Mediagazer: Virgin Media returns to revenue growth with 15,000 new TV customers (Juliette Garside/Guardian)

7:20 AM ET, May 7, 2014

Top News:

Nic Christensen / mUmBRELLA:

Fairfax announces 70-80 redundancies across production, lifestyle and photographic — Fairfax Media has announced a proposal that could see more than 70 positions go from its newspaper arm Australian Publishing Media (APM) across its editorial production, lifestyle and photographic sections.

Discussion: Guardian, Guardian, MEAA web site, @theage_photo, @melbourneobs, @mpbowers, @jillastark, mUmBRELLA, Crikey, TheAustralian, @dowsteve, @perkinsmiki, @nicchristensen, @sally_jackson and @danielmoakes

Sharri Markson / The Australian:

Staff strike as Fairfax takes sword to snappers, subs — FAIRFAX staff have voted to go on strike in response to the news the company will sack 80 newsroom staff across production, layout and photographics and outsource the work. — Staff tweeted that a snap 24-hour strike …

Discussion: Mark Skulley, @tanyachilcott, @domsequitur, @ivorytowerjourn, @belindaseeney, @michaelsin_, @meadea, ABC, NEWS.com.au, Sydney Morning Herald, @larasinclair and HeraldSun

Leslie Kaufman / New York Times:

Jet Magazine to Shift to Digital Publishing Next Month — Jet, the pioneering African-American weekly magazine that rose to prominence covering the civil rights movement, is expected to announce Wednesday morning that it will no longer publish a regular print edition, the latest in a growing list …

Discussion: MediaWire Daily

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Maker Studios Launches Maker.tv, Tees Up Original Series from Morgan Spurlock and YouTube Stars — Maker Studios, the digital media company that Disney is buying for up to $950 million, unveiled a slate of original programming and took the wraps off Maker.tv — a consumer destination for monetizing video off YouTube.

Discussion: Deadline.com, StreamDaily and Hollywood Reporter

Tim Peterson / AdAge:
Maker Studios, Omnicom Sign Eight-Figure Upfront Deal for Web Video

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, The Wrap, Variety, @dslrvideostudio and @learmonth

John Plunkett / Guardian:

Howard Stringer and Marjorie Scardino in line to replace Lord Patten — Former Sony chief is an early favourite to become BBC Trust chairman, while ex-FT boss is the female frontrunner — Former Sony boss Sir Howard Stringer has emerged as an early favourite to succeed Lord Patten as chairman …

Patrick Frater / Variety:

Why Alibaba's IPO Matters to Hollywood — As China's e-commerce giant seeks a $150 billion flotation it is building an array of video and internet options and moving upstream into content. — Asia Bureau Chief — HONG KONG — The proposed share sale in the US of Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter

Juliette Garside / Guardian:

Virgin Media returns to revenue growth with 15,000 new TV customers — Virgin also adds more than 40,000 broadband subscribers, marking return to form after acquisition by Liberty Global — Virgin Media has nudged back into revenue growth, adding 15,000 paying television customers and more than 40,000 broadband subscribers.

Discussion: uSwitch.com Broadband and thinkbroadband

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

Ban on drone photos harms free speech, say media outlets in challenge to FAA — The New York Times and other major media outlets have accused the Federal Aviation Administration of “chilling” journalism and violating their First Amendment rights by banning the use of unmanned aircraft for news photography.

Discussion: Forbes, The Verge, @niemanlab, Motherboard and Associated Press

Jeff Baumgartner / Multichannel News:

Suddenlink To Offer Netflix On TiVo Devices — MSO To Add Support For OTT Video Service This Summer — Suddenlink Communications has become the latest U.S. cable operator - and the largest domestic MSO, so far - to strike a deal to offer access to Netflix on leased TiVo-powered set-top boxes.

