Mediagazer: Time borrows $1.4bn to buy British sister company (John Glenday/The Drum)

11:40 AM ET, April 9, 2014

Top News:

Edward Wyatt / New York Times:

Senate Committee Begins Its Review of Comcast Deal — WASHINGTON — Comcast took its case for acquiring Time Warner Cable to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, arguing at a Senate hearing that its proposed $45 billion takeover would benefit consumers by generating greater investment …

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Comcast: Without Time Warner Cable, we can't compete against Google, Netflix — Comcast says it has “one arm tied behind our back” on eve of Senate hearing. — Comcast today filed a 175-page “public interest statement” with the Federal Communications Commission to explain …

Palmer Gibbs / Sunlight Foundation Blog:

Comcast and Time Warner Cable give big to some senators reviewing merger — Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., is a vocal critic of the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger. Franken is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which holds a hearing about the merger on Wednesday.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, @emilysteel, @sunfoundation, CNNMoney.com, Engadget and The Verge

Free Press Blog:
More Than 50 Public Interest Groups Oppose the Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger

Discussion: The Switch, @katyonthehill, The Huffington Post and The Switch

Mike Shields / Wall Street Journal:

Why CNN Is Launching A News Show Built For Twitter — As every media company from Yahoo to Microsoft to Crackle looks to up the amount of original Web video it produces, here comes CNN. — The television news network has been in the middle of major overhaul undertaken …

Discussion: @jcstearns, @jennifersaba and @mdornic

Carrie Battan / The New Republic:

Podcasts: The Last Refuge of the C-List Celebrity (and Bret Easton Ellis) — oday we're going to talk about goddamn camera phones, and everybody wanting to take a picture of every goddamn thing," the rapper-turned “Law and Order: SVU” star Ice T said recently. “ This is not gangster. This is not fly.

Alex DeMarban / Alaska Dispatch:

Digital news organization Alaska Dispatch buys McClatchy's 68-year old newspaper Anchorage Daily News for $34M — Alaska Dispatch to purchase Anchorage Daily News — In what amounts to a stunning media shakeup in the 49th state, the still-young online news organization Alaska Dispatch announced …

John Glenday / The Drum:

Time borrows $1.4bn to buy British sister company — US publishing giant Time has announced its intention to raise $1.4bn of debt in order to purchase the UK operations of the media brand which are currently owned by Time Warner. — Time the publishing arm of Time Warner …

Discussion: International Business Times

Bloomberg:
Time Inc. to Raise $1.4 Billion in Debt for Spinoff

Discussion: New York Post, Wall Street Journal, Folio, Reuters, Bloomberg, Talking New Media, Telegraph, NASDAQ.com, TheStreet.com and @edmundlee

Stuart Elliott / New York Times:

Oxygen Shifts Focus to Millennial Viewers — In another sign of the growing influence of the millennial generation on Madison Avenue, the Oxygen cable channel will be revamped to appeal to a modern young woman, offering several new series with a multicultural focus.

Harrison Weber / VentureBeat:

Q&A site Quora raises $80M to build the next Wikipedia — Quora believes it has built the best question and answer service on the Internet. Now, it's looking to Wikipedia for inspiration. — With a fresh $80 million in the bank, Quora's head of business operations, Marc Bodnick …

Discussion: Gigaom, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Re/code, Forbes, Reuters, Fortune, @mathewi, @yoavlurie and New York Times

Paul Sandle / Reuters:

Vice Media targets more mainstream TV deals after Fremantle tie-up — (Reuters) - Vice Media, the New York-based group whose edgy reportage has proved a hit with young people, plans to sell more content to mainstream TV groups after signing such a deal with “American Idol” producer Fremantle Media, it said on Wednesday.

Craig Silverman / Poynter:

Publications aim to make debunking as popular as fake images — Adrienne LaFrance and Matt Novak live in different cities and write for different sites in the Gawker Media network. LaFrance is a freelancer who contributes to several other publications. Novak works full-time on his blog, Paleofuture, which is part of Gizmodo.

Discussion: @poynter

Press Gazette:

UK minister responsible for the future of press regulation, Maria Miller, resigns over expenses row — Culture secretary Maria Miller quits over expenses row — The government minister responsible for the future of press regulation, Maria Miller, has resigned as Culture Secretary …

Discussion: The Independent, Guardian, Daily Mail, Bloomberg, Daily Star, Mirror.co.uk, Telegraph, Guardian, The Independent, BBC and Telegraph

Helienne Lindvall / Guardian:

Muso a friendly way to fight piracy — Finding your music on infringing sites feels like being burgled, but a producer and songwriter has come up with a solution — Imagine if you downloaded a file from an illegal filesharing site or cyberlocker and, when you tried to open it …

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:

Sesame Street now has its own dedicated video-on-demand service called Sesame GO — Breaking Bad fan? Sign-up to Netflix. Looking to stream more recent theatrical releases? Check out Amazon Instant Video. Kids addicted to Sesame Street? Well, there's a new kid on the VOD block just for that.

Discussion: Gigaom, Wall Street Journal, Mobile Entertainment Feed, Electronista, Wall Street Journal, Engadget, The Verge, App Advice and VideoNuze Analysis

Tom Perry / Reuters:

Egypt arrests journalist said to work for Al Jazeera - agency — Egyptian security forces have arrested a man who worked for Qatar's Al Jazeera television network and accused him of inciting and taking part in violence, the state news agency MENA said on Wednesday.

Discussion: @hany2m

Laurie Burkitt / Wall Street Journal:

IMAX to Sell 20% Stake in Its Chinese Business — China Media Capital, FountainVest to Help Movie Firm to Expand — BEIJING— IMAX Corp. plans to sell a 20% stake in its Chinese business to two China-focused investor groups in an $80 million deal that the big-movie-screen operator hopes …

Discussion: Variety, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and Forbes

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Hibu lays off nearly 200 journalists — Chalk up another flop to another plan to turn a profit with digital hyper-local media. — Hyper-local was the all the rage a few years ago, but there are few success stories in 2014. — Hibu, which was the former Yellow Pages, had an aggressive plan …

Discussion: The Times Herald, KCRG-TV and TheGazette

Patrick Brzeski / Hollywood Reporter:

Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma Pays $1.05 Billion for Stake in Chinese Internet TV Company — Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of Alibaba — The Chinese Internet giant is ramping up a strategic push into the country's booming entertainment sector. — Jack Ma, the billionaire founder …

Discussion: Reuters, VatorNews and Wall Street Journal

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

News of the World boss denies ‘concealing’ payments to phone hacker — Former managing editor Stuart Kuttner denies ‘cooking the books’ to avoid awkward questions, Old Bailey told — The former managing editor of the News of the World has denied “concealing” payments for hacker Glenn Mulcaire …

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

How some journalists are using anonymous secret-sharing apps — Gwyneth Paltrow's divorce from rock star husband Chris Martin is not an event with great civic impact. But it's big news to the many writers whose salaries depend on highly trafficked stories about celebrities, as well as to the massive audience that loves to read them.

Discussion: @niemanlab and Mashable