Mediagazer: How being a tax dummy cost The New York Times $60M (Allan Sloan/Fortune)

11:20 PM ET, November 5, 2013

Top News:

Deadline.com And Nikki Finke Parting Ways — Despite attempts by all to have it go otherwise, Nikki Finke will no longer be leading Deadline Hollywood, and she will not be writing weekend box office or filing stories going forward. This is an emotional and painful parting of the ways for us.

Discussion: The Wrap, FishbowlNY, @nikkifinke, @nikkifinke, Variety, @popcornhaas and @samontv

Bill Carter / New York Times:

CBS News Defends Its ‘60 Minutes’ Benghazi Report — CBS News, under fire from critics who dispute details in a “60 Minutes” report on the Benghazi attacks last year that was broadcast on Oct. 27, aggressively defended the report's accuracy on Tuesday and the account of its main interview subject.

Discussion: @jesslevin, @mlcalderone, @ericboehlert, @romenesko and The Huffington Post

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

TV Investments Drag on 21st Century Fox Profits — In its first three months as a separate company, 21st Century Fox produced revenue that surpassed analysts' expectations, but its profit came in slightly below expectations, reflecting the company's investments in new programming that it says will pay off over the long term.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, The Wrap, Capital New York, 21cf.com and Fox Business

Allan Sloan / Fortune:

How being a tax dummy cost The New York Times $60M — A mistake made 20 years ago cost the Times big during the sale of The Boston Globe. — The New York Times Co's (NYT) purchase of The Boston Globe for more than $1 billion twenty years ago has turned out to be among the worst single newspaper acquisitions in history.

Joshua Goldman / CNET:

Streamnation expands to streaming, sharing your movie, TV show collections — The service that's built for storing, streaming, and sharing your photos and videos is now looking to become a streaming media hub. — Remember when you used to let friends and family borrow a DVD?

Discussion: VentureBeat, AllThingsD, The Next Web and The Verge

Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:

Washington Times Ends Rand Paul's Column After Plagiarism — Paul had written hundreds of articles for the paper. — Mark Wilson / Getty Images — The conservative Washington D.C. newspaper The Washington Times announced Tuesday it is ending Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's column …

Discussion: New York Times, Talking Points Memo, Washington Times, Mediaite, The Wrap, Hot Air and The Huffington Post

Erik Sass / MediaPost:

AP Taps MediaVoice For Native Ads — The Associated Press is bringing native advertising to its Web site, mobile site and mobile app in partnership with Polar, which operates a native advertising platform for digital publishers called MediaVoice. — The deal allows the AP to deliver native ads …

Joan E. Solsman / CNET:

AOL's big Adap.tv buy ignites sales, but it whiffs on profit — If you ask AOL, the third quarter was all about revenue, revenue, revenue — never mind that big miss on profit. In the latest three-month period, the online media company grew advertising dollars at double the rate it did the quarter before …

Discussion: TechCrunch, AdAge, Crain's New York Business, VentureBeat, FishbowlNY, Street Fight, Business Insider and @sai

Reuters:
AOL ad sales rise, but Patch weighs on profit

Discussion: Forbes, New York Times, TechCrunch, Poynter and USA Today

Lucas Shaw / The Wrap:

Netflix Gets Back Into the Movie Business: Big Deal, Little Deal or No Deal? — Netflix is back in the movie business after picking up exclusive distribution rights to “The Square,” Jehane Noujaim's award-winning documentary about recent political tumult in Egypt.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and CNET

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Yahoo's Mayer in talks with Ryan Seacrest about creating original content — Yahoo's Mayer Now Chit-Chatting With Ryan Seacrest About Content Ideas — Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is tearing her way through the content celebrities, it seems. — First, news star Katie Couric.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Is AOL Finally Making Money From Content? Maybe! — One of the perennially weird things about AOL is that it's a content company that doesn't make money from content: All of its actual profit has come from subscribers to its old Internet-access business, which still has 2.5 million customers,* who pay $20 a month to get online.

Discussion: @dkthomp and @pkafka

Matthew Cooper / NationalJournal.com:

Fred Hiatt Offered to Quit Jeff Bezos's Washington Post — Jeff Bezos has yet to truly make a mark on his latest acquisition, The Washington Post. In some ways, that shouldn't be a surprise: The deal closed only a month ago. But that doesn't mean that there hasn't been some potential for a shake-up.

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu and FishbowlDC

David Zax / Fast Company:

A Black Media Brand Relaunches, While Sticking To Its Roots — Today, TheRoot.com, the website focusing on African-American news and commentary, unveiled a comprehensive redesign, nearly five years after the Washington Post Company-owned website first launched in 2008.

Discussion: Media Wire Daily