Mediagazer: It's Official: CBS Acquires Half Of TV Guide, Partners With Lionsgate (Nellie Andreeva/Deadline.com)

12:05 AM ET, March 27, 2013

Top News:

Hashtags considered #harmful — The noble hashtag is cursed by a problem Yogi Berra could appreciate: Too many people use it, so no one goes there. — Presumably, most Twitter users use hashtags intending to add their tweet to a river of similar information and to expose their own thoughts to a wider, interested audience.

Discussion: @smalera, @chanders, @caseymcdermott, @jbenton, @pwthornton, @aschweig, @mykola, @marksluckie, @digiphile, @michaelroston, @kev097, @jaredbkeller and NetNewsCheck Latest

Mackenzie Weinger / Politico:

USA Today announces ‘two big changes’ — USA Today is making “big changes” by putting the cover story in the newspaper “on hiatus” and keeping story jumps to a “bare minimum, if at all,” editor in chief Dave Callaway announced to staffers in a memo on Tuesday.

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

Flipboard 2.0 aims to get people curating their own digital magazines — Having attracted 50m users so far, can news app's Pinterest-like new features make it even more mainstream? — When it first launched in July 2010, Flipboard was an interesting new spin on news aggregation …

Discussion: Forbes, GigaOM, TechCrunch, The Next Web, TIME, Wired and ParisLemon

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline.com:

It's Official: CBS Acquires Half Of TV Guide, Partners With Lionsgate — CBS Corp. just announced that it is acquiring 50% of of TV Guide, the company that encompasses TVGN (formerly TV Guide Network) and TVGuide.com. The deal adds a basic cable network to its TV portfolio …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Variety, New York Times, Benzinga and Broadcasting & Cable

Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:

Here's Why Marissa Mayer Is About To Spend ~$200 Million On A YouTube Wannabe — Last week, Amir Efrati and Sam Shechner of the WSJ reported that Yahoo is close to acquiring a controlling stake in the YouTube-of-Europe, Dailymotion, at a valuation somewhere around $300 million.

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

CBS asks for tax break for Super Bowl week coverage — CBS broadcast its show “The Talk” from New Orleans in the week leading up to Super Bowl and is asking for a $700,000 tax credit, Tyler Bridges reports. “The Motion Picture Investor Tax Credit statute specifically excludes televised news …

Discussion: The Lens

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline.com:

Anderson Cooper Approached For Matt Lauer's ‘Today’ Job — Embattled Today anchor Matt Lauer, already the focus of blistering criticism for the ouster of co-anchor Ann Curry and the ratings slide at NBC's morning show, has long been rumored to be on the chopping block …

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Media start-up hatched at Columbia, ‘The Big Roundtable,’ looks for a new long-form business model — Anyone who has experience writing for magazines can tell you that pitches tend to be approved or rejected based on the whim of any number of editors on the masthead.

Discussion: Kickstarter

Bloomberg:

Intel Said Nearing Media Company Deals for Pay-TV Service — Intel Corp. (INTC) is making progress in talks with Time Warner Inc. (TWX), NBC Universal and Viacom Inc. (VIAB) to obtain TV shows and films for a first-of-its kind online pay-TV service, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Discussion: VentureBeat, The Verge, CNET, Engadget, Deadline.com and Radio & Television …

Guardian:

The Sun joins Telegraph in charging website users — News International says offering free content is ‘just untenable’, while Telegraph announces erection of metered paywall — Britain's biggest selling daily newspaper, The Sun, is to start charging for its online content in the second half …

Discussion: Telegraph, Digital Spy, The Next Web and Media Week

Rachael Daigle / AAN:

Alt-Weeklies Are Dead; Long Live Alt-Weeklies — Yes, the alternative weekly of yesterday is toast. At least it should be if the alt-weekly business is going to survive. — The year 2012 was big in the alternative newsweekly world. — It was the year the country's largest chain of alt-weeklies …

Discussion: Poynter and Beyond Search, Thanks:@altweeklies

Jack Shafer:

Is this story less than the Summly of its parts? — Like children at bedtime, news consumers love nothing more than to be told the same story again and again. Oh sure, they need the names of the principals to change, the location to vary, and the supporting cast of characters to shift.