Mediagazer: Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop Alum Tom Ascheim Named President of ABC Family (Cynthia Littleton/Variety)

5:20 PM ET, December 11, 2013

Top News:

Turning the Page on Anonymity: The Future of HuffPost Comments — Maintaining a civil environment for real conversation and community has always been key to The Huffington Post. From day one, our comments were pre-moderated, and we invested in the most advanced moderation technology along with human moderators.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, 10,000 Words, @adrianshort, @jayrosen_nyu, @niemanlab, @dangillmor and Poynter

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Apple TV gets live news programming with Bloomberg TV — Bloomberg TV launched an app on Apple TV devices Wednesday morning that includes a live feed of the cable networks financial news programming as well as access to on-demand videos. The live feed is available without authentication …

Discussion: TechCrunch, @brianstelter and 9to5Mac

Don Reisinger / CNET:
Apple TV gets content boost with Crackle, Watch ABC

Discussion: AllThingsD and The Verge

Comcast:

Comcast Plans to Add New Networks and Distributors to SEEiT Platform — ABC Entertainment Group, A+E Networks Group, AMC Networks Inc., Cablevision's Optimum TV, Charter Communications, Crown Media Family Networks, Discovery Communications, Fox Networks Group and Time Warner Cable are expected …

Discussion: Engadget, @awallenstein and @thefoaguy

Bryan Bishop / The Verge:
Twitter becomes a better TV remote control as ABC, AMC, and Fox sign up for See It

Discussion: AdAge and Hollywood Reporter

Andrea Peterson / The Switch:

News sites could protect your privacy with encryption. Here's why they probably won't. — “I've basically been trying to bribe media organizations at this point to turn on SSL,” jokes Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist and a senior policy analyst at the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

Discussion: Techdirt, Free Press Blog, Wired, @aurich, @csoghoian, @jcstearns, @freedomofpress, @mathewi, The Verge, ZDNet, Electronista, PandoDaily, Engadget and CNET

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Vice Media Buys a Tech Company to Experiment With Content Distribution — ADVERTISING, journalism and technology continue to converge. The latest example: Vice Media's acquisition of Carrot Creative, a digital agency that creates apps, websites and games for media companies and brands.

Discussion: VCPOST, @rafat, @jamesnord and Capital New York

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:

Time Criticized For Choosing Pope Francis Over Edward Snowden As Person Of The Year — Time chose the widely popular Pope Francis as its Person of the Year for 2013, sparking criticism from many who thought that the magazine's choice for runner-up, Edward Snowden, deserved the top prize.

Discussion: TIME, TIME, Capital New York, Forbes, Guardian, Business Insider, The Switch, The Week, Latest News & Headlines, PRNewser, Gothamist, Talking Points Memo, Softpedia News and Newsy

Christine Haughney / New York Times:

Gannett to Add USA Today to Local Papers — Gannett Company, one of the nation's largest newspaper chains, will try to expand its advertising and circulation revenue by inserting parts of its flagship newspaper, USA Today, into its local newspapers. — The company is expected to announce …

Discussion: USA Today, Gannett Blog and @susanpage

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

News organisations plead with Syrian rebels to stop abducting journalists — Thirteen news organisations, including The Guardian, have signed a letter calling on rebel groups in Syria to desist from kidnapping journalists and asking for the release of those currently being held hostage.

Discussion: Committee to Protect …, New York Times, FishbowlNY, The Atlantic Online, Capital New York, Associated Press, The Huffington Post, euronews, Online NewsHour and New York Times

Erik Wemple:

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow to write Washington Post column — The journalistic bond between The Post and MSNBC just grew a bit stronger, as the paper's opinion section announced that MSNBC host Rachel Maddow will be writing a monthly column. “We expect that she will bring to Post readers the strong arguments …

Discussion: WashPost PR, TheBlaze.com and The Huffington Post

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

Beastie Boys countersue as fair use fight over “Girls” song escalates — A copyright case between the Beastie Boys and toy maker GoldieBlox just got nastier: the rap group claims in a court filing that rewriting its “Girls” song for a video commercial does not count as “fair use,” …

Discussion: The Wrap, Fast Company, Variety, GeekWire, Rolling Stone, Businessweek, Hollywood Reporter, Gothamist, The Verge, @rga, Techdirt, TeleRead and Columbia Journalism Review

Stephen Totilo / Kotaku:

YouTube Channels Crippled By Copyright Claims — Numerous video game-related YouTube personalities have spent the last day digging through piles of copyright claims suddenly filling their inboxes, claims that they say are messing with their ability to produce and profit from videos they post online.

