Top News:
Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:
The Times to launch NYT Now at $8/month and Times Premier at $45/month on April 2 — The Times Is Expanding Its Digital Subscriptions Offerings — The New York Times announced two new subscription plans on Wednesday, including NYT Now, a lower-priced app curated for a mobile audience …
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Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:
The New York Times Bets On Its Own Reputation With Its New Mobile App — NYT Now is sleek and ambitious. But will anybody actually buy it? — NYT Now, the New York Times' soon-to-be-released mobile app is ambitious, sleek, and, for the most part, quite useful. More importantly, though, it's a wager.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, @cdzombak, @rafat, @cwarzel, @mattfrehner, @katherinemiller, @bydanielvictor, @derekwillis and @abeaujon
Henry Taylor / TheMediaBriefing:
NYT CEO: 'We'll continue to have a newspaper 7 days a week for many years to come' — The New York Times is launching a series of paid products beginning April 2nd, starting with a cheaper digital subscription package in the form of an app called NYT Now. — Speaking at the FT Digital …
Discussion:
@murdochdavis, Thanks:@rorybrown
Rick Edmonds / Poynter:
Pew finds embattled newspaper industry still pulls in more than half of all news revenue — Pew's 11th annual State of the News Media report, out this morning, offers fresh measures of news media revenue and news staffing at digital-only start-ups. Both findings are arresting for those of us …
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Amy Mitchell / Pew Research Journalism Project:
State of the News Media 2014 — Overview — In many ways, 2013 and early 2014 brought a level of energy to the news industry not seen for a long time. Even as challenges of the past several years continue and new ones emerge, the activities this year have created a new sense of optimism …
Discussion:
Nieman Journalism Lab, Journalism.org, Digiday, AJR.org, Politico, CNN Money, USA Today, Journalism.org, Journalism.org, Gigaom, @mathieuvonrohr, @stephaniesalmon, FishbowlNY, @carrolldoherty, The Raw Story, @ejnetwork, @pewresearch, Hollywood Reporter, @orskov, Journalism.org, @bob_grip, @danalpage and Kirk LaPointe's …
Andrew Stewart / Variety:
Number of Frequent Young Moviegoers Plummets in 2013 — Bizzers assert that technology can nonetheless spur interest in films — The number of frequent moviegoers in the all-important 18-24 age group plunged an unprecedented 21% in 2013, according to MPAA annual statistics released Tuesday at Cinemacon …
Discussion:
@jerryrice_ie, @jbenton, @raju, @ainaabiodun and @gointothestory
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Wall Street Journal:
Higher prices lead to increase in US box-office sales, but number of tickets sold slips 1.5%
Higher prices lead to increase in US box-office sales, but number of tickets sold slips 1.5%
Discussion:
@davidmwessel, @kimberlyhyatt and @todayshow
Pamela McClintock / Hollywood Reporter:
CinemaCon: Global Box Office Hits Record $35.9 Billion in 2013 Thanks to China
CinemaCon: Global Box Office Hits Record $35.9 Billion in 2013 Thanks to China
Discussion:
Los Angeles Times
Alex Sherman / Bloomberg:
Dish's Ergen Said to Approach DirecTV CEO White About Merger — Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charlie Ergen recently contacted DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White to discuss a merger of the two satellite television companies, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.
Discussion:
Radio & Television …, @sdkstl, @pkafka, Business Insider and CNNMoney.com
News Corp:
Lachlan Murdoch Named Non-Executive Co-Chairman of News Corp — Lachlan Murdoch has been named Non-Executive Co-Chairman of News Corp by the Board of Directors, the company announced today. — “This appointment is a sign of confidence in the growth potential of News Corp and a recognition …
Discussion:
Mediawire Daily, mUmBRELLA, Hollywood Reporter, Politico, The New Yorker Blog, New York Magazine, Associated Press, Businessweek, Los Angeles Times, Quartz, @bernardkeane, Capital New York, Variety, GlobalPost, Broadcasting & Cable, @nicilind, afr.com, TheAustralian, Forbes, @therealpbarry, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, @nikkifinke, The New Daily, ABC, Guardian and The Age
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Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:
Why Movie Streaming Services Are Unsatisfying — and Will Stay So — A team of web designers recently released an astonishingly innovative app for streaming movies online. The program, Popcorn Time, worked a bit like Netflix, except it had one unusual, killer feature. It was full of movies you'd want to watch.
