Mediagazer: Fewer Cords Cut but Higher Customer Acquisition Costs for Dish (Bloomberg)

3:50 AM ET, November 7, 2012

Top News:

Nate Silver Is a One-Man Traffic Machine for the Times — “FiveThirtyEight is drawing huge traffic,” New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson told me yesterday. She added, “What's interesting is a lot of the traffic is coming just for Nate.” — There has been plenty of controversy …

Discussion: AllThingsD, Gawker, FiveThirtyEight, National Review, Mashable!, CNET, Los Angeles Times, Daily Download, HBR.org, Talking Points Memo, Wired, @emilybell, Mediaite, The FJP, Mother Jones and CJR

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The New York Times is trying to make its mobile apps more than simple containers for news stories — Each cycle, live election coverage serves as a premier testbed for online news. Now The New York Times is using it as a test bed for pushing news in apps beyond the rigid templates that have characterized the form.

Discussion: Wired and ReadWrite

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Nate Silver, By The Numbers — There's a 90.9% chance that tonight is going to cap the best three weeks of Nate Silver's life. — Silver is the statistics whiz behind Five Thirty-Eight, the political forecasting blog he started in 2008 and brought to The New York Times in 2010, where he continues to write it.

Discussion: PandoDaily, VH1 Celebrity and Mediaite

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Here's What the New York Times' Nate Silver Traffic Boom Looks Like — You thought we were done talking about Nate Silver today? Think again! — Here, for instance, is an excellent piece by the New Republic's Marc Tracy, which details the huge spike in traffic the New York Times has seen to Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog.

Discussion: @mthomps and Mediaite

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Voters gather to decide Nate Silver's fate — Yes, today's rather important for President Obama and Mitt Romney, as well as their families and supporters. But New York Times poll-blogger Nate Silver's predictions have made him a target for the ire of conservatives and pundits protecting …

Discussion: @bobbyfinger

Margaret Sullivan / @sulliview: Nate @fivethirtyeight Silver has his very own dedicated copy editor tonight. And no one would begrudge such a thing, given his traffic.

Bloomberg:

Pearson Said Exploring Financial Times Sale as CEO Leaves — Pearson Plc (PSON) is planning to explore a sale of the Financial Times newspaper, as the company focuses on its faster-growing education business, people with knowledge of the situation said. — The company has decided …

Discussion: Guardian, Quartz, @felixsalmon, Reuters, @dansabbagh, @dansabbagh and FT Alphaville

Felix Salmon / Reuters:

The FT in play — This will come as a surprise to absolutely no one, but the Financial Times is going up for sale, according to Bloomberg, with an asking price of £1 billion. (Pearson has denied the story, in less than convincing terms.) — That's big number.

Michael de la Merced / DealBook:
F.T. Up for Sale, Report Says, but Pearson Says Not So Fast

Discussion: Talking Biz News

New York Times:

Presidential Network Calls

Discussion: Quartz

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

News orgs innovate with election coverage — Tuesday night will be the most interactive election night ever. — Millions of Americans won't just be watching results come in, they'll be participating in new ways thanks to news organizations doing just about everything they can think of to enhance live coverage tonight.

Discussion: Media News, GigaOM, Reuters, GeekWire, @jaredbkeller, Forbes, The Huffington Post, New York Times, CNET, Lost Remote, NetNewsCheck Latest and WebProNews

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

News Corp. executive sidesteps rumors about plans to acquire more newspapers — News Corp. president and chief operating officer Chase Carey sidestepped questions about whether his company is in acquisition mode this afternoon. — “Obviously we should look at some things,” said Carey …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Media Decoder, Media Money …, Media & Entertainment, MediaPost and Deadline.com

John Jannarone / Wall Street Journal:
News Corp. Earnings Boosted by Gain

Discussion: AllThingsD and Sydney Morning Herald

Mackenzie Weinger / Politico:

Karl Rove: Fox News Ohio call ‘premature’ — Fox News has called Ohio for President Barack Obama, but Karl Rove disagreed with that decision Tuesday night, saying the state is far from settled and the call was “premature.” — Fox News's Chris Wallace said the Romney campaign does …

Rebecca Shapiro / The Huffington Post:
Fox News Contesting Its Own Election Call

Discussion: BuzzFeed, @ryan and @kate8

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

If Facebook isn't thinking about buying Tumblr, it should be — It might seem a little early to start talking about potential Facebook acquisitions considering the social network just completed its $736-million purchase of Instagram, and its share price is still 40 percent lower than it was when the company went public.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:
With Mobile Impressions, Tumblr Pushes Past 20 Billion Pageviews A Month

Discussion: Betabeat, Softpedia News, The Verge and GigaOM

Steven Jacobs / Street Fight:

AOL: Patch Remains on Path to Profitability, Expenses Cut 30% — Patch saw a 19% year-over-year bump in traffic during September, bringing monthly unique visitors across the property to 11.9 million, according to AOLs second quarter earnings report. During its Q3 earnings call Tuesday …

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:
Christmas Coming Early For AOL Shareholders With $445M Dividend

Discussion: Reuters, PandoDaily, The Next Web, Media Decoder, MediaPost, @jeffjohnroberts, AdAge, AllThingsD, FishbowlNY and Poynter

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:
How video will provide a third act for AOL

Discussion: Beet.TV

Bloomberg:

Fewer Cords Cut but Higher Customer Acquisition Costs for Dish — Blames Subscriber Losses on Telecom Rivals, Poor Economy — Dish Network, the second-largest U.S. satellite-TV provider, reported a surprise third-quarter loss and revenue that trailed analysts' estimates.

Discussion: Cable Television News

Reuters:
Dish Network reports loss on litigation costs

Discussion: Associated Press and Deadline.com

Christine Haughney / Media Decoder:

Senior Executive at The Times Will Retire — A senior executive of The New York Times Company responsible for key business results is retiring, and the company is eliminating the position entirely. — Scott Heekin-Canedy, president and general manager of The New York Times, will retire by year's end.