Discussion: Forbes, Polygon, @levelsio, Tubefilter, VentureBeat, @jerryandharry, @simonhoupt, Plagiarism Today and Marketing Pilgrim

Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:

Spotify brings free music to all devices (with caveats); snags Led Zeppelin — NEW YORK CITY — In its quest to entice more users, Spotify is finally bringing its free music service to more devices — though they won't all get the same free content. — A new ad-supported offering …

Discussion: New York Times, Spotify Blog, AdAge, AllThingsD, Media & Entertainment, Newsy, Reuters, Rolling Stone, Betabeat, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, App Advice, Variety, CNET, Hollywood Reporter, @devindra, The Verge, Mashable, Pocket-lint, Telegraph, Softpedia News, Gigaom and The Next Web

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Web Video Startup Ooyala Raises $43 Million — We saw a smattering of ad tech IPOs this year, and there are a bunch of companies that are supposedly lined up for next year. — Here's one you likely won't see going public in 2014 — at least not in the beginning of the year: Ooyala, the Web video startup.

Discussion: The Wrap, VentureBeat, Mashable and Variety

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:

Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop Alum Tom Ascheim Named President of ABC Family — Exec worked with Disney-ABC TV Group chief Anne Sweeney early in his career — Former Nickelodeon and Sesame Workshop exec Tom Ascheim has been tapped as president of ABC Family.

Discussion: The Wrap

Lauren Kirchner / Columbia Journalism Review:

Jana Winter's victory — On Tuesday, The New York Court of Appeals overturned a subpoena that's been hanging over investigative reporter Jana Winter's head since March, and resolved a legal battle that lasted over a year. The subpoena had called on Winter to appear in the James Holmes criminal trial …

Discussion: New York Times, New Yorker, The Daily Caller, FishbowlNY, The Wrap and The Desk

Josh Horwitz / Tech in Asia:

Marcus Brauchli, once of WSJ and Washington Post, invests in Taipei startup The News Lens — The News Lens, the startup that wants to disrupt traditional media in Asia, just received its first round of funding — Mario Yang (left), co-founder and editor-in-chief at The News Lens …

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:

Paywalls Boost Ad Rates for Some Magazines and Newspapers, OPA Study Finds — It's All About the Subscription Data (and What You Do with It) — Online paywalls are helping some newspaper and magazine websites increase the ad rates they charge, according to a new report from the Online Publishers Association.

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Digital Magazine Startup Magzter Raises $10M To Fuel Global Growth — New York-based Magzter, a startup founded in 2011 to help magazine publishers get their pubs in the hands of digital readers, regardless of which platform they choose to use to read. In two years of operation …

Discussion: Folio

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:

New York Times Expects Digital Ad Growth in 2014 — New York Times CEO Mark Thompson intends to restore growth to the company's digital advertising revenue next year after recent declines, he told a meeting of investors Tuesday. — To spur growth, the Times is introducing branded content solutions …

Discussion: @laureni, @adage and Capital New York

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Warner Takes Netflix-Style Service for Old Movies to iPads — Studio says Warner Instant Archive now supports closed captioning — Warner Bros. has launched an iPad tablet app for its subscription-streaming service for classic film and TV titles, a sign the premium-priced offering …

Discussion: @willmckinley

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The U.K.'s Ampp3d thinks it knows why you want to click on charts, images, and memes — Data-driven storytelling and web-native, sharable journalism are two of the biggest trends in media at the moment. If you locked the two together in a room, Ampp3d might be what would walk out the door.

Discussion: Martin Belam

Angela Haggerty / The Drum:

YouTube 2013 ad revenues estimated to jump more than 50% to $5.6bn — YouTube's projected advertising revenue for this year will have jumped by more than 50 per cent to $5.6bn, according to a report. — The report from media research firm eMarketer projects that YouTube's net revenues once partners …

Discussion: Gigaom, Guardian, AdAge, Variety and Digits

John Herrman / BuzzFeed:

Why Twitter Just Joined The Backchannel Wars — Direct messages to the forefront, big photos in tow. Twitter knows: The service that controls messaging controls the world. — Another day, another new messaging app. The only difference: This one is already installed on your phone.