Mediagazer: Comcast Earnings: Profits Up 28 Percent Thanks to Broadcasting, Theme Parks (Brent Lang/The Wrap)

12:05 PM ET, January 28, 2014

Top News:

Brent Lang / The Wrap:

Comcast Earnings: Profits Up 28 Percent Thanks to Broadcasting, Theme Parks — Comcast's profits spiked 28.6 percent during the cable giant's fourth quarter thanks to its resurgent primetime broadcast line-up and higher attendance at its Universal Studios theme parks.

Discussion: Radio & Television …, Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times and CNBC

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:
Comcast CEO: NBC Turnaround Is Happening ‘Faster’ Than Anticipated

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Inside's News Is Longer Than Twitter, Shorter Than Business Insider and Jason Calacanis Says You'll Love It — It's 2014. Do we need another service that summarizes news other people have written? — Yes, says Jason Calacanis. And because Jason Calacanis is a very persuasive pitchman …

Discussion: The Verge, Capital New York, WebProNews, Capital New York, @pkafka, @danielfletcher, @antderosa, @digidave and Business Insider

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:
Jason Calacanis launches Inside, a mobile news-curation app powered by humans

Discussion: TechCrunch, INSIDE, @jason, @mickhagen, @mathewi, @peterc, The Next Web and CNET

Jack Shafer:

The limits of Ezra Klein's star power — No greater act of press criticism exists than to launch your own publication. Starting anew allows a journalist to leave the cracked glass, dents and rust of the old behind, to reject the past and all its mistakes and compromises, and to show by example how the work should be done.

Tim Peterson / AdAge:
Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff on Ezra Klein's Plan to Re-Imagine the News

Discussion: Gigaom, VentureBeat, @darrenheitner, FishbowlNY, The Corsair, Business Insider, BuzzMachine and Mediawire Daily

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

Nate Silver has hired 15 journalists for FiveThirtyEight and plans relaunch “early this year” — Status Update: Building FiveThirtyEight — We're continuing to build our team of journalists at FiveThirtyEight as we prepare for re-launch with our partners at ESPN and ABC News early this year.

Discussion: @nycjim, @mikepetroff, @brianstelter, @jayrosen_nyu, @prof_bearb, @burger, @dansinker and The Next Web

Alexandra Steigrad / WWD:

More Layoffs to Hit Time Inc. — TIME TO GO?: Time Inc. staffers are bracing for layoffs, which could come as early as next week, WWD has learned. — Word of the job cuts came last month, when Time Inc. chief executive officer Joe Ripp told employees during a quarterly corporate meeting …

Discussion: Mediawire Daily and FishbowlNY

William Launder / Wall Street Journal:

News Websites Proliferate, Stretching Thin Ad Dollars — Many Generate Revenue by Hosting Conferences — Big profits in online news may be as scarce as buried gold but that isn't deterring journalists and investors from rushing into the sector. — In the past few months …

Discussion: @lheron, @garciaruize, @sarahneedleman, @bryfitz, @jenniferpreston, @aburnspolitico, @evanasmith, @mattyglesias and @jbenton

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Sue Douglas leaves Trinity Mirror as People.co.uk closes — Company says Sunday People's first dedicated seven-day digital version did not hit expected traffic targets — Sue Douglas, hired seven months ago to take charge of Trinity Mirror's Sunday People, is leaving the company …

Liana B. Baker / Reuters:

Comcast in talks to license technology to Cox -sources — (Reuters) - Comcast Corp, the No. 1 U.S. cable operator, is in advanced discussions about licensing its “X1” video operating system to Cox Communications, the third-largest cable operator, according to people familiar with the matter.

Discussion: CNET

Lucas Shaw / The Wrap:

Gawker Fires Back at Quentin Tarantino: We Didn't Leak Your Script — Gawker rejected Quentin Tarantino's claims that it leaked a copy of his latest script, “The Hateful Eight,” in a post by editor-in-chief John Cook. Cook wrote the piece after Tarantino's lawyer Marty Singer filed suit …

Discussion: Gawker, Mediaite, Pocket-lint and Hollywood Reporter

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The mobile inevitability: How CNN is prepping for the majority-mobile audience coming in 2014 — This will be the year CNN sees the majority of its online audience come from mobile devices. — There's a level of inevitability to that stat that almost seems boring at this point.

Discussion: @digitalanika, @ampress, @iammobilebob and @niemanlab

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

GetGlue becomes tvtag, focuses on curated TV moments — Remember GetGlue? The social TV pioneer got bought by Utah-based social TV startup i.TV late last year, and now, GetGlue's user base is being transitioned to a new app dubbed tvtag that takes some elements of the original and combines …

Discussion: @trevordoerksen, TechRadar.com, Digital Trends, Digital TV Europe, Lost Remote, The Next Web and App Advice

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Daily Telegraph publishes advert attacking ‘pro-gay’ Times columnist Libby Purves — Update 12.30pm: The Daily Telegraph is carrying a bizarre advert today criticising The Times's columnist Libby Purves. It is in the form of an open letter signed by Demetri Marchessini, a Greek-born businessman and author.

Discussion: @lecanardnoir and @garylineker

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Business Insider investing in paid content, expanding BI Intelligence unit — Business Insider Has Ambitious Paid Content Plans — Business Insider is known for its clicky mix of business and gossip content, delivered in the form of rapid-fire posts, slideshows and videos.

Discussion: @lmoses

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

How Russia Is Censoring Reporting On Sochi Olympics Controversies — NEW YORK - Corruption. Environmental damage. Forced evictions. Exploitation of migrant workers. — Journalists would be expected to dive headfirst into such headline-grabbing allegations, especially when tied …

Discussion: The Daily Beast, Forbes and Committee to Protect …

Roger Yu / USA Today:

Battle of the brands: A newspaper war in New Orleans — Local Times-Picayune fights to fend off an invasion by Baton Rouge's Advocate in New Orleans. — NEW ORLEANS - The pirate flag hanging in the New Orleans Advocate's office in downtown is something of an inside joke …

Andrew Jacobs / New York Times:

China Appears Set to Force Times Reporter to Leave — BEIJING — Despite objections raised by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in meetings with its top leaders, China appears set to force a correspondent for The New York Times to leave the country this week, and it is continuing to block …

Discussion: @helene_fr, @isaacstonefish, @andrewjacobsnyt, @mitch_moxley, @nickkristof, @barbarademick, The Huffington Post, FishbowlNY, @nycjim, @matthewkeyslive and Politico

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Knight will give $1 million to news nonprofits fund — The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation expects to give up to $35,000 each to about 30 news nonprofits and public media outlets as part of a $1 million grant to a fund administered by the Investigative News Network.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, NetNewsCheck Latest, Investigative News Network and @poynter

Kristen Hare / Poynter:

YouTube, news sites will livestream the State of the Union — YouTube will livestream President Obama's State of the Union address at 9 p.m. eastern, according to a press release from YouTube, “followed by the Republican response by Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers on Speaker Boehner's channel.

Discussion: Washington Post

Ed Pilkington / Guardian:

ProPublica's Richard Tofel: ‘Our mission is to end abuses of power’ — The president of the non-profit investigative journalism website on measuring impact, team work - and Edward Snowden — Richard Tofel has had a dream. It came upon him the night before we meet and he is still a little rattled by it.

Discussion: @dangreen100, @jacobwe and @emilybell