Mediagazer: London Live applies to Ofcom to slash local programming (John Plunkett/Guardian)

1:20 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

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

Discussion: USA Today and @stevenjbarnett

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

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

Discussion: @peterlauria3 and @buzzfeedben

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, 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: Our Bad Media, Politico, Capital New York, Politico, FishbowlNY, Talking Points Memo, New York Magazine, @noltenc, @tajmagruder, @erikwemple, @abeaujon, @blippoblappo, @barryap1, @mobute, @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: Washington Post, FishbowlDC, @laura_nelson, @poynter, Gawker, @juddlegum, BuzzFeed 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, The Daily Caller, Softpedia News, @techcrunch, Reuters, ZDNet, Reuters, Telegraph, Gizmodo UK, 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: @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 and @soundboy

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

Discussion: @jeffmignon, @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, Tech Trader Daily, Pandora, ZDNet 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 …

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Sources: Google signed deal to buy Twitch for $1B — 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.

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, Guardian, Digital Spy, The Drum, The Drum, @jake_kanter, broadcastnow.co.uk, Advanced Television, Broadband TV News, @jimwaterson and @jamesrbuk

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

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 …

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:

Conde Nast's Golf World Magazine Goes Digital-Only — Fewer Than 10 People Laid Off — Creativity Top 5 — The 67-year-old Golf World magazine is closing its print edition and shifting entirely to digital media, where it will be part of the Golf Digest website, the magazine said Wednesday.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Associated Press and Folio, Thanks:@msebastian

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: Mashable, Gizmodo, The Verge and Gigaom