Mediagazer: Vevo, the Giant Music Video Site, Tries to Fix Itself Before It Sells Itself (Peter Kafka/Re/code)

4:25 PM 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 …

Reuters:

Murdoch's 21st Century Fox pledges to extend buybacks — (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox said on Friday it would renew a share buyback program using the proceeds from its partial exit from European pay-TV, regardless of any acquisitions the media group undertakes.

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter: BSkyB Adds More TV Subs in Latest Quarter, Posts Lower Full-Year Profit

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

Nick Davies / Guardian:

The pervasive power of Rupert Murdoch: an extract from Hack Attack by Nick Davies — In this first extract from his new book, the reporter who broke the phone hacking story looks at Rebekah Brooks's 2009 wedding - and how it was a perfect display of the nature of Rupert Murdoch's hold on British life

Discussion: @michaelemann, @peterjukes, @martinshovel, @mmfa, @dangillmor and @kenearlys

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.

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, @emilyjg and Guardian

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, Reuters, MarketWatch, Life Style Extra and EducationInvestor magazine

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: Politico, Gawker, Our Bad Media, Politico, Capital New York, Talking Points Memo, New York Magazine, @noltenc, @erikwemple, FishbowlNY, @blippoblappo, @barryap1, @mobute, @tajmagruder, @abeaujon, @samfbiddle and Poynter

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: Politico, The Huffington Post, Washington Post, FishbowlDC, @laura_nelson, @poynter, BuzzFeed, Gawker, @juddlegum and @scotteweinberg

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Google Granting Around Half Europe's Search De-Index Requests — But Won't Show Its Workings — Following a meeting between European regulators and search engines yesterday, to discuss the latter group's implementation of a recent European Court of Justice privacy ruling …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Techdirt, Softpedia News, Gizmodo UK, Telegraph, Reuters, ZDNet, @techcrunch, The Daily Caller, Washington Post and Forbes

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: @jamesrbuk, @chrisschaef and The Verge

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, @soundboy and TechCrunch

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

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

Anne Helen Petersen / BuzzFeed:

The Down And Dirty History Of TMZ … For just $53, you can purchase a guaranteed front-of-the-bus seat on the TMZ NYC Tour. After stepping on the bus in the middle of Times Square, a TMZ-trained tour guide — handsome, blond, amiable Australian — will ask you and the rest of the bus if you're a huge fan of the show.

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, Business Insider, @erikwemple, @niemanlab, @dkthomp, @erikwemple, @lahlahlindsey, @jackiewarner13, @nathanjurgenson and MetaFilter

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 …

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Amazon Rolls Out A YouTube-Like “Video Shorts” Section On Instant Video — Amazon's Instant Video service has traditionally been thought of as both a rival to iTunes and Netflix, in terms of offering movies and TV shows for rent, purchase or for free streaming via the company's Amazon Prime membership program.

Discussion: Variety and Pocket-lint

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Sources: Google signed deal to buy Twitch for $1B

Gallup:

Russians Rely on State Media for News of Ukraine, Crimea — Few trust Western media or independent Russian media — WASHINGTON, D.C. — Most Russians have been following the news about Ukraine and Crimea over the past few months, with nearly nine in 10 paying attention before Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 …

Discussion: Mediaite

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.