Morning Media Newsfeed: Gregory Joins Yahoo! for Election Coverage

[emailonly]{{{ sbox300x250 }}}[/emailonly] Click here to receive Mediabistro's Morning Media Newsfeed via email. David Gregory to Join Katie Couric for Election Special on Yahoo! (NYT) David Gregory, who was replaced as host of NBC’s Meet The Press in August, will appear in a Yahoo! midterm election program with Katie Couric, the company said Tuesday. TVNewser Gregory is not joining the company, but these appearances often can lead to more permanent placements. Matt Bai, who left The New York Times for Yahoo! last year, and Politico’s Mike Allen are also a part of Yahoo!’s coverage. TVNewser Mark Halperin and John Heilemann will lead Bloomberg’s election night coverage, dubbed Election All-Nighter, which begins at 5 p.m. ET with a special edition of With All Due Respect. Primetime coverage starts at 7 p.m. ET, with Halperin and Heileman joined by Al Hunt and analysts Kim Alfano, Bill Burton, Lanhee Chen, Fred Davis, Patti Solis Doyle, Anita Dunn, Michael Feldman and John Sununu. FishbowlDC Coverage will also extend to an “Election Night dashboard” on BloombergPolitics.com, comprising a Bloomberg TV livestream, website coverage and real-time election data. TVNewser CNN will turn to Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper -- along with the Empire State Building -- to headline the network’s election night coverage, dubbed Election Night in America. Mediaite As they have done in the past, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will be airing their respective Comedy Central shows live on Election Night next Tuesday so they can react to midterm results as they happen instead of being hopelessly behind the curve with pre-taped comedy. FCC May Give New Life to Aereo (TVSpy) Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler says he wants to include Internet video in the definition of a multichannel programming provider to “boost competition with cable and satellite services.” Variety Wheeler’s proposal, which he is circulating to other FCC commissioners, calls for adopting a “technology neutral” definition of a multichannel video programming distributor. If such “over-the-top” Internet video services are given such a definition, they would fall under federal regulations that govern multichannel distributors like cable and satellite distributors. Re/code The move comes as several media companies, including Dish Network and Verizon Communications, are planning to launch Internet-based video services. Mashable The adoption of these rules -- which still must go through a vote, a comment period, then another vote -- would open a flood of competition in what has traditionally been a closed market. Previously, many companies, including Internet-based operations such as Aereo and Ivi, were precluded from becoming MVPDs. HBO to Lay Off More Than 150 Employees This Week (Variety) Layoff fever is spreading at Time Warner. Weeks after the conglom went public with job cuts at its Warner Bros. and Turner Broadcasting divisions, the HBO unit is expected to trim its own staff as well, according to sources. Approximately 7 percent of its 2,400 employees face pink slips as early as this week. THR It wasn't immediately clear which departments and operations would be hit by the job cuts or by how much they would reduce annual costs for HBO, which analysts have called a big growth driver and the "crown jewel" of Time Warner. WSJ HBO’s cost-cutting plans, which were announced to employees on Tuesday, come as part of planned headcount reductions across Time Warner. Those cuts include the elimination of about 10 percent of the 15,000 employees at cable group Turner Broadcasting, which includes CNN, TNT and TBS, and 13 percent of personnel costs at Warner Bros., according to people familiar with the matter. Deadline Hollywood The belt-tightening follows Time Warner’s decision to reject Fox’s $80 billion takeover bid. Rupert Murdoch withdrew his $85 a share cash and stock offer in August. Time Warner’s stock price -- which had stagnated in the months before the offer -- fell as investors questioned whether the company could be as valuable on its own. HBO chief Richard Plepler caught Wall Street’s attention this month by promising to introduce an HBO streaming service that wouldn’t require subscribers to first have the expanded basic pay TV bundle. [emailonly]{{{ jodslot01 }}}[/emailonly] Matt Taibbi Leaves First Look Media (First Look Media) Pierre Omidyar: I regret to announce that after several weeks of discussions, Matt Taibbi has left First Look. We wish him well. Our differences were never about editorial independence. We have never wavered from our pledge that journalistic content is for the journalists to decide, period. We’re disappointed