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From the home page
Kara Swisher, All Things Digital
In a bold and definitive move, AOL is paying $315 million, mostly in cash, to buy the Huffington Post, one of the Web’s most prominent news and opinion sites.
As part of the deal, Huffington Post Co-founder Arianna Huffington (pictured here)–who was derided by some when she co-founded the left-leaning site in 2005 with investor and well-known communications exec Kenneth Lerer–will become president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group within AOL.
The deal was signed late this afternoon and the boards of directors of each company and shareholders of the privately-held Huffington Post have approved the transaction.
In an exclusive video interview BoomTown conducted earlier today in Dallas, just before the Super Bowl XLV, both Armstrong and Huffington were jovial that the whirlwind deal, begun in November, actually worked out so quickly.
Perhaps giddy, they hit upon a common motto:
“One plus one equals 11.” …
Read Kara Swisher’s complete report at All Things Digital.
Amazon’s remote possibilities
From the home page
Sam Schechner and Geoffrey A. Fowler,
The Wall Street Journal
Amazon.com Inc. is working on a new subscription service that would deliver TV shows and movies over the Internet, ramping up the battle among Web companies to control entertainment in the living room.
The Internet retailer has in recent weeks pitched a Web-based subscription service to several major media companies, including General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, Time Warner Inc., News Corp. and Viacom Inc., among others, according to people with knowledge of the proposal.
Amazon's subscription push is a challenge to rivals such as Netflix Inc. and Google Inc. as they race to dominate digital delivery of TV shows and films, encroaching on turf traditionally controlled by cable- and satellite-television providers.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal
Livin’ large, in Life
From the home page
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The photos — released on the 50th anniversary of the original “Oceans 11” — reveal a group of entertainers in moments that alternate between high jinks and moments of reflection.
We’re party to the everyday experience. In one shot, Sinatra sits in a steam room, lathering himself for a shave. “By the time we got to Miami, I was familiar enough with Frank that I was able to photograph him inside the hotel steam room,” LIFE photographer John Dominis said. “I couldn't go inside because my lenses would have fogged up. But the steam room had a glass window, and Frank sat right next to it. I didn't ask him to, so maybe he did that for me."
In another shot, Davis sits in his dressing room, eating spaghetti and watching the news on the “Huntley-Brinkley Report.” “Whatever I'm doing, I stop to watch these guys," he told the magazine.
It’s not all fun and games. One image, shot in early December 1963, shows Martin and (especially) Sinatra in an apparently pensive mood — quite possibly reflecting on the assassination (a few weeks earlier) of President Kennedy, a Rat Pack confrere (Lawford was Kennedy’s brother-in-law).
All in all, a refreshingly candid look at public lives in very private moments. See for yourself.
MICHAEL E. ROSS
See the LIFE Rat Pack photo gallery here
Newsweek changes hands
From the home page
Newsweek.com
The terms of the deal were not announced, but sources close to the negotiations said Harman has agreed to pay a small amount in cash and to assume tens of millions of dollars in financial obligations. The Post Company, however, will retain the pension assets and liabilities and “certain employee obligations arising prior to the sale,” according to the company’s press release.
Newsweek’s editor Jon Meacham also announced he will be leaving the company once the sale is complete.
“Newsweek is a national treasure,” Harman said in [a] news release. “I am enormously pleased to be succeeding The Washington Post Company and the Graham family and look forward to this great journalistic, business and technological challenge.”
Read more at Newsweek
Newsweek: WTF just happened?
From the home page
Peter Lauria and Lloyd Grove, The Daily Beast
[Monday's] purchase of a 77-year-old magazine, Newsweek, by a 91-year-old audio magnate, Sidney Harman, had all the makings of a feel-good story ... A legendary media franchise rescued from an uncertain future by someone who regards Newsweek as a “national treasure” and commits himself to the highest quality. The idealistic Harman also has credibility as a brilliant innovator and businessman of stature. ...
But make no mistake, Harman's pocket change purchase of Newsweek—he paid $1, plus the assumption of liabilities for the magazine—has to be a passion play, because it certainly isn't a financial one. The Daily Beast has obtained a copy of the 66-page sales memorandum that the Newsweek seller, the Washington Post Co., gave to prospective buyers, and it paints the picture of a media property given to someone unequipped to fundamentally change its current trajectory.
Clearly, while the billionaire founder of Harman/Kardon and Harman International Industries is new to the media world, he's already got the "flat is the new up" mantra down pat.
But by the Washington Post Co.'s own account … Harman's Newsweek lacks what is necessary for a turnaround: the synergies of another media company. …
Read more at The Daily Beast
NPR, indie darlings
From the home page
“When the indie folk-rock group the Decemberists debuted its new album last year, the first place to hear it wasn't on iTunes or MySpace or any of the other big commercial music sites. Instead, the Portland, Ore., outfit played the album live in a webcast carried exclusively on National Public Radio's music Web site. ...
