Mediagazer: NY Times Overhauls Its Strategy With Tiered Pricing, Live Events and...Games? (Jeff Bercovici/Forbes)

2:40 PM ET, April 25, 2013

Top News:

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

NY Times Overhauls Its Strategy With Tiered Pricing, Live Events and...Games? — Two years ago, the conventional wisdom in the newspaper business said people wouldn't pay for online news. — By a year ago at this time, the consensus had shifted, largely thanks to the success of The New York Times's …

Discussion: The New York Times Company, FishbowlNY, Poynter, Guardian, Media & Entertainment, NetNewsCheck Latest, Capital New York, The Wrap, paidContent, Mashable and Kirk LaPointe's …

Zachary M. Seward / Quartz:

The New York Times paywall has hit a growth wall — The New York Times just announced weak first-quarter results as advertising revenue slipped, but if you're trying to gauge the future health of America's preeminent newspaper, this is the key figure: 676,000 digital subscribers as of March 31 …

Discussion: paidContent, VentureBeat, AdExchanger, New York Magazine and The Huffington Post

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Times Company sees sale of ‘Boston Globe’ in second half of 2013 — The New York Times Co. expects to have a buyer for its New England Media Group, which includes The Boston Globe, sometime in the second half of the year, a company executive said on today's first-quarter earnings call with Wall Street analysts.

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:

New York Times Co.'s Sales Miss Estimates as Ad Revenue Dives — New York Times Co. (NYT), the newspaper publisher controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, reported first-quarter sales that missed analysts' estimates as it continued to lose advertising dollars.

Discussion: The New York Times Company and New York Times

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

At the ‘Times,’ the future of blogs is uncertain: Some shuttered, some dormant, all under review — The New York Times is deciding what to do with its dozens of blogs. — Sources tell Capital that a review of the blogs is underway ahead of the paper's planned web relaunch later this year.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

SpinMedia Adds Vibe Magazine to Its Digital Portfolio, Minus the Magazine — Last year, Steve Hansen bought Spin magazine, killed the print edition, and kept the website. — Now he's singing the same song with a new title: Hansen's SpinMedia is buying Vibe, the 20-year-old hip-hop and R&B magazine …

Discussion: Folio, New York Times, AdAge, FishbowlNY and mediabistro.com

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

First, the good news: ‘Daily News’ promotes two in digital — Daily News editor Colin Myler has announced two high-level promotions on the digital side of his newsroom. — The first is Lauren Johnston, promoted from digital managing editor to digital editorial director …

Jeff John Roberts / GigaOM:

Google: government censorship requests jumped 20% in last six months — Google has published its latest Transparency Report and the results are not encouraging for free speech advocates: governments around the world are asking it to remove more content than ever before.

Discussion: TechCrunch, ZDNet, Search Engine Land, CNET and The Next Web

BuzzFeed:

Lisa Tozzi Joins BuzzFeed As News Director — New York Times Veteran To Lead News Coverage For The Social Web — Social news site BuzzFeed announced today it has hired Lisa Tozzi as News Director. Joining BuzzFeed from The New York Times, Tozzi will lead the site's news coverage …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, @bydanielvictor and @buzzfeedben

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Startup BookShout raises $6M; no longer lets users import their Kindle and Nook books — Dallas-based book startup BookShout has raised $6 million in its second funding round. When the company launched, it allowed users to import their Nook and Kindle books onto the platform, but that function has been turned off.

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

WPP CEO Sorrell: Google Will Overtake News Corp As Our Largest Media Investment This Year Or Next — Martin Sorrell, the CEO of WPP, today laid out a stark picture of how significant a role digital is playing for the advertising giant. Speaking at the FT Digital Media Conference in London today …

Discussion: Guardian

BBC:

Leveson report: Newspapers reject press regulation plans — A number of newspapers are to publish a proposal for self-regulation backed by royal charter, after rejecting plans drawn up by the main political parties. — The government and Labour Party agreed to a royal charter last month …

Discussion: Guardian, politics.co.uk, BelfastTelegraph.co.uk and Telegraph

Aurindom Mukherjee / Reuters:

Time Warner Cable revenue misses as data services disappoint — (Reuters) - Time Warner Cable Inc, the second-largest U.S. cable operator, reported first-quarter revenue below analysts' estimates as it added fewer-than-expected subscribers for its high-speed data services.

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Bloomberg, RTTNews and MarketWatch

Anthony Kosner / The Content Strategist:

What Publishers Can Learn from Google's Patented News Article Rankings — Google is the publisher's angel — and its devil. The search engine claims to connect “1 billion unique users a week to news content,” from 50,000 sources in 30 languages. (By comparison, a large publisher …

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

New York Times Rumored To Be Courting Atlantic's Editor — NEW YORK — New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson recently met with Atlantic Editor-in-Chief James Bennet and discussed the possibility of him returning to the paper he worked at for 15 years, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Discussion: FishbowlDC