Mediagazer: Ebook sales are being driven by downmarket genre fiction (Antonia Senior/Guardian)

8:15 AM ET, February 7, 2012

Top News:

BBC:

Leveson Inquiry: Press watchdog ‘made a scapegoat’ — On taking up her role in April 2009, she wanted to make dramatic changes in terms of remit, sanctions and funding, but she met resistance from the industry, the hearing was told. — Earlier in the hearing, editor of the Daily Mail Paul Dacre …

Ross Hawkins / @rosschawkins:

Buscombe at #leveson : FT, Guardian and Mirror threatened to leave PCC because of adverse adjudications

Discussion: @arusbridger

BBC:

Phone hacking: Met police failed to warn victims — The Met Police failed to warn people they were the victims of phone hacking by the News of the World, a judicial review has ruled. — The Met Commissioner accepted that the failure to warn victims was unlawful.

Discussion: @byameliahill

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

No Ads, No Madonna But NBC Calls Live Stream A Success — It had never been tried before: a live, legal Internet stream of television's biggest event, the Super Bowl. — Despite some complaints from users, NBC declared it to be a success on Monday and said it would report the total number of streams on Tuesday.

Discussion: Digital Spy, Media Week, Forbes, Streaming Media, Washington Post, AllThingsD, mUmBRELLA and Media News

John Koblin / WWD:
Vogue Wins Big With Super Bowl Halftime Show

Discussion: Forbes, The New Yorker Blog, Fast Company, Hillicon Valley, Multichannel, NetNewsCheck Latest and rbr.com

Richard Deitsch / Sports Illustrated:
Super Bowl XLVI sets viewership records

Discussion: Yahoo! News, USA Today, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, SB Nation St. Louis, TVbytheNumbers and MediaPost

Michael Kozlowski / Good E-Reader:

Amazon in the Process of Launching a Retail Store — Amazon sources close to the situation have told us that the company is planning on rolling out a retail store in Seattle within the next few months. This project is a test to gauge the market and see if a chain of stores would be profitable.

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:
Another Chain Says It Won't Carry Amazon Books, But Does It Matter?

Discussion: .info., Bookseller news, GeekWire and eBookNewser

Wall Street Journal:

Disney's ABC, Univision Mull News-Channel Launch — Walt Disney Co. and Univision Communications Inc. are in talks to create a new 24-hour cable-news channel that will broadcast in English, in an effort to keep pace with changing demographics among U.S. Hispanics and reach a new audience of English speakers …

Discussion: New York Magazine, TVNewser, Deadline.com, Inside Cable News, Politico and Media Decoder

Erin Griffith / PandoDaily:

IAC Trying to Sell Vimeo, Seeking $300M Valuation — Barry Diller's IAC is testing the waters on a partial exit of Vimeo, according to two sources familiar with the situation. The company is hoping to raise a $50 million round of funding in conjunction with a spin off of the hipster online video business.

Eric Savitz / The Tech Trade:

Coinstar's Redbox To Buy NCR's Video Kiosk Unit; Q4 Tops Ests — Coinstar's Redbox DVD kiosk unit has agreed to buy NCR's entertainment line of business, which includes DVD rental kiosks and related assets, for up to $100 million. As part of the deal, Coinstar will buy products and services …

Discussion: Yahoo! Finance, Dow Jones Newswires and Forbes

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Verizon Teams With Redbox for a Netflix-Style Video Service

Discussion: Multichannel News, MediaPost, Media Money …, Home Media Magazine, VatorNews, Media & Entertainment, NetNewsCheck Latest, TechCrunch, Media Decoder, rbr.com, Forbes, VentureBeat, paidContent, Multichannel, AdAge and Fast Company

Matt Brian / The Next Web:
Verizon and Redbox enter joint venture to create new Netflix rival

Discussion: Epicenter, PR Newswire, Electronista, VentureBeat, @ingridlunden, SlashGear, Fast Company and Business Insider, more at Techmeme »

Dylan Love / Business Insider:

Apple's Television: Wave Your Hands To Change The Channel — The Apple television rumor mill is working overtime and now we learn the device might support hand gestures and voice commands, according to sources cited in The Globe And Mail. — We'd certainly expect Siri integration …

Discussion: MacRumors, Globe and Mail and The Next Web, more at Techmeme »

Antonia Senior / Guardian:

Ebook sales are being driven by downmarket genre fiction — Publishers face secrecy over sales and an absence of industry-wide data to help them plot strategy — Kindle-owning bibliophiles are furtive beasts. Their shelves still boast classics and Booker winners. But inside that plastic case, other things lurk.

Discussion: Forbes, Melville House Books and eBookNewser

Felix Salmon:

Elizabeth Spiers and the reinvented New York Observer — There are three main reasons that I like entering into bets with people. The first is, simply, that it's fun. The second is that I love to win bets. And the third is that I love to lose them. I don't ever trade the markets …

Discussion: @espiers, bookforum.com, The Corsair, Fimoculous.com and Capital New York

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Debunking the “original sin” of online newspapers — Whenever newspaper executives get together to bemoan the fate of their industry, someone inevitably brings up the so-called “original sin” of the online news business — namely, a failure to charge for content when the web was new.

Discussion: the Econsultancy blog, Thanks:@mathewi

Susan Decker / Bloomberg:

Barnes & Noble Backed by U.S. Agency Staff in Microsoft Case — Barnes & Noble Inc. should win a patent-infringement case brought by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) that threatens to halt imports of the bookseller's Nook e-reader, according to staff of the U.S. trade agency hearing the dispute.

Discussion: SlashGear, ZDNet, Electronista, PC Magazine, FOSS Patents, Business Insider and mocoNews

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

At CNN, is homophobia a ‘viewpoint’? — Roland Martin, the soccer thing isn't working. — The CNN analyst was apparently watching the Super Bowl last night, when that ad of David Beckham modeling underwear came over the airwaves. To a sea of tweets, Martin added a dash of homophobia plus an incitement to violence:

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Show Tracker, Politico and GLAAD

Rebecca Shapiro / The Huffington Post:
CNN Pundit Under Fire From Gay Rights Groups

Discussion: Poynter and mediabistro.com

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Miami-Dade police spokeswoman arrests photojournalist — Photojournalist Carlos Miller, who runs the blog Photography Is Not a Crime, says that police deleted video from his camera when they arrested him last week as he covered Occupy protests in Miami. After recovering some of the video …

Discussion: Ars Technica and Pixiq

Andrew Pugh / Press Gazette:

Paul Dacre: Bad journalists should be ‘struck off’ — Britain's longest-serving national newspaper editor has outlined radical plans to create a register of journalists under a new press regulator that would also have the power to strike them off. — In evidence to the Leveson Inquiry this afternoon …

Discussion: Guardian, themediablog.typepad.com, FleetStreetBlues and Guardian