Mediagazer: Prometheus Shares Ownership Of Back Stage; ‘Wolff Is Not Being Fired’ (David Kaplan/paidContent)

5:20 PM ET, October 4, 2011

Top News:

Money Dispute May End ‘Simpsons’ — A money dispute between Fox and the actors who voice the characters on The Simpsons may force the long-running hit series to shut down next spring. Lloyd Grove reports exclusively. — As Homer Simpson would put it, “D'oh!”

Discussion: rbr.com, Company Town, Deadline.com, Gawker, Company Town, Mediaite, Splitsider, NME News, ArtsBeat, Washington Post, TVLine, AOL TV, newsfeed.time.com, The Huffington Post, The Awl, Gothamist and TVbytheNumbers

Adrianne Jeffries / The New York Observer:

From Blackout to Circus: The Evolution of Media Coverage at Occupy Wall Street — Geraldo Rivera interviewing protesters at Zuccotti Park on Saturday, Oct. 1. (Photo: Hannah Grant) — THE PROTESTERS AT OCCUPY WALL STREET have had at least one of their demands met: the perceived …

Discussion: Gawker, Mediaite, Capital New York, Media Matters for America, Forbes, Rolling Stone and The Huffington Post, Thanks:adrjeffries

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Peacock poaches ruffle CBS feathers — CBS News boss Jeff Fager is angry after losing some talent to rival NBC as the Peacock network gears up to launch a prime-time news magazine this fall, The Post has learned. — The magazine, “Rock Center With Brian Williams” — run by former …

Discussion: WNYC News Blog and Chickaboomer

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

Who Needs Netflix? Paramount Streams Latest ‘Transformers’ Directly to Consumers — ‘A Little Toe-Dip’ in New Distribution Method for Paramount and Viacom — Paramount Pictures has quietly introduced an online streaming option for “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” taking home viewing straight …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, AllThingsD and fiercecable.com/news/frontpage

Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:

U.S. Mobile Ad Spend To Pass $1 Billion For The First Time This Year — Mobile advertising is still a small and young business when you compare it to how much money goes into digital—let alone offline—advertising and marketing campaigns. But there are some clear signs of it growing up fast …

Discussion: MediaPost, eMarketer, NetNewsCheck Latest and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Steve Myers / Poynter:

AP adds to its ‘Beat of the Week’ contest to recognize state-level news — The Associated Press told its employees Tuesday that it's adding to its “Beat of the Week” contest with a category specifically for state-level news. National or international stories usually win “Beat of the Week” …

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Federated Media Buys Lijit Networks — San Francisco-based Federated Media Publishing said it has bought Lijit Networks, a smaller online advertising analytics and tools firm. — The price for the Boulder, Colo., start-up — which was founded in 2006 — was undisclosed …

Discussion: VentureBeat, John Battelle's Searchblog and paidContent, more at Techmeme »

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

The author of the greatest sorry-to-see-our-downsized-colleague- go letter has died — Former Chicago Tribune journalist (and occasional Romenesko Letters contributor) Steve Daley died Sunday of unknown causes. He was 62. “Daley could do sports, Daley could do politics, Daley could do media criticism …

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Joe Scarborough tells us to turn off our filthy televisions — “When I'm off the air, I have stopped trying to find news on TV networks other than ours,” the host of MSNBC's morning news-talk show “Morning Joe” said during an Advertising Week event at the Times Center on Eighth Avenue yesterday.

Discussion: Mediaite, Inside Cable News and The New York Observer

Bloomberg:

Silver Lake, Alibaba, Digital Sky in Yahoo Talks — The private-equity firm Silver Lake, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Russia's Digital Sky Technologies are discussing a possible joint bid for Yahoo! Inc., three people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Discussion: MediaPost, DealBook, paidContent, CNET News, Forbes and Business Insider, more at Techmeme »

Press Gazette:

Daily Mail inquiry into ‘Knox guilty’ blunder — The Daily Mail has launched an internal inquiry after mistakenly publishing a story on its website claiming Amanda Knox had lost the appeal against her conviction for murdering British student Meredith Kercher.

Discussion: Poynter, Digital Spy, Malcolm Coles, Hollywood Reporter, Techdirt, TVNewser, Guardian, FishbowlDC, Media Law Prof Blog and Regret the Error

Bradley Johnson / AdAge:

Digital Takes the Jobs Lead in New Mainstream Media — Staffing at Internet-Media Businesses and Web-Search Portals Soars — When it comes to jobs, digital is the new mainstream media. Consider this: U.S. employment at digital-media ventures is on track to pass employment in broadcast TV and in magazines by early 2012.

