Mediagazer: New Primetime NBC Newsmagazine To be Called ‘Rock Center with Brian Williams’ (Alex Weprin/TVNewser)

4:45 PM ET, September 12, 2011

Top News:

“Deciding” To Move On — AOL has issued the following statement: “The TechCrunch acquisition has been a success for AOL and for our shareholders, and we are very excited about its future. Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch has decided to move on from TechCrunch and AOL to his newly formed venture fund.

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

It's Official: Arrington Out at AOL; Schonfeld New TechCrunch Editor (Plus Armstrong Internal Memo Too!) — AOL and TechCrunch founder and editor Michael Arrington have officially parted ways, almost exactly one year from the New York Internet portal's acquisition of the popular tech news site.

Discussion: Forbes, MediaFile, TechCrunch, Adweek, NetNewsCheck Latest, Future of Journalism, paidContent, PC Magazine, NYConvergence.com and @benpopper, more at Techmeme »

Arianna Huffington / The Huffington Post:

The Wall Street Journal's Shoddy Journalism on TechCrunch: It's Not About the Personalities, It's About the Principle — Now that the TechCrunch editorial dispute has been resolved, let me turn my attention to the Wall Street Journal's coverage of it. — In the most egregious case …

Discussion: Forbes, CNNMoney.com and AllThingsD, more at Techmeme »

Wall Street Journal:
A Business Model Based on Conflict of Interest

Discussion: NBC Bay Area, Guardian and Talking Biz News

Ben Popper / Betabeat:
Mike Arrington Goes Nuclear: Says NY Times Is Conflicted Tech Investor via True Ventures

Discussion: Future of Journalism and Business Insider

Wall Street Journal:

Amazon in Talks to Launch Digital-Book Library — Amazon.com Inc. is talking with book publishers about launching a Netflix Inc.-like service for digital books, in which customers would pay an annual fee to access a library of content, according to people familiar with the matter.

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

BostonGlobe.Com Launches Today; Shifts To Paying Subscribers Only Oct. 1 — One of the most unusual efforts to make money from a newspaper web site launches today in Boston, slightly less than a year after plans were announced. For the rest of September, BostonGlobe.com, which went live overnight …

Discussion: Boston Globe, Poynter, MediaPost, VentureBeat, Media Nation, Nieman Journalism Lab, Andy Boyle, The New York Observer, The Huffington Post, FishbowlNY, WBUR and eMedia Vitals

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Four observations (and lots of questions) on The Boston Globe's lovely new paywalled site — This morning, The Boston Globe took the cloak off its brand new website, BostonGlobe.com. And I really do mean “brand new” — this is no redesign. Years ago, rather than building …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Boston Globe, Prof Chris Daly's Blog, Poynter, AdPulp, Editors Weblog and The Wrap

Stuart Elliott / Media Decoder:

Report Details Rise of Social Media — As social media like blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube grow increasingly popular among consumers, marketers are seeking more data about the changing behavior of their customers. — The Nielsen Company, which has long provided such information …

Discussion: Nielsen Wire, ZDNet, Marketing Pilgrim, Noted, Forbes, iMediaConnection Blog, digiday:DAILY, NetNewsCheck Latest, The New Yorker Blog, eMedia Vitals, Future of Journalism and Adweek, more at Techmeme »

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Americans spend just a fraction of online time with news compared to social media — In a report on social media published Monday, Nielsen breaks down how Americans spend their time on the Internet. The results are sobering for the online news industry. Americans spend 22.5 percent …

Discussion: FishbowlNY and ZDNet

Lauren A. E. Schuker / Wall Street Journal:

Glenn Beck Faces Big Test as New Show Bows — Conservative firebrand Glenn Beck faces his first big test since leaving Fox News when his new two-hour show begins Monday. — The first episode of Mr. Beck's program “Glenn Beck,” which will air on his new Internet-only network GBTV …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, TVNewser, Fox News Insider, Speakeasy, AllThingsD, Mediaite, Mashable!, Business Insider, On Media's Blog and The New York Observer

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
Glenn Beck Is About to Become a $100 Million Man

Discussion: Media Matters for America, TVNewser and GigaOM

Stuart Elliott / Media Decoder:

Ad Spending Grows Again, Albeit More Slowly — Advertising spending is still increasing, according to a report to be released Monday morning, but the rate of growth has slowed again. — The report, by Kantar Media, part of WPP, found that ad spending in major media in the United States …

Discussion: Multichannel, MediaPost, rbr.com, paidContent, MarketingVox News & Trends, Business Insider and NetNewsCheck Latest

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Another 2008 Flashback: Ad Spending Already Contracting

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and AdAge

David Carr / New York Times:

News Trends Tilt Toward Niche Sites — It was a rough week for the big guys on the Web. Yahoo unceremoniously dumped its chief executive, Carol Bartz, and AOL faced a mutiny from TechCrunch, the Silicon Valley news site it bought last year. — Apart from the specific business issues feeding …

Discussion: Poynter, more at Techmeme »

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Condé Nast Makes Deal With Beauty Chain — With circulation growth getting harder to come by, Condé Nast is going to the beauty aisle in search of new customers. — The fashion/beauty magazine publisher has struck a deal to sell subscriptions in Ulta, a 415-store beauty products chain …

Discussion: MediaPost and Business Insider

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

Tremor Video Lands $37 Million to Fuel Acquisitions — Following Latest Round Led by W Capital Partners, Video Ad Network Has Raised More Than $115 Million — Tremor Video, the largest independent video ad network according to ComScore, has landed another $37 million in funding in a round led by New York-based W Capital Partners.

Discussion: MediaPost, digiday:DAILY and Beet.TV, Thanks:beet_tv

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

Scott Rosenberg named Grist executive editor — Romenesko+ Misc. — The founder of MediaBugs.org and former Salon.com managing editor says he and the Grist team “share passions for hard-hitting journalism, lively writing, and authentic community-building.”

Discussion: Grist

Matt Kinsman / Folio:

McGraw-Hill To Split Into Two Companies: McGraw-Hill Markets and McGraw-Hill Education — Publishing assets will be rolled into McGraw-Hill Markets. — Following the call for a break-up and reorganization of McGraw-Hill Cos. by investors last month, McGraw-Hill announced today that it will split …

Discussion: MediaPost, rbr.com, mediabistro.com, Forbes and GalleyCat

Robert Hof / The New Persuaders:

Flipboard's Mike McCue: Web Soon to Look More Like Magazines — Flipboard, a startup that has created a way to optimize online content for the iPad, has gotten a lot of attention since its debut last year. That's thanks to its promise to media companies of a potential way to create apps …

Discussion: CNET News

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Scribd Reader App Float Adds 100 Pubs; Subscriber Plans, Ads Coming — Float, the social reader iPhone app from document sharing site Scribd's has added content from another 100 publishers to the 150 launch partners it started with two months ago. As it tries to compete with current social reader faves …

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Campaign Trains Viewers for ‘TV Everywhere’ — PUTTING in place TV Everywhere, a long-promised system for online television, calls for new contracts between channels and distributors and for new technology to check that viewers have paid their cable bills. And it takes something else: training.