Mediagazer: Barstool Sports says it has 10K+ subscribers to its new membership service since its launch on January 8, with 81% signing up for the $100 annual subscription (Sahil Patel/Digiday)

1:00 AM ET, January 14, 2019

Top News:

Sources: Alden Capital's Digital First Media plans to bid for Gannett after quietly acquiring a 7.5% stake, will offer a 23% premium over Friday's closing price — A hedge-fund-backed media group known for buying up struggling local papers and cutting costs is planning to make an offer …

Ellen Cranley / INSIDER:

A lack of black reporters in an announcement about CBS journalists covering the 2020 election sparked debate on Twitter from writers, politicians, and others — - “Scandal” actress Kerry Washington and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were among Twitter users who criticized CBS for seemingly …

Sahil Patel / Digiday:

Barstool Sports says it has 10K+ subscribers to its new membership service since its launch on January 8, with 81% signing up for the $100 annual subscription — Barstool Sports says it already has more than 10,000 paid subscribers to its new membership service, Barstool Gold …

Discussion: @stoolpresidente, @brianfitz_14, @ironhead334, @digiday and Awful Announcing

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Viacom is in talks to sell a majority share in its channel brands, such as MTV and Nickelodeon, in China — Media company is among other multinational corporations facing hurdles in the country — Media giant Viacom Inc. VIAB .38% is in talks to sell a majority stake …

Discussion: @missiwhite4 and Bloomberg

Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:

Survey of 200 digital leaders from 29 nations: 52% say subscription and membership will be their main revenue focus; 87% say Google is a very important platform — Every December, Nieman Lab asks media folks to predict what they think will happen in the new year — resulting …

Discussion: Press Gazette

Sinclair Target / Motherboard:

A look back at the evolution of RSS and why it lost out to centralized information silos on the web controlled by corporations, despite being an open format — Before the internet was consolidated into centralized information silos, RSS imagined a better way to let users control their online personas.

Discussion: @leanderwattig, @pkedrosky, @drvox, @dangillmor, @jeremiahtolbert, @andrewbatson, @baekdal, Ad Age and TVWeek.com

Manish Singh / VentureBeat:

Wikimedia announces the integration of Google Translate into Wikipedia's content translation tool used by editors, which now supports 121 total languages — For years, Wikipedia has been working on making its eponymous encyclopedia support more languages. But the nonprofit's effort has been slow …

Marcela Kunova / Journalism.co.uk:

Quartz's AI Studio has developed bots to help journalists with data analysis tasks, using machine learning to identify patterns in records and more — The US publisher offers reporters with no coding skills a set of free tools to help them write better data-driven stories

Discussion: VentureBeat

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Spotify outlines its strategy for podcasts that includes bringing talent in-house or exclusively licensing content and selling ads within its podcasts — Having established itself as a top streaming service with now over 200 million users, Spotify this year is preparing to focus more of its attention on podcasts.

Discussion: @niemanlab

Financial Times:

A look at how data brokers identify people and how much personal information they sell as IDC forecasts data vendor sales will triple to $10.1B by 2022 — There are many personal details that Paul-Olivier Dehaye is willing to share online, but the behaviour of his bladder is not one of them.

Joshua Fruhlinger / Thinknum Media:

Job openings at Vox are up 100% since September 2018, but many are freelance or contract positions, possibly to sidestep the union or adapt to seasonal content — Normally an uptick in hiring at a new media company like Vox Media ($VOXMEDIA) is a good sign. It means that the company is reinvesting in talent.

Discussion: @rafat

Washington Post:

Washington Post launches an Arabic-language opinions page with translations of Global Opinion columns, editorials, and op-eds — New Arabic-language destination will feature translated pieces from writers around the world — The Washington Post Opinions section today announced the launch …

Discussion: @borzou, @dabeard and Politico

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:

SEC filing: Disney CEO Bob Iger's total compensation in 2018 reached $65.6M, up from $36.2M in 2017, due to increased stock awards — On the heels of Disney's historic deal to buy 21st Century Fox, Disney chairman-CEO Bob Iger saw a big increase in compensation last year thanks to stock awards …

Discussion: Multichannel News and The Wrap

Dade Hayes / Deadline:

CBS reaches an agreement to keep using Nielsen's Total Audience measurement services, resolving an impasse since their previous contract expired December 31 — CBS Corp and Nielsen said Friday they have reached an agreement for Nielsen national, digital and local audience measurement.

Discussion: Adweek, Hollywood Reporter, Multichannel News, Broadcasting & Cable, Variety and The Wrap