“The Web site, officially in business only since late 2007, has become something of a tastemaking force in the fractured and fragmented music business. Through its blogs, news articles, lists, podcasts, videos and album and concert streams (including a number from Washington venues), the site has attracted a steadily growing following, averaging about 1.6 million visitors a month.
"’They've made a really aggressive push to be a go-to place for music,’ says Dan Cohen, vice president of marketing for EMI, the giant record label. ‘They've done a great job of becoming that place.’"
“Well, some kinds of music, at least. …”
Read the rest at The Washington Post
Tweeting the drum
From the home page
MICHAEL E. ROSS | 05.07.2010
"First lady Michelle Obama officially entered the Twitter-verse last Saturday, at the White House Correspondents Dinner. The popular social messaging service deepened its reach into the public when she sent her message, brief enough and consistent with the "what are you doing now?" Twitter ethos: "from flotus: here at dinner this is officially my first Tweet. i am looking forward to some good laughs from the potus and jay," she wrote, in a reference to President Obama and Jay Leno.
"Michelle Obama's first, benign message underscores the inroads that Twitter has made in black life and culture. A new report on who's using Twitter bears that out with startling results."
More at theGrio
Newsweek on the block
From the home page
More from AP at The Huffington Post
Calling it “an important American institution,” Newsweek editor Jon Meacham said to weigh bid to buy the magazine with partners
More at The New York Observer
MTP gets a new look
From the home page
MICHAEL E. ROSS | 05.03.2010
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"In television, this is what we do: We evolve," said David Gregory, the moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” on Sunday, by way of his big reveal of his program's extreme makeover.Longtime viewers of MTP got a sleek, burnished eyeful over the weekend when they tuned in to watch the long-running Sunday morning political news show, and witness a cosmetic change that visually reflects the shift in the program’s leadership, and maybe even a bid for a new audience.
For years now, the MTP set has underwhelmed, with the blue, gold & white color scheme of the show’s logo displayed on any number of monitors behind the guests, who sat at a small table at the center of the seat, huddled like participants in a focus group. Regardless of the gravity of whoever appeared was on the show, the MTP visuals always looked a little airless and confined, befitting a show shot in a studio in Washington.
What a difference 139 days make. The show’s new makeover, formally unveiled on Sunday and the first since March 1996, reveals a set that largely does away with visible monitors, trading that quasi-high-tech look for a more studied, bookish ambience. The sleek new set, seemingly big enough for a touch football game, is lined with crowded bookshelves meant to convey a more studious, cerebral tone. The new digs were accompanied by cleaner on-screen graphics and a new logo (balanced on the Capitol dome in MTP's new open).
Conspicuous in a preview last week, perched in a high place on one of those bookshelves, is a picture of Tim Russert, the late veteran journalist, longtime moderator of MTP and the one generally given credit for bringing the program — at 62 years old and counting the longest-running program in television history — back from a status as a moribund also-ran on the Sunday morning talk shows.
The moment of the moment all caught up to David Gregory, Russert’s eventual replacement as MTP moderator and his friend, when he choked up at a reception after Sunday’s show, TVNewser reported.
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“This is a big moment for me, because it's really the next step for me and for the program," Gregory said while fighting back tears. "It has not been an easy transition, but I've always felt like I'm never alone in that.”Gregory thanked the members of his academy: executive producer Betsy Fischer, NBC News President Steve Capus, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, and NBC News Washington Bureau Chief Mark Whittaker.
Carpenters, designers and electricians were not included.
The blognoscenti has had mixed emotions.
Nusayler at HuffPost: What a perfect, eloquent summary of how pathetic Gregory is. The first time he shows any genuine emotion, any passion, it's over what? Some cheesy TV set you could get at Ikea for under a grand. Too rich.
PORK RIND (HuffPost): Give the guy a break. He is trying his best despite what clearly must be a terrible pressure. Not even Tim Russert was born a legend -- it took a lifetime of evolution. I actually find Gregory preferable to the alternatives (Mini Anderson Cooper, George Stepinapoopalos and others). Not much preferable, but still...
Skeptical Cicada (HuffPost): He should be choked up for having destroyed MTP. Hint: The problem isn't the set, David.
We’ll see how this translates into viewers — and, for that matter, whether the other jabber-on-Sunday specialists will follow suit. But if nothing else, this brand new mise-en-scène for the medium’s longest-distance runner means this is Gregory’s MTP. The last, most visible manifestations of the Russert-era MTP are gone now; it’s on Gregory to clearly put his stamp on the program, to make it a Sunday-morning destination on the basis of more than reflex and habit. To make it his own.
The big guy in the picture on the shelf will be watching.
Michael E. Ross is the editor of Culcha.
PHOTO CREDITS: Dean Martin, 1958: Allan Grant/TIME & LIFE Pictures. Newsweek covers this page and home page: The Washington Post Company. All Meet the Press images on this page: NBC News; Meet the Press set, home page: NBC News.