by how things have turned out. New York / Daily Intelligencer Taibbi, the star magazine writer hired earlier this year to start a satirical website for billionaire Pierre Omidyar's First Look Media, was on a leave of absence from the company after disagreements with higher-ups inside Omidyar's organization, a source close to First Look confirmed Tuesday. Politico / Dylan Byers on Media Taibbi was supposed to launch a publication this fall called Racket, focused on financial and political corruption. Taibbi had been absent for several weeks from the New York headquarters of eBay founder Omidyar's media company, which also hosts Glenn Greenwald's The Intercept. Omidyar hired Taibbi away from Rolling Stone in February. The Washington Post Commemorates Ben Bradlee’s Legacy With New Staff Award (FishbowlDC) Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan and executive editor Marty Baron Tuesday announced the creation of the Ben Bradlee Award to honor “the relentless and courageous pursuit of truth by an individual or team of Washington Post journalists,” as described in the announcement. Poynter / MediaWire The award, named for the Post editor who oversaw the expansion of the newsroom and the coverage of the paper’s famous Watergate reporting, will first be awarded in 2015, according to the announcement. It will include a cash prize. Politico / Dylan Byers on Media Bradlee died Oct. 21 from natural causes. He was 93. His funeral is scheduled to take place Wednesday at the National Cathedral, and will include former Post publisher Don Graham, journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and Quinn Bradlee, son of Ben and his wife, Sally Quinn. Rich Ross Named Discovery Channel President (THR) Within hours of news breaking that he'd be leaving his current post atop Shine America, Rich Ross was named president of the Discovery Channel. He'll join the company in January 2015, and will be based out of the company's Los Angeles office. Variety Ross’ move to Discovery follows the completion of the merger between 21st Century Fox’s Shine Group and Apollo Global Management’s Endemol and Core Media Group production banners. The management restructuring in the newly created joint venture of Fox and Apollo left no role for Ross in the U.S. operation. Endemol North America chiefs Charlie Corwin and Cris Abrego were named heads of the combined U.S. venture on Tuesday, minutes after Discovery formally announced Ross’ hire. NYT Ratings at Discovery have surged 24 percent to 1.3 million average viewers so far this season compared with the same period in 2013, according to Nielsen. Ross is succeeding Eileen O’Neill, who in August was named to the new role of global president of Discovery Studios. Marjorie Kaplan has led Discovery Channel in the interim. [emailonly]{{{ sbox01 }}}[/emailonly] October 2014 Ratings: MSNBC Has Lowest Rated Month Since 2005 (TVNewser) MSNBC continued to struggle in the ratings department in October. Compared to October 2013 -- when partisan gridlock in Washington drove viewers to cable news -- the network was down 48 percent in the demo and down 37 percent in total viewers in primetime. For total day viewing, MSNBC shed 42 percent in the demo and 34 percent among total viewers. TVNewser Like the other cablenewsers, Fox News Channel saw a decline in viewership compared to Oct. 2013 when extensive coverage was given to the government shutdown. For the month, FNC was down 7 percent in both viewers and the adults 25-54 demo for total day viewing; and down 8 percent in viewers and the demo in primetime. Still, for the eighth consecutive month, Fox News had the top 14 cable news programs among total viewers. TVNewser CNN ranked No. 2 in primetime and total day for the adults 25-54 demo in October 2014, edging out MSNBC. For the fourth consecutive month, CNN was second in total viewers and the A25-54 demo, in total day. The last time that happened was six years ago during the 2008 elections. That said, CNN came in third in primetime total viewers, trailing MSNBC by 27,000 viewers. USA Today, WSJ, New York Times Top Circulation List Again (Capital New York) USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times remained the most widely distributed U.S. newspapers during the six-month period ending Sept. 30, according to new data from the Alliance for Audited Media. USA Today leads in total average circulation -- which includes both print and digital offerings -- with 4,139,380, followed by the Journal at 2,276,207 and the Times at 2,134,150. Would You Pay for an Ad-Free YouTube? (SocialTimes) YouTube is exploring the option of a paid subscription model. