Mediagazer: Tumblr Finally Wants To Make Some Money, Launches Its First Ads (Frederic Lardinois/TechCrunch)

6:20 PM ET, May 2, 2012

Top News:

Tom Watson Fires Back at Criticism of Murdoch Report — MP Tom Watson has taken flak for a ‘partisan’ report calling Murdoch unfit to run News Corp. Now, Murdoch's ‘tormentor-in-chief’ tells Mike Giglio that it's not about politics. — Tom Watson, the hard-charging Labour MP …

Discussion: Guardian

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

The coverup culture of News Corp. — A damning report from Parliament and Rupert Murdoch's revealing response to it — When a committee of Parliament condemned Rupert Murdoch today as “not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company,” it was a statement as obvious as it was astonishing.

Discussion: Media Decoder, Capital New York, Company Town and Guardian

Josh Smith / Tech Daily Dose:

Rockefeller Asks For News Corp. Scandal Details — Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.,asked British investigators on Wednesday whether there is any evidence that the News Corp. phone hacking and bribery scandal crossed the Atlantic.

Discussion: The Huffington Post and National Updates

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:
News Corp. Says It Has ‘Full Confidence’ In Rupert Murdoch

Discussion: Guardian, Reuters, @jwpetersnyt and Media Decoder

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Leveson: second inquiry may not happen

Discussion: London Evening Standard and Journalism.co.uk

Guardian:
Rupert Murdoch's Fox broadcast licences targeted by US ethics group

Discussion: Adweek, The Wrap, Hillicon Valley, Guardian, Multichannel, Media Matters for America, Media Week, Media & Entertainment, The Huffington Post, Tech Daily Dose, Forbes, Press Gazette, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Guardian

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

BSkyB buys Acetrax to be its connected TV Trojan Horse — While pundits prefer to focus on phone hacking, News Corp's part-owned UK pay-TV operator BSkyB is buying further in to internet TV. — Last Wednesday, the operator quietly acquired Acetrax, a service that offers on-demand paid movie rental …

Discussion: Pocket-lint and Guardian

Mark Sweney / Guardian:
BSkyB posts profit of almost £1bn

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:
Sky News is available from today in the US & Canada for the first time, via Livestation

Discussion: Beet.TV

Kate Holton / Reuters:
BSkyB uses record results to defend role in Britain

Discussion: Sky News, New York Times and Media Decoder

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

Big Win For Bloomberg TV: FCC Rules In Its Favor In Comcast Dispute — Breaking: Comcast subscribers should expect to see Bloomberg TV next to Fox News, CNN and CNBC in the coming weeks. — The FCC has found in Bloomberg's favor in its long-running complaint with Comcast.

Discussion: The Wrap, Company Town and TVSpy

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Time Inc. Shrinking Again — Not a good sign for the magazine business: A rough quarter for Time Inc., the world's biggest magazine publisher. — Revenues dropped 3 percent for the first three months of the year, while operating income shrank by 38 percent.

Discussion: Multichannel, Capital New York, FishbowlNY and Media Money …

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:

‘Fox Mole’ Joe Muto Shops Memoir — Can't say no one saw this coming: Gawker's Fox News informant, Joe Muto, is taking meetings with publishers this week for a proposed book about his eight years inside the cable news network, tentatively titled An Atheist in the Foxhole.

Discussion: TVNewser, Mediaite and FishbowlNY

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Amazon Gets Into the Sitcom Business — Amazon has been stocking up its Web-video offering with lots of old TV shows. Now it's going to start making some of its own. — The company is pulling back the covers (a bit) on its plans to produce kids' shows and sitcoms via its “Amazon Studios” …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, MediaPost, VentureBeat, mediabistro.com, NetNewsCheck Latest, TechCrunch, CNET, Fortune, Forbes, GalleyCat and Home Media Magazine

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

‘Daily News’ hires Ted Young, former editor of Mail Online, to edit its website — The Daily News has named a new web editor about a week after the resignation of its outgoing digital chief, Scott Cohen. And News editor-in-chief Colin Myler has dipped into the British tabloid talent pool …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Tumblr Finally Wants To Make Some Money, Launches Its First Ads — Tumblr, the immensely popular but profitless blogging platform, just turned on its first set of paid “sponsor products” (Tumblr doesn't like to call them “ads"). Even though the company resisted running ads on its network for a long time …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Fast Company, Business Insider, Mashable!, Betabeat and ReadWriteWeb

Keach Hagey / Wall Street Journal:

CNN Feels Heat on Ratings Weakness — The last time there was a presidential election, CNN made television history by beating every other network in the ratings on election night. — It is shaping up to be a different story this year. CNN's two main rivals Fox News and MSNBC have gained viewers …

Discussion: New York Times, The Huffington Post, @jayrosen_nyu, Show Tracker, TVNewser and Deadline.com

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Judge stays e-book class action case against two publishers — Publishers Hachette and HarperCollins slipped further away from the class action lawyer who wants them to pay over an alleged e-book price-fixing conspiracy. — In an order signed yesterday in New York federal court …

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Washington Post's Sunday circulation drop not as steep as it appears — At first glance, The Washington Post's numbers reported Tuesday morning in the Audit Bureau of Circulations' March report look grisly: Of all the Top 25 papers in the report, The Post has the steepest drop in average Sunday circulation, down 15.66 percent.

Discussion: Reflections of a Newsosaur, NPR, Tampa Bay Times and Poynter

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen / MediaFile:

The irrational imitation of the online news industry — All across Europe, journalistic online startups are launching, aiming to produce and disseminate news in new ways. In our brave new world, the nimble startups of tomorrow were supposed to be overtaking the lumbering dinosaurs of yesterday online.