Mediagazer: Conan's Ratings Are Down, but He's Huge Online (Brian Steinberg/AdAge)

5:45 PM ET, September 27, 2011

Top News:

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:

James Murdoch's press adviser resigns — Alice Macandrew understood to have quit amid disagreements over the handling of the phone-hacking scandal — One of James Murdoch's closest advisers has resigned from News Corporation, it emerged on Tuesday, amid disagreements over the way the media group dealt with the phone-hacking scandal.

Discussion: Adweek and New York Magazine

Bloomberg:

News Corp. Marketer Used Movie Lessons to Instill Fear in Rivals, Clients — A News Corp. unit that used lessons gleaned from gangster films to motivate employees and crush rivals is the latest arm of Rupert Murdoch's media empire to be swept up in a probe that began with hacking and bribery allegations.

Discussion: Mogulite

David Folkenflik / NPR:
News Corp.'s U.K. Actions Under Scrutiny In U.S.

Discussion: Poynter and Capital New York

Helene Mulholland / Guardian:
Sun newspaper involved in phone hacking, claims Labour's Tom Watson

Discussion: paidContent:UK and The Huffington Post

Media Decoder:

James Rubin Abruptly Departs Bloomberg — 5:03 p.m. | Updated James P. Rubin, a former assistant secretary of state hired by Bloomberg News just 10 months ago to help lead its new opinion-writing section, has left his job after a rocky start. — His departure came as a surprise …

Discussion: Poynter, Business Insider and Talking Biz News

Business Insider:

Guess Who Made The Highest Bid For Hulu — Remember how a group of bidders was circling around Hulu a couple weeks ago? Whatever happened with that? — Two sources tell us that satellite TV provider Dish was the highest bidder, coming in around $1.9 billion. It beat out both Amazon and Yahoo.

Discussion: MediaPost, Deadline.com, Future of Journalism, rbr.com, The Wrap, Light Reading, Gizmodo, GeekWire, VentureBeat, Adweek and Electronista, more at Techmeme »

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Licensed journalists? Surely Labour is joking... Can Labour's shadow culture secretary, Ivan Lewis, be serious? — In his party conference speech today he implied that journalists should be licensed and that naughty journalists should be de-licensed. — Come back John Wilkes.

Discussion: Guardian and Telegraph

Patrick Wintour / Guardian:
Labour plans tighter media regulation

Discussion: Press Gazette, Telegraph, Boing Boing, The Huffington Post, Helen Lewis Hasteley, Sky News, The First Post and Crikey

Bill Carter / New York Times:

MSNBC Is Close to Falling to Third Place in Cable News Ratings — How badly has MSNBC been hurt by the loss of Keith Olbermann? Enough, apparently, to be on the verge of falling back into third place among the cable news networks. — The ratings results for the month of September show that CNN …

Discussion: On Media's Blog, Poynter, Company Town, Prof Chris Daly's Blog, Mediaite, TVNewser, Adweek, Business Insider, Chickaboomer, National Review, The Daily Caller and Inside Cable News

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Several Outsiders Said to Be Considered for Time Inc. CEO Job — As Time Warner's search for a CEO of its Time Inc. magazine division grinds on, new names of suspected candidates have surfaced. Given the list, it appears that the company still seems to be focused on bringing in an outsider.

Discussion: FishbowlNY and MediaPost

David Kaplan / paidContent:

About Group Restructures Guide Operations Team; 15 Gone, 10 Being Added — The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) Co.'s About Group is reorganizing the way its Guide teams operate, as new CEO Darline Jean charts a path out of spiraling ad declines related to the weak economy and users.

Discussion: Adweek, Business Insider, The Wrap, Poynter, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Next Web, @antderosa and @benpopper

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

In real-time, journalists' tweets contribute to a ‘raw draft’ of history — When historians look through the Library of Congress' Twitter archive years from now, Andy Carvin's tweets will be among those that help tell the story of the Arab Spring. — Carvin recently acquired his own archive of tweets …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

CBS News and ‘60 Minutes’ Dominate at News & Documentary Emmy Awards — Last night the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences handed out its 32nd annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards. CBS News dominated its competition, pulling home 10 awards-the most for a network news division in a decade.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, On Media's Blog, Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel, TVSpy and Inside TV

Christopher Mims / Technology Review:

How Amazon's Tablet Perpetuates Apple's Stranglehold on Media App Distribution — Amazon appears to be offering publishers the same unsavory terms as Apple, which feels like a missed opportunity. — On Wednesday, Amazon will unveil its new seven-inch tablet, which is rumored to be based on the now-defunct BlackBerry Playbook.

Drew FitzGerald / MarketWatch:

S&P returns Gannett outlook to stable — Front Page - News Viewer - Commentary - Markets - Investing - Personal Finance - Community - Games — Stocks - Mutual Funds - ETFs - Options - Bonds - Commodities - Currencies - Getting Started - MarketWatch Adviser - Premium Newsletters - Hulbert Interactive - Research Tools

Marc Randolph / Kibble:

Did Netflix screw up? I don't think so. — Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced last week that the company would be splitting off their DVD rental service into a new business to be called Qwikster. Last time I checked their blog post on the subject, there were 27,183 comments.

Discussion: Business Insider, Fortune, MSDN Blogs and GigaOM

Christina Warren / Mashable!:

Sports Illustrated Puts Football Rivals on the iPhone and iPad — Sports Illustrated continues its push into digital arenas that extend beyond the print publication. The company's latest iOS app, Sports Illustrated Football Rivals for iPhone [iTunes link] and iPad [iTunes link] …

Discussion: AdAge, mediabistro.com, App Advice and eMedia Vitals

Media Week:

Ad decline at Associated slows to 1% — The rate of advertising revenue decline at Associated Newspapers has slowed to just 1% in the third quarter, an improvement on the 7% drop in the second quarter. — The 1% decline was for underlying revenues (excluding discontinued operations) …

Discussion: Guardian and Press Gazette

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

AOL Rejigs Europe Leadership: Burns Out, GoViral Chiefs Up — AOL (NYSE: AOL) is restructuring its European executive leadership in a reshuffle that sees AOL Europe CEO Kate Burns leave and two toppers from GoViral get called up. — AOL bought the video ad network in January for up to $96.7 million.

Brian Steinberg / AdAge:

Conan's Ratings Are Down, but He's Huge Online — Turner's New Pitch to Advertisers Touts Late-Night Host's Web Popularity — It's a natural angle, considering the intensifying scrutiny around the weakened TV ratings-and the “make-goods” that have come with them-for Mr. O'Brien's late-night “Conan” show on TBS.