Mediagazer: Digital Media Strategies: The Economist's Nick Blunden on unbundling and global expansion (Jasper Jackson/TheMediaBriefing)

6:20 PM ET, February 23, 2013

Top News:

Split in two: How The Boston Globe, up for sale, is navigating its free/paid strategy — Sitting in his office last week, Brian McGrory, the new editor of The Boston Globe, described the relationship between the two websites — similarly named, often confused, one free, one paid — that his newspaper offers.

Discussion: Media Nation

Beth Healy / Boston Globe:

New York Times exec outlines Boston Globe sale process to employees — New York Times Co. vice chairman Michael Golden told Boston Globe employees Friday that the company has a duty to seek the highest bidder in a sale but hopes to leave the newspaper in responsible hands.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, The Huffington Post and Gannett Blog

Keach Hagey / Wall Street Journal:
New York Times Offered More Than $100 Million for Boston Globe

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Boston Herald

Alexander C. Kaufman / The Wrap:
Will Rupert Murdoch Buy the Boston Globe?

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and Media Nation

Jack Shafer:

Unsolicited advice for Jeff Zucker, CNN's new boss — After the bosses at Time Warner installed Jeff Zucker as president of the 23 news and information brands that constitute CNN Worldwide, the press (Ad Age, Marketwatch, Politico, Guardian, New York Times, et al.) speculated on which strategies …

Discussion: New York Post and Chickaboomer

Jasper Jackson / TheMediaBriefing:

Digital Media Strategies: The Economist's Nick Blunden on unbundling and global expansion — How do you get your customers to pay more and be happy about it? The answer could be as simple as offering them a wider range of products to choose from. — That's the approach that is working …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Intel Inside Your TV: The Chip Guys Want to Become Cable Guys — Who's going to take on the cable guys? Lots of really big, powerful tech companies with heaps of clout and money — Google, Apple and Microsoft, for starters — have looked at the pay-TV business and decided it doesn't make sense for them to try to really compete.

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Study: Pay TV Industry Sees First-Ever Subscriber Decline in Western Europe — In a report that could kick off the cord-cutting debate in Europe, Informa cites more than 380,000 customer losses, with a U.K. gain unable to offset big drops in Spain and Italy.

Jason Boog / GalleyCat:

60% of Audiobooks Sold Are Now Digital — According to the Audio Publishers Association, audiobooks are now a billion dollar part of the publishing industry. — Taking results from two studies of the audiobook industry, the association noted that 3.8 million more audiobooks were sold …

Discussion: Lost Remote, SocialTimes and TVNewser

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Here's something new: Little, Brown UK launches digital-first imprint for literary fiction — Several publishers have launched digital-first imprints for genre titles — science fiction/fantasy, romance and so on. In these instances, books are published first as ebooks and aren't released in print unless they take off.

Dylan Byers / Politico:

ABC News in final-stage talks with N.Y. Times reporters Jeff Zeleny, Susan Saulny — ABC News is in the final stages of job negotiations with New York Times reporters Jeff Zeleny and Susan Saulny, and is expected to make a formal announcement early next week, sources familiar with the negotiations tell POLITICO.

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:

Google Dishes Out PageRank Penalties To UK Newspaper Web Sites For Selling Links — Google has downgraded the Toolbar PageRank scores for several dozen UK operated newspapers and news sites today. — It is believed the reason Google has downgraded their PageRank scores is because they were selling links on a massive scale.

Discussion: paidContent, googlewebmastercentral …, SEO Book.com and WebProNews

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Former CBS Exec Lurie Joins Former Yahoo Levinsohn at Guggenheim Digital Media — Well-known digital media exec Zander Lurie has been hired by former Yahoo exec Ross Levinsohn to become one of his key lieutenants at Guggenheim Digital Media. — Lurie will be an EVP there …

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Here's How You Buy Your Way Onto The New York Times Bestsellers List — An endorsement from Oprah Winfrey. A film deal from Steven Spielberg. A debut at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list. These are the things every author craves most, and while the first two require the favor …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal