Mediagazer: Metric warfare on the advertising battlefield: What News UK's debate with the Guardian is all about (Jasper Jackson/TheMediaBriefing.com)

9:50 AM 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: Capital New York and @romenesko

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, @bgrueskin, @edmundlee and @pkafka

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, Gannett Blog and Poynter

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

Discussion: National Union of Journalists

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

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 and FishbowlNY

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

AOL Gets Its Final Patch Bill — Last month AOL announced a plan to rid itself of Patch, its ill-fated local news play. But up until last Wednesday, when AOL's deal with Hale Global closed, Patch employees were still on AOL's books. — Which means that last week, when Patch underwent mass layoffs …

Discussion: Deadline.com, TechCrunch, Silicon Republic and CNBC

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Marc Andreessen talks about the evolution of the news business and why he is optimistic — Everyone seems to have an opinion about what's wrong with the news business — whether it's the best of times or the worst of times for journalism, whether paywalls are the answer, and so on …

Discussion: The New Yorker Blog, @pmarca, @gigaom, @emilybell, @emilybell, @gaberivera, @mg, @cmschroed, @ceciliakang, @mikeisaac, @marklittlenews and Featured stories

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Marc Andreessen: The 'problem with local news is most people don't care' — Internet pioneer and investor Marc Andreessen spun out some thoughts about the news business on Twitter Wednesday. 2005 was the last year of an era that lasted since World War II, he said — one in which news …

Discussion: Street Fight, @pmarca, @pmarca, @nitin_mangtani, @pmarca, @anildash, @meganbungeroth, @c_s_green and @themurdochtimes

Jasper Jackson / TheMediaBriefing.com:

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

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.

Discussion: @theatlantic, @lauraolin and Kirk LaPointe's …

Louisa Loveluck / Telegraph:

British journalist facing Egypt terror charges in Egypt denies allegations — Sue Turton, an Al Jazeera reporter who has previously worked for Channel 4 and Sky News, said she was shocked to see her name on a charge sheet — A British journalist who faces charges of terrorism in Cairo …

Discussion: GlobalPost, CNN, The Huffington Post and Al Jazeera Press Office

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.

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: The Wrap, Home Media Magazine, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Hollywood Reporter, Bloomberg and NASDAQ.com

Patrick Smith / BuzzFeed:

“The Guardian” Is Testing A New-Look, Easy-To-Read Website — If you log on to The Guardian today, this is what you might see: a new “responsively” designed website that should look the same on your desktop PC and your mobile. — theguardian.com — It's being A/B tested right now …

Christopher McKinlay / Medium:

Sorry, Guy: I Won't Come Work For Buzzfeed — Last week Wired magazine published a feature article on how I hacked the dating website OkCupid and met my fiancée. I subsequently received the following job offer via email from Buzzfeed's Director of Partnership Development:

Discussion: @luthorceo, @adamweinstein and @neetzan

Michael Wolff / British GQ:

Bezosmania! — In August 2013, Amazon founder and CEO Jeffrey Bezos bought the Washington Post - the newspaper that revealed the Watergate scandal in 1972 - for $250m. If business success is about control, will the man who dominates our digital life be able to influence US politics?

Discussion: @coryhaik and @miamijournalism

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, Silicon Republic, Inc.com, SocialTimes, ZDNet, The Verge, VatorNews, Search Engine Land, Wired, Engadget, Gigaom, TechCrunch, SiliconBeat, Electronista, Variety and Pocket-lint

Laura Slattery / The Irish Times:

Television journalism reshaped for the Vice generation — Brash outsiders are increasingly becoming insiders, if not institutions in their own right — An odd thing happened on Newsnight recently and it didn't involve either an interview with the Cookie Monster or Kirsty Wark doing …

Nicole Levy / Capital New York:

Time Inc. to hold $1.3 billion in debt at spin off — When Time Inc. spins off from parent company Time Warner later this year, it will do so with $1.3 billion in debt on its books, Time Warner chief financial officer Howard Averill said Wednesday on a conference call with Wall Street analysts and shareholders.

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: USA Today, Politico, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Talking Points Memo

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

Discussion: @1bobcohn and @jayrosen_nyu

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: Media Moves, MiamiHerald.com, The Huffington Post and Hispanic Marketing and Media

CNBC:

Twitter skids 17% 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.