Top News:
Comcast Corporation:
Comcast terminates $45B Time Warner Cable merger agreement — Comcast / Time Warner Cable / Charter Transactions Terminated — Comcast Corporation announced this morning that its merger agreement with Time Warner Cable and its transactions agreement with Charter Communications, Inc. have been terminated.
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Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Light Reading, Politico, Re/code, CBS News, TIME, ABC News, CNET, The Huffington Post, The Next Web, Engadget, CBS Los Angeles, GeekWire, The Verge, Ars Technica, @robpegoraro, Reuters, BGR, The Wrap, Variety and VentureBeat
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Jonathan Mahler / New York Times:
Net neutrality debate shifted regulators' focus on Comcast/TWC merger from cable TV to broadband, sinking the deal — Once Comcast's Deal Shifted to a Focus on Broadband, Its Ambitions Were Sunk — When it was announced a little more than a year ago, it felt to many like a sure thing.
Discussion:
Washington Post, @michaelroston, Los Angeles Times, @mattblaze, NPR and @richbtig
Emily Steel / New York Times:
Comcast and TWC combined would have controlled 57% of national broadband market, too high a threshold for FCC and DoJ — Comcast Confirms End of Deal With Time Warner Cable — Comcast confirmed Friday that it had called off its $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable …
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, CNNMoney, CNNMoney, CNBC and New York Magazine
Erin Griffith / Fortune:
Comcast held acquisition talks with Vox Media, but deal fizzled within the last month — Will Comcast go on a post-Time Warner Cable buying spree? — Comcast recently held acquisition talks with digital publisher Vox Media, Fortune has learned. The potential deal fizzled out within the last month.
Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:
Analysts predict Charter Communications will renew attempts to buy Time Warner Cable
Analysts predict Charter Communications will renew attempts to buy Time Warner Cable
Discussion:
bizjournals
Simon Houpt / Globe and Mail:
BuzzFeed hires Craig Silverman to head Canadian expansion — BuzzFeed hires author of award-winning book on journalistic errors to head Canadian team — BuzzFeed, the news and viral content factory that has sometimes been burned by made-up news stories, has hired a leading warrior …
Discussion:
FishbowlNY, @jayrosen_nyu, Poynter, @buzzfeedben, @cdnwritersgroup, @craigsilverman and @flashboy
Brian Stelter / CNN:
Jake Tapper will anchor CNN's State of the Union — CNN Sundays are about to change 01:07 — Story highlights — New York (CNN)Jake Tapper is the next anchor of CNN's Sunday morning political interview program “State of the Union.” — CNN announced Tapper's promotion on Friday morning.
Discussion:
Mediaite, TVNewser, The Huffington Post, The Wrap, FishbowlDC, Capital New York, OnPolitics, @jeffreygoldberg, @thefix, @joshrogin, Variety and The Daily Caller
Robert Mackey / New York Times:
College student in Turkey gets one-year suspended sentence for tweeting satirical news story — Turkish College Student Convicted for Tweeting Satirical News Story — A provincial court in Turkey sentenced a college student to one year in prison on Thursday for the offense of …
Discussion:
Hurriyet Daily News and @digiphile
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Disney, Fox Refuse to Air Verizon FiOS TV Ads Amid Dispute Over Custom Bundle — Disney and Fox have informed Verizon Communications that they won't run the telco's ads for the new FiOS Custom TV service on their TV networks — after both media conglomerates complained that the package was not authorized under existing contracts.
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Erik Wemple / Washington Post:
Slate Group chairman should have disclosed ties to Sony boss in piece denouncing publishing of hacked emails — Slate Group chairman should have included disclosure in Sony piece — On Dec. 15, Jacob Weisberg, chairman and editor-in-chief of the Slate Group, wrote a strong opinion piece on his flagship site.
Discussion:
@erikwemple, @felixgillette and @jacobwe
Jim Tankersley / Washington Post:
Why the PR industry is sucking up Pulitzer winners — The number of news reporters in the Washington, D.C., area nearly doubled over the last decade, from 1,450 to 2,760. In Los Angeles it grew by 20 percent. In New York City, it basically stayed flat. Outside of those cities …
Discussion:
Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, Reynolds Center, Poynter, @jayrosen_nyu, @tinyrevolution and The Local News Lab
Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
Six US press organizations warn that anti-paparazzi laws may be used to harass journalists — Media Groups Stand Up for Justin Bieber Chaser With Nod to Ferguson — An appeals court is warned that a California law could be used as a “tool” by police to harass journalists.
Discussion:
@eriqgardner
Garett Sloane / Adweek:
Google testing Doubleclick Audience Center ad platform to improve ad targeting — Google Builds a Data Platform That's the Last Piece of Its Ad Empire — Google is testing a new advertising product seen as the last piece it needs to complete its ad tech superstructure.
Discussion:
Beyond Search, mUmBRELLA and Business Insider