Mediagazer: UBC merges with 7digital to create £30m multimedia group (Mark Sweney/Guardian)

7:30 AM ET, May 21, 2014

Top News:

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

UBC merges with 7digital to create £30m multimedia group — Digital music service bought in reverse takeover as multimedia company looks to create global music and radio business — UBC Media chief executive Simon Cole says the merger with 7digital will help the company exploit …

Discussion: Financial Times, RTTNews, Business news and Ifa Magazine

Wall Street Journal:

Twitter backed out of talks to buy SoundCloud because “the numbers didn't add up” — Twitter Considered Buying German Music-Streaming Service — Twitter Inc. considered buying German music-streaming service SoundCloud, but it has backed out of the talks, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Discussion: Business Insider, @hamishmckenzie, @caseynewton, @briansolis, VentureBeat, Re/code, Electronista, Gigaom, The Verge, Mashable, SocialTimes, Fortune and Gigaom

Jake Mitchell / Sydney Morning Herald:

Network Ten, one of the 5 national free-to-air networks in Australia, halves news operation, cuts 150 jobs — Ten revenue ‘down the toilet’ says news chief Peter Meakin — Major cuts have been made to Network Ten's news department following the axing of breakfast show Wake Up, their morning bulletin and late news editions.

Discussion: The Age, Associated Press, ninemsn, NEWS.com.au, The Age, ABC, @juanita_phillip, @attardmon, mUmBRELLA, Sky News and Guardian

Sam Roberts / New York Times:

Arthur Gelb, Critic and Editor Who Shaped the Times, Dies at 90 — Arthur Gelb, who by sheer force of personality dominated the newsroom at The New York Times for decades, lifting its metropolitan and arts coverage to new heights and helping to shape the paper in its modern era, died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan.

Lisa Richwine / Reuters:

Netflix launching in France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, and Luxembourg this year — Netflix to launch in six European countries this year — (Reuters) - Netflix Inc will launch its online movie and TV subscription service later this year in France, Germany and four other European countries …

Discussion: Netflix, Associated Press, Gigaom, CNET, Engadget, The Next Web and The Verge

Johana Bhuiyan / Capital New York:

PolicyMic names Bryan Graham editor of new sports vertical — PolicyMic is rolling out a new vertical tomorrow covering sports, according to a staff memo co-founder and editor in chief Jake Horowitz sent out on Monday night. — Leading new vertical will be Bryan Graham …

Ryan Faughnder / Los Angeles Times:

Nielsen fleshes out Twitter TV ratings with demographic data — Nielsen launched its Twitter TV Ratings last year to show how many people talk about particular shows on social media and, more important, how many people actually see those tweets about “Catfish: The TV Show” and WWE pro wrestling.

Discussion: @nielsensocial, Nielsen, MediaPost, Deadline.com, BroadwayWorld.com and TechCrunch

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Samsung launches new video service... in Asia — Samsung announced a new video service on Tuesday, tentatively called Project Glue, that aims to bring U.S. TV shows to audiences in Asia. Project Glue will give users access to an entire season of a TV show for 30 days for as little as $6.50.

Discussion: The Straits Times, CNET and The Next Web

David Lieberman / Deadline.com:

Consumers Dislike Cable Companies More Than Any Other Industry: Report — It's time for the pay TV industry's annual slap in the face from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which surveys 70,000 people about the products and services they use most. Cable and satellite distributors …

Discussion: Consumerist, Vox, TIME and BGR

Jeremy Barr / Capital New York:

NYT labs creates Vellum, an algorithmically curated list of stories shared on Twitter — N.Y.T. Labs tool makes your Twitter feed into a reading list — Vellum, a new tool from The New York Times R&D lab, seeks to cut through the clutter on Twitter by creating a reading list of the most-shared articles.

Discussion: @capitalnewyork and @zimbalist

Scott Porch / The Daily Beast:

New anthology charts the New Yorker's evolution from ‘breezy’ newsweekly to serious reporting — The Decade When ‘The New Yorker’ Grew Up — Before World War II, Harold Ross's New Yorker was no one's idea of a heavy lift. Then it went off to war and grew up almost overnight.

Discussion: @book_beast

Ralph Cipriano / Big Trial:

Judge Bans Media From Inky Auction — for Bigtrial.net — A Delaware judge today banned the media from attending next Tuesday's auction of the parent company of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, and philly.com. — Vice Chancellor Donald F. Parsons Jr. of the Delaware Court …