Mediagazer: AOL Growth Comes at a Cost (Emily Steel/Wall Street Journal)

4:45 PM ET, August 15, 2011

Top News:

Whither the M&A scoop? — You've heard it here and everywhere: Google is buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. But here's the media twist to the story: you didn't hear it anywhere first. — Deal scoops are the most basic currency of business journalism.

Discussion: The Official Google Blog, Business Wire, paidContent:UK, AllThingsD, TechCrunch, The Atlantic Online, Gawker and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

Why Google's Motorola acquisition is a huge TV play — Google announced this morning that it's sweeping up Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, a whopping 60% premium over Friday's close. You've likely read that the acquisition will give Google access to a fresh crop of patents and allow …

Discussion: MediaFile, PC Magazine, Forbes, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, AllThingsD, GigaOM, DealBook, Between the Lines Blog, Multichannel and BtoB Magazine, more at Techmeme »

The New York Observer:

The Free Agent List: 2011′s 50 Media Most Eligible Bachelors — What goes into making a list of media bachelors? The proprietary formula is in the end just that, but a few of the standards are pretty transparent. — First and foremost, they should be desirable, be it by physical specimen …

Discussion: @nmillions, FishbowlNY, Runnin' Scared, @moorehn, @fmanjoo, @nickrizzo and ...the deadline

Chris Rovzar / New York Magazine:

Why the Observer Is Going All In (the Pink) on Power Lists — Just two weeks ago, the Observer poked fun at itself for overplaying its hand when it came to “Power Lists.” At the time, editors were reacting to lots of (not entirely flattering) attention paid to their Media Power Couples list.

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The (actual) future of the Big Idea — The critics are right: Neal Gabler's essay in yesterday's New York Times — the one proclaiming the death of the big idea at the hands of Twitter and Facebook and the Internet in general — is wrong. And we should probably, after giving the thing …

Discussion: Free Press

Neal Gabler / New York Times:
The Elusive Big Idea

Discussion: Techdirt, Stephen Baker, The Chutry Experiment, jenbayne.wordpress.com, Mother Jones, Jared Bernstein, Bit of Tech and Guardian

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Market Ills Give CNBC a Bounce — When Nik Deogun was running the financial coverage of The Wall Street Journal during the crisis in 2008, he kept a constant eye on CNBC as the events played out on television. “It was news being made, all the time, in real time,” he said.

Discussion: TVNewser, The Wire, Gawker, Inside Cable News and The Big Picture

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

MediaNews Group Adds Paywalls To 23 More Newspapers — Readers of MediaNews Group's small- and medium-sized newspapers in California, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Massachusetts and Vermont will pay for online content under a metered model starting today, even if they are print subscribers.

Discussion: MediaPost and Free Press

Guardian:

How the internet has all but destroyed the market for films, music and newspapers — The author of Free Ride warns that digital piracy and greedy technology firms are crushing the life out of the culture business — For most of the 80s and 90s, NBC dominated US television: Miami Vice, The Cosby Show, Cheers, Seinfeld, Friends.

Discussion: Techland, Techdirt and MPAA Blog

Emily Steel / Wall Street Journal:

AOL Growth Comes at a Cost — After Acquisition Binge, Internet Company Faces Fierce Competition for Ad Dollars — AOL Inc. has no shortage of websites, with more than 800. They range from hundreds of little hometown-news sites in the Patch network to its 37 bigger-name properties …

Discussion: Poynter, Future Journalism Project, FishbowlNY, Street Fight and MediaJobsDaily

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:

Painful Profits From Web Video — Media companies are starting to cash in on Internet video. But that new money could be coming at a cost as fewer young people watch traditional television. — That battle between the old and new ways of watching TV is putting networks and studios in a tricky position …

Discussion: Adweek

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

Orlando Sentinel editor: ‘We chose to cut news pages to help bolster our bottom line’ — Give Mark Russell a few points for honesty. The editor of Orlando Sentinel tells readers that “the move to cut news pages was driven by our need to reduce expenses ...

Discussion: Orlando Sentinel and MediaPost

Lewis DVorkin / Forbes:

The Future of Digital Journalism is Transactions — There is a framed movie poster sitting on a radiator in my office almost directly across from my desk. I can't help but see it every day, all the time. It's an original “one-sheet” (creases and all) that was used in theaters to promote …

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

Brady named Journal Register Company editor-in-chief — Jim Brady will orchestrate Journal Register Company's daily news coverage and will directly oversee all newsgathering operations, says a release. The former WashingtonPost.com executive editor and TBD.com general manager joined Journal Register …

Discussion: Journal Register Company, On Media's Blog, The Huffington Post and NetNewsCheck Latest

Ryan Lawler / GigaOM:

Does Cinemax's iPad app violate Apple's no-porn policy? — Anyone who's ever subscribed to Cinemax knows that one of its biggest draws is not the availability of Hollywood movies, but the softcore movies and TV shows available on the network. With the recent launch of its iPad app …

Discussion: Digits, CNET News, Guardian, PC Magazine, Electronista, Gizmodo and 9to5Mac

Felix Salmon:

Why the NYT paywall isn't like the FT's — Fred Wilson has nice things to say about my analysis of the NYT paywall — thanks, Fred! — but it's worth teasing out one area where he and I might differ. — Fred says that the NYT “went with the FT's model”, and I've also heard privately …

Discussion: PSFK