Mediagazer: Village Voice sues Yelp for using “Best of” (Jeff John Roberts/paidContent)

6:40 PM ET, October 29, 2012

Top News:

Charlie Osborne / CNET:

Hurricane Sandy blows down paywalls at NY Times, WSJ — As people go online to get more information on Hurricane Sandy, news outlets are responding by making their content free. — Two major publications have stripped away their paywalls to give consumers unfettered access to up-to-date information on the arrival of Hurricane Sandy.

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Instagram users are posting 10 Hurricane Sandy pictures every second — Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom tells us via a spokeswoman: “There are now 10 pictures per second being posted with the hashtag #sandy — most are images of people prepping for the storm and images of scenes outdoors.”

Discussion: CNET, NYT Bits, AllThingsD, Business Insider, Beet.TV, Instagram Blog, PandoDaily, WebProNews, @alexismadrigal, Digiday and The Daily

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Hurricane Sandy Media Coverage Competes With Final Week Of 2012 Election — NEW YORK — On Monday, CNN plans to kick off its end-of-the-election series, “The Final Battlegrounds,” with over two-dozen correspondents dispatched across eight pivotal states for the 2012 campaign's eight remaining days.

Discussion: Poynter, Broadcasting & Cable, Mediaite, mediabistro.com, Capital New York, JIMROMENESKO.COM, SocialTimes and Mashable!

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Hurricane Sandy: TV stands by its live shots — So this is the big one, the historic one, the unprecedented one. It's packed with water, has an impressive millibar count and it's headed right at us. As the Weather Channel's Bryan Norcross put it this afternoon in a chat with this blog …

Discussion: The Huffington Post and The Week

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

Anderson Cooper Talk Show Won't Return for a Third Season — The syndication arm of the Warner Brothers studio has decided that there will not be a third season of “Anderson,” the daily talk show hosted by Anderson Cooper. — Citing disappointing ratings, a studio executive …

Discussion: Guardian, mediabistro.com, Mediaite, New York Magazine, The Wrap, TVNewser, Broadcasting & Cable, MediaPost, TVSpy, Mashable!, The Huffington Post, TVLine and WebProNews

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Penguin revenues declined in 2012, says Pearson — Pearson's confirmation that it is offloading Penguin comes as it revealed that the book publisher's revenues declined 2% in the first nine months of 2012, despite healthy growth in its ebook business. The company confirmed on Monday …

Discussion: MediaShift, Business Insider, Forbes, CNET, Media & Entertainment, PublishersWeekly.com and AllThingsD

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:
Penguin-Random House to Combine

The Week:
Murdoch snubbed as Penguin Random House deal is struck

Discussion: CNNMoney.com

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Village Voice sues Yelp for using “Best of” — Do you want to publish your ideas for “the best of San Francisco” or the “best of Seattle?” Well, the publisher of the Village Voice says you can't because “best of” is a trademark that belongs exclusively to its group of alternative weeklies.

Discussion: MediaPost, CNET, NetNewsCheck Latest, WebProNews and Eater National

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Nate Silver: One-term celebrity? — Nate Silver could be a one-term celebrity. — The New York Times' resident political predictor says President Barack Obama currently has a 74.6% chance of winning re-election. It's a prediction that liberals, whose heart rates continue to fluctuate …

Discussion: The Week and BuzzFeed

Sky News:

Jimmy Savile: Thompson's Office ‘Was Warned’ — The Jimmy Savile child abuse allegations were flagged up to the office of former BBC boss Mark Thompson at least twice, according to new claims. — The then director-general's office was formally alerted by journalist Miles Goslett …

Discussion: Poynter, Forbes, The Huffington Post and New York Times

Alex Diaz / Press Association: Investigation into BBC's ‘culture’ during Jimmy Savile era to start

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Pandora's New iOS And Android Apps Get The Facebook Treatment: Listening Timelines, Activity Feeds And Social Sharing Features To Do Battle With Spotify (And Perhaps Apple) — Pandora is one of the older and more established internet radio services out there, with 150 million registered users …

Discussion: Fast Company and AdAge

Media Decoder:

Times Reaches Tentative Deal With Newspaper Guild — The New York Times said Sunday night that it had reached a tentative agreement with the Newspaper Guild, setting the stage for a new labor contract after more than 18 months of negotiations. — In a message to the staff, the executive editor …

Discussion: nyguild.org, The Huffington Post, FishbowlNY, mediabistro.com, Poynter, New York Magazine and Politico

Jim Romenesko: New York Times and union reach ‘conceptual agreement’ on 5-year contract

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

FT digital subs pass 300,000, growing readership and revenue — Most Financial Times readers are now digital subscribers, after another spurt in online subs pushed the publisher to 313,000 digital subscribers this September. — The 17 percent annual subs jump means FT Group has a combined print …

Discussion: Folio, NetNewsCheck Latest, Journalism.co.uk and Talking Biz News