Mediagazer: Comcast downplays Netflix talks, still adding broadband subscribers (Joe Flint/Los Angeles Times)

12:15 PM ET, October 30, 2013

Top News:

Jim Roberts / Mashable:

Jim Roberts Is Mashable's Executive Editor and Chief Content Officer — Today is an exciting day for me. I'm joining a new family, as executive editor and chief content officer at Mashable. — To some it might seem a bit of a departure. You might imagine a headline like …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, @nytfridge, @magicandrew, @webjournalist and @raju

Brendan Sasso / Hillicon Valley:

Senate confirms Wheeler to lead FCC — The Senate unanimously confirmed Tom Wheeler, an investor and former industry lobbyist, to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday. — The vote was delayed for two weeks by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who expressed concern about Wheeler's views on political disclosure rules.

Discussion: New York Times, The Switch, Current.org, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, TIME, Gigaom, CNET, Broadcasting & Cable, The Verge, Broadcasting & Cable, Variety and The Wrap

Wayne Friedman / MediaPost News:

NBCU Revs Sink, But Cable Up 4% — Comcast's NBCUniversal had a modest financial gains for its third quarter — when excluding Summer Olympic comparisons of 2012. Overall revenue for NBCUniversal sank 14.2% to $5.9 billion. Without the London Olympics some $1.2 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2012, revenue was up 3.9%.

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

Comcast downplays Netflix talks, still adding broadband subscribers — “Despicable Me 2” did well for Comcast. — Comcast executives downplayed speculation that it was near a deal with Netflix to add the streaming service to its cable set-top boxes. — On a conference call with analysts …

Discussion: Capital New York

AllThingsD:

Intel May Turn Over Its Web TV Project to Verizon — Intel's efforts to break into the TV business may be coming to a close. — Sources say the chipmaker is close to a deal to hand over control of Intel Media, the unit that has been trying to build a Web-based subscription TV service …

Discussion: The Verge, Variety, Electronista, Gizmodo, @jyarow, Engadget, CNET, FierceOnlineVideo News and Softpedia News

Reuters:

Three ex-Murdoch journalists plead guilty to phone hacking — (Reuters) - Three former senior journalists from Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid the News of the World have pleaded guilty to charges relating to phone-hacking, the trial of two of the media mogul's former editors heard on Wednesday.

Discussion: Associated Press, Politico, Guardian, Globe and Mail, BBC and Telegraph

Michael Holden / Reuters:
British justice on trial in phone-hacking trial, jury told

Discussion: Guardian and Hacked Off

Olivia Petersen / Politico:

POLITICO to Launch ‘POLITICO Magazine’ — POLITICO, the country's dominant political news source, announced today that this November it will launch POLITICO Magazine, a new print and online publication that will convene the most interesting, provocative and important thinkers and writers around …

Discussion: @tanyapampalone

Rachel Donadio / New York Times:

Greeks Question Media, and New Voices Pipe Up — ATHENS — Late on a recent evening, crowds gathered at the Radio Bubble cafe in downtown Athens, drinking beer and talking politics. The cafe, in the trendy yet rough-around-the-edges Exarchia neighborhood, funds a small leftist online radio station …

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

AP's new Lingofy plugin is like a robot copy editor — Lingofy is a browser plugin that “checks website content for AP Stylebook's spelling, language, punctuation, usage and journalistic style guidelines,” the Associated Press says in a press release. The for-purchase plugin also checks …

Discussion: ap.org

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Newspapers' bid for injunction against press regulation royal charter fails — Publishers take their case to court of appeal after high court refuses to grant them last-minute ‘stay’ — Newspaper and magazine publishers have failed in their application for an injunction to prevent …

Discussion: The Independent, Telegraph and Press Gazette

Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:

Not even two weeks after shutdown, BitTorrent search site isoHunt is back — New anonymous creators tell TorrentFreak the site is a “file-sharing icon.” — Less than two weeks ago, IsoHunt, the notorious search engine site for BitTorrent files, agreed to shut down and pay $110 million …

Discussion: Guardian and Digital Trends

Dru Sefton / Current:

Bill Moyers ending Moyers & Company in January — Bill Moyers announced today to his colleagues in public TV that the last broadcast of his Moyers & Company public-affairs show will air Jan. 3, 2014, when current funding commitments end. — He also said that his production company is …

Alan Rusbridger / The New York Review of Books:

The Snowden Leaks and the Public — 1. — It is harder than you might think to destroy an Apple MacBook Pro according to British government standards. In a perfect world the officials who want to destroy such machines prefer them to be dropped into a kind of giant food mixer that reduces them to dust.

Discussion: @hofrench, @evgenymorozov, @nybooks, @smithsam and Kirk LaPointe's …

Harry McCracken / TIME:

With New Nook GlowLight, Barnes & Noble Gets Back in the E-Reading Game — The last twelve months have been a heck of a roller-coaster ride for venerable bookseller and gadget-maker-come-lately Barnes & Noble. A year ago, it released nice new Nook HD tablets which offered, among other things, movies from B&N's own new video store.

Discussion: USA Today, Good E-Reader, CNET, Fast Company, Associated Press, Mashable, ZDNet, Gizmodo, Engadget, TechCrunch and The Verge

Wayne Friedman / MediaPost:

Consumers Remain Indifferent To Smart TVs — A majority of consumers aren't interested in buying a new smart TV over the next 12 months — but advertising its strong attributes could help turn that indifference around. — Some 73% of consumers have given a thumbs down to buying a new smart TV …

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:

New York Times Ad Chief: Branded Content Units Coming Soon — Redesigned Times Website Will Include New Ad Units — The New York Times is planning to step off the sidelines and into the world of native advertising online, where a growing list of traditional publishers have thrown their arms around sponsored or branded content.

Thanks:@steverubel

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:
New York Times Struggles to Replace Print Ads With Digital Sales

Discussion: Guardian, @joepompeo, @raju, @abeaujon, @felixgillette, Reuters and @edmundlee