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Page Six Names New No. 2
Well, I was wrong. The New York Post has hired Paula Froelich’s replacement and editor Richard Johnson’s new lieutenant at Page Six – and it isn’t any one of the six candidates (including my even money favorite Ben Widdicome) I had culled in my short-list for the high-profile position. The newest member of the world’s…
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#OMG! Media Reacts to Twitter ‘Attack’
For a few hours at least, ESPN executives didn’t have to worry about their reporters Tweeting away scoops or trade secrets: Twitter went down. Since about 9:00 a.m. (ET), the social networking juggernaut has been down intermittently due to what the company is calling “an ongoing denial-of-service attack.” Twitter users were forced to use such…
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O’Reilly Blasts GE, NBC, Immelt
Now it’s Bill O’Reilly’s turn. Two days after “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann denied a New York Times story about a “cease-fire” agreement between the cable news rivals by slamming the Times, its reporter, O’Reilly and News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, the host of Fox News’ “Factor” used his “Talking Points” segment last night to attack…
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Rupe Wants to Charge for Web Content
News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch said that the success of WSJ.com has proven to him that people will pay for quality content online, and that he plans to use that pay model across the company’s news-driven web properties – and not just those of his newspapers. “Quality journalism is not cheap,” Murdoch said…
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Rupert’s News Corp Swings to $203 Million Loss
All News Corp sites will be charging for content by 2010, says Murdoch.
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ESPN Cracks Down on Employees’ Social Networking
ESPN, the “Worldwide Tweeter” – err — “Leader in Sports,” drew the ire of some of its employees yesterday when it issued a set of formal guidelines limiting their use of social networking. “The hammer just came down, tweeps: ESPN memo prohibiting tweeting info unless it serves ESPN,” Ric Bucher, one of the network’s…
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Playboy Braces for a Hard Hit
The media industry’s bloodied and battered financial reports continue to roll in. The latest, Playboy, which said today that its second quarter 2009 revenues were $62.2 million, down 15.3 percent from $73.4 million during the second quarter last year. Revenues from the print group – the one that includes its flagship magazine – were $28.3…
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Olbermann Slams NYT, Denies ‘Cease Fire’ with Fox
The most legitimate feud on cable news continues, “blood spray” be damned. Last night on "Countdown," Keith Olbermann slammed the New York Times for printing a story about a “cease fire” agreement between executives at parent companies G.E. and News Corp, the parent companies of MSNBC and Fox News, which would in effect end the…
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Is Mort Betting Big on Print?
When moguls move their money around, people notice. Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the media and real estate mogul, indicated last week that he would sell a million shares of Boston Properties – worth about $50 million – and reinvest that money in printing presses for the New York Daily News, according to a report in the…
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The Trouble With Public Media Companies
A large swath of publicly traded media companies held their quarterly earnings calls this week. And, as expected, most reported slides in revenues and profits during the first six months of the year. A quick recap, for those of you scoring at home: On Wednesday, Time Warner said profits slid 34 percent, and revenues declined…
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Reed Business Shedding Titles … But Who Will Buy?
When you’re $8.4 billion in debt, you’ll try anything. During its earnings call this morning (if you haven’t noticed, it’s pretty much earnings call week here in Media Alley), Reed Elsevier, the London and Amsterdam-based corporate owner of Reed Business Information, publisher of Variety, said that its U.S. business-to-business publishing unit is once again going…
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Movies Prop Up 19% Revenue Loss for Sony
Sales dismal for games, computers, TVs, music — fortunately, there were “Terminator,” “Angels & Demons.”
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Microsoft/Yahoo Deal Targets Giant Google
Microsoft will power Yahoo’s Bing; Yahoo will run sales force for search advertisers.
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Bewkes: ‘TV Everywhere’ Getting Closer to Reality
Time Warner held a conference call to discuss its first half financial performance this morning. Despite lower revenues and profits, Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner’s CEO, said he is excited about TW’s future as a “pure content company.” Part of that future appears to be “TV Everywhere,” the concept Bewkes has touted for months as…
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Why Yahoo, Microsoft Execs Wouldn’t Say ‘Google’
After a year of on-again, off-again, “Will it happen?” talk — something, as Computerworld’s Eric Lai aptly put it, that’s grown as “tiresome as the annual Brett Favre retirement watch” — Microsoft and Yahoo finally struck a search deal today, effectively making the former’s month-old Bing the world’s number two search engine … albeit a…