Mediagazer: Amazon to be stripped of ebooks tax boost (Ian Griffiths/Guardian)

4:50 PM ET, October 25, 2012

Top News:

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

New York Times company stock closes down 22% after disappointing earnings report — New York Times Company stock fell about 22 percent Thursday after the company released weaker than expected earnings. Stocks of other companies that own newspapers dropped too: Gannett Co. was down a little …

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Digital subscriptions up 11 percent at New York Times company, but revenue slips — Digital subscriptions to The New York Times rose 11 percent over the second quarter, to 592,000, the company announced in its third-quarter earnings report Thursday. That breaks down to 566,000 subscribers …

Discussion: paidContent, @edmundlee, Boston Herald, CNNMoney.com, MediaPost, Guardian, Business Insider, The Wrap, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Huffington Post and Media Decoder

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

NY Times Co. Explains Its ‘Shockingly Weak’ Ad Results — For years, The New York Times Co. has been fighting a losing battle to replace its dwindling print advertising revenues with digital ones. So when an analyst singles out the results from a quarter as “shockingly weak,” you know that's pretty bad.

Discussion: The New York Times Company, Mashable!, FishbowlNY and Bloomberg

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Readers Pay More for New York Times, Advertisers Pay Less — Give the New York Times credit for consistency: All year long, it has been recording a declining ad business and a growing consumer business, and that's what it reported again today. — The Times says ad sales dropped 8.9 percent last quarter …

Discussion: New York Magazine, mnilive.com, @thematthewkeys and NYConvergence.com

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg: New York Times Co. Falls After Reporting Surprise Loss

The Editors / Media Decoder:

Sulzberger Expresses Support for Mark Thompson, Incoming Chief Executive — Mark Thompson, the incoming chief executive of The New York Times Company, who has been under scrutiny this week in connection with a burgeoning scandal at the BBC, received enthusiastic support Thursday from Arthur Sulzberger Jr. …

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:

Savile fallout: former BBC chief ‘expects to be grilled’ for New York Times post — Mark Thompson says that, amid Jimmy Savile inquiries, paper's consideration of whether he is right for CEO role ‘is correct’ — Mark Thompson, the incoming chief executive of the New York Times, said it was …

Discussion: The Public Editor's Journal, The Wrap, paidContent, Media Decoder, The Journalism Foundation, New York Times, The Huffington Post and Reuters

Joe Murphy / London Evening Standard: Jimmy Savile: BBC tempers flare as scandal deepens

Washington Post: BBC sex-abuse scandal echoes across the Atlantic

James Chapman / Daily Mail:
BBC tried to ‘gag’ minister over Savile scandal hours before he appeared on Question Time

Discussion: Guardian and fleet street fox

Bloomberg:

Apple's Online Radio Service to Challenge Pandora in 2013 — Apple's Online Radio Said to Challenge Pandora — Apple Inc. (AAPL) and major music labels have intensified negotiations to start an advertising-supported Internet radio service by early next year, according to people with knowledge of the talks.

Discussion: Forbes, Business Insider, Engadget, 9to5Mac, Mashable!, The Verge, The Next Web, MacRumors, Gizmodo and iClarified

Steven Russolillo / MarketBeat:
Pandora Shares Trip Circuit Breakers After Report of Apple Radio Service

Discussion: Tech Trader Daily

Lauren Indvik / Mashable!:

Marissa Mayer Makes First Yahoo Acquisition: Stamped — Yahoo has acquired the company behind one-year-old mobile recommendations app Stamped, its first since ex-Google exec Marissa Mayer became CEO of the company in July, Mashable has learned. — The acquisition was purely for talent …

Discussion: Betabeat, @marissamayer, CNET, Yodel Anecdotal, AllThingsD, The Next Web, TechCrunch, ZDNet, GigaOM, Business Insider and WebProNews

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Penguin and Random House in merger talks — On Thursday, the Financial Times reported that Random House and Penguin's parent companies, Pearson and Bertelsmann, are in talks about merging the two publishers. (The FT is also owned by Pearson.) Now Pearson has released a statement confirming the report:

Discussion: PublishersWeekly.com, Media & Entertainment, Media Decoder, Financial Times, Guardian, Deadline.com, The Wrap, GalleyCat and Globe and Mail

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Keith Olbermann Casts A Wide Net In Job Search — Think Keith Olbermann has burned his last bridge in the television business? He doesn't think so. — Seven months after he got dismissed by Current TV, the temperamental host is aggressively job-shopping, and he's not being too picky about it.

Discussion: TVNewser, New York Magazine, Mediaite, The Daily Caller and The Huffington Post

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Circulation and advertising revenues down at McClatchy — Advertising and circulation revenue were down at the McClatchy Co. in the third quarter of this year. Five of the company's newspapers — including The Sacramento Bee and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram — introduced a digital-subscription paywall called Plus in September.

Discussion: McClatchy, NetNewsCheck Latest and Broadcasting & Cable

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Amazon's crummy earnings report sends shares sliding after hours on steep losses — Amazon told a now-familiar story in its third-quarter earnings report this afternoon: High sales, low profits — but this time profits were even lower than analysts had expected. Shares were down in after-hours trading.

Discussion: Business Insider, Forbes, TechCrunch, Amazon.com, Reuters, ZDNet, AllThingsD, Engadget, 9to5Mac, @edgecliffe and The Next Web

Brian Solomon / Forbes:

The Inside Story Of Polygon, The Verge's New Gaming Sister-Site — Nearly one year ago, the world of online media scratched its collective head as the sports blogging network SB Nation launched a new, decidedly non-sports site called The Verge. While it may have seemed like an odd leap at the time …

Discussion: Poynter, Polygon, The Verge, SBNation.com, AllThingsD and paidContent

Charlie Warzel / Adweek:
Vox Media Goes After Crowded Gamer Market

Discussion: PandoDaily

Jim Kelly / Vanity Fair:

The “Shock” of the News Magazine Death: Tina Brown, Robert Hughes, and the Dwindling Cult of Authority — On the day that Barry Diller and Tina Brown announced the death of Newsweek the print magazine, a memorial service for Bob Hughes took place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.