Mediagazer: Australia's Commission of Audit has recommended cutting Screen Australia's funding by 50 percent … (Hollywood Reporter)

12:00 PM ET, May 1, 2014

Top News:

Susan B. Glasser / Politico:

“The New York Times Is Not Going to Turn into BuzzFeed” — A frank conversation with the former editors of the Post and the Times. — Between them, Bill Keller and Marcus Brauchli have edited all three great American newspapers—the New York Times for Keller, both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post for Brauchli.

Discussion: @abeaujon, @sbg1, @neil_irwin, @brianstelter and @ethanklapper

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

NYT's big circulation gains include copies of international edition — Average Monday-Friday circulation at The New York Times was 15 percent higher for the six months ending March 2014 than it was in the same period the year before, new figures from the Alliance for Audited Media say.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, FishbowlNY, @poynter and investors.nytco.com

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

USA Today, Journal and Times top circulation list, as usual — USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times remain America's top three newspapers in terms of total average circulation, according to the latest figures released today from the Alliance for Audited Media.

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Television Revenue Drives Viacom Profit — Viacom, the media powerhouse that includes the movie studio Paramount and cable television channels like MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, generated $502 million in profit for its latest fiscal quarter, driven by increased advertising …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and Deadline.com

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Viacom to Acquire U.K.'s Channel 5 for $760 Million — Entrepreneur Richard Desmond had bought the broadcaster for $171 million a few years ago. — LONDON - After Discovery Communications and British pay TV giant BSkyB dropped out of the auction, Viacom is set to announce a deal …

Discussion: Guardian, Capital New York, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Variety, Reuters, Associated Press, Bloomberg, London News, MediaTel, broadcastnow.co.uk and Telegraph

Mark Sweney / Guardian:
Sky Media expected to pick up £330m-a-year deal, giving it more than 30% of the market

Discussion: @marksweney

Leo Mirani / Quartz:

Why LinkedIn is morphing from a social network into an online newspaper — On May 5th, LinkedIn will be celebrate its 11th birthday. It announced last month that 300 million people had signed up for the professional social network. This evening, LinkedIn will report earnings for first quarter …

Wall Street Journal:

AT&T considering acquisition of DirectTV, in deal likely worth at least $40B — AT&T Has Approached DirecTV About Possible Acquisition — AT&T has approached DirecTV about a possible acquisition of the satellite TV firm, say people familiar with the situation, the latest sign of a possible shakeup in the television industry.

Howard W. French / Columbia Journalism Review:

How the rise and fall of Bloomberg's China investigative unit harmed the news org's reputation — Bloomberg's folly — For foreign correspondents in China, breaking stories that the censored Chinese press can't touch has long been a core part of the mission.

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Hollywood Reporter:

Australia's Commission of Audit has recommended cutting Screen Australia's funding by 50 percent and eliminating the country's pan-Asian public TV network altogether.

Alex Weprin / Capital New York:

Twitter has bet the farm on television, but does TV care? — Twitter has bet the farm on television. In its stated goal to become “The Global Town Square,” the service has tied itself to TV networks and companies through its “Amplify” program, arguing that when people watch something on TV …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Quartz, NPR, Talking Biz News and Forbes

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

For White House reporter Lesley Clark, so close and yet so far — Reporter Lesley Clark once got close enough to President Obama at an international summit to notice that he was chewing gum. “I think it was that nicotine stuff,” she recalls. — Okay, not exactly a major scoop.

Bloomberg:

Sony cuts earnings forecast by 67.5% due to quickly shrinking Blu-ray sales, restructuring expenses — Sony Cuts Earnings a Third Time as Recovery Founders — Sony Corp. (6758), the maker of Xperia smartphones and PlayStation consoles, cut its earnings for the third time in a year …

Discussion: BBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Reuters and Hollywood Reporter

Erich Schwartzel / Wall Street Journal:

DreamWorks to Put Short-Form Content on YouTube — Computer-Animation Studio Pushes Its Expansion Beyond Movies — DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. 's recent track record in movies has been spotty: Three of its last four films—including the March release “Mr. Peabody & Sherman”—have come up short at the box office.

Gideon Spanier / London Evening Standard:

Google Maps and BBC iPlayer traffic surges during tube strike — Londoners used up a fifth more data on their smartphones during the Tube strike as millions of commuters were forced to make journeys above ground, according to mobile giant EE. — The owner of the Orange and T-Mobile networks …

Alexandra Steigrad / WWD:

ASME Crowns Year's Best Cover, Talks Video — ASME CROWNS BEST COVER, TALKS VIDEO: Media types braved the rain Wednesday to attend the American Society of Magazine Editors luncheon in Manhattan, during which the organization crowned the best magazine cover of the year.

