Mediagazer: HBO and Showtime Strike Back: Subscriptions Aren't Actually Down (TIME)

11:35 AM ET, January 22, 2014

Top News:

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Dow Jones Chief Resigns In Shift by News Corp. — Lex Fenwick, the hard-driving chief executive who stumbled in his efforts to transform Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has resigned effective immediately as the company rethinks its strategy.

Discussion: Capital New York, @danwmedia, @jbenton, @nycjim and @moorehn

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:
Lex Fenwick out at Dow Jones

Discussion: Capital New York, Business Wire, Bloomberg, @jbenton, @stuartmillar159, @peterlauria3, @emilybell, Mediawire Daily, Media & Entertainment, AdAge, Politico, Wall Street Journal, FishbowlNY, The Wrap and Variety

Tania Branigan / Guardian:

Guardian blocked in China after story about leadership's offshore wealth — Access to the front page of newspaper's website blocked and availability of other stories intermittent — The Guardian appeared to be partially blocked in China on Wednesday after revealing that relatives …

Discussion: New York Times, @mlcalderone, Tech in Asia and The Next Web

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Phone-hacking trial: police defend dawn raid on Rebekah Brooks's home — Detective insists all searches are conducted without ‘fear or favour’ after jury hears officers checked baby's Moses basket — Police have defended their dawn raid on Rebekah Brooks's Oxfordshire home at the phone-hacking trial …

Discussion: Press Association and Press Association

Michael Holden / Reuters:
Police searched basket of Rebekah Brooks's baby, court hears

Discussion: The Independent, Guardian and thedrum.com

TIME:

HBO and Showtime Strike Back: Subscriptions Aren't Actually Down — The networks refute a new study that claims premium cable subscriptions are dropping — Pay-TV channels, Showtime, HBO and Starz are blasting a highly-touted study that said premium channels were losing subscribers …

Discussion: The Verge

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:
Showtime, HBO, Starz blast NPD study that says they lost subscribers

Discussion: SlashGear, @jbflint and Engadget

Emily Rauhala / TIME:

CNN, BBC Reporters Covering China Activist Trial Manhandled on Live TV — Street-side tussles take place outside Beijing court where transparency campaigner Xu Zhiyong is being tried behind closed doors — BBC journalist Martin Patience lived up to his name today.

Discussion: The Huffington Post and BBC

Kristen Hare / Poynter:

Radio Free Europe journalists beaten, detained in Kiev protests — On Wednesday, UPI reported that two journalists have been beaten and detained in the ongoing protests in Kiev. … In a video for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty posted Wednesday, the two badly beaten men, Dmytro Barkar and Ihor Iskhakov, talk about what happened.

Discussion: UPI and Radio Free Europe/Radio …

Dean Starkman / Columbia Journalism Review:

Ezra Klein and the early-mover disadvantage — No one knows if these new personal-franchise journalism ventures are going to work — The parade of departures of high-profile journalism talent from big newspapers, of which Ezra Klein's is the most recent, can basically be divided into two categories.

Discussion: Mediawire Daily, Capital New York, Gigaom, JackFlack.com and Slate

Andrew Sullivan / The Dish:
Alliances of media stars and legacy organizations make sense, but sometimes control matters more

Discussion: The New Republic, The New Republic, The New Republic and Talking New Media

Wall Street Journal:

Amazon considering online live TV service, has approached at least three media conglomerates seeking rights to distribute their channels — Amazon Considering Online Pay TV Service — Live TV Channels Would Compete With Cable, Satellite — Amazon.com Inc. has approached big entertainment companies …

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Amazon Denies It Has Plans to Create an Over-the-Top TV Service

Discussion: @brianstelter, BGR, Softpedia News and Pocket-lint

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Ex-AOL editor Cyndi Stivers joins Tina Brown's company — Cyndi Stivers, who saw her job as editor-in-chief of AOL.com eliminated in the upheaval at the media company late last year — after only seven months in the position — has a new gig lined up with Tina Brown's fledgling conference business.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Brian Stelter / CNN Money:

Verizon bets on the future of television — Verizon's purchase on Tuesday of Intel's OnCue television service foreshadows a day when a paying television subscriber will be able to watch any channel on any device, whenever and wherever they want. — It's been a long time coming.

