Mediagazer: Analysis: Canadian cable TV's ‘a la carte’ menu begins to take hold (Reuters)

6:00 PM ET, September 19, 2013

Top News:

Dan Primack / Fortune:

AllThingsD parting ways with Dow Jones — AllThingsD and The Wall Street Journal call it quits. — FORTUNE — Influential tech site AllThingsD is severing its ties with founding owner Dow Jones, a subsidiary of News Corp. (NWS). A formal statement is expected later today.

Discussion: The Wrap, Talking Biz News, Hollywood Reporter, @romenesko, @rafat, @edbott, @wsjpr, Talking New Media, @cschweitz, @joepompeo, @jhlava, @edmundlee, @edmundlee, @danprimack, @panzer, @dcseifert, @rafat, @amir, @obrien, @jbflint and @zseward

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Reuters nixes Next: Failed redesigns and the challenge of expanding a digital audience — Reuters' vision of the news service of the future — or at least the consumer-facing part of that vision — will look a little bit more like the present. Wednesday morning, the company announced …

Discussion: FishbowlDC, Talking Biz News, New York Times, @jayrosen_nyu, @antderosa, Big News Network.com, @jbenton, Columbia Journalism Review, @carr2n, @winobs, @gabestein, @mattzeitlin, @jaredbkeller, @felixsalmon, BuzzFeed and The New York Observer

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Reuters Next: Anatomy Of A Multi-Million-Dollar Misfire — What kind of company spends millions of dollars developing a product it's not sure it wants or needs? Thomson Reuters , apparently. — The back story behind its decision to scrap two years of development work on a new version …

Discussion: @jeffbercovici, New York Post, FishbowlNY, CNET and Talking Biz News

Craig Douglas / Boston Business Journal:

John Henry and NYT Co. set Oct. 15 deadline for Boston Globe's $70 million sale — Henry, NY Times set aggressive deadline to finalize Boston Globe sale — Billionaire investor John Henry and The New York Times Co. have set an Oct. 15 target date to close on the $70 million sale …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Craig Douglas / Boston Business Journal: Boston Globe in scramble to replace Cars.com business

Jasper Jackson / TheMediaBriefing.com:

Quartz to reach profitability by 2015 with native ads and open web focus — Atlantic Media Company, Advertising, Consumer Media, Digital Media, Newspapers — Business news site Quartz is on course to reach profitability in 2015, three years after its launch by The Atlantic Media Company.

Discussion: @felixsalmon, @dskok and Poynter, Thanks:@mediabrief

J.K. Trotter / Gawker:

Russia Today Airs Fake Footage of Rebels Using Sarin Gas in Syria — Russia Today is a self-described “news” channel that happens to be owned and operated by the Russian government, and therefore serves as a reliable outlet for whatever Russian President Vladimir Putin would like you to believe is “news.”

Discussion: Politico, @dylanbyers, Brown Moses Blog and The Huffington Post

Christine Haughney / New York Times:

New York Times Company to Start Paying Dividend — The New York Times Company announced on Thursday that it would pay a dividend to its shareholders for the first time in five years. — After a meeting of its board, the company said the board had voted to approve a dividend of four cents per share …

Discussion: Politico, Tech Trader Daily, 4-traders.com, @edmundlee and @chcktylr

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

Not all mass shootings are equal in the eyes of the media or the public — We've moved on, apparently. Barely 48 hours after a gunman murdered 12 people and injured six others in another U.S. bloodbath, the national news media had other things on their minds.

Discussion: Chickaboomer, TVNewser and TheBlaze.com

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:

Gone Native: The Magazine Whose Editors Write Ad Content — Over the summer, Mental Floss asked its online readers what kinds of tricks or skills would they like to learn as part of the magazine's “How To” series. It then turned those ideas into posts, paid for by Dos Equis, which also had four display ads on each page.

Discussion: @digiday

Erik Nielson / The Atlantic Online:

Did the Decline of Sampling Cause the Decline of Political Hip Hop? — Legal and financial limitations have put a damper on a musical tool that once served as an important way for rappers to connect with musical and social history. — Last week, the electronic artist Clive Tanaka filed …

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

Facebook ‘like’ deserves free speech protection: U.S. court — (Reuters) - Facebook users who employ the website's “like” feature to show support for a political candidate engage in legally protected speech, a U.S. appeals court said, reviving a lawsuit examining the limits of what people may constitutionally do online.

Discussion: Law Blog, GigaOM, Ars Technica, Bloomberg, ZDNet, Marketing Land, Business Insider, The Switch, The Verge and CNET

Andy Gensler / Billboard:

Exclusive: ‘Spotify Landmark’ Original Content Series Launches With Nirvana's ‘In Utero’ (Listen) — Spotify Landmark's homepage which launched yesterday with “the Real Story of Nirvana's In Utero.” (Screenshot)

Discussion: PandoDaily, The Verge, WebProNews and Music Week

Daniel Miller / Los Angeles Times:

Entertainment business IPOs started and stalled — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.'s trademark (MGM) — Call it the summer of the showbiz IPO shakeout. — Over the last several months, a handful of entertainment business companies either took key steps toward or away from initial public stock offerings.

