Mediagazer: Disney considers ESPN exit from British TV sports coverage (Guardian)

10:10 AM ET, February 6, 2013

Top News:

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Time Inc. Layoffs Will Cost $60 Million — Time Inc.'s move to lay off about 6 percent of its workforce will cost the company at least $60 million in restructuring charges this year. — Time Inc. corporate parent, Time Warner, disclosed the number as part of its guidance for its 2013 financials.

Discussion: @keachhagey and @mtoney

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Time Warner Reports Higher Fourth-Quarter Earnings, Raises Dividend — The entertainment conglomerate's latest results beat Wall Street estimates as its TV networks and film units recorded higher operating profits. — Time Warner on Wednesday reported fourth-quarter earnings …

Discussion: Reuters, Deadline.com, International Business Times and Bloomberg

John Biggs / TechCrunch:

WordPress Pulls A Customer's Posts After Plagiarist Claims Copyright — A blog called RetractionWatch has been hit by a DMCA copyright notice from an Indian website with a tendency to plagiarize, which claims ten posts about a disgraced doctor - all of them copied from RetractionWatch - were actually its own property.

Discussion: Before It's News and Ars Technica

Bloomberg:

Google Said in Talks to Invest $50 Million in Vevo Site — Google Inc.'s YouTube is negotiating a $50 million equity investment in music video service Vevo LLC, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. — Google would own less than 10 percent of the company …

Discussion: Business Insider, Silicon Valley Business … and FierceOnlineVideo News

Bluefin Labs:

Bluefin Labs Joins Twitter: Getting to the Future of Social TV Faster — It's a big day for social television and for us at Bluefin Labs - we're announcing today that we're joining Twitter! — We've had an incredible time pioneering the field of social TV analytics over the last few years.

Discussion: Lost Remote, Twitter Blog, Media Decoder, VentureBeat, Marketing Pilgrim, TechCrunch, AllThingsD, Forbes, CNET, Business Insider, BostInno, Redpoint Ventures, @mathewi, Marketing Land, Mashable!, GigaOM and Softpedia News

Caleb Garling / The Technology Chronicles:
Twitter buys digital bridge to television

Discussion: Bloomberg, Engadget and The Wrap

Guardian:

Disney considers ESPN exit from British TV sports coverage — Disney's Jay Rasulo says ESPN had ‘experienced losses’ and was ‘exploring an exit’ after losing out on big broadcast deals — Disney is “exploring an exit” from the UK TV sport market after ESPN lost several big broadcast deals including live Premier League football.

Discussion: Financial Times, International Business Times and Digital Spy

Brooks Barnes / Media Decoder:
Profit Slides 6% at Disney as Movie and TV Divisions Lag

Discussion: Home Media Magazine, /Film, Softpedia News, CNET, The Wrap and Speakeasy

Andy Fixmer / Bloomberg:

Katzenberg Says Mobile Viewers Will Pay by ‘Inch’ — Hollywood studios will eventually charge less for entertainment streamed to small devices, basing prices on screen size, DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. (DWA) Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Katzenberg predicted.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, @alexpham, @bill_gross and CNET

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Amazon wins broad patent to create marketplace for used digital content — Amazon has won a patent for an “electronic marketplace” where users can resell digital content. The company had filed for the patent in 2009 and it was awarded on January 29, 2013. — GeekWire first reported the news.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, ZDNet and Pocket-lint

Agustino Fontevecchia / Forbes:

Liberty Global To Buy Virgin Media For $23B As Billionaire John Malone Challenges Murdoch — Liberty Global announced late Tuesday that it had reached an agreement to acquire Virgin Media of the U.K. for an enterprise value of $23.3 billion. The deal pits billionaire John Malone against Rupert Murdoch …

Discussion: Financial Times, BBC, Bloomberg, Business Wire, Media News, Bloomberg, Media Week, TechCrunch, Sky News, Broadcasting & Cable, Wall Street Journal, DealBook and Telegraph

ABC News:

Guardian Australia funder says site will usher in era of open journalism — Broadcast: — The entrepreneur behind two of Australia's newest media ventures—the fledgling Global Mail and soon to be launched Guardian Australia website—has called for the development of ‘open journalism’ in a rare interview with RN Breakfast.

Discussion: TheAustralian, Guardian and Crikey

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

BBC Aims For More Int'l Growth, Releases First Worldwide Sports App For iOS, Android Coming Soon — The UK's BBC began to test the waters for BBC Sport apps globally last summer with the launch of a special app featuring content from the London Olympics, and today that game is entering its next quarter …

Loretta Chao / Wall Street Journal:

Brazil: The Social Media Capital of the Universe — SÃO PAULO—When Barbosa family members botched their cover of an old Brazilian gospel song last year on a family video, they thought it was pretty funny—funny enough to upload to YouTube. — But they didn't expect the rest of Brazil to laugh along with them.

Discussion: Media Week

Jon Russell / The Next Web:

Rupert Murdoch claims Chinese hackers are still attacking the Wall Street Journal — Last week news broke that the New York Times had been victim to a four-month long hacking campaign from China after publishing an investigative report on Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's family finances in October 2012.

Discussion: @rupertmurdoch, Fast Company, @popehat, @number10cat, @rupertmurdoch, CNET, @ciapressoffice and @peterjukes

Arif Durrani / Media Week:

PPA to publish combined print and digital figures for magazines — The Professional Publishers Association (PPA) is set to publish combined print and digital figures for the magazine industry for the first time to sit alongside next week's Audit Bureau of Circulations report.

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Super Bowl online streaming viewership grows to 3 million in second year — In the second year the Super Bowl has been streamed online, viewership has grown sharply — even if it's still barely a blip compared to traditional TV viewership. According to CBS, its stream of Super Bowl XLVII …

Discussion: AdAge and Forbes

Dana Rubinstein / Capital New York:

Court rules in favor of NYPD: ‘Times’ can't have addresses of handgun-license holders — Today, an appellate court ruled against the New York Times in a suit about gun permits, and public access to an electronic database containing the addresses of permit-holders, arguing that a lower-court judge had …

Discussion: nycourts.gov, Poynter and The Wrap

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

“The brain of the New York Times, the body of BuzzFeed” — Slate's third act — Slate started life as as a scrappy web pioneer under Microsoft in 1996. Since then, it has gone on to carve out an enviable perch in the liberal media establishment as part of the Washington Post Company.