Mediagazer: High court throws out challenge to surveillance law (Reuters)

5:00 PM ET, February 26, 2013

Top News:

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Maybe You'll Get the Pay TV You Want, After All: Cablevision Sues Viacom to Break Up the Bundle — Pay TV has a simple model: If you want to watch one channel, you have to pay for dozens — or hundreds — of others, whether you watch them or not. That model drives lots of consumers nuts, but it has looked very, very hard to dislodge.

Discussion: Media Decoder, The Wrap, Adweek, VentureBeat, Cablevision, Multichannel News, @reuters_biz, The Verge, paidContent, TechCrunch, AdAge, Broadcasting & Cable, Los Angeles Times, @edmundlee and The Next Web

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

Time Warner Cable and DirecTV support Cablevison in Viacom fight — The entrance to Viacom's headquarters in New York. (Mark Lennihan / Associated Press / January 25, 2010) — Pay-TV distributors Time Warner Cable and DirecTV have come out in support of Cablevision Systems Corp.'s lawsuit against Viacom Inc.

Tim Carmody / The Verge:

Variety will kill its daily print edition and online paywall, keep weekly magazine — Three editors-in-chief will head coverage of movies, television, and digital content in new web-first approach — The iconic entertainment publication Variety will discontinue its daily printed edition on March 18th.

Discussion: Variety, Adweek, Deadline.com, LA Observed, The Wrap, Mediaite, Media Decoder, Mashable!, @edmundlee, @lfung, FishbowlLA, @variety_dscohen, @edgecliffe and Talking Biz News

Sharon Waxman / The Wrap: Variety Makes a Necessary Change - Here Are the Risks

Alex Knapp / Forbes:

Study Finds That Streaming And Spyware Are Killing Music Piracy — It seems that people just aren't pirating music the way they used to. In many cases, because they don't have to. That's according to the NPD Group, which just released their “Annual Music Study 2012.”

Discussion: The Next Web, CNET and Home Media Magazine

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
For the First Time Since Napster, Music Sales Are Growing

Discussion: IFPI, New York Times, Financial Times, The Independent, Rolling Stone, Softpedia News, Music Industry Blog, The Wrap, Bloomberg, Globe and Mail, standard.co.uk, Guardian, Telegraph, Music Week, Music Ally, Techdirt, Sky News and Reuters

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

New York Times backs AP in lawsuit against news collector Meltwater — The New York Times is supporting the Associated Press in a controversial copyright case against Meltwater, a service that monitors the news and reproduces headlines and story summaries for its clients.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, 10,000 Words and NetNewsCheck Latest

Dylan Byers / Politico:

ABC News announces Susan Saulny hire — ABC News has announced the hire of New York Times reporter Susan Saulny as a correspondent. The news comes one day after ABC News announced the hire of Times national political correspondent Jeff Zeleny. — In a memo to staff …

Discussion: Media Decoder, mediabistro.com, @brianstelter and New York Magazine

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

TV stations strong, newspapers weak in Scripps' 2012 results — Political advertising revenue at Scripps' television stations in the fourth quarter of 2012 was “higher than the full-year political total reported in any previous year,” the company said in an earnings report Tuesday.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Radio & Television …, Thomson IR and Broadcasting & Cable

Dylan Byers / Politico:

N.Y. Times ups investment in conferences — The New York Times is increasing its investment in the events and conferences business, according to an internal memo sent to POLITICO. — The Times has named former Times Magazine editor Gerry Marzorati as general manager and editorial director of the conference business.

Discussion: Capital New York, The New York Times Company and New York Times

Reuters:

High court throws out challenge to surveillance law — (Reuters) - U.S.-based journalists, lawyers and human rights groups cannot challenge a federal law that allows surveillance of some international communications, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday in a case touching on government efforts to fight terrorism.

Discussion: New York Times

Danny Shea / The Huffington Post:

Glenn Greenwald Rails Against BuzzFeed: ‘Reckless And Irresponsible,’ ‘Government-Subservient Stenography’ (VIDEO) — Guardian columnist and blogger Glenn Greenwald joined HuffPost Live Tuesday and railed against what he called “reckless and irresponsible” journalism by BuzzFeed reporter Tessa Stuart.

Discussion: Erik Wemple, BuzzFeed, International Business Times and The Huffington Post

Ann Hornaday / Washington Post:

‘Zero Dark Thirty’ investigation closed — mission accomplished? — On Monday, just hours after “Zero Dark Thirty” missed winning best picture and a clutch of other awards at the Oscars, the Senate Intelligence Committee closed its investigation into contacts between the filmmakers and the CIA, Reuters reported.

Discussion: Media Decoder, Reuters, The Atlantic Wire, Hollywood.com, Guardian and Deadline.com

Jay Yarow / Business Insider:

LinkedIn Is Turning Itself Into A Very Valuable Media Company — LinkedIn is successfully turning itself into a media company, notes Scott Devitt at Morgan Stanley. — This is fairly obvious to anyone who has been paying close attention, but it's worth mentioning again.