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Capital New York:
Colin Myler named president of Daily News — Colin Myler has been named president of the Daily News, a title he will tack on in addition to his existing one as editor-in-chief. — His “expanding role will involve working more closely with me on all Daily News strategic business initiatives and decisions …
Discussion:
FishbowlNY
Kristen Hare / Poynter:
Willow Bay to lead journalism school at USC Annenberg — Annenberg school for Communications and Journalism — Willow Bay will be the new director of the School of Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the school announced in a press release Wednesday.
Discussion:
USC Annenberg School …, LA Observed and @markkatches
Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:
Sony is closing Crackle UK amid increased competition from Netflix and Amazon — Looks like the video services war in the U.K. just produced its first casualty: Sony is closing down the U.K. edition its Crackle video service on April 1 (hat tip to Broadband TV News).
Discussion:
Digital TV Europe, Compare Mobile Phones …, Broadband TV News and Advanced Television
Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Columbia's Year Zero, aiming to give journalists literacy in data, is now called the Lede Program … Last fall, we told you about Year Zero, a new program out of Columbia's j-school aimed at providing a grounding in data concepts — coding, databases, algorithms, and the like — to journalists and other humanities-ish types.
Discussion:
Tow Center for Digital …
Humeyra Pamuk / Reuters:
Twitter challenges Turkey ban, Erdogan holds fast — (Reuters) - A Turkish court upheld an appeal on Wednesday to end a blockage of Twitter which has provoked public outrage, local media said, though it was not immediately clear whether that meant the bar would be removed.
Alexandra Steigrad / WWD:
Scaling Capital New York's Paywall — It's been about six weeks since Capital New York started charging for access to about 80 percent of its content, which focuses on New York-centric news on City Hall, state politics and media. Called CapitalPro, the paywall was erected in February …
Discussion:
@edgecliffe and @alexsteigrad
Alex Ben Block / Hollywood Reporter:
MGM Income Up 97 Percent for 2013 — UPDATED: The studio also reported revenues increased 11 percent to $1.53 billion for the calendar year. — MGM Holdings reported revenue for the calendar year that ended Dec. 31, 2013 was up 11 percent over the prior year to $1.53 billion …
Dow Jones & Company:
Dow Jones Enhances Factiva to Improve Search Efficiency and Newsletter Capabilities — Dow Jones today announced a series of customer-driven enhancements to the Factiva product designed to increase search efficiency and refine newsletter capabilities. The changes are effective immediately.
Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:
Spotify Focuses On New Users By Giving College Students Half-Off Their Premium Subscription — Spotify is making a land grab. — In a space that continues to fill up with competition from small startups and incumbents alike, Spotify is trying to acquire as many new users as possible …
Discussion:
Gigaom, TIME, The Next Web, Engadget, BGR, BetaNews, Pocket-lint and VentureBeat
Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:
Google's new online tools will keep voters in India and Indonesia informed ahead of upcoming polls — Google has launched a series of tools as it seeks to make itself useful to 1 billion Indian and Indonesian voters, who are heading to the polls next month.
Discussion:
Google Asia Pacific Blog, NDTV Gadgets, @gquaggiotto, New York Times and Rapid TV News
Abigail Edge / Journalism.co.uk:
Buzzfeed: ‘Emotional quotient matters more than IQ’ on social — In a keynote at today's Rethink Media conference in Birmingham, BuzzFeed's Jonathan Perelman revealed the two main reasons he believes people want to share content — Social sharing has put the “power” into the hands of readers …
Discussion:
@mikeisaac and Birmingham Eastside
Dawn C. Chmielewski / Re/code:
Millennials Spend More Time Watching TV on Other Devices — The big-screen TV is losing its cachet. — A new study from Deloitte finds that teens and young twentysomethings spend more time watching movies and television shows on their computers, smartphones and tablets than they do on their TV screens.
Discussion:
PR Newswire, @bingchen, Channelnomics, @bbynews, @comcast, App Advice and @chrisfaile
Johana Bhuiyan / Capital New York:
Aereo C.E.O. says it's a Supreme Court win or bust — If the Supreme Court passes a decision in favor of television broadcasters in their case against broadcast-to-stream provider Aereo, the company doesn't have a backup plan, C.E.O. Chet Kanojia told Bloomberg TV's Jon Erlichman.
Discussion:
FierceCable, Telecompaper, Bloomberg and TheHill
Mark Sweney / Guardian:
NYT boss attacks Bloomberg for saying it shouldn't publish anti-China stories — Mark Thompson says New York Times journalism will remain impartial and won't be swayed by commercial considerations — Mark Thompson, the chief executive of the New York Times, has hit out at rival Bloomberg …
Discussion:
Politico, thedrum.com, @davidfolkenflik, Business Insider and The Atlantic Online