Mediagazer: Amazon, Overstock Race To Bottom In Book Price War (Andy Meek/BuzzFeed)

5:50 PM ET, August 1, 2013

Top News:

Eric Deggans to leave Tampa Bay Times for job as NPR's first TV critic — Eric Deggans, TV and media critic for the Tampa Bay Times, will become NPR's TV critic. — After nearly 18 years critiquing television, media, music and pop culture at the Tampa Bay Times, I will be leaving the newspaper …

Discussion: Poynter, @charlie_mccollu, @nextgenradio, @timkarr, @nabjdigital, @moryan, @tb_times, @davidfolkenflik, @npraudie, @craigtimes, @brianstelter and @deggans

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Digital subscriptions up 35% at New York Times & IHT, 70% at Boston Globe — Circulation revenues in the second quarter of 2013 rose 5.1 percent over the same period the year before, a company earnings report says. Advertising revenue fell 5.8 percent over the same period. Overall, revenue was down by .9 percent.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, NetNewsCheck Latest, Boston Herald, FishbowlNY, Forbes, Mashable, The New York Times Company, Media & Entertainment, @learmonth, @vkw, NetNewsCheck Latest, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, @mathewi and Reuters

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

The NYT's $150 million-a-year paywall — Growth slows sharply, but digital-subscriber revenue is propping up the paper — The New York Times's once-torrid paywall growth continued to slow in the second quarter, adding 23,000 digital-only subscribers. — That's the second quarter in a row …

Discussion: Forbes and @cjr

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:

New York Times Profit Tops Estimates on Digital Subscribers — New York Times Co. (NYT), the newspaper publisher controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, reported second-quarter profit that beat analysts' estimates as it drew more subscribers for its digital editions.

Discussion: @paulxharris

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York: Times C.E.O. Mark Thompson stays the course in second-quarter earnings call

Brad Stone / Businessweek:

Can Marissa Mayer Save Yahoo? — Marissa Mayer is sitting in URLs, the Yahoo! (YHOO) cafeteria, making the case for the future of a company that almost everyone in Silicon Valley views as doomed. Employees swarm around her, assembling rows of chairs for the afternoon's FYI …

Discussion: CNET, The Verge, Business Insider and @clairecm

BuzzFeed:

Is Tumblr Shrinking? — Yahoo bought Tumblr because Tumblr has millions of young users. But are they sticking around? — Last November, David Karp posted on Tumblr's staff blog. “I have an exciting and slightly overwhelming milestone to share with you,” the site's founder and CEO said.

Discussion: @jwherrman, @ryanpbroderick and @michaelnoer

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:

Despite Controversy, Rolling Stone ‘Boston Bomber’ Issue Is a Hit on Newsstands — Rolling Stone's “Boston Bomber” issue got a rash of bad publicity and retailers like CVS and Stop & Stop pulled it from shelves after a “Boycott Rolling Stone” campaign gained steam on Facebook.

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Mediaite, Erik Wemple, The Independent, BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, WebProNews, @simonhoupt, Daily Mail, The Big Lead, TheBlaze.com, Softpedia News, The Drum, New York Magazine, Gawker and FTVLive

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Plain Dealer plans special print section to explain shift to digital — The Plain Dealer, which laid off about 50 employees Wednesday, “plans a six-page special section in Sunday's paper to further explain the changes ahead,” Jay Miller reports. — The laid-off employees …

Discussion: Cleveland Magazine, Connie Schultz …, FishbowlNY, Cleveland Leader and Associated Press

Will Bunch / Philly.com:

The de-newspaperization of America — It used to be there were local newspapers everywhere. If you wanted to be a journalist, you could really make a good living working for your hometown paper. Now you have a few newspapers that make a profit because they are national brands …

Discussion: Businessweek, JIMROMENESKO.COM, GalleyCat, @urvaksh, Columbia Journalism Review, @johnrobinson, @will_bunch, @jmartnyt, @jfdulac, Columbia Journalism Review, @adamwagner1990, @majorcbs, Crain's Cleveland Business, Talking Biz News, @franklomonte and @tom_derrico

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

Fusion Launching October 28 With Nightly Jorge Ramos Program, Satire Block — Fusion, the upcoming cable channel from ABC News and Univision, will launch Monday October 28, the companies say. The channel will launch on a number of pay-TV operators, including Cablevision, Charter and Cox.

