Mediagazer: 21st Century Fox's Sky Deutschland Boosts Sales, Trims Losses in 2013 (Scott Roxborough/Hollywood Reporter)

1:05 PM ET, February 28, 2014

Top News:

Darren Boyle / Press Gazette:

FT Group boosts profits to £55 million as business daily's digital subs rise to 415,000 — The FT Group made a profit of £55 million last year despite plunging print circulation figures for the FT according to results reported this morning. — Profit was said to be up 17 per cent year on year, on an underlying basis.

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review and Guardian

Kristen Schweizer / Bloomberg:
Pearson Plunges as Earnings Drop on Education in North America

Discussion: Financial Times, RTTNews, Reuters, @tcarmody, London News, City A.M., Bookseller news, Life Style Extra and Wall Street Journal

Ricardo Bilton / Digiday:

Business Insider launching in UK this year, first outside US with no franchisee content licensing deals and its own staff — Business Insider prepares to take the UK — For Business Insider, the next move in its bid for global domination is to colonize the U.K.

Discussion: @hblodget

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Rebekah Brooks ‘embarrassed’ at not buying MPs' expenses scoop — Former Sun editor tells phone-hacking trial she hesitated over high cost of story, which was later published by Daily Telegraph — Rebekah Brooks has declared her “embarrassment” at not paying a public official …

Michael Holden / Reuters:
Ex-Murdoch British CEO Brooks paid official for Saddam anthrax story

Discussion: BBC, The Evening Telegraph, The Drum and New York Times

Ben Thompson / stratechery:

Comcast deal is beneficial for Netflix but not for true net neutrality — e Netflix and Net Neutrality — This article is by definition very US-centric, but the general principles apply broadly — For anyone remotely connected to technology, the idea that net neutrality is an unabashed …

Discussion: Marco.org, Wired and @lorcand

Dan Rayburn / StreamingMediaBlog.com:
Here's How The Comcast & Netflix Deal Is Structured, With Data & Numbers

Discussion: @patricknorton, @numonkeys, @samschwartz, @pkafka and Daring Fireball

Ken Kurson / The New York Observer:

The Process of Reporting The Observer's Story on Eric Schneiderman — The Process of Reporting The Observer's Story on Eric Schneiderman — It has mostly been The Observer's policy to let our stories do the talking and not get caught up in the ensuing discussion we hope to create.

Discussion: Jack Shafer, @hunterw, @oliverburkeman, @edzitron, @fmanjoo, @joepompeo, @hamiltonnolan, @matt_levine, @pkafka, @davidfrum, @michaelroston, Mediaite and Bloomberg View

Margaret Simons / Guardian:

The Saturday Paper: who on earth would launch a newspaper today? — Meet publisher Morry Schwartz and his 25-year-old editor, Erik Jensen, who over Darjeeling tea dreamed up an audacious plan to buck the rampant trend towards digital — Print enthusiasts Schwartz and Jensen.

Discussion: @niemanlab, @mathewi and @themurdochtimes

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:

TheWeek.com Launches ‘Speed Reads’ Vertical — In the past couple of years, the “longread” has been one of the most popular buzzwords among online publications, with outlets from BuzzFeed to The Atlantic touting investments in more deep-dive, longform journalism.

Discussion: theweek.com

Jasmine Wang / Bloomberg:

Hong Kong Paper Raises Reward to Find Lau's Attackers — Hong Kong's Ming Pao Daily News tripled its cash reward to HK$3 million ($387,000) for catching the assailants who critically injured its former chief editor Kevin Lau, the newspaper said today. — Media Chinese International Ltd. …

Discussion: Reuters, The Irish Times, Here & Now, New York Times and Wall Street Journal

Agence France-Presse:
Hong Kong journalists vow not to be intimidated by savage attack on Kevin Lau

Discussion: Poynter and Wall Street Journal

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Reddit is having the same problem as traditional media: Defining what the news is — I'm not sure if it qualifies as ironic or not, but just a day after I wrote a post about how Reddit's new “live reporting” feature could contribute to the opening up or crowdsourcing of journalism …

Discussion: @lheron, @jayrosen_nyu, @jaspjackson, Washington's Blog and Daily Dot

Lucas Shaw / The Wrap:

Hollywood Rallies Support for Republicans After Piracy Defeat — Bruised by the defeat of an anti-piracy bill two years ago, Hollywood's chief lobbying organization is giving more money to outside political groups that support Republican lawmakers. — During the 2012 election cycle …

Discussion: @lucas_shaw, CREW and TheHill

David Sirota / PandoDaily:
MPAA response to Pando investigation confirms strength of visual-effects workers case against Big Hollywood

Discussion: Variety and @mcarney

John Plunkett / Guardian:

BBC and BSkyB reach agreement over retransmission payments — Corporation will no longer pay to have channels on satellite broadcaster's platform, saving £4.5m a year — The BBC and BSkyB have resolved their long-running row over retransmission fees with the corporation no longer having …

Discussion: bbc.co.uk and broadcastnow.co.uk

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:

Someone Outranking You With Your Own Content? Use The New Google Scraper Report — One of the most frustrating experiences for any publisher is discovering that someone not only has copied your content but outranks you on Google for searches related to that content.

Discussion: Internet Marketing Blog, @mathewi, Softpedia News and MarketingVox News & Trends

Dean Starkman / Columbia Journalism Review:

A new consensus on the future of news — The future isn't what it used to be, and that's a good thing — Just a couple of years ago, although it feels like a lot longer, the media world was embroiled in something like a gigantic family argument over the idea of whether it was good idea to charge readers for news online.

Discussion: @davewiner, @mterenzio and @mathewi

Scott Roxborough / Hollywood Reporter:

21st Century Fox's Sky Deutschland Boosts Sales, Trims Losses in 2013 — The German pay-TV operator books a net loss of $182 million on revenues of $2.12 billion in 2013. — Sky Deutschland, the German pay-TV operator controlled by Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox, is still in the red but the slowly …

Discussion: Variety

Jasper Jackson / TheMediaBriefing:

Why isn't the rest of Europe following the German and French lead on digital VAT? — Consumer Media, Digital Media, Finance and Deals, Mobile — What makes media more worthwhile subsidising in print than in digital? That's the simple question that EU governments have consistently failed …

Discussion: @stellaamisspwc and @nbdas