Mediagazer: Amazon Says It Has No Plans to Offer a Free TV and Music-Video Streaming Service (Todd Spangler/Variety)

9:00 AM ET, March 28, 2014

Top News:

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Amazon Says It Has No Plans to Offer a Free TV and Music-Video Streaming Service — Here we go again: Amazon.com denied a Wall Street Journal report Thursday that the Internet retailing giant is working up a free, ad-supported TV and music-video service. — “We're often experimenting …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, AdExchanger, @sassy_spy, AppleInsider, Engadget, Wall Street Journal and Pocket-lint

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Amazon Launching Video Box Next Week — Amazon's entry into the set-top box world, which has been delayed for months, is coming next week, according to people familiar with the company's plans. — The e-commerce giant has invited reporters to gather for an “update on our video business” in New York next Wednesday, April 2.

Discussion: AppleInsider, Business Insider, The Verge, AdAge, Forbes, WebProNews, Electronista, BuzzFeed, Daily Mail, Reuters, Mashable, Pocket-lint, Los Angeles Times, TechCrunch, Engadget, 9to5Mac, Gigaom, BGR, App Advice, @seanbesser and @zseward

Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon planning free ad-supported TV and music streaming service, no Prime subscription required

Jeremy Wagstaff / Reuters:

Journalists, media under attack from hackers: Google researchers — (Reuters) - Twenty-one of the world's top-25 news organizations have been the target of likely state-sponsored hacking attacks, according to research by two Google security engineers. — While many internet users face …

Discussion: Politico

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

NBCUniversal-Owned DailyCandy and Television Without Pity Will Be Shut Down — DailyCandy and Television Without Pity, two high-profile Internet content properties owned by NBCUniversal, are being shuttered, a move that management told staff this morning would be occurring next week.

Discussion: Street Fight, TVNewser, Wall Street Journal, @saramorrison, Adweek, @pkafka, BuzzFeed, Variety, Mediaite, @atotalmonet, The New York Observer, AdPulp, FishbowlNY, @hblodget, Mashable, @felixsalmon, @doreeshafrir, @taraariano, @shani_o, @pamelaribon and @poniewozik

Thornton McEnery / Crain's New York: NBC mismanaged DailyCandy to death, former adviser says

Michelle Castillo / Adweek:

Facebook Algorithm Tweaks Hurt Viral Sites More Than Other Publishers — Publishers are claiming that content they share on Facebook pages isn't reaching as many readers as it used to. — Adweek reached out to comScore to find out how referral traffic through Facebook has changed …

Discussion: @adweek

Erik Wemple:

MSNBC disputes Pew study on newsgathering reduction — The Pew Research Center's “State of the News Media 2014” report contained some hard-to-swallow data for MSNBC. It chronicled, for instance, the network's awful drop in daytime audience and its primetime difficulties.

Discussion: Mediashift, Marketing Charts …, Mediaite and Marketing Pilgrim

Kenneth Li / Re/code:

Roku Will Be Your Future TV's Operating System — His world is about to get more crowded — that's a phrase that has haunted the coverage of Roku CEO Anthony Wood for the past decade. — Critics are applying the phrase again as the maker of the set-top box that streams Web TV to your TV faces another big rival.

Discussion: 9to5Mac, @johnpaczkowski and AppleInsider

Walter Hamilton / Los Angeles Times:

Tribune's profit declines 43% — The parent of the Los Angeles Times and other media outlets reports net income of $241.6 million last year, down from $422.5 million in 2012. — Tribune's financial results showed the pressure facing newspaper companies as they grapple with the migration of readers to digital devices.

Discussion: Chicago Tribune, PR Newswire and digitalfacility.com

Jennifer Saba / Reuters:

CBS Outdoor to go after more ad dollars as new company — (Reuters) - CBS Outdoor Americas' top executive says he plans to convince top advertisers to move more of their dollars toward billboards and other displays as the company splits from media broadcaster CBS on Friday.

