Mediagazer: Hulu Bids Depend on TV-Show Rights (Wall Street Journal)

6:20 PM ET, July 5, 2013

Top News:

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Silver Lake Abandons Hulu Purchase Effort, as Final Bidding Deadline Arrives Today — According to sources close to the situation, Silver Lake will not make a follow-on bid to buy the Hulu premium video service. The giant private equity firm had been allied in the effort …

Discussion: The Wrap, GigaOM, bizjournals, Wall St. Cheat Sheet, Variety and VentureBeat

Wall Street Journal:

Hulu Bids Depend on TV-Show Rights — The big media companies that created Hulu endowed the online video provider with arguably its most valuable asset: access to the current seasons of hit network-TV shows. Now, as an auction of the site enters its final stages, with final bids due Friday …

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

MuckRock cofounder plans to appeal NSA's response to his FOIA request — Michael Morisy didn't get the answer he was looking for after making a Freedom of Information Act request from the National Security Agency. Hoping to find out more about the NSA's Utah Data Center …

Discussion: @postbaron and @jcstearns

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Scotland Yard seeks Rupert Murdoch secret tape — In tape, Murdoch is heard admitting to Sun journalists that payments to public officials were part of 'culture of Fleet Street — Scotland Yard detectives were on Friday attempting to track down a secret recording of Rupert Murdoch admitting …

Discussion: Spiked, Hollywood Reporter, FishbowlNY, The Daily Beast, ExaroNews and pressgazette.co.uk

William Turvill / Press Gazette:
Private Eye broke Murdoch recording three weeks ago, so why is it only hitting the headlines now?

Discussion: pressgazette.co.uk

BBC:

BBC 3D programming ‘on hold’ indefinitely — The BBC is to suspend 3D programming for an indefinite period due to a “lack of public appetite” for the technology. — Kim Shillinglaw, the BBC's head of 3D, said it has “not taken off” with audiences who find it “quite hassly”.

Discussion: Radio Times, paidContent, New York Times, CNET, The Next Web, Guardian, Den of Geek, The Wrap and Broadband TV News

Nicky Woolf / The Atlantic Online:

The British Are Coming—And They've Brought Newspapers — An interview with the editor-in-chief of Guardian US, which broke the Edward Snowden story. The Guardian is looking to expand in the U.S. market. — Of the three English-language newspaper websites with the highest readerships, two are British.

Discussion: @saramorrison, @bobstep and @moorehn

Wall Street Journal:

SoftBank Gets Green Light for Merger With Sprint, Clearwire — By - DANNY YADRON and - THOMAS GRYTA - — SoftBank Corp.'s three-way merger with Sprint Nextel Corp. and Clearwire Corp. won final approval from U.S. regulators with the unanimous backing of the Federal Communications Commission, people familiar with the matter said.

Discussion: AndroidHeadlines.com, The Verge, Reuters and CNBC

David Streitfeld / New York Times:

As Competition Wanes, Amazon Cuts Back Discounts — Jim Hollock's first book, a true-crime tale set in Pennsylvania, got strong reviews and decent sales when it appeared in 2011. Now “Born to Lose” is losing momentum — yet Amazon, to the writer's intense frustration, has increased the price by nearly a third.

Discussion: NYT Bits, Business Insider and GeekWire

Josh Stearns / Mediashift:

3 Ways to Strengthen Press Freedom at the U.S. Justice Department — Want to stay current on media and technology from around the web? Get MediaShift's Daily Must Reads in your in-box! — One of the most troubling things about the politicians and pundits who are calling …

Discussion: Erik Wemple

Meg James / Los Angeles Times:

CBS Chief Leslie Moonves sells $22 million in stock — CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves, shown in May 2012, sold CBS shares this week for about $22 million. (Evan Agostini / Associated Press) — CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves sold 450,000 shares of CBS stock this week for about $22 million …

Eleanor Beardsley / Europe:

An Online Upstart Roils French Media, Politics … Every week, it seems, a new scandal is unearthed by the upstart, online newspaper Mediapart. The most recent bomb was that President Francois Hollande's budget minister was evading taxes when he was supposed to be cracking down on tax cheats.

Discussion: The Dish