Mediagazer: Al Jazeera America Debut Approaches, With Fewer Commercials (Jeanine Poggi/AdAge)

6:40 PM ET, August 15, 2013

Top News:

Sony Reaches Preliminary Programming Deal With Viacom for Online Pay TV Service — By - AMOL SHARMA And - SHALINI RAMACHANDRAN - — Sony Corp. has reached a preliminary agreement with Viacom Inc. to carry the media company's cable channels on its planned Internet-based TV service …

Discussion: Deadline.com, Home Media Magazine, The Huffington Post, Pocket-lint, GigaOM, CNET, Variety, Business Insider, @shaliniwsj, @jyarow, @pkafka, The Verge, @tomgara, @wsjcorpintel, @amolsharmawsj and 24/7 Wall St.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Viacom-Sony TV Is a Big Deal. It's Also the Same Deal We Already Have. — Viacom's deal to deliver its cable TV shows to a new Web video service from Sony isn't final. — But it is a big deal: As the Wall Street Journal first reported today, this is the first time a major programmer has agreed …

Discussion: @jbflint, @pkafka, GigaOM, Engadget and @shaliniwsj

Brian Stelter / New York Times:
Sony and Viacom Reach Tentative Internet TV Deal

Discussion: @brianstelter

Bryan Goldberg / PandoDaily:

Take Two — I messed up. — There has been a lot of response to my fundraise blog post on PandoDaily on Tuesday. Most of that response has been negative. And there are many good reasons for the criticism: — It over-simplified the editorial landscape.

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

What Was This Bro Thinking? Bustle.com's Bryan Goldberg Explains Himself — Considering he only wanted to launch a women's-interest website, Bryan Goldberg must have been surprised to find himself the internet's primary object of hatred yesterday. — No doubt it had a lot …

Discussion: Slate, @maura, @abenedikt, @maureenoco, @samfbiddle, @laureni, The Hairpin, Valleywag, Business Insider, Mediaite and GigaOM

Philip Bump / The Atlantic Wire:

Syrian Hackers Use Outbrain to Target The Washington Post, Time, and CNN — For a brief period on Thursday morning, the Washington Post's website redirected some visitors to a webpage controlled by the Syrian Electronic Army. In a brief statement, the site didn't indicate how the infiltration occurred …

Discussion: Ask The Post, The Switch, New York Times, Krebs on Security, FishbowlNY, VentureBeat, The Wrap, Los Angeles Times, CNNMoney.com, ZDNet, The Verge, Graham Cluley, Featured stories, Consumerist, Digiday, The Drum and The Daily Caller

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Washington Post website hacked — Readers were “redirected to the site of the Syrian Electronic Army,” Senior Social Media Producer TJ Ortenzi writes in an editor's note. “The Post is working to resolve the issue.” — The New York Times' website was down Wednesday …

Discussion: E Hacking News [ EHN ], The Daily Beast, The Switch, Bloomberg, USA Today, Mashable, ZDNet, Hillicon Valley, ABC News, FishbowlNY, New York Magazine, AllThingsD, @poynter and Digits

Jeanine Poggi / AdAge:

Al Jazeera America Debut Approaches, With Fewer Commercials — Cable News Network Will Have Just Six Minutes of Ad Time per Hour — Al Jazeera America will have fewer commercials than other cable TV networks when it begins transmitting on Tuesday. — The cable news network will air …

Discussion: Variety, B&C, Adweek, TVNewser and Hollywood Reporter

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:
Al Jazeera America faces more than the usual new-kid challenges

Discussion: @jbflint

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

Fox Sports 1 will launch with DirecTV, Dish and Time Warner Cable — Regis Philbin will host a show on Fox Sports 1. — Fox Sports 1 has struck agreements with three major distributors that will ensure that the new cable network will be available in the majority of pay-TV homes …

Discussion: Variety, Bloomberg, Reuters, Fox Sports, Reuters, @auerheat, BWW TV Stories, Sporting News Bob … and Business Insider

John Ourand / SportsBusiness Daily:

Sources: Distributors Hold The Line On Fox Sports 1 Sub Fee — The frenzied rush that saw several of the country's biggest distributors agree to carry FS1 at launch occurred only after Fox surprisingly backed off its asking price of $0.80 per subscriber per month, according to multiple high-level sources.

Discussion: @ourand_sbj and The Big Lead

Don Kaplan / NY Daily News:

Verizon FiOS gains customers as standoff continues between Time Warner Cable and CBS — Some Time Warner Cable customers say they've been left on hold when trying to cancel service — Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning (l.) his brother and New York Giants counterpart, Eli Manning …

Greg Sandoval / The Verge:
Blackout brawler: meet the combative CEO keeping CBS off your television

Discussion: @richbtig

Tim Kenneally / The Wrap:
Time Warner Cable Slapped With Class Action Suit Over CBS Blackout

Discussion: GigaOM, Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times, Courthouse News Service, Variety, Deadline.com and Broadcasting & Cable

Aaron Smith / CNNMoney.com:

Buffett's Berkshire dumps Gannett, buys Dish Network — Warren Buffett's investment firm Berkshire Hathaway dumped its shares of newspaper giant Gannett according to SEC documents, and took a new position in Dish Network. — In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Fortune, Gannett Blog, San Francisco Chronicle, Reuters, Stocks To Watch, Reuters, Forbes, Big News Network.com and GigaOM

Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke / The New York Observer:

Maer Roshan Joins Board of Directors at Assignmint.com — Maer Roshan, former editor of Radar and founder of the recently shuttered The Fix, is joining the board of directors at Assignmint.com, a start-up job management site designed to streamline the editorial process between freelance writers and publishers.

Wenqian Zhu / CNNMoney.com:

Journalist jobs are picking up — Jobs for journalists are on the upswing. — That's good news for an industry in upheaval. Just this month, there's been a flurry of deals involving struggling marquee American publications. Amazon ( AMZN, Fortune 500) founder and CEO Jeff Bezos bought …

Discussion: Poynter, Folio, @kismith, The Huffington Post and @huffpostmedia