Top News:
Kim Kelly / Columbia Journalism Review:
Freelancer Kim Kelly describes how NPR parted ways with her citing her “activist stance”, after Tucker Carlson aired a segment about her — My life with heavy metal, Tucker Carlson, NPR, and strong opinions — My first byline was an article for my local newspaper's Teen Voice section …
Discussion:
@samthielman, NPR, Mediaite, The Daily Caller, @sethdmichaels, @craignewmark, @sarahw, @freedarko, @nberlat, @femmefeministe and @samthielman
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Facebook is testing selling video streaming subscriptions in the US, starting with four services including BritBox, CollegeHumor's Dropout, and Tastemade Plus — Facebook is dipping its toes into the subscription VOD waters — as an aggregator and reseller.
Discussion:
Ad Age, Adweek, Vox, Fast Company, The Streamable, @xpangler, The Wrap, @mattnavarra and CNET, more at Techmeme »
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Interviews with members of a 900-strong private Facebook group for advertisers on Facebook and Instagram showcase the unreliability of Facebook's Ad Manager — - Advertisers say system has crashed regularly since November — Social-media company says it's ‘committed’ to fixing issues
Discussion:
@kurtwagner8, @matthewstoller, @shiraovide and @sarahfrier, more at Techmeme »
Sam Levin / The Guardian:
Court docs show Monsanto ran a “fusion center” that monitored a Reuters journalist and encouraged negative reviews of her 2017 book on its Roundup weedkiller — Internal documents show how the company worked to discredit critics and investigated singer Neil Young
Discussion:
@colinlecher, @kimseverson, @gmwatch, @peterhimler, @dangillmor, @janeferguson5, @davidlwindt and Boing Boing
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
CBS and AT&T strike a new carriage deal, ending a prolonged blackout of CBS programming — CBS and AT&T came to new terms on carriage of CBS stations on the telecommunications giant's DirecTV satellite service, ending a prolonged blackout of CBS programming. More to come......
Discussion:
Hollywood Reporter, Multichannel News, MediaPost, The Streamable and @benmullin
Lesley Goldberg / Hollywood Reporter:
Netflix signs multi-year film and TV deal with Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss; sources say the deal is worth $200M — David Benioff and Dan Weiss have signed a multiple-year film and TV pact with the streamer, which was bidding for the duo's services alongside Disney and Amazon.
Discussion:
Deadline, The Streamable, TechCrunch, Broadcasting & Cable, IndieWire, @snoodit, The Wrap, The Verge, Observer, The Daily Caller, Vanity Fair, The Week, @kaludiasays, The Playlist, Business Insider, Engadget, @hello_tailor, @benttravers, @charlespulliam, The Independent, The A.V. Club, Slate, Gizmodo, CNET, Digital Trends, Digital Trends, Collider, Mashable, The Verge, TVWeek.com, Consequence of Sound, BGR, Variety, /Film, NME, The Wrap and UPI, more at Techmeme »
Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:
Viacom's Q3 revenue rose 4% YoY to $3.36B with ad revenue at its cable networks unit up 6% YoY, returning to US advertising growth for the first time since 2014 — The company, which is led by CEO Bob Bakish and has been in talks with CBS Corp. about a recombination, returned to domestic ad growth …
Discussion:
The Wrap, @thr, @thr, Variety, @richattbd, FierceVideo, MediaPost and Viacom
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Google will start surfacing individual podcast episodes in search results and will soon let users ask Google Assistant to play podcasts about specific topics — Search for what you want to hear — Google is taking the next step in making podcasts easier to find.
Discussion:
The Keyword, Fast Company, @dzohrob, TechCrunch, @ashleyrcarman and @mrpaulbae, more at Techmeme »
David Segal / New York Times:
Profile of James Daunt, who saved Britain's Waterstones bookshop chain from the brink of bankruptcy and who will now try to revive Barnes & Noble as its new CEO — James Daunt fought Amazon and rescued the country's biggest bookstore chain. Now comes Chapter 2.
Discussion:
@xanalter, @durgaraghunath, @dada_drummer, @kassiastclair, @lizflock, @kathryndill and @kjmcinnis1
Lucinda Southern / Digiday:
Some pubs including Vice Media and The Stylist Group say revenue and traffic from Apple News has risen in the past few months — Publishers including Vice Media and The Stylist Group say they've gotten traffic and, more importantly, revenue lifts from Apple News in the last three months.
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
iHeartMedia debuts Sunday Night Podcasts, to air its top podcasts across 270 broadcast radio stations across the US, every Sunday — What's even a podcast? — iHeartMedia will harness more than 850 radio stations to build its podcast audience and entice potential advertisers.
Discussion:
Engadget, @ashleyrcarman and New York Times
Christine Schmidt / Nieman Lab:
How Piano created a “propensity” paywall that uses machine learning with 76 metrics to predict how likely someone is to subscribe, and adjusts accordingly — They went from being the kid nobody wanted to talk with to one of the cool kids on the block. (Apparently showing the other kids how to make money helps.)
Discussion:
American Press Institute, Reclaim The Net, @hilmarschmundt, @roeiwrites, @iethics, @nisalahe, @kenherts, @niemanlab and @niemanlab, more at Techmeme »
Marc Tracy / New York Times:
New York Times reaches a high of 4.7M total subscribers in Q2, with nearly 3.8M subscribers to digital products; digital-only subscription revenue grew 14% YoY — As digital revenue becomes more central to the newspaper business — and with a small boost from the launch of “The Weekly,” …
RELATED:
Jack Shafer / Politico:
By expecting the New York Times to be the paper of resistance, something it has vowed to never be, liberals are positioned for perpetual disenchantment
By expecting the New York Times to be the paper of resistance, something it has vowed to never be, liberals are positioned for perpetual disenchantment
Discussion:
The Atlantic, @realdonaldtrump, @ajentleson, @ddale8, @politicomag, @rynk, MediaFile, @bvivian14, @lizzieohreally, @owillis, @martinsfp, @jayrosen_nyu, Memex 1.1 and Columbia Journalism Review