Mediagazer: Financial Times faces weak advertising market, says parent company (Mark Sweney/Guardian)

3:45 PM ET, April 26, 2013

Top News:

Alexander C. Kaufman / FishbowlNY:

AOL Music Shuttered, Staff Laid Off — AOL has shuttered its AOL Music division and laid off its staff, according to pink-slipped employees on Twitter. — Spinner.com, a rock-music news site under the AOL Music banner, announced suddenly on Thursday afternoon that it was shutting down.

Discussion: TechCrunch, RapFix and AllAccess.com

David Folkenflik / NPR:

Koch Brothers Could Buy Tribune Papers To Add Media Division … David and Charles Koch control what is believed to be the nation's largest privately held company, Koch Industries. They share a strong libertarian bent against high taxes and government regulation.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM and Hit & Run

Garance Franke-Ruta / The Atlantic Online:

Why Big Cities Make Media Liberal—and Why the Koch Brothers Can't Do Anything About It — On Sunday, the New York Times reported that the Koch brothers — yes, those Koch brothers, of dumping mad cash into elections fame — are considering buying the Tribune network of newspapers in a bid …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Wonkblog, Slate, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Thanks:@underoak

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

White House Correspondents' Association dinner isn't costly, but the parties are — Figure on paying big time for a semi-glamorous locale; an embassy will do (but only one for a major country). Then, add in food and booze — about $100 a head. Plus entertainment, security, cleanup, insurance.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, Mediaite, The Huffington Post and Chickaboomer

Tom Lavell / Bloomberg:

Murdoch to Get $28.3 Million Pay When News Corp. Splits — Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire founder of News Corp., will receive $28.3 million in combined compensation next year from the two businesses created by the breakup of his media empire. — Murdoch's base pay in 2014 will amount to $8.1 million …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, FishbowlNY and Seeking Alpha

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Financial Times faces weak advertising market, says parent company — Pearson predicts difficult first quarter for newspaper, with total group revenues down 1% year on year to £1.2bn — Pearson has said that the Financial Times faced a “weak” advertising market in the first quarter of this year …

Discussion: Media & Entertainment, The Drum and Talking Biz News

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Why the New York Times has set up a newsroom analytics team — The team was set up by Aron Pilhofer, who already runs the interactive news team, social media team and communities team, to introduce editorial-focused analysis of data — Copyright: By DaveBleasdale on Flickr. Some Rights Reserved.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Chris Velazco / TechCrunch:
The New York Times Releases Its Headline-Reading Google Glass App

Discussion: Forbes, CNET, AppNewser, MediaShift, Softpedia News, Engadget and The Next Web

Andrew Wallenstein / Variety:

New Reality Show to Skip TV, Play Entirely on Social Media (EXCLUSIVE) … Who says a reality show has to air on TV? — The Chernin Group is producing an audacious new unscripted series that will be distributed entirely on social-media platforms instead of having a home on TV, according to sources familiar with the production.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times

Reuters:

Amazon's success formula: move bits instead of boxes — (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc appears to have figured out the secret to being more profitable: sell less physical stuff. — The company reported slowing revenue growth and offered a disappointing outlook for this quarter on Thursday …

Discussion: Washington Post, Good e-Reader, New York Times, Bloomberg and Business Insider

Casey Newton / The Verge:
Kindle TV: why does Amazon need a set-top box?

Discussion: ReadWrite, VatorNews, Wall Street Journal, GigaOM and The Next Web

Joe Coscarelli / New York Magazine:

New York Times Going Back to Not Caring About Blogs — As part of its looming redesign, the New York Times is moving away from what the Internet calls “blogs,” starting with the Media Decoder section of the site, home to the quicker, sassier musings of Bill Carter, Brian Stelter, David Carr …

Discussion: Media Decoder

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:
At the ‘Times,’ the future of blogs is uncertain: Some shuttered, some dormant, all under review

Discussion: @brianstelter, @thegarance, @felixsalmon, @abeaujon, @mlcalderone, @buzzfeedben and @jayrosen_nyu

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Powerhouse reporter Bob Hennelly to leave WNYC; station suffers a digital divide — WNYC has lost one of its heavyweights: Bob Hennelly, a longtime investigative reporter who's been with the National Public Radio affiliate for more than a decade, is leaving the station.

Sarah Lyall / New York Times:

New Law Makes Suing for Libel Harder in England — LONDON — London's reputation as the libel capital of the world, “a town called sue,” is poised to end. — A new law enacted Thursday strengthens the position of people sued for libel here and puts an end to most cases of so-called libel tourism …

Discussion: Nature

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

New York Times paywall growth slows — But it remains to be seen whether that's a one-quarter blip or the new normal — The torrid growth in digital-only subscribers to The New York Times slowed sharply in the first quarter. Worse, advertising fell so sharply that the paper's overall revenue declined slightly.

Discussion: The Buttry Diary, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Atlantic Wire, Business Insider, AdAge, Newsonomics, Quartz and VentureBeat

Marco Arment / Marco.org:

The next generation of Instapaper — When I launched Instapaper in 2008, it was a very basic web app. It quickly expanded to define the pillars of the read-later market: a one-click “read later” bookmarklet, a web sync service, an adjustable text view optimized for reading, and an iPhone app with offline saving.