Mediagazer: Times chief lays out ‘a critical year’ for ad revenue (Joe Pompeo/Capital New York)

2:55 PM ET, February 6, 2014

Top News:

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Times Co. Reports Digital Subscriber Increase, but Continued Ad Declines — The New York Times Company said it added digital subscribers and slowed declines in print and digital advertising revenues during the fourth quarter of 2013, a year of transition for the newspaper publisher.

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, FishbowlNY, Capital New York, @romenesko and Mashable

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Times chief lays out ‘a critical year’ for ad revenue — 2014 will be a “critical year in the story of advertising” at The New York Times Co., chief executive Mark Thompson said this morning. — On a conference call with Wall Street analysts following the release of the Times' fourth …

Discussion: @joshsternberg

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

New York Times digital subscriptions grew 19% in 2013 — The number of digital subscriptions to New York Times Company products grew from 640,000 at the end of 2012 to 760,000 at the end of 2013, a gain of nearly 19 percent. Revenue from circulation was up about 4 percent over the previous year …

Discussion: investors.nytco.com, The Huffington Post, @mathewi, @edmundlee, @pkafka and @bgrueskin

John McDuling / Quartz: Can the New York Times's online readership offset its prolonged ad slump?

Sruthi Ramakrishnan / Reuters:

AOL revenue rises 13 percent as ad sales jump — (Reuters) - Digital media and entertainment company AOL Inc reported a better-than-expected 13 percent rise in quarterly revenue as its advertising revenue rose, especially from video. — The company's total revenue rose to $679 million …

Discussion: Capital New York, Re/code, VentureBeat, Forbes, FishbowlNY, CNET, TechCrunch, Deadline.com and @aoladvertising

Steven Jacobs / Street Fight:

AOL's Armstrong: 'We're Not Giving Up on Patch' — Aol's tenure as Patch's sole owner may be over, but the company's chief executive is not giving up on the hyperlocal network just yet. During an interview on CNBC Thursday morning, Tim Armstrong, who helped found the initiative and spearheaded …

Discussion: @vouchey

Leslie Kaufman / New York Times:
AOL Reports Solid Revenue, but Patch Tamped Down Profit

Discussion: CNBC, @joepompeo and Silicon Republic

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

Gannett's print-focused paywalls flounder — The quality imperative and charging for news online — Gannett's fourth-quarter newspaper results, announced Tuesday, were basically miserable. — Revenue at its publishing segment dropped 4.6 percent in the fourth quarter from last year …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and Gannett Blog

Eric J. Smith / NetNewsCheck Latest:
Gannett: USA Today Inserts To Hit 35 Markets

Discussion: New York Times

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:
Newsquest increases circulation revenues as sales go down

Discussion: @greghadfield and National Union of Journalists

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:

Celebrity Weeklies, Fashion Magazines Continue to Struggle on Newsstand — Today, the Alliance for Audited Media released its consumer magazine circulation data for the second half of 2013, and once again, the narrative remains the same. Overall circulation remained relatively flat versus …

Discussion: AdAge, New York Times, FishbowlNY, Alliance for Audited Media and Talking Points Memo

Nicole Levy / Capital New York:

With newsstand decline, magazine circulation falls slightly — While newsstand sales continued to decrease, total average circulation for U.S. consumer magazines was relatively flat in the second half of 2013 compared to the same period a year earlier, according to data released by the Alliance for Audited Media this morning.

Discussion: Media & Entertainment and @mflamm_reporter

Michael Wolff / USA Today:

Revenue prospects are dim for the recent flurry of new journalism start-ups — Revenue prospects are dim for the recent flurry of new journalism start-ups — The great foment in the news business involves journalists leaving established news organizations to strike out on their own …

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu, @carr2n, @robenfarzad, @jamesbreiner, @myriamrobin, The Huffington Post and The Atlantic Online

Alex Barinka / Bloomberg:

Aereo Reopens New York Online-TV Service to New Subscribers — Aereo Inc., the online-television company that's battling broadcasters in the Supreme Court, reopened its service to New York subscribers after regaining enough capacity to handle demand. — People who were on a waiting list …

Discussion: TechCrunch, The Verge, @engadget and @sai, Thanks:@alexbarinka

Brent Lang / The Wrap: Fox Is ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ Supreme Court Will Stop Aereo

Amy Schatz / Re/code:

Twitter Hints at Legal Action to Release More Data on Government Requests — Twitter said Thursday it was considering its legal options in its effort to release more detailed information about the requests for information it receives from U.S. agencies. — Company officials …

Discussion: The Twitter Blog, Softpedia News, Business Insider, Digits and @mikeisaac

Nick Summers / The Next Web:
Twitter transparency report shows government takedown and account info requests are on the rise

Discussion: Twitter Transparency Report, TechCrunch, SiliconBeat, Twitter Transparency Report and Twitter Transparency Report

David S. Cohen / Variety:

Winter Olympics: How NBCUniversal's Army Of Techs Conquered Sochi — For viewers, the Winter Olympics are just 18 days of sports and entertainment. — But for NBCUniversal, they're part of vast exercise in planning and logistics that stretches back to the end of the 2012 summer games in London …

Discussion: Forbes, Latest News & Headlines, AdAge, The New Yorker Blog and Softpedia News

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:
For NBC, a challenge in covering the Sochi Winter Olympics objectively

Discussion: Mediaite, The Huffington Post, The Huffington Post, ThinkProgress, TIME, @washingtonpost, @joesudbay and @brianstelter

American Press Institute:

American Press Institute announces major project to improve fact-checking journalism — ARLINGTON, VA—The American Press Institute ("API") announced today that it has received a grant of up to $400,000 over two years from the Democracy Fund. The grant will support research to improve political fact checking.

Discussion: @jessicaplautz, @ampress, @jcstearns and @cjr

Brian Beutler / Salon:

Exclusive: Despite escalating government intimidation, Greenwald will “force the issue” and visit U.S. — Months after the first insinuations that he risks arrest if he visits the US, Greenwald is more concerned than ever — When big-name public figures and Edward Snowden critics …

Discussion: @buzzfeedben

Rachel Bartlett / Journalism.co.uk:

Buzzfeed to appoint news editor to growing UK team — The new addition to the team will represent more than a five-fold increase on Buzzfeed UK's editorial staff since launch last March — Credit: Image by kaibara87 on Flickr. Some rights reserved — Buzzfeed UK is to add a news editor …

Jasper Jackson / The Media Briefing:

Metric warfare on the advertising battlefield: What News UK's debate with the Guardian is all about — The mini war of words between News UK CEO Mike Darcey and the Guardian is being billed as a choice between two models of journalism, between free vs paid, between mass media vs quality media.

Discussion: @rorybrown and Press Gazette

Brian Morrissey / Digiday:

Scoreboard: Upworthy Combats Clickbait Critics With Attention Data — Upworthy has replaced BuzzFeed as the viral star of the moment, an object of both adoration and loathing for its meteoric rise on the back of clicktastic, heartwarming headlines that are shared in tremendous volume on Facebook.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Upworthy Insider, 10,000 Words, Gigaom, Adweek, @michaelroston and @ampress

Today's Zaman:

Turkey orders deportation of Azerbaijani journalist after his tweets criticizing government — WEB TV — In a move that is set to place further strain on the already-battered freedom of press, the government has ordered the deportation of Mahir Zeynalov, a Today's Zaman correspondent and blogger …

Discussion: @nervana_1, FOCUS Information Agency, BBC, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, UPI, News24, World Bulletin, GlobalPost and Al Jazeera English

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

21st Century Fox Sees 2Q Profit Tumble On Film, Broadcast Performance — Media conglomerate 21st Century Fox saw a noticeable decline in net income in its fiscal second quarter as its broadcast-television and filmed-entertainment units grew more slowly, owing to lower ratings …

Discussion: Guardian, The Wrap, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Radio & Television …, Home Media Magazine, Reuters, Bloomberg, Hollywood Reporter and NASDAQ.com

Laura Hazard Owen / Gigaom:

Sony exits the North American ebook business and gives its customers to Kobo — Sony, which is essentially a non-player in the U.S. ebook market at this point, is cutting its losses and shutting down its digital bookstore in the U.S. and Canada, the company reported Thursday.

Discussion: Publishers Weekly, Press Articles, @nvbinder, @ampressman, The Verge, Publishers Lunch, Engadget and Digital Book World

Eric Athas / Nieman Journalism Lab:

What can make audio go viral? NPR experiments with building earworms for social media — Editor's note: Public radio produces a lot of audio — but it doesn't always get the attention on sharing platforms that it might deserve. Our friends at NPR Digital Services want to fix that, which led to a series of experiments.

Discussion: 10,000 Words