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki talked about the idea at Re/code’s Code/Mobile conference on Monday. “We’re thinking about how to give users options,” she said, referencing apps that give users the option to pay up or view ads. WSJ Wojcicki took over YouTube earlier this year and has been looking for ways to generate more revenue and profit from the video site, which Google acquired for $1.65 billion in 2006. [emailonly]{{{ sbox02 }}}[/emailonly] Facebook’s Mobile Upswing Continues in Third Quarter Earnings Report (AllFacebook) Mobile growth was everywhere to be found among Facebook’s third quarter financial results, as mobile advertising revenue accounted for approximately 66 percent of total ad revenue for the period, up from 49 percent in the third quarter of 2013. Mashable Facebook had its first $3 billion quarter. The company reported earnings of $0.43 per share on revenue of $3.2 billion in the quarter, coming in ahead of analyst estimates for earnings of $0.40 per share on revenue of $3.12 billion. That's up nearly 60 percent from its revenue of $2.02 billion in the same quarter a year earlier. The social network now has 1.35 billion monthly active users and 864 million daily active users, up 14 percent and 19 percent year-over-year, respectively. Evening News Ratings: Week of Oct. 20 (TVNewser) Another split in the evenings as NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams takes total viewers while ABC’s World News Tonight With David Muir wins in the adults 25-54 demo. Muir’s newscast was the only one to show growth: 2 percent in the demo compared to the same week last year. Nightly was down 10 percent in the demo while CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley was down less than 1 percent in the demo. On CNN International, The ‘News’ Isn’t Always The News (CJR / Behind The News) CNN International, the version of CNN that broadcasts outside of the U.S. and operates independently, has an ongoing history of sponsorship ties to an array of entities from the Gulf region, notably Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, most of which are wholly or partly owned by the state and, by extension, the countries’ ruling families. CNN International generally fails to disclose its relationships to these entities, except on the shows, segments and Web pages they sponsor. And even there, there is little explanation of the sponsorships. Perhaps worst of all, the network misleads its audience about the nature of the editorial content the sponsorships accompany -- which is often extraordinarily favorable to the firms themselves, their partners or the domestic economies in which they operate. What appears to be news on CNN International is sometimes not supposed to be news. [emailonly]{{{ sbox03 }}}[/emailonly] Lionsgate Renews Redbox Distribution Deal (THR) Lionsgate has renewed its deal with Redbox to sell movie titles via the rental kiosk king. Terms of the latest multi-year agreement were not disclosed. But the mini-studio said it will offer Blu-ray disc and DVD titles at Redbox kiosks the day after their home entertainment release as part of the new deal. NBC Communications Chief Richard Licata to Depart (Deadline Hollywood) After three decades in the trenches, veteran communications executive Richard Licata is leaving the daily grind of corporate PR. Licata is exiting his current post as EVP communications for NBC Entertainment. Alibaba, Sony Pictures in Co-Financing Talks (Variety) Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma met with Sony Pictures leadership Tuesday to explore the possibility of co-financing movies, according to individuals with knowledge of the talks. The films would be in both Chinese and English, but would be aimed at worldwide audiences. Mediabistro Blogs PRNewser Q&A on PR Council Rebranding: ‘Industry Needs a Differentiator’ TVNewser David Gregory Joins Yahoo for Election Night GalleyCat Q&A with Delilah S. Dawson SocialTimes Would You Pay for an Ad-free YouTube? FishbowlNY 77 WABC and NY Observer Announce Partnership AllFacebook Why Facebook Said No to Individual Code Ownership AllTwitter Twitter Has Your Back on Free Speech, Says Report Lost Remote Crowdsourcing Travel on Esquire Network’s Weekend Fix TVSpy NY1 Anchor, Reporter Featured on Beastie Boys Musician’s Guitar Strap FishbowlDC The Washington Post Commemorates Ben Bradlee’s Legacy with New Staff Award 10,000 Words Deadline for National Geographic Photo Contest on Halloween Inside Mobile Apps Chukong Technologies Announces Cocos Services Initiative for Developers InsideFacebook Facebook Q3 2014 in Charts: $3.2B in revenue, 1.35B users AgencySpy McCann Explores Awkward ‘Conversations’ for the Brady Center MediaJobsDaily Red Flags Employers Spot When You’re Looking to Leave UnBeige John Currin at the Getty Center Advertise on Our Blog Network

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