Mediagazer: Random House acquires Figment, the teen writing site founded by Condé Nast vets (Laura Hazard Owen/Gigaom)

8:20 PM ET, October 30, 2013

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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: paidContent, @jonathanellis, @lheron, @nytfridge, @fivethirtyeight, @megan, @justinnxt, @benparr, New York Times, @magicandrew, @webjournalist, @raju, The Wrap, FishbowlNY and Talking New Media

BBC:

Press regulation: Privy Council grants royal charter — A new cross-party royal charter on press regulation has been granted by the Privy Council, the government says, after the newspaper industry lost a last-minute court challenge. — Court of Appeal judges refused newspaper publishers …

Discussion: Telegraph, Press Gazette, Guardian, Sky News, UK - The Huffington Post, @bbcnews, Hacked Off, @patrickwintour and Big News Network.com

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: Telegraph, @marksweney, Telegraph, The Independent, Press Gazette and Kirk LaPointe's …

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: Variety, Press Association, Guardian, ProPublica, Gawker, BBC, Trust.org, Globe and Mail, Politico, Associated Press, Big News Network.com and Telegraph

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.

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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%.

Discussion: Deadline.com and Radio & Television …

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

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 said 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 …

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Laura Hazard Owen / Gigaom:

Random House acquires Figment, the teen writing site founded by Condé Nast vets — Random House Children's Books has acquired Figment, the teen reading and writing online community founded by Condé Nast's Jacob Lewis and Dana Goodyear in 2010. Lewis has worked at Random House since July.

Discussion: PublishersWeekly.com, Good E-Reader and GalleyCat

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Digital subscriptions up 24% at Financial Times — The Financial Times “reached its highest circulation in its 125-year history,” owner Pearson PLC's nine-month trading report says. Circulation is up 5 percent over the same period in 2012, and digital subscriptions are up 24 percent, “to almost 387,000,” the statement says.

Discussion: Guardian and Pearson

Taylor Soper / GeekWire:

ESPN mobile properties saw more unique visitors than ESPN.com in September for first time ever — Here's yet another sign of the movement toward mobile devices: ESPN, for the first time ever, saw more unique visitors on its mobile properties than on ESPN.com in September.

Discussion: Poynter

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

This year, no star-studded lunch planned for Time ‘Person of the Year’ rollout — Time magazine is gearing up for its annual Person of the Year rollout, in which the newsweekly anoints a public figure who “for better or for worse has done the most to influence the events of the year.”

David Zurawik / Baltimore Sun:

‘PBS NewsHour’ has lost 48 percent of its audience in last 8 years — By David Zurawik — Eight years ago this month, I did an interview with then anchor Jim Lehrer in connection with the 30th anniversary of the “PBS NewsHour.” — It was a laudatory piece, as I had long shared Lehrer's values about journalism and democracy.

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

“We're still babies at it”: BuzzFeed Video's strategy relies on identity, emotion, and sharing content as communication — A year ago, Ze Frank — Internet “virologist,” creator of the beloved the show with zefrank, and online video pioneer — was tapped to head BuzzFeed's video department …

Discussion: @niemanlab and SND