Mediagazer: Amazon Lays Foundation for Giant Video Advertising Business (Jason Del Rey/Re/code)

5:05 PM ET, February 5, 2014

Top News:

Jeremy Hodges / Bloomberg:

News Corp. Paper Made 6,813 Phone-Hacking Calls in 2 Years — News Corp. (NWSA) journalists and a private investigator employed by the company's News of the World tabloid made 6,813 calls targeting 282 voice mails during 2005 and 2006, according to billing data analyzed by police.

Discussion: London News and Yorkshire Post

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Phone-hacking jury sees letter exposing Brooks and Coulson affair

Discussion: mUmBRELLA and @guardian

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian: Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and others may not know fate until summer

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

Times May Publish Response from Woody Allen on Dylan Farrow's Accusations — Woody Allen has asked for, and may get, a chance to respond — in an Op-Ed piece in The Times — to a recent column and blog by Nicholas Kristof in which the filmmaker's adopted daughter detailed her memories of his sexually abusing her.

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Post's Marty Baron responds to the departure of three more Wonkbloggers — Washington Post's Brad Plumer, Sarah Kliff Joining Ezra Klein's Vox Venture — NEW YORK — The Washington Post's Brad Plumer and Sarah Kliff are joining Ezra Klein's new venture to be launched with Vox Media …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and The Daily Caller

Conor Friedersdorf / The Atlantic Online:
How Will Ezra Klein's ‘Project X’ Add Context to News?

Discussion: @1bobcohn and @jayrosen_nyu

cnbc.com:

Twitter skids 13% on user growth, but earnings beat — Mobile active Twitter users increase 37% — Twitter is reporting active monthly users at 241 million, with CNBC's Jon Fortt and Julia Boorstin; David Sowerby, Loomis Sayles & Co.Jon Steinberg, BuzzFeed; and CNBC contributor Stephanie Link.

Discussion: Lost Remote

Casey Newton / The Verge:
Twitter beats earnings expectations, but stock slides as user growth plateaus

Discussion: Forbes, TechCrunch, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Digits, Mercury News, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, NetNewsCheck Latest, @twitterir, @corytv, @tim, @verge, @jowens510, @benpopper and Digits

Ken Kurson / The New York Observer:

The Tyranny and Lethargy of the Times Editorial Page — Reporters in ‘semi-open revolt’ against Andrew Rosenthal — IT'S WELL KNOWN AMONG THE SMALL WORLD of people who pay attention to such things that the liberal-leaning reporters at The Wall Street Journal resent the conservative-leaning editorial page of The Wall Street Journal.

Discussion: @nytfridge, FishbowlNY, @rkylesmith, @kerpen, Mediaite, @mattyglesias, @tamarsternthal, Gawker, @dlknowles, @alexrkonrad, bookforum.com, @nbj914, @nathanking, @africasacountry, @jackmirkinson, @efune, @gadyepstein and New York Magazine

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:
Abramson hits back at Observer editor's ‘crazy rant’

Discussion: Mediaite, Capital New York and @fstonenyt

John McDuling / Quartz:

Netflix might have more subscribers, but HBO makes more money — HBO, the premium cable channel behind hit shows like Girls, Game of Thrones and True Detective, just capped off a record year, according to its parent, Time Warner Inc, which reported results this morning.

Discussion: Reuters, Variety, BuzzFeed, @zseward, Business Insider and The Verge

Bree Fowler / Associated Press:
Time Warner 4Q net income falls 12 pct

Discussion: Variety, Los Angeles Times, Corporate Intelligence, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and New York Times

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

Animated Videos, Tweets, Overseas Dispatches All Part of NBC News Digital Overhaul — With control of its digital properties under its sole control at long last, NBC News said it would present a radically different face for web and mobile users in the hopes of giving the NBCUniversal unit …

Discussion: Poynter, Nieman Journalism Lab and @hilella

Ricardo Bilton / Digiday:
NBCNews.com Gets a Remake for Its Post-Microsoft Life

Discussion: The Huffington Post and NewscastStudio

Jason Abbruzzese / Mashable:

The Big Bet: NBC Thinks More Digital Coverage Means Better Olympics Ratings — What's This? — NBC's last Olympics was either a rousing success or a spectacular failure, depending on who you ask. — The failures, as some called aspects of the coverage, were painstakingly documented …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, @jasonabbruzzese, MGOBLUE.COM, Mashable, Variety and Forbes

Ronald Grover / Reuters: NBC boosts sports cable channel with live Olympic events

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Mail Online's rip-off practice is tawdry - but is Mike Darcey jealous of its success? — News UK chief executive says the website shouldn't be confused with a business based on professional journalism — In his sometimes combative speech yesterday, News UK's chief executive Mike Darcey waded …

Discussion: @guardian, @abeaujon and Press Gazette

Mark Sweney / Guardian:
Daily Mail publisher reports that website's ad revenues increased by 48% to £14m in the final three months of 2013

Discussion: Press Gazette and @mediaguardian

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

Guild angry at Reuters over pay snafu — The Newspaper Guild of New York, which represents business journalists at Reuters, sent the following letter to James Smith, the chief executive officer of Thomson Reuters:

Discussion: FishbowlNY and The Huffington Post

Brian Fung / The Switch:

Verizon denies using net neutrality victory to sabotage Netflix, Amazon — After a federal court said last month that the government couldn't prohibit Internet providers from slowing or blocking Web traffic, at least one ISP is being accused of taking advantage of the ruling.

Discussion: Dave's Blog, BGR, Free Press Blog, @timkarr and The Verge

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Guardian hires Matt Sullivan as U.S. opinion editor — Matt Sullivan is leaving The New York Times to become opinion editor for The Guardian's American digital news operation, replacing a staffer who in turn left for The Times. — In his new role, Sullivan, 29, will corral contributors …

Discussion: @sullduggery, @matthewwells and FishbowlNY

Re/code:

Long-Time Google Ads Exec Susan Wojcicki is YouTube's New Boss — Susan Wojcicki, SVP of advertising for Google, will lead its YouTube unit, sources said. — The news was first reported as likely by The Information late Tuesday night. — Wojcicki was employee No. 16 at Google …

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

As The New York Times debuts its template for native ads, will other newspapers follow? — When The New York Times offered the first native ad on its website Jan. 8, reviews were mixed. Some thought the Times offered too much of a good thing with a half-dozen disclaimers that the story-like piece was advertising.

Discussion: @niemanlab, Forbes, iMedia Connection and the Econsultancy blog

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

Big media still has plenty of muscle — ESPN and anchor Chris Berman drive value for Disney. — There may be 500 channels and almost $80 billion in advertising and subscriber revenue in the television industry, but most of that content and cash is controlled by a handful of companies.

Discussion: @latimesbiz

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

Amazon Lays Foundation for Giant Video Advertising Business — In many ways, Amazon's advertising business still remains a mystery. The company doesn't break out the size of it in its earning reports, and Amazon exec presentations on it at industry events are often low on details.

Discussion: @zseward

Joan E. Solsman / CNET:

In Q4, Pandora posts highest profit as public company — Pandora Media, the operator of the Web's top radio service, reported its biggest quarter of profit since it went public, affirming expectations that investments to soup up its advertising engine would pay off.

Discussion: Business Insider and Pandora

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Guardian says News UK criticism of its business model ‘flawed argument based on flawed data’ — Guardian News and Media has accused News UK chief executive Mike Darcey of using “flawed data to inform flawed arguments” when he criticised the group's business model yesterday.

Discussion: @leshinton

Gideon Spanier / London Evening Standard:

The media industry must measure up — The media business does not do a good enough job of measuring its own performance. Newspapers and magazines have been particularly poor at producing meaningful circulation and readership figures that combine print and digital.

Discussion: @karenmcgrane, @leshinton, @hintonkath and @niemanlab