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:

Time Promotes Three, Hires 11 Staffers — Nancy Gibbs hasn't been managing editor of Time for long, but she has already made some big moves. Gibbs just sent out a memo announcing three promotions and 11 new hires. Below are the details, followed by Gibbs' full note.

Discussion: The New York Observer and FishbowlDC

Reuters:

Analysis: Canadian cable TV's ‘a la carte’ menu begins to take hold — (Reuters) - A transformation in how some Canadian cable TV companies sell channels to consumers might be a sign of things to come in the much bigger U.S. market. — With “a la carte” pricing, cable companies …

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

BBC to axe 75 news posts — James Harding tells staff compulsory redundancies are possible as corporation seeks to reduce division's budget by £60m — The BBC is to axe 75 more posts in news and the English regions in the latest round of cuts as part of its £700m Delivering Quality First cost savings initiative.

Discussion: @therealflannerz, @joshhalliday, Press Gazette and @alstewitn

Alex Kantrowitz / AdAge:

One Publisher's Social Media Strategy: Outright Rejection — Monocle Eschews Social Media, Says It's No Worse Off Without It — Enamored with social media's ability to funnel traffic to their websites, publishers have leaped headfirst onto Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit and others.

Discussion: @niemanlab and @shannboogie

Sara Morrison / The Wrap:

Daily Mail Slapped With $3 Million Libel Lawsuit by Porn Actress — A softcore porn actress is suing Daily Mail's parent company Associated Newspapers Ltd. for $3 million, accusing one of the most-read news sites in the world of putting her photo on an article about an HIV positive adult actress without her permission.

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

DOJ To Reporter: We Can Prove You're Wrong, But We Want To Embarrass You, So We'll Wait — Over at Cryptome today there's an absolutely incredible exchange between the Justice Department's Brian Fallon (from the Office of Public Affairs — basically a PR guy) and Brian Heath, an investigative reporter from USA Today.

Discussion: Politico, The Huffington Post, @froomkin, @froomkin, @cjciaramella, @trevortimm and @cryptomeorg

Rem Rieder / USA Today:

Zuckerberg: No plans to get into news business — In Washington, D.C, to lobby for immigration reform, Facebook CEO participates in a wide-ranging interview at the Newseum. — CONNECT — While Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is buying The Washington Post, fellow digital icon Mark Zuckerberg …

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Cox Pulls Plug on Internet TV Trial — Cable operator's over-the-top service, aimed at price-sensitive cord-cutters, had used Fanhattan set-top box — After a three-month test, Cox Communications has ended the broadband-delivered subscription TV service it launched Southern California that had used Fanhattan's set-top box.

Discussion: GigaOM

Alexis Sobel Fitts / Columbia Journalism Review:

#Oceanfall: The Seattle Times' glitzy new digital package unveils a substantial piece of reporting on our changing seas — The Seattle Times' glitzy new digital package unveils a substantial piece of reporting on our changing seas — Like most newspapers around the country …

Robinson Meyer / The Atlantic Online:

Instapaper Thinks You Should Read This Story — Coming soon to that big stack of unread magazine articles? A recommendation engine. — At the center of our vast, electro-digital journalistic infotainment ecosystem, there, hidden behind the more recognizable names of the products it owns, is Betaworks.

Discussion: Instapaper, @theatlantictech, Cult of Mac and MacStories

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

Indianapolis Star partners with USA Today to boost national coverage — Instead of contracting its print edition like so many other papers, the Indianapolis Star is investing more resources in its print edition through a partnership with USA Today. — The paper will feature about 70 …

Discussion: Indianapolis Star, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Gannett Blog

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Yemeni journalists under attack despite progress - human rights report — A surge in attacks on journalists in Yemen is revealed today despite media controls having been eased under the government of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi. — The attacks, which threaten to overwhelm …

Discussion: Reuters

Wall Street Journal:

Nielsen to Add Data for Mobile TV Viewing — Firm Also Will Roll Out Service That Measures TV Tweets — Nielsen has long been a kingmaker in the TV industry. Its ratings data, which tracks viewership of shows, determines how advertisers shell out some $66 billion annually.

Discussion: Variety, CNET, Betabeat and The Verge

Marisa Guthrie / Hollywood Reporter:

Marlene Sanchez Dooner Joins Hispanic Enterprise Unit at NBCUniversal — Marlene Sanchez Dooner has been appointed to the newly created position of executive vp, Hispanic Enterprises & Content (HEC) at NBCUniversal, the company announced Thursday. Dooner, who is currently senior vp investor relations …

Discussion: TVNewser and Variety

Brooks Barnes / New York Times:

The Finke-Penske feud shows the difficulties of linking brands and personalities — Brand Suffers Most From Spat Between Owner and Hollywood Blogger — LOS ANGELES — For her detractors, and there are many, the turnabout is delicious: Nikki Finke, the blogger who squeezed Hollywood …