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Filmmakers Moving Where the Money is: Digital TV Series — For independent filmmakers, digital TV series may be the next green. — Like many directors, Paul Schrader acknowledges the difficulty of finding money for his projects. He had to fund last year's “The Canyons,” starring Lindsay Lohan …

Erich Schwartzel / Wall Street Journal:

Katzenberg Predicts Home Movie Viewers Will Pay by Size of Screen — BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.—DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg offered his vision Monday of what moviegoing will look like in 10 years—down to the inch. — A decade from now, he predicted …

Discussion: BBC, Fast Company, Bleeding Cool Comic Book …, TheCelebrityCafe.com, Variety, Film School Rejects and Cinema Blend

Sandra Oshiro / Poynter:

AP posts profit after cost-cutting, but revenue declines — AP reported its net income grew in 2013 to $3.3 million, an improvement over the previous year when the company ran $25.5 million in the red, according to its annual report distributed Wednesday. — But revenue dropped by 4 percent …

Discussion: Globe and Mail and ap.org

Oliver Knox / Yahoo! News:

Meet Jessica Allen, the aide scouring Twitter to act as liaison between press and White House — When the White House hates your tweet — For the Obama White House, tweets from reporters are a kind of early warning system. It's up to Jessica Allen, 24, to sound the alarm.

Discussion: Politico, The Huffington Post, @huffpostmedia, @anamariecox, @eamonjavers, @stewsays, @katherinemiller, @jbendery, @davidseawright, @tamarakeithnpr, @cuffymeh and @atotalmonet

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

Bill Introduced On Reforming U.S. Foreign Broadcasting Outlets — Two lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives have helped prepare a bill that would clarify the mandate of the Voice of America and reorganize other U.S. government-funded radio stations.

Discussion: Foreign Policy, BuzzFeed, The Voice of Russia, News, MintPress News and RT

Kyle Stock / Businessweek:

HBO Teaches the Streaming Wannabes How to Make Big Money on Original Shows — Despite a flurry of original, lavishly produced TV programs from Hulu, Netflix (NFLX), and Amazon (AMZN), HBO is quietly becoming the next HBO. — True Detective, the eight-episode cop thriller that ran from Jan. 12 to March 9 …

Discussion: @tcarmody

Ed Christman / Billboard:

Kobalt Launches YouTube Matching Tool ProKlaim, Boasts 1bn Processed Streams Per Month — With YouTube royalty revenue on the upswing, music publishers and labels are getting more proactive in making sure they get their share of payments. — In the latest move, Kobalt Music Group has launched ProKlaim …

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Press regulation: Newspapers lose court of appeal battle over rival royal charter — Industry wanted judicial review of government's rejection of their own version of charter — The newspaper industry has lost its latest battle for a judicial review of the government's rejection of its version of a royal charter.

Discussion: BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Danish magazine at the centre of a phone hacking-style scandal — A media controversy has broken in Denmark that is being compared to the News of the World phone hacking scandal. — Police in Copenhagen are investigating claims that an employee at a Danish IT company leaked details …

Discussion: India & World and cphpost.dk

Lacey Rose / Hollywood Reporter:

How Much Is That Netflix Show Worth? Stars Want to Know (Analysis) — The multimillion-dollar question is being raised as ratings secrecy clouds cast renegotiations. Says one lawyer, “We've got to find a new metric.” — Seated among top television showrunners at a Hollywood Reporter roundtable …

Discussion: @laceyvrose, @sepinwall and @nprmonkeysee

Hillel Italie / Associated Press:

“To Kill a Mockingbird” finally going digital … NEW YORK (AP) — Harper Lee has signed on for Scout, Boo Radley and Atticus Finch to enter the electronic age. — Filling one of the biggest gaps in the e-library, “To Kill a Mockingbird” will become available as an e-book and digital audiobook on July 8 …

Paul Carsten / Reuters:

China censors assert online authority in blow to U.S. TV shows — China's censors are asserting their authority over foreign TV content on the country's booming online video sites, after years of hands-off regulation, raising the risks for U.S. distributors left in the dark about which shows might fall foul of the rules.

Discussion: TechPresident