Mediagazer: BSkyB to buy Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland for £4.9bn cash (Juliette Garside/Guardian)

11:50 AM ET, July 25, 2014

Top News:

Juliette Garside / Guardian:

BSkyB to buy Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland for £4.9bn cash — Broadcaster to buy Fox's 57.4% interest in German firm, while Italian purchase to use cash and National Geographic sale — BSkyB is to become a pan-European broadcasting company after agreeing to buy Sky Italia …

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

BSkyB Adds More TV Subs in Latest Quarter, Posts Lower Full-Year Profit — The U.K. pay TV giant, in which 21st Century Fox owns a 39 percent stake, saw higher revenue offset by higher costs, including for English soccer league rights. — LONDON - U.K. pay TV giant BSkyB on Friday …

Kamal Ahmed / BBC:
BSkyB - James Murdoch's master plan comes closer to fruition

Discussion: USA Today and @stevenjbarnett

Peter Lauria / BuzzFeed:
Why Harry Potter And The Simpsons Are Key To A Fox-Time Warner Deal

Discussion: @peterlauria3 and @buzzfeedben

Our Bad Media:

Six more plagiarism accusations against BuzzFeed's Benny Johnson — More Plagiarism From “One Of The Web's Deeply Original Writers” — Yesterday, this blog posted an article about serial plagiarism by Buzzfeed's Benny Johnson that came after said reporter called out another publication for plagiarizing his own work.

Discussion: Our Bad Media, Politico, Capital New York, @erikwemple, @blippoblappo, @barryap1 and @mobute

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

BuzzFeed is reviewing Benny Johnson's work — BuzzFeed is reviewing the work of viral politics editor Benny Johnson, BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith tells Poynter. — Two Twitter users who go by @blippoblappo and @crushingbort have published what they call “more plagiarism” from Johnson …

Discussion: @poynter and BuzzFeed

J.K. Trotter / Gawker:
BuzzFeed Editor Caught Lifting Text From Yahoo! Answers

Discussion: Politico, FishbowlNY, Washington Post, @bennyjohnson, BuzzFeed, @hunterw, @jktrotter, @juddlegum, @samfbiddle, @scotteweinberg, @davidfolkenflik, @timothypmurphy and Poynter

Financial Times:

Financial Times says digital subscriptions up 33%, making up 2/3 of paying audience; overall circulation up 13%, year-on-year — Financial Times - 2014 interim statement — The FT's total circulation is at an all time high - up 13 per cent year on year to more than 677,000 across print and online.

Discussion: Press Gazette, Guardian and @emilyjg

Bloomberg:
Pearson Cutting 4,000 Jobs as First-Half Sales Decline

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

Simon Zekaria / Wall Street Journal:
Financial Times publisher Pearson posts first-half net profit of £227M, sales fell 6.5% to £2.05B

Discussion: Pearson, MarketWatch, Life Style Extra, Reuters and EducationInvestor magazine

Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:

Pandora joins the billion-dollar music payouts club with Spotify and YouTube — When the likes of Spotify look to a possible future as public companies, Pandora remains the most high-profile example of a post-IPO digital music business riding the Wall Street rollercoaster.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

John McDuling / Quartz:
An epic battle in streaming music is about to begin, and only a few will survive

Discussion: @tcarmody, @morrowgl, @damienjoyce and @amchamkristiina

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Pandora Q2 Tops Estimates Slightly With $218.9M In Revenue, But Its Stock Is Falling

Discussion: Radio & Television …, @miriamgottfried, @jboorstin, AdExchanger, CNET, ZDNet, Tech Trader Daily, Pandora and TheStreet.com

Washington Post:

Iran confirms arrest of Post correspondent — Iran confirmed Friday that The Washington Post's correspondent in Tehran has been arrested on unspecified charges. — Gholam-Hossein Esmaili, director general of the Tehran Province Justice Department, told reporters that the …

Rowena Mason / Guardian:

Jimmy Wales says Google should not be ‘censoring history’ after web search company reveals it has approved half of requests — Right to be forgotten: Wikipedia chief enters internet censorship row — Jimmy Wales says Google should not be ‘censoring history’ after web search company reveals …

Discussion: The Verge

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Google Granting Around Half Europe's Search De-Index Requests — But Won't Show Its Workings

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Softpedia News, ZDNet, Reuters, Gizmodo UK, Telegraph, Washington Post, Forbes and Ars Technica

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Google's $1B purchase of Twitch confirmed — joins YouTube for new video empire — Google has reached a deal to buy game livestreaming firm Twitch for $1 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter. — Citing unnamed sources, Variety said back in May that Google had made an all-cash offer …

Amy Schatz / Re/code:

Major League Baseball Cries Foul on Net Neutrality Proposal — Count Major League Baseball among those who aren't wildly excited by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal to allow broadband providers to offer fast-lane Internet access to content companies. — Last week, the sports league's …

Discussion: Gizmodo, The Verge and Gigaom

Press Gazette:

Four security guards accused of helping to destroy Rebekah Brooks evidence have case against them dropped — Four security guards accused of helping to hide or destroy evidence around the time of Rebekah Brooks's arrest will not face trial, a court was told today.

Discussion: Guardian

John Plunkett / Guardian:

London Live applies to Ofcom to slash local programming — Four months after launch, TV station wants to cut primetime local content from three to just one hour a day — London Live's local evening programming includes Not the One Show, a reference to BBC1's The One Show.

Discussion: Guardian, The Drum, @jake_kanter, broadcastnow.co.uk, Broadband TV News, @jimwaterson and @jamesrbuk

Robert Booth / Guardian:

Court hears dispute over whether Andy Coulson or News UK must pay £750,000 costs after phone hacking trial — Court hears dispute over whether Andy Coulson or News UK must pay £750,000 costs after phone hacking trial — The former editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson …

Discussion: Telegraph and Private Eye

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Comixology users can now download DRM-free backups of some comics — Maybe Amazon's purchase of Comixology isn't the worst thing to ever happen after all. Comic book readers on iOS have been fuming over the loss of in-app purchases following the company's acquisition …

Alex Ben Block / Hollywood Reporter:

Time Warner Cable Signs on for ESPN's New SEC Net — ESPN closed the deal, which also includes Bright House Networks, to bring carriage of the newest college conference network to about 60 million U.S. TV homes. — The college football conference that has been a big winner on the gridiron in recent years …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times and SI.com

John Plunkett / Guardian:

Newsnight's Evan Davis: 'It could all go wrong, but it'll at least be an adventure' — Davis replaces Paxman as lead anchor and faces the challenge of attracting a bigger audience to the BBC show — Evan Davis is the new star presenter of BBC2's Newsnight - but it almost didn't happen.