Mediagazer: Digital Video Fund Luminari Is Raising $40 Million, Has Signed on BSkyB (Peter Kafka/Re/code)

8:00 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: @guardian and mUmBRELLA

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

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: JIMROMENESKO.COM and Talking Points Memo

Conor Friedersdorf / The Atlantic Online:

How Will Ezra Klein's ‘Project X’ Add Context to News? — The potential and pitfalls of an ambitious play for the future of digital journalism — Ezra Klein's new journalistic venture, Project X, starts with the proposition that news organizations focus too much on what's new and not enough on what's important.

Discussion: @1bobcohn and @jayrosen_nyu

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.

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 and Business Insider

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: Nieman Journalism Lab, Poynter, @hilella and Media & Entertainment

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

Discussion: The Huffington Post and NewscastStudio

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Twitter beats earnings expectations, but stock slides as user growth plateaus — Twitter beat expectations today in its first earnings report since going public in November, earning 2 cents per share on $242.7 million in revenues last quarter. They company had 241 million monthly active users …

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

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

Robinson Meyer / The Atlantic:

Facebook aims to become digital publishing kingmaker by sending massive traffic to news sites — And Just Like That, Facebook Became the Most Important Entity in Web Journalism — The graph above tells maybe the most interesting—and definitely the most surprising—story of the past year of digital media.

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

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: Forbes, Street Fight, NetNewsCheck Latest, TechCrunch, Business Insider, USA Today and Pandora

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Abramson hits back at Observer editor's ‘crazy rant’ — The New York Times is hitting back at The New York Observer's latest cover story, an exhaustive takedown of the paper of record's opinion pages and the man who oversees them, Andy Rosenthal. — In an email to Capital …

Discussion: Mediaite, Capital New York and @fstonenyt

Ken Kurson / The New York Observer:
The Tyranny and Lethargy of the Times Editorial Page

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

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, Policy Blog, @timkarr, @b_fung and The Verge

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Google Confirms Susan Wojcicki Is New YouTube Head — Susan Wojcicki is Google's new SVP of YouTube, Google confirmed today. We wrote about the shift last night. — Google CEO Larry Page said in an emailed statement, “Salar and the whole YouTube team have built something amazing.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Gigaom, Variety, Inc.com, TechCrunch, Search Engine Land, Wired, ZDNet, SocialTimes, VatorNews, Marketing Pilgrim, The Verge, Engadget and Pocket-lint

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

Merrill Knox / TVNewser:

CNN Shutters CNN Latino — CNN is shutting down CNN Latino just a year after its launch. The eight-hour syndicated news and entertainment block will shutter later this month, Media Moves reports. — “CNN Latino was a bold effort to continue CNN's commitment to the U.S. Hispanic marketplace.

Discussion: The Huffington Post and Media Moves

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

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

Ben Woods / The Next Web:

BT launches UK pay-to-own service for films, TV box sets coming soon — BT is now offering its YouView box-equipped TV customers the option to purchase movies aired on the service from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Discussion: home.bt.com, Pocket-lint and thedrum.com

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, FishbowlNY and @matthewwells