners — Which American newspaper reaches the most readers in its market if print and online audiences are combined? — That seems a fundamental question in an era of hybrid print/digital business models.

Discussion: LA Observed and The News About The News

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:

Nielsen Sues ComScore in Fight Over Web Traffic Measurement (Exclusive) — The battle between firms keeping score of Internet traffic is heating up as The Nielsen Company has just filed a lawsuit against ComScore for violating five patents relating to the collection, analysis and reporting of information concerning computer activity.

Discussion: Techland, Online Video News and paidContent, more at Techmeme »

John Eggerton / Multichannel:

Libya Supplants Japan Atop News Coverage: PEJ — No-Fly Zone Announcement Swings Pendulum Back Toward Middle East — News organizations continued their two-front coverage last week of the crisis in the Middle East and the crisis in Japan, with the pendulum swinging back toward the former …

Discussion: People-Press.org and Mediaite

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Businessweek Finally Becoming a Real Part of Bloomberg — Reorganization brings magazine closer to parent company's bosom — A little more than a year since Bloomberg LP bought the money-losing Businessweek, the newsweekly is finally integrating with the rest of its parent company.

Discussion: Folio and BusinessJournalism.org …

The Huffington Post:

Howard Stern Sues His Bosses — LOS ANGELES — Howard Stern and his agent are suing Sirius XM Radio Inc. for failing to pay stock awards they say are due for helping it exceed subscriber growth targets on its way to becoming the dominant satellite radio service in the country.

Discussion: Digital Daily, paidContent, TMZ.com, Media & Entertainment, Runnin' Scared, Pulse2, Mixed Media and The Wire

Noah Davis / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

Gary Vaynerchuk Joins The Daily — Gary Vaynerchuk — prolific tweeter, self-promoter, and wine connoisseur — will call the House That Rupe Built home. — He joins The Daily as a video host, contributing a weekly feature called “The Next Wave.” — The segment will cover the world …

Discussion: The Next Web and Betabeat

Samantha Critchell / Associated Press:

WSJ. profile: The power of Anna Wintour — NEW YORK - In fashion circles and beyond — in the worlds of business, politics and entertainment — she's just Anna, a worthy peer to Oprah and Martha. — And even though Anna Wintour's name might not be as instantly recognizable as Oprah Winfrey's …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:

The Guardian Hires A New Business Head In The U.S. — As part of an effort to reboot its U.S. strategy, Guardian News & Media is adding a new chief revenue officer based in New York. Steve Howe, a former advertising executive at the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, joins this week and will lead the GNM's U.S. sales effort.

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Tim Carmody / Nieman Journalism Lab:

In two years, Amazon moved from journalism savior to afterthought; is today the day the trend reverses? — In the brief moment between last week's unveiling of The New York Times's new smartphone- and tablet-centered subscription plans and today's launch of Amazon's Android Appstore …

Discussion: Bits, SAI, GigaOM, VentureBeat, Microsoft, Folio, MediaPost, Gadget Lab and TeleRead, more at Techmeme »

Adrian Holovaty / The EveryBlock Blog:

EveryBlock's first major redesign — We've just launched the first major redesign of EveryBlock. — Driven by the feedback we've been getting over the past year, we've not only changed the way the site looks, we've also changed the site's focus. In short, we're shifting from being a news feed …

Discussion: Poynter