Mediagazer: SoftBank Investing $250 Million in Legendary, Forms Joint Venture (Variety)

3:55 PM ET, October 2, 2014

Top News:

A mixed bag on apps: What The New York Times learned with NYT Opinion and NYT Now — The New York Times' announcement today that it was cutting 100 positions in its newsroom was coupled with changes to two of its most closely watched experiments, each just a few months old: NYT Now and NYT Opinion.

Discussion: Nieman Lab, USA Today, Digiday, Columbia Journalism Review, The Huffington Post, FishbowlNY, Talking New Media, @raju, @osulop, @jbenton, @nycjim, bookforum.com, ZDNet, Gigaom and PandoDaily

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:

Google threatened with $100M lawsuit for failure to remove nude images of hacked celebrities — Celebrities Threaten “Despicable” Google for “Facilitating” Hacked Nude Photos — In a letter that rips Google for acting “like the NFL” and turning a blind eye, a lawyer representing celebrities warns of consequences

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Twitter UK TV Ratings Go Live This Month, The First Of 6 New Markets With Kantar — Twitter is today putting in place the latest piece of its global “social TV” strategy, which involves measuring how its users share and discuss TV programs and related content on Twitter's network.

Discussion: Telecompaper, Broadband TV News and Rapid TV News

Emily Steel / New York Times:

With Four New Adam Sandler Films, Netflix Takes Aim at Theaters — Netflix plans to announce on Thursday that it has struck a deal with the comedian Adam Sandler to produce and star in four new feature films that will appear exclusively on the streaming service.

Discussion: Netflix, Variety, Forbes, The Wrap, Hollywood Reporter, The Verge, @andygreenwald, @noahshachtman, @ditzkoff, UPROXX, Gigaom and Engadget

Krishnadev Calamur / NPR:

One System, Two Media: How China, Hong Kong Are Covering The Protests — Hong Kong media are providing wall-to-wall coverage of the protests calling for the resignation of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, but in mainland China there has been little to no mention of the unrest.

Discussion: New Yorker and Agence France-Presse

Laura Hazard Owen / Gigaom:

Amazon's crowdsourced publishing platform will launch soon for mystery, romance and sci-fi authors — Amazon's crowdsourced publishing initiative is for romance, mystery/thriller and sci-fi/fantasy authors, and will open to the public in a couple of weeks. Separately, Amazon is launching a community called WriteOn.

Discussion: Publishers Weekly and The Digital Reader

Daniel Miller / Los Angeles Times:

Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger gets two-year contract extension — Walt Disney Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Iger's contract has been extended two years through June 2018, the Burbank-based company said Thursday. — The executive, who has been CEO of the world's largest …

Discussion: New York Times, Reuters, Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Wall Street Journal

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

The NFL's Flirtation With the Web Is Over (For Now) — One day, a tech giant like Google or Apple might stream pro football games to American homes. But not anytime soon: DirecTV has renewed its deal to carry the NFL's “Sunday Ticket” subscription package.

Discussion: @pkafka

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

How The Washington Post's Carol Leonnig Broke Open The Secret Service Scandal — NEW YORK — With the Secret Service under fire for a series of security lapses in presidential protection, there is one journalist who seems to have all the information. The White House, Congress and even Julia Pierson …

Discussion: Vanity Fair, @postroz, @cestlah, @markmemmottnpr, Slate, Gawker, US News and The New York Observer

Rich McCormick / The Verge:

Intel responds to pressure from anti-feminist campaign #GamerGate, pulling ads from Gamasutra — Intel buckles to anti-feminist campaign by pulling ads from gaming site — #GamerGate supporters try to silence calls for video game equality — Intel has pulled an advertising campaign …

Discussion: @gamasutra, @jessethorn, @caseynewton, @icculus, Ars Technica, Re/code, Boing Boing and nichegamer.net

Yoree Koh / Wall Street Journal:

Twitter, MIT Create New Research Lab to Analyze Every Tweet — Twitter is giving every tweet ever made publicly to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the name of research. — With a $10 million investment from Twitter, data scientists at MIT's Media Lab are creating a new research group …

Discussion: newsoffice.mit.edu, Gigaom, Businessweek, International Business Times, bizjournals, Computerworld, Boing Boing, VentureBeat and The Next Web

National Union of Journalists:

NUJ calls for urgent investigation of RIPA's use to spy on journalists — The NUJ has condemned a further case in which police have misused the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) in order to secretly access material from journalists and their sources.

Discussion: Guardian, Guardian and Gravesend Reporter

Tim Peterson / AdAge:

Ready for a Vice Talk Show? Vice News to Develop Scheduled Live Shows With Skype — Weighing Two Talk Show Formats to Involve Its Audience — Vice News has gained attention with long live feeds from Ferguson, Mo., but is now moving to also schedule live programming online. — Hispanic Fact Pack 2014

Discussion: Media Week

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

£600k salary for outgoing Newsquest chief Paul Davidson as company makes £53m profit in 2013 — The UK's third largest newspaper group Newsquest made an operating profit last year of £52.8m on turnover of £289m. — Both profit and turnover were down from the 2012 totals …

Discussion: Guardian

Andrew Chung / Reuters:

Sirius XM will appeal copyright ruling in $100 million lawsuit — Satellite radio provider Sirius XM Holdings Inc will appeal a California federal judge's decision finding it liable of copyright infringement for airing pre-1972 songs by the band, The Turtles, and failing to pay royalties.

Discussion: AllAccess.com, Wall Street Journal and Radio Ink Magazine

Variety:

SoftBank Investing $250 Million in Legendary, Forms Joint Venture — Japanese banking and technology giant SoftBank Corp. has closed a deal to invest $250 million in Legendary Entertainment. As part of the pact, the companies will form a joint venture designed to promote and create business opportunities …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, The Wrap, Deadline, Reuters, New York Times, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, StreamDaily and Engadget

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Sun journalist faces retrial over alleged payment to police officer — Jury fails to reach a verdict on first journalist to be charged under Met police's Operation Elveden — The first Sun journalist to be charged for payments to police leaking stories will face a retrial after a jury failed to reach a verdict at the Old Bailey.

Corilyn Shropshire / Chicago Tribune:

Tribune Media's Gracenote buys Australian TV, movie data provider — Tribune Media Co.'s Gracenote said Thursday that it has acquired HWW, an Australian provider of television and movie data in a deal worth $19 million. — The deal is expected to broaden Gracenote's international reach …

Reuters:

France's Orange to market Netflix in November - CEO — France's biggest telecom operator Orange has reached an agreement with Netflix to offer the video streaming service on its set-top boxes from November, its chief executive Stephane Richard told Le Monde newspaper on Wednesday.

Discussion: The Next Web and Bloomberg