Top News:


Tow Center's Emily Bell: News organizations have lost control of distribution, must work with social media apps and develop their own tech — Emily Bell: news groups should harness tech in the service of ‘good’ journalism — With social media companies stepping into the news business like never before …
Discussion:
TheMediaBriefing, @jayrosen_nyu, @mweinger and @mweinger


BBC review key points: weighing subscription model against license fee, structure of the BBC Trust, how programming can be distinct from commercial companies — BBC review: the key points — Culture secretary John Whittingdale launches ‘root and branch’ review of BBC charter
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BBC's “Scale and Scope” to Be Reviewed, U.K. Government Says — Just over a week after it put the BBC at the center of a dispute regarding its financial arrangements, the British government said Thursday that it would have to review its “scale and scope” as the two sides start negotiating …
Discussion:
GOV.UK departments and policy, @dcms, Hollywood Reporter, BBC, bbc.co.uk, @johnplunkett149, Mashable, @psmith, Telegraph and Guardian


Illicit sharing of HBO, Netflix, and other account passwords estimated to cost the VOD industry $500M+ in 2015 — Password Sharing: Are Netflix, HBO Missing $500 Million by Not Cracking Down? — Subscription VOD players, fighting for market share, aren't likely to crack down on cheaters
Discussion:
kottke.org


Interview with HBO's Bernadette Aulestia, EVP of global distribution operations, about HBO Now, cord cutters, cannibalizing fears, and scaling for big events — An interview with Bernadette Aulestia, the woman expanding HBO beyond cable — Bernadette Aulestia's first gig helping HBO expand beyond cable was a short-lived effort.
Discussion:
The Next Web, The Verge and FierceCable


After eight years in jail, Canadian-Iranian “blogfather” Hossein Derakhshan sees loss of blogs, text, and individual power, calls for effort to save open web — The Web We Have to Save — The rich, diverse, free web that I loved—and spent years in an Iranian jail for—is dying.
Discussion:
@emilybell, Matt McAlister, Business Insider, @mathewi and @jeffjarvis


Egypt drops proposed two-year jail penalty for journalists who report information that contradicts government — Egypt to revise anti-terror media law: MENA — Cairo (AFP) - Egypt agreed to revise a controversial article of its touted anti-terror law threatening journalists with jail …
Discussion:
Guardian and Al Jazeera English


Flipagram cuts deal with Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, and more for clips, raises $70M Series B led by Sequoia; John Doerr, Mike Moritz join board — Flipagram Raises $70M, Scores Record Label Deals Thanks To 30M+ Music Hungry Users — It's a mix of Instagram and YouTube...maybe a bit of a old school RockYou component.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, hypebot, iamWire, Variety, The Next Web and VentureBeat


As digital media organizations expand to India, Medianama founder Nikhil Pahwa says success requires India-specific content — Are you a Western news company looking to expand to India? First, decide who you want to serve — Over the past seven years, Nikhil Pahwa has built …
Discussion:
@saikatd and @dikshamadhok


UK watchdog report finds two police forces unlawfully accessed data records to find journalists' sources — Two police forces breached code on protection of journalists' sources — Report by interception of communications watchdog reveals breaches of new code of practice in force only since March
Discussion:
Press Gazette


Twitter's new preview cards could help publishers better highlight stories by providing extra room for art, video, and text, and get around 140-character limit — Twitter's new article preview cards could be a boost for publishers — Publishers may be able to get more value …


NewsHunt acquires BuyT for integrating contextual product recommendations — News and content app NewsHunt has bought BuyT, a product discovery and recommendation platform, which will be integrated with NewsHunt for delivering product recommendations to NewsHunt users, and help it improve its mobile advertising based monetization.
Discussion:
The Tech Portal, iamWire, YourStory.com, Tech in Asia and The Economic Times