Mediagazer: Questions Linger for Hosts After Sale of Current TV (Brian Stelter/Media Decoder)

6:45 PM ET, January 3, 2013

Top News:

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Time Warner Cable Says It Will Keep ‘Open Mind’ on Reinstating Al Jazeera — Time Warner Cable minced no words when it announced on Wednesday night that it was dropping Current TV, just hours after Al Jazeera acquired the channel. “Our agreement with Current has been terminated …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Mediaite, Guardian, The Huffington Post, Inside TV, The Week, Los Angeles Times, @jackshafer, DealBook, Business Insider, TVLine and Tampa Bay Times

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

Al Jazeera will face hurdles to succeeding with Current TV — Al Jazeera hopes the acquisition of cable channel Current TV will finally give the Qatar-based news service a substantial footprint in the U.S. (AFP/Getty Images) — Al Jazeera hopes it can succeed where Al Gore failed with Current TV.

Discussion: ABCNEWS, @rafat and Guardian

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Questions Linger for Hosts After Sale of Current TV — Eliot Spitzer, Jennifer Granholm, Joy Behar and the other hosts on Current TV have no idea what comes next. — On Wednesday, their television home was sold to Al Jazeera, which plans to remake Current into an international news channel …

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
Bad news for cord cutters: Al Jazeera America won't be live streamed online

Discussion: AllThingsD, The Stream and Business Insider

Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:
Glenn Beck Tried To Buy Al Gore's Current TV, Which Instead Sold To Al-Jazeera For $500 Million

Discussion: Glenn Beck, @mlcalderone, The Wrap and Media Decoder

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

The Atlantic Will Experiment With Online Pay Models In 2013 — The Atlantic is two things every legacy publishing company would like to be: profitable and more reliant on digital advertising revenues than on print. But while that may have been good enough in 2012, for 2013 the magazine has a new goal …

Discussion: Capital New York, FishbowlNY, Poynter, NetNewsCheck Latest, Politico, @dylanbyers, @rajunarisetti and @keachhagey

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Sullivan's new Dish raises $333,000 from over 11K people in first 24 hours — On Thursday, Andrew Sullivan pronounced himself “somewhat gob-smacked” by readers' response to his immensely popular blog the Dish leaving the Daily Beast, going independent and charging $19.99 a year.

Discussion: The Daily Dish, VentureBeat, The New York Observer, The Next Web, NetNewsCheck Latest, PSFK and Guardian

Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Andrew Sullivan raises over $100,000 for ad-free blog in first six hours

Discussion: TechCrunch, @binarybits, Guardian, parislemon and PandoDaily

Felix Salmon:
Andrew Sullivan goes it alone

Discussion: Poynter, CJR, TIME, The Atlantic Online, The Daily Dish, Digiday, The FJP, JIMROMENESKO.COM, WE ARE YOUR FEK, parislemon, BuzzFeed, The Daily Dish, The New York Observer, Mediaite and Business Insider

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

Buzzfeed Raises $19.3 Million to Make LOL Content for the Social Web — Building a Giant War Chest That Signals Greater Ambitions — Buzzfeed set out to re-invent the notion of content for the social web by allowing pictures of cute animals to co-exist with serious political coverage.

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:

BuzzFeed Is Now Valued At ~$200 Million, But Investors Think It Has Billion-Dollar Potential — BuzzFeed, a media company that makes viral content, announced a $19.3 million fundraise this morning. — Last January, it announced a $15.5 million round, and it has raised $46.3 million to date.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Digital Cracks 50% of Ad Revenue at Wired Magazine — First for the Title Is an Encouraging Sign for the Industry — Digital contributed half of all ad revenue at Wired magazine in the final three months of 2012, a first for the title and an encouraging sign for an industry …

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Michele Norris to Return to NPR in New Role — Updated Michele Norris, the NPR host who took a 15-month leave of absence while her husband worked for the Obama campaign, will return to the public radio network in February, NPR said Thursday. — But Ms. Norris, one of NPR's most familiar voices …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM and FishbowlDC

Leslie Kaufman / Media Decoder:

Decline in Holiday Sales Is Ominous Sign for Barnes & Noble — 4:41 p.m. | Updated For Barnes & Noble, the digital future isn't what it used to be. — Eight months after affirming its commitment to build its business through its Nook division, Barnes & Noble on Tuesday announced holiday sales …

Discussion: Business Wire, PublishersWeekly.com, Electronista, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, paidContent and AppNewser

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Washington Post Video Channel To Launch Online — NEW YORK — The Washington Post announced plans Thursday to launch an online political channel in Summer 2013. Marty Baron, who took over this week as the paper's executive editor, told staff in a memo that the channel's …

Discussion: Politico, @wapoombudsman and @jeffsonderman

Jim Romenesko:

Stamford Advocate runs gun show ad next to Sandy Hook School story — Shouldn't it be standard operating procedure at this point to make sure there aren't gun ads next to school shooting-related stories? I called the Stamford Advocate for comment and was told to contact Hearst Connecticut …

Discussion: BuzzFeed, Stamford Advocate, The Atlantic Wire, New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Week, Gawker and Business Insider

Evan Osnos / The New Yorker Blog:

China, the American Press, and the State Department — It's time for the State Department to take up the matter of American reporters in China, and Chinese reporters in America. — The work of the American press in China has become so contentious, and so central to our understanding …

Discussion: China Law & Policy