Robert J. Rosenthal / California Watch:

Part 1: Sustaining investigative journalism means finding a new model — I'm not sure I would have become the executive director of the Center for Investigative Reporting in January 2008 if I had really understood the challenges ahead of me and had thought them out carefully; I had no idea what I was getting into.

Jessica Pressler / New York Magazine:

It's Good to Be Michael Lewis — He could have made a fortune in business. Instead, he made a fortune writing about it. Plus—a fortune for everyone he writes about. — Collins Tuohy has told this story before, and by now her delivery is spot on. It was Thanksgiving morning …

Steven Jacobs / Street Fight:

Philly.com Launches Hyperlocal Site for Main Line — Philly.com, the digital face for the Philadelphia Media Network's traditional news subsidies, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily News, launched a small hyperlocal site yesterday. Taking on the brand of a once-successful community …

Discussion: mediabistro.com

Miriam Elder / Guardian:

Lebedev charged with hooliganism over punch-up — Investigation finds the media tycoon ‘brought bodily harm’ to fellow billionaire Sergei Polonsky on the TV programme — Russian prosecutors have launched a criminal case against the media tycoon Alexander Lebedev on charges of hooliganism …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Mogulite and Business Insider

Jeff Roberts / paidContent:

Price-Fixing Case Against Apple, Major Book Publishers Mushrooms — Back in August, a class action lawsuit was filed against five major book publishers and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), accusing them of colluding to jack up the price of e-books in an effort to wrest back pricing power from Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN).

Discussion: Techland and TeleRead

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:

McSweeney's Publishes Grantland Quarterly, Blog-to-Print Journal — Today Grantland began selling Grantland Quarterly, a print anthology of the best reads from the sports and culture site so far. It is edited by Bill Simmons and Dan Fierman. — ESPN and Grantland have contracted McSweeney's …

Discussion: The Corsair and The Awl

TVNewsCheck:

Scripps Buys McGraw-Hill Station Group — The four ABC affiliates in Denver, San Diego, Bakersfield, Calif., and Indianapolis and five low-power Azteca affiliates go for $212 million in cash. “We are energized by the addition of good people at good stations in good markets,” says Scripps SVP Brian Lawlor.

Discussion: MinOnline, BtoB Magazine, Broadcasting & Cable, rbr.com, Poynter, MediaPost and RBR

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Journalists go to prison to highlight plight of jailed colleagues — Two Swedish journalists have volunteered to go to jail as a way of drawing attention to the plight of three colleagues held in Eritrea and Ethiopia. — Johan Wirfält and Sara Murillo Cortes plan to be locked …

Discussion: Media News

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Prometheus Shares Ownership Of Back Stage; ‘Wolff Is Not Being Fired’ — Prometheus Global Media, the publisher of Adweek, Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter has struck a strategic alliance with a group of investors led by NYC taxi advertising executive John Amato to run performing arts title Back Stage magazine.

Discussion: Poynter, Speakeasy, FishbowlNY, New York Post, FishbowlLA and Deadline.com

Lynne Marek / Chicago Business:

Tribune bonus plan OKd by bankruptcy judge — (Crain's) — The judge in Tribune Co.'s bankruptcy approved a management incentive plan that will pay bonuses of as much as $42.5 million to 640 employees. — “I think it's entirely reasonable to order this relief in these uncertain times,” …

Discussion: Poynter

Lewis DVorkin / Forbes:

Forbes Update: Record Traffic, New Products—and Our Fix-It and To-Do Lists — Every morning at around 6:30 (assuming curiosity doesn't get the better of me when the alarm goes off at 5:50) I check out our traffic. First, I open an Omniture report that rolls up numbers every 15 minutes all the way back to whenever.

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:

Robert Mackey Returns to The New York Times — Robert Mackey, the former editor of the New York Times' The Lede blog, is returning to the paper, after a very short stint with The Guardian's stateside team. The announcement was just made by Jim Roberts, the Times' Assistant Managing Editor, on Twitter.

Discussion: The New York Observer, @nytjim and @robertmackey

E.B. Boyd / Fast Company:

Yahoo Launches Video Destination Site — More and more people are logging on to the Internet for the kind of relaxation and entertainment they used to look for on the boob tube. Yahoo Screen positions the company to capture some of those audiences. — Move over Hulu. There's a new video hub in town.

Discussion: Home Media Magazine, Forbes, Techland, GigaOM and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

Michael Yoch / NPR:

NPR Comes To Google TV — NPR has launched a new app for the Google TV platform. The app — featured in the Google TV Spotlight Gallery (video only works in Chrome) — makes it easy for users to watch NPR's best video and multimedia slideshows on a big screen.