Mediagazer: US government agencies are advertising on accused pirate sites (Greg Sandoval/The Verge)

10:10 PM ET, March 27, 2013

Top News:

Steven R. Swartz to Succeed Frank A. Bennack, Jr. as Hearst Corporation's CEO in June 2013 — Bennack Continues as Executive Vice Chairman of the Board, Among Other Leadership Roles — Hearst Corporation today announced that Steven R. Swartz, president and chief operating officer of Hearst Corporation …

Discussion: Adweek

New York Times:

Chief Who Led Expansion at Hearst Will Step Down — After nearly 30 years of running the Hearst Corporation, the privately held media company, Frank A. Bennack Jr. has announced that he is stepping down. — Mr. Bennack, the 80-year-old chief executive of Hearst, used profits from titles …

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Entreaty to Cooper Suggests Shakeup at ‘Today’ — Earlier this month an NBC executive contacted Anderson Cooper with a question that would flatter and intrigue just about anyone. Would Mr. Cooper, the biggest star of CNN, consider replacing Matt Lauer on the “Today” show in the months to come?

Discussion: TMZ.com, Capital New York, Gothamist, The Corsair, BuzzFeed, From Inside the Box, Business Insider, @mbaratz, The Wrap, @brianstelter, @dylanbyers, The Huffington Post, TV Tattle, Mediaite and Deadline.com

Marisa Guthrie / Hollywood Reporter:
NBC: Anderson Cooper Not Approached for Matt Lauer Job

Discussion: TVNewser, Deadline.com, All Things CNN, mediabistro.com, Vanity Fair, Daily Mail, Contactmusic.com, The Huffington Post, FishbowlNY, The Hollywood Gossip, New York Post, Mediaite, Inside TV and New York Magazine

Andrea Morabito / Broadcasting & Cable:

Upfronts 2013: Participant TV's Cable Network Named ‘Pivot’ — Channel targeting viewers 15-34 will offer broadband-only subscription — New York — Participant TV on Wednesday announced the name of its upcoming cable network targeting millennials: Pivot.

Discussion: Lost Remote, Adweek, Variety, FishbowlNY and Deadline.com

AJ Marechal / Variety: Wake Up, Kids: Disruptive TV Is Here Via Participant Media's Pivot Cabler

Reuters:

Portugal media demands Google pays for news — (Reuters) - Portuguese media companies, struggling through the worst recession since the 1970s, are pressing Google to pay for content on its news search engine, echoing similar demands elsewhere in Europe. — Alberico Fernandes …

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder:

A Driving Force Behind Wikipedia Will Step Down — Sue Gardner, who oversaw a period of rapid growth and evolution at Wikipedia, said Wednesday that she would step down as executive director of the nonprofit organization that runs the free encyclopedia. — In an interview with The Times on Wednesday …

Discussion: @xor and Wikimedia blog

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:

As Newspapers Experiment With Sponsored Content, Google Says Keep It Out Of Google News — Newspapers and news publications having “sponsored” content deals are on the rise, and Google's apparently concerned enough that it's issued a warning today that publishers should keep such content out of Google News.

Discussion: Google News Blog

Felix Salmon:

Paywalls rise — It's paywall season right now: the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Telegraph, the Sun — all have recently announced plans to erect paywalls in an attempt to extract subscription revenues from their most loyal online readers.

Discussion: PandoDaily, Globe and Mail, TechRadar.com, the Econsultancy blog and CMU

Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:

Flipboard Wants To Redesign The Entire Internet — The battle to become the next front page of the internet. — Last night, Flipboard launched a new version of its reader app that lets anyone with a smartphone or tablet to create custom “magazines” from virtually any piece of internet content — a tweet, a news story, a photo.

Discussion: The Huffington Post and Poynter

Jennifer Saba / Reuters:
Flipboard launches new edition, lets readers create magazines

Discussion: Inside Flipboard, USA Today, GigaOM, @tcarmody, @tcarmody, paidContent, Forbes, Mashable, Fast Company, PC Pro, Cult of Mac, Good E-Reader, SlashGear, Shiny Shiny, Trusted Reviews, Pocket-lint, Gizmodo UK, Digital Spy, The Bulletin, MacRumors, CNET, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, ReadWrite, The Verge, Engadget, TIME, Wired, TechCrunch and Guardian

Mike Shields / Adweek:

Bloomberg Wants to Win at Video — It's time for Bloomberg TV's noon news meeting on this Thursday, a meeting that is sandwiched around two momentous events: the day after the new Pope was announced and the day Samsung will release its new Galaxy S4 phone. — The packed conference room …

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Twitter's Revenue Forecast Jumps Again, This Time to Almost $1 Billion — Twitter's advertising business is growing so fast, it's hard to get a handle on. — For the second time in six months, eMarketer has revised its revenue estimates for the social messenging service sharply upward …

Discussion: eMarketer and Newsroom Posts, CNET, Reuters, GigaOM, Business Insider, AdAge and NetNewsCheck Latest

Steve Rubel / AdAge:

Leaner, Meaner Media Finally Ready to Invade Agency Turf — In a Bid for Survival, Press Cozies Up to the Client Side — Everyone loves a Cinderella story. Whether it's David slaying Goliath or a college basketball team's unlikely journey from dark horse to Final Four contender, it's hard not to root for an underdog.

Thanks:@steverubel

Greg Sandoval / The Verge:

US government agencies are advertising on accused pirate sites — USC to report that US government is helping to fund intellectual property theft — The US president and vice president have come out against the theft of intellectual property; dozens of congresspeople have condemned illegal file-sharing.

Los Angeles Times:

Web-based productions are taking off in L.A. — Filming for Web productions in L.A. rose 46% over 2011. Such content has evolved from short episodes to full-length TV productions, some with budgets comparable to conventional TV shows'. — Ed Begley stars in Amazon Studios upcoming series, “Betas.”

Discussion: Variety

Jenna Wortham / NYT Bits:

Instagram and the New Era of Paparazzi — Earlier this week, a rare and new photo of the pop star Beyoncé and her daughter, Blue Ivy, quickly spread around the Internet, on various celebrity and gossip sites. — There was nothing particularly unusual about the photo itself …

Discussion: GigaOM and Daily Dot

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Digital Ad Network Files For Bankruptcy — NEW YORK — CommonSense Media, a digital advertising network co-founded by film producer and Firedoglake publisher Jane Hamsher, has filed for bankruptcy to liquidate its assets. — Founded in 2007 by Hamsher, AJ Schuler and Deveria Flowers …

Jason Deans / Guardian:

BBC schedules face disruption from strike action on Thursday — Union members will stage half-day walkout likely to affect live programming, including BBC News and radio news bulletins — BBC programmes face further disruption on Thursday when broadcasting union members stage a half …

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

Amazon expands its X-Ray movie information service to cover TV shows on Instant Video — Amazon has expanded its X-Ray for Movies feature, which enables Kindle users to tap on an actor and see the other films they've starred in, by adding support for TV shows today.

Discussion: Amazon.com, VentureBeat, CNET and TechCrunch

Paul Sloan / CNET:

The one bright spot for the music labels: Digital — The financial picture of the music industry is still bleak, but YouTube, Spotify, and other services are helping. — The music industry is still in rough shape, based on data released today by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Discussion: Billboard, Tone Deaf and The Verge