Discussion: @cnnmoney and CNNMoney.com

Reuters:
Analysis: Verizon deal may push U.S. cable to offer online TV services

Discussion: New York Times

Robert Channick / Chicago Tribune:

Comcast resurrects EveryBlock in Chicago on Thursday, plans other U.S. cities later — Hyperlocal website EveryBlock to be resurrected … EveryBlock, the hyperlocal website shut down last February amid financial losses, is returning from internet limbo.

Discussion: Street Fight

Reuters:

Massive Internet mishap sparks Great Firewall scrutiny in China — (Reuters) - Human error likely caused a glitch in China's Great Firewall that saw millions of Internet users ironically rerouted to the homepage of a U.S.-based company which helps people evade Beijing's web censorship, sources told Reuters.

Discussion: CNN, @adampasick, CNET and NYT Bits

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Fox Will Stream Super Bowl XLVIII Free to Computers and iPads — Broadcaster to offer a ‘special preview’ of Fox Sports Go authenticated service for the NFL championship game on Feb. 2 — Fox Sports will use Super Bowl XLVIII as a showcase for its online and mobile authentication service …

Discussion: Forbes and CNET

Zachary M. Seward / Quartz:

The race is on to launch an internet TV service in the US — America's first pay TV service delivered entirely over the internet is coming. The only question is who will offer it. — A slew of companies—Sony, Verizon, Apple, and Amazon—are working on television services that would take advantage …

Discussion: Bloomberg, Gigaom, @zseward, Pocket-lint and Variety

Chris Ariens / TVNewser:

Weather Channel: DirecTV Subscribers Should Be Able to Switch, Without Penalty — The Weather Channel is ratcheting up the rhetoric in its fight to get back on DirecTV. — The leading weather TV channel, which begins a ninth day off the nation's second-largest pay TV service …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, AdAge, Deadline.com, Broadcasting & Cable and FishbowlNY

Jamie Weinstein / The Daily Caller:

Glenn Beck: ‘I think I played a role, unfortunately, in helping tear the country apart’ — Glenn Beck made a candid admission Tuesday night. — During an appearance on Fox News' “The Kelly File,” the former Fox News host reflected on his time at the network.

Discussion: Mediaite, BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, Politico, @allisonkilkenny and @mckaycoppins

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

The news curation game gets another entrant as the WaPo's former owner relaunches Trove — You might think the news-recommendation space is a little crowded, what with giant social networks like Twitter and Facebook as well as dedicated services like Prismatic, Zite and News360 …

Discussion: TechCrunch, The Verge, Re/code and Mashable, Thanks:@mathewi

Jasper Jackson / TheMediaBriefing.com:

News UK CEO: “A big bundle is a very efficient mechanism which works remarkably well” — News UK is unusual among newspaper groups in taking a hardline approach to digital subscriptions, eschewing metered models for an offer that provides online access to the whole bundle, or none of it.

Thanks:@henryctaylor

Robert Andrews / Beet.TV:

Guardian Preparing To Go Fully “Responsive” — The Guardian will soon overhaul its website to ensure ads, as well as editorial, adapt to work across the multitude of devices consumers use. — The publisher first launched a “responsive design” site in 2012 - a tactic a growing number …

Thanks:@beet_tv

Liz Hannaford / Journalism.co.uk:

Recalculating the newsroom: The rise of the journo-coder? — Through a series of interviews with journalists and developers working at the BBC and Financial Times plus some key players outside of major newsrooms, Liz Hannaford aims to find out about data journalism's special role today.

Gwynn Guilford / Quartz:

Westerners are so convinced China is a dystopian hellscape they'll share anything that confirms it — ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images, via Tech in Asia — When it comes to China stories, people will believe almost anything. Take, for instance, the reports about pollution being so severe …

Discussion: Gawker and FishbowlNY

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft and Machinima brush off Xbox One shilling controversy — Microsoft's partnership with Machinima to pay YouTube users to promote the Xbox One has generated controversy, and raised some questions this week. While the practice isn't unusual itself, leaked documents appeared to show …

Discussion: VG247, PandoDaily, Gotta Be Mobile, Softpedia News and Ars Technica

Devin Coldewey / NBCNews:

Feds pull Google Glass user from theater for suspected piracy — A Google Glass user in Ohio has run into an unexpected consequence of wearing a camera on your face at all times: Movie theaters might suspect you of piracy. Homeland Security agents pulled the man from the movie and interviewed …