Discussion: Home Media Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Reuters and Variety

Kristen Schweizer / Bloomberg:

ITV, UK's biggest commercial broadcaster, acquires 80% of Leftfield Entertainment for $360M — ITV Agrees to Buy Leftfield Entertainment for $360 Million — ITV Plc (ITV), the U.K.'s biggest commercial broadcaster, agreed to acquire a controlling stake in Leftfield Entertainment Group …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Guardian, Telegraph, Deadline.com, London Evening Standard, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal, Hollywood Reporter, Financial Times, The Irish Times, broadcastnow.co.uk, ifamagazine.com, Variety and thedrum.com

Jim Bach / American Journalism Review:

Reporter Pay Falls Below U.S. Average Wage — Sarah Rose, 27, works full time as a newspaper reporter in Kentucky, but is considering taking a part-time job to help cover living expenses. — Rose earns $24,000 a year at the Glasgow Daily Times, where mandatory furloughs this year are projected to reduce her modest salary by $2,000.

Discussion: @alexlobov, @abhabhattarai, @pabloweather and The Huffington Post

Megan Geuss / Ars Technica:

On average, Americans get 189 cable TV channels and only watch 17 — A new Nielsen report raises questions about the channel-bundling system. — In a blog post on Tuesday, Nielsen reported that on average, US homes receive 189.1 TV channels, but viewers only watch 17.5 of those channels.

Discussion: Nielsen, Variety, @bergmayer, Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, @bergmayer, Wall Street Journal and Lost Remote

Elon Green / Salon:

Bloomberg News' hack nightmare: Why did it “double down” with Halperin & Heilemann? — It's good that Bloomberg wants to strengthen its political coverage — but this is like throwing out $2 million — The weekend brought some disappointing, unsurprising and vaguely peculiar media news …

Discussion: The Huffington Post and Politico

Andrew Flanagan / Billboard:

Pandora Launches Beta of Brand-Curated Stations — Pandora has announced the beta launch of ‘Promoted Stations,’ a way for the service to better serve advertisers by providing users with a custom-curated stations from brands. The beta, available to 10% of users initially, is the …

Discussion: AdAge and NetNewsCheck Latest

Joe Eskenazi / The Snitch:

Todd Vogt, San Francisco Print Media Company President, Likely to Sell SF Weekly, Bay Guardian, Examiner — If you ever hoped to keep something on the down low, it's best not to announce it in front of a command gathering of multiple newspaper staffs. Newsrooms are not impregnable fortresses.

Discussion: @audreycoopersf and @judehere

Caysey Welton / Folio:

NYLON Sold to Diversis Capital, Merges with FashionIndie.com — Brands will remain independent under new ownership. — NYLON, along with all of its branded assets, including NYLON Guys, NYLON TV, its international editions and Web and social assets have been sold to Marc Luzzato and his Diversis Capital team of investors.

Discussion: Adweek and New York Post

Anna Prior / Wall Street Journal:

Disney Q2 earnings: $1.92B, or $1.08/share, up 27% on film studio strength — Disney Posts 27% Rise in Profit — Studio Division Continues to Benefit From the Animated Blockbuster ‘Frozen’ — Walt Disney Co. said its fiscal second-quarter profit rose 27% as the company's studio division continued …

Discussion: Forbes, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Washington Post, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, New York Times and multichannel.com

Wayne Friedman / MediaPost: Disney Ad Revs Slide At ABC TV, ESPN

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Journalism Lab:

What does a design director at ProPublica do? David Sleight on what happens when you engage design with reporting — Last month, ProPublica, the investigative nonprofit news organization, published a nearly 9,000-word examination of the re-emergence of segregation in public schools.

Discussion: @clockwerks, @litherland and @ezraklein

Joe Concha / Mediaite:

Concha: When Gawker Goes the Dan Rather Route — Let's say you had a juicy story to tell... A story that could be potentially damaging to a powerful entity you deem to be discriminatory to a particular group of people... And in putting together your story, you build its entire foundation on a specific account...

Ricardo Bilton / Digiday:

Inside The Financial Times' digital strategy — Publishers today are subject to that most timeworn of business imperatives: Grow as large an audience as possible, then sell that scaled audience to the advertisers who want to reach it. It's a business model that has stubbornly persisted …

Discussion: @digiday