Mediagazer: Netflix must ponder its endgame strategy (Kevin Kelleher/PandoDaily)

1:05 AM ET, October 26, 2012

Top News:

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 Buttry Diary, Guardian, Mashable!, FishbowlNY and The New York Times Company

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

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

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

Discussion: Business Week

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Readers Pay More for New York Times, Advertisers Pay Less

Discussion: mnilive.com and NYConvergence.com

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: MarketBeat, Forbes, Engadget, Media Decoder, Mashable!, Tech Trader Daily, 9to5Mac, The Next Web, Business Insider, The Verge, Patently Apple, Radio & Television …, MacRumors, hypebot, GeekWire, Gizmodo and iClarified

Greg Sandoval / CNET:

Apple's proposed Web radio service is no certainty — Apple's financial terms for a Internet radio service to labels is getting mixed reviews at some of the labels, insiders tell CNET — Apple is working hard to convince the major record companies to buy into its plan for a Web radio service …

Discussion: MacRumors and SeekingAlpha.com

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. …

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY: Newspaper Guild Sends Another Letter to Arthur Sulzberger

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

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:
Savile fallout: former BBC chief ‘expects to be grilled’ for New York Times post

Discussion: Jack Shafer, The Public Editor's Journal, paidContent, The Wrap, The Journalism Foundation, Reuters and New York Magazine

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: fleet street fox and Guardian

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

Keith Bradsher / New York Times:

China Blocks Web Access to Times After Article — HONG KONG — The Chinese government swiftly blocked access early Friday morning to the Chinese-language Web site of The New York Times from computers in mainland China and gradually halted most access to the English-language site …

Discussion: New York Times, Guardian, BBC, @dangillmor, @davidfolkenflik and Quartz

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, Financial Times, Good E-Reader, Media Decoder, Los Angeles Times, Guardian, Publishing Perspectives, Media & Entertainment, Deadline.com, The Wrap, Globe and Mail and GalleyCat

Kevin Kelleher / PandoDaily:

Netflix must ponder its endgame strategy — Was it really only 15 months ago when everyone loved Netflix? The stock had risen nearly eightfold during a two-year rally, CEO Reed Hastings was hailed as a game changer and was asked for the secrets of his success, and Netflix was on track …

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Netflix Hits 30 Million Members After Q3 Subscriber Growth “Forecasting Error”

Discussion: Home Media Magazine

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: AllThingsD, Business Wire, Business Insider, CNET, Reuters, New York Times, Engadget, TechCrunch, Forbes, VentureBeat, Bloomberg, ZDNet, The Next Web, @edgecliffe, PublishersWeekly.com and AllThingsD

Gregory Ferenstein / TechCrunch:

Unpolitic.me Hides Political Posts On Facebook and Twitter — I know Facebook and Twitter forever changed the political process and promise to usher in a new era of global citizenship, but, sometimes I just need a mind-numbing escape of drunken Vegas photos and cat memes.

Discussion: Digiday

Twitter Blog:

More interactive Tweets, in more than 2000 ways — Earlier this summer, we introduced the ability to expand Tweets to see content previews, photos and videos right within a Tweet. At that time, we were working with a small group of partners. Today there are more than 2,000 ways to bring …

Discussion: CNET, The Next Web and TechCrunch

Mackenzie Weinger / Politico:

AP, networks change exit poll strategy — TV networks and The Associated Press are changing their election night exit poll system in order to save money and account for increased early voting, according to a report. — Exit polling will be limited in 19 states for the consortium …

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:

Pew: Americans find Internet most useful for campaign news, second only to cable — The Internet is “most helpful for campaign news,” 17 percent of Americans said in response to a Pew survey, more than triple the percentage of people who picked local newspapers and well ahead of local and network news.

Discussion: Journalism.org, TVSpy, Cable Television News and TVNewser

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