Discussion: New York Times, Broadcasting & Cable, Variety and The Huffington Post

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

Fusion Hires Former ‘Daily Show’ EP To Develop News/Satire Programming — Fusion, the upcoming cable news channel from Univision and ABC News, has made a big hire: it is adding former “Daily Show” head writer and EP David Javerbaum to its executive ranks. Javerbaum will serve as an EP for Fusion …

Discussion: ABC News, Politico, Variety, Hollywood Reporter and Deadline.com

RT:

Snowden granted 1-year asylum in Russia, leaves airport — NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia and is allowed to enter the country's territory. — The whistleblower has been granted temporary political asylum in Russia, Snowden's legal representative Anatoly Kucherena said.

Cotton Delo / AdAge:

U.S. Adults Now Spending More Time on Digital Devices Than Watching TV — Digital Devices Now Get More Than Five Hours Per Day, According to eMarketer — American adults this year will for the first time spend more time each day using digital media than watching TV, according to a new report by eMarketer.

Discussion: Gawker, MediaPost, Financial Times, brafton.com, Marketing Pilgrim, Kirk LaPointe's … and eMedia Vitals

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Dish Hit With 53-Station Blackout in Fight With Raycom — Local stations go dark for satcaster in 36 markets in latest clash over retransmission payments — In the latest blowup over broadcast TV retransmission fees, Dish Network customers in 36 markets lost access to 53 television stations owned …

Discussion: TVSpy, EON and Broadcasting & Cable

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Hulu Plans to Hook Subscription Service Into Google Chromecast — Online TV joint venture says it is ‘actively working’ with Google to add Hulu Plus access to $35 streaming adapter — Google's cheap Chromecast Internet TV adapter already lets users stream free Hulu content to their televisions …

Discussion: IntoMobile, AfterDawn.com, New York Times, Gizmodo, WebProNews, SlashGear, Mashable, TechnoBuffalo, Softpedia News, The Verge, Broadcasting & Cable, Business Insider and Engadget

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

New Spying Accusations Against U.S. — NEW YORK — The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is looking into a newspaper report that U.S. intelligence agencies helped New Zealand's military spy on a journalist working for the McClatchy newspaper chain, a spokesman told The Huffington Post.

Discussion: Poynter

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

German Publishers Can't Wean Themselves Off Google News, Despite Winning Copyright Law Change — Germany's new copyright law comes into force today but several major German publishers haven't rushed to pull their news snippets from Google News, despite lobbying in favour of tightening the law.

Discussion: Associated Press, The Verge, CNET, Nieman Journalism Lab, Plagiarism Today, GigaOM, Engadget and New Zealand Herald

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:

Want to sell some Kurt Vonnegut fan fiction? Now you can, on Amazon's Kindle Worlds — Amazon's Kindle Worlds has secured a license to Kurt Vonnegut works like Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle, allowing users to write and sell fan fiction based on those works.

Discussion: GalleyCat, @feldmaniac, CNET, Amazon.com and Engadget

Greg Sandoval / The Verge:

Netflix debuts multiple user profiles so your roomate won't screw up your recommendations — Members of a household using one Netflix account can each create their own viewing page — Netflix has built one of the world's most powerful recommendation engines.

Discussion: Netflix US & Canada Blog, Engadget, AllThingsD, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Wire, VentureBeat and The Next Web

Andy Meek / BuzzFeed:

Amazon, Overstock Race To Bottom In Book Price War — The two e-commerce retailers are aggressively trying to undercut each others' book prices, which is great for consumers but not so much for authors. — Screenshot of Amazon page for Sheryl Sandberg's book “Lean In.” Via: amazon.com

Discussion: The Week, Mother Jones and GigaOM

Rebecca J. Rosen / The Atlantic Online:

The Hole in Our Collective Memory: How Copyright Made Mid-Century Books Vanish — A book published during the presidency of Chester A. Arthur has a greater chance of being in print today than one published during the time of Reagan. — Last year I wrote about some very interesting research …

Discussion: The Switch and New Yorker