Mediagazer: Comcast CEO “Cautiously Optimistic” on Approval for Time Warner Cable Acquisition (Paul Bond/Hollywood Reporter)

3:40 PM ET, September 16, 2014

Top News:

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Forbes sale to Hong Kong investors is official: family retains 20%, Elevation is bought out — Deal for Forbes finalized — The Asian investors who are taking over a majority stake in Forbes Media finalized the deal last Friday, officially ending 97 years of family control …

Discussion: Forbes, FishbowlNY and MediaWire Daily

Catalina Albeanu / Journalism.co.uk:

BBC News launches account on instant messenger app Line — BBC News has launched an account on instant messaging app Line today, the latest in a series of experiments with content distribution through chat apps. BBC's Line account is its first international news channel inside a chat app …

Discussion: BBC, Campaign Asia and The Drum

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

Hated podcast troll wins $1.3M patent verdict from CBS, but may soon be dead all the same — One of the standard bearers of America's broken system — a podcast troll that never made a podcast — has proved depressingly tenacious. Despite winning another jury verdict, the troll's days may be numbered.

Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:
Personal Audio wins $1.3M from CBS in podcast patent case; firm can proceed against NBC, Fox

Discussion: UPROXX and Boing Boing

Our Bad Media:

Fareed Zakaria Never Stopped Plagiarizing: How Dozens Of Episodes Of His CNN Show Ripped Others Off — Earlier this year, a certain CNN employee specializing in international news was caught red-handed plagiarizing dozens of instances of reporting. What did the network do?

Discussion: Politico, Mediaite, Poynter, @coalsonr, @mtaibbi, @mtracey, @mtaibbi, @over_rated, @jackshafer, @eliasisquith, @mobute, @aburnspolitico, @alexweprin, @jeremyduns and @joshsternberg

NetNewsCheck Latest:

Journalism organizations file comments with FCC supporting net neutrality — Journalism, News Groups Back Open Internet — The Newspaper Association of America, American Society of News Editors, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the Association of Alternative Newsmedia …

Discussion: @dangillmor

Rukmini Callimachi / New York Times:

For James Foley's Family, U.S. Policy Offered No Hope — The email appeared in Michael Foley's inbox a year after his brother James disappeared on a reporting trip in northern Syria. It made clear that the people holding him wanted one thing above all else: money.

Discussion: @comradewong, @pamelapaulnyt, @pdanahar, @katz, @csstewart, Mother Jones, @trdeghett, @andylancaster, @sultanalqassemi, The Newspaper Guild, @katz and @lrozen

Jeff Baumgartner / Multichannel News:

Roku Surpasses 10M Players Sold In U.S. — Up From 8 Million U.S. Shipments In January — Roku continues to keep its international sales numbers under wraps, but the OTT video specialist announced Tuesday that it has surpassed sales of 10 million players in the U.S.

Discussion: The Official Roku Blog, Home Media Magazine, CNET, Fast Company, Hollywood Reporter, TechCrunch, Variety, The Verge, The Next Web, Re/code and Gigaom

Paul Bond / Hollywood Reporter:

Comcast CEO “Cautiously Optimistic” on Approval for Time Warner Cable Acquisition — “The process is underway in earnest and we've got many states and local communities to already approve of the transfer,” the exec stated on Tuesday — Comcast CEO Brian Roberts on Tuesday said he was …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Orlando Sentinel and Variety

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Gawker signs 15-year lease on new office, signaling Nick Denton's ambitions for his empire — Nick Denton Says Gawker Media Is Booming, Moving — And Fighting the Good Fight — Remember when Gawker was a single site dedicated to skewering New York's media elite? — That was a long time ago!

Discussion: The New York Observer, Business Insider, Politico, @tcarmody, @donlynturnbull, @danfostertype, @nicknotned, @bubbaprog, @jbasher, @mottel, @jwherrman, @jason, Commercial Observer and Digiday

Sam Kirkland / Poynter:

Advice for newspaper editors: Pay attention to BuzzFeed — A group of legacy media executives was told on Monday that it has a lot to learn from the likes of BuzzFeed. “You may not approve of their editorial content,” said Amy Webb, CEO of Webbmedia Group. “But you must learn from their digital strategy.”

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Clear Channel Renames Itself iHeartMedia, in an Embrace of the Digital — When it was introduced by Clear Channel Communications in 2008, the iHeartRadio app had a humble job as an online outlet for the radio giant's 800-plus stations. — Now iHeartRadio has become such a central part …

Discussion: AdAge and @cnymediacritic

News UK:

News UK Completes Move from Wapping to new London Bridge HQ — ‘News Building’ officially opened by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. — The completion of the move of News UK to the News Building at London Bridge was marked today with its official opening by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

Discussion: Guardian, @helen_truchla, @raju, @raju, @raju, @theshardlondon, @nravitz and @dylsharpe

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Report predicts newspaper revenue growth in 2015 - but not in the UK — The revenue decline for the newspaper industry will end next year, according to the latest global entertainment and media outlook report by PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC). — It forecasts that newspaper revenue will start …

Discussion: Poynter, @pwcadvisory and @johnmcquaid

Agence France-Presse:

French daily Liberation to trim a third of its workforce — Paris (AFP) - Left-leaning French newspaper Liberation said Monday it was slashing about a third of its workforce to “save” the daily founded by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. The 93 jobs concern those on permanent and part …

Discussion: @mathewi, Guardian and english.rfi.fr

Lloyd Grove / The Daily Beast:

Dean Baquet, the NYT's Executive Editor, on Jill Abramson, Race, Surviving Cancer—and TMZ Envy — The first months of Dean Baquet's editorship of The New York Times have been dramatic. Here he talks about the departure of his predecessor, punching walls, and why assigning reporters to warzones keeps him ‘most awake at night.’

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Mediaite, The New York Observer, @thelloydgrove, @sampjacobs, @nytfridge, @idiplomacy, @mathewi and The Newspaper Guild

Mario R. García / Garcia Media:

Financial Times: a classic redesign for the digital age — From time to time a newspaper redesign is announced that gets everyone on alert mode. Such is the case with the redesign unveiled today by the Financial Times. Let's take a look at the centerpieces of this project: the new fonts …