Discussion: Reuters, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal and New York Times

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Takes Another Crack At Read-It-Later With “Save” Button — Facebook's undying quest to be your newspaper has seen it launch multiple News Feeds, the standalone Paper app, trending topics, and more. You're not always able to stop what you're doing and read what you discover, though.

Discussion: Business 2 Community and NDTV Gadgets

Committee to Protect Journalists:

Turkish courts release eight journalists in two days — The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release this week of at least eight imprisoned journalists in Turkey, but calls on Turkish authorities to scrap the charges against them and release all of the journalists jailed in the country.

Discussion: New York Times and Reuters

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Johnston Press posts £287m loss — Value writedowns contributes to loss, but company boosts operating profits for first time in seven years to stand at £54.3m — Johnston Press chief Ashley Highfield is confident growth in digital revenues will soon outweigh the decline in print.

Preetam Kaushik / The Huffington Post:

American Media Brands Cast Web Over News in India — The Indian news cycle has been operating at a feverish pitch of late. The world's most populous democracy is about to choose a new government, politics is at its polarizing best, and a colorful cast of characters vying for power is supplying a constant stream of sound bytes.

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Betaworks-Backed Tapestry Releases Update To Let You Build Stories In-App — Today Tapestry, the story-telling service out of betaworks, has released a big update to the mobile application, allowing users to create tapestries within the app for the first time ever.

Discussion: ITBusinessNet.com

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

RIAA Demands Personal Details of Pirating YouTube Users — To many, uploading a music video of their favorite artist seems to be a relatively harmless act, but the major record labels clearly disagree. — Up until now “pirating” YouTube users would only get a slap on the wrist by Google …

Discussion: Music Week

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:

AOL Goes After $32 Billion Market With Automated Web Ad Service — AOL Inc. (AOL), pushing an expansion beyond Web publishing, introduced a system that helps companies automate the process of buying and selling online advertising. — The service lets publishers sell space on websites and digital videos using software.

Fercan Yalinkilic / Wall Street Journal:

After Twitter Ban, Turkey's Netizens Find YouTube Blockage a Breeze — As with the Turkish government's ban on Twitter last week, today's blocking of YouTube has spawned a race by people in Turkey to outflank the ban through other sites and apps. — Internet users, already armed with a host …

Discussion: Amnesty International, @policy, @eff, @alistairmbarr, Motherboard, Los Angeles Times, ReadWrite and Re/code

Hurriyet Daily News:
Turkey blocks access to YouTube after leaked recordings of key security meeting

Lucia Moses / Digiday:

Newsrooms freeze out freelancers moonlighting for brands — For the freelance journalist, the siren call of “brand journalism” is tough to resist. It's a growth industry, and one that pays pretty well at a time when the $2-a-word magazine piece is hard to find.

Michelle Castillo / Adweek:

HitFix Launches Multiplatform Video — After dabbling in video pieces over the last few years, entertainment news site HitFix announced today the full launch of HitFix Video. — “Basically, for us, video is the way, the hook, the content and the opportunity to get in front of consumers …

Miranda Ward / mUmBRELLA:

News Corp Australia launches app Newsclick — News Corp Australia has launched Newsclick - an immersive app that links the experience of print news and information consumption with relating digital activities. — The announcement: … Source: News Corp media release

Discussion: News Corp Australia

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Fresh Off Disney Deal, Maker Studios Comes to Cable TV (EXCLUSIVE) — Deal was reached prior to Disney's $500 million-plus acquisition of YouTube multichannel network company — Maker Studios, which is being acquired by The Walt Disney Co. in a deal worth up to $950 million …

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Fullscreen Acquires Videogame Media Firm ScrewAttack — The March madness for multichannel networks continues: Fullscreen, one of the biggest YouTube MCNs, has acquired small videogame-focused media company ScrewAttack. — Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Chine Labbe / Reuters:

Actress Gayet wins privacy lawsuit versus tabloid in Hollande affair — (Reuters) - A French court ordered Closer magazine on Thursday to pay actress Julie Gayet 15,000 euros ($20,700) for publishing photos that revealed an affair between her and President Francois Hollande, her lawyer told Reuters.