Mediagazer: Cable Network Chiefs Slam Netflix, Amazon: ‘We Have A Better Product’ (L.A. Ross/The Wrap)

1:50 AM ET, April 30, 2014

Top News:

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Twitter and TV Working Just Fine, Says Twitter — Yesterday, after a top TV executive lobbed a bomb at Twitter's TV pitch, Twitter executives kept quiet. — But Twitter CEO Dick Costolo knew he'd get asked about NBC* research chief Alan Wurtzel's “Emperor has no clothes” comments today during his earnings call.

Discussion: Forbes, Engadget and VentureBeat

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Twitter Beats In Q1 With $250M In Revenue And Picks Up 14M New Monthly Active Users — This afternoon Twitter released its first quarter financial performance, reporting revenue of $250 million in the period, and earnings per share of $0.00 on a non-GAAP basis.

Discussion: Forbes, Business Insider, Computerworld, Pocket-lint, AdAge, Marketing Land, @fmanjoo, The Next Web, ZDNet, Gawker, Mashable, Forbes, @papadimitriou, VatorNews, Gigaom and The Wrap

Mike Isaac / Re/code:
Twitter faces decelerating growth in active users and timeline views

Discussion: @thestalwart, Washington Post, @tim and @jennydeluxe

Tom Wheeler / Official FCC Blog:

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler defends net neutrality approach, seeks path to avoid years in court — Finding the Best Path Forward to Protect the Open Internet — I am a strong believer in the importance of an Open Internet. As President Obama has explained, “Preserving an Open Internet …

Discussion: Variety, Consumerist, Re/code, Engadget, The Verge, @byersalex, @karlbode, @rafat, Business Insider, @ddayen and @fcc

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Ex-FCC chief says politics and funding droughts would slow the internet if it were a utility

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Re/code, New York Times and Cable Tech Talk

Andrew Wallenstein / Variety:

Condé Nast to Launch New Digital Brand Aggregating Video — Variety among the news brands named as inaugural video partners for The Scene — Condé Nast Entertainment sees strength in numbers in the video space-even if that means mixing its high-class brands with those outside the company.

Discussion: Folio, WWD Media Headlines and AdAge

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

BuzzFeed removes post after Maria Popova complains — BuzzFeed has removed a post that Maria Popova said took images she had scanned and written about. Popova wrote that she'd “tracked down a surviving copy of Ralph Steadman's fairly obscure 1995 illustrations for George Orwell's Animal Farm” …

Discussion: Explore, @mikebodge, @jfruh, @brainpicker and @pareene

Andrew Wallenstein / Variety:

Most Pirated TV Shows, Networks Dominated by Broadcasters — Piracy tracking firm CEG TEK came out with a rare comprehensive look at just what TV shows and networks are the most active on P2P hub Bittorrent. While it's hard to extrapolate broad trends from numbers drawn just from last week …

L.A. Ross / The Wrap:

Cable Network Chiefs Slam Netflix, Amazon: ‘We Have A Better Product’ — The heads of ESPN, A+E Networks, and TBS had some strong words for upstart content providers like Netflix, Amazon, and Yahoo. — “We have a better product than they do,” ESPN President John Skipper …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, FierceCable, Los Angeles Times and Variety

Tony Biasotti / Columbia Journalism Review:

Federal judge: Delayed access to court records raises First Amendment concerns — Courthouse News editor sees “nationwide plague”—and he'll get a chance to make his case — It's been a routine for generations of legal beat reporters: Every weekday afternoon, at courthouses across the United States …

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

NewsLynx wants to build tools to better measure the impact of journalism — A new research project over at Columbia's Tow Center wants to do a better job of determining the real impact news has on the world around us. — Former Knight-Mozilla OpenNews fellows and current Tow fellows Brian Abelson …

Discussion: Tow Center for Digital …

Lily Kuo / Quartz:

Why China is censoring ‘The Big Bang Theory’ but not ‘Game of Thrones’ — An alliance with CCTV could be good for the Lannisters. HBO — Chinese regulators recently ordered the country's major video streaming sites to take down four popular American television shows, including The Big Bang Theory …

Tom Cheredar / VentureBeat:

Glam rebrands as ‘Mode Media,’ dives into streaming video business — Glam Media is giving itself a major makeover. — Today the company announced that it is changing its name to Mode Media to better reflect its extended focus on a wider variety of topic-based publications, including Foodie …

Discussion: Folio, Forbes, New York Times, TechCrunch, Capital New York, Variety, AdAge, VBProfiles and MediaWire Daily

Michelle Dean / Gawker:

Allegedly Greedy Marxist Press Demands That Marxists Pay For Marx — A kerfuffle is haunting the Marxist internet—a kerfluffle about copyright. — The Marxist Internet Archive, a website that hosts a number of translations of the works of Marx and Engels online, free for the use of scholars …

Discussion: Ars Technica, Salon, @imjasondiamond, @casey_cac and Business Insider

A.H. Belo Corporation:

Belo Q1: loss of 18 cents/share, $85.6M operating revenue, $0.9M loss from Wanderful — A. H. Belo Corporation Announces First Quarter 2014 Financial Results from Continuing Operations — A. H. Belo Corporation (NYSE: AHC) today reported a first quarter net loss from continuing operations …

Discussion: Providence Journal, MediaPost and WPRI-TV

Greg McNeal / Forbes:

FAA ‘Looking Into’ Arkansas Tornado Drone Journalism, Raising First Amendment Questions — Storm chaser and videographer Brian Emfinger used a drone to document the aftermath of a tornado that ripped through Arkansas. That video prompted speculation as to whether the FAA was going to investigate …

Discussion: @gregorymcneal, @mattwaite, @peterwsinger, @mattwaite, @gregorymcneal, Mashable, @weathermankeith and ArkansasOnline.com

Robert Andrews / Beet.TV:

AOL Will Use Nielsen TV Ratings To Measure Its Video Audience — AOL says it will become the first digital publisher to use Nielsen's TV metrics to quantify its video shows for advertisers - a move that may expose it to comparatively lowly perception by comparison but which could allow …

Discussion: AdAge, Broadcasting & Cable and Capital New York

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Spotify's major redesign comes to Android — The all-new Spotify experience that launched on iPhone and desktop earlier this month is now arriving on Android. The app now looks essentially identical across both mobile platforms, sharing the same dark theme, new typeface, and subtle translucency effects.

Discussion: Engadget