Mark Cuban and Avner Ronen met in person for the first time just before their Pay TV vs. Internet debate here at South by Southwest Interactive—about 20 minutes before their session was interrupted by a fire alarm. But they argue like a married couple that’s been together for 20 years,…

While the NYTCo (NYSE: NYT) struggled under the weight of economic pressures and debt last year, top execs personally did pretty well, even as the company reduced its newsroom by 100 staffers. As the company’s recent Q4 results showed, cost-cutting led to greater profitability and that appears to show in…

*ABC* News Digital execs are currently putting together a formal paywall strategy with expectations of having some concrete ideas for ways to charge consumers by the summer, said Paul Slavin, the unit’s SVP, in an interview with paidContent. This isn’t the first time *ABC* News has traveled the paid content…

Another e-reader company is finding it more difficult than expected to deliver devices. Pre-order customers for the Plastic Logic Que proReader are getting an e-mail from CEO Richard Archuleta about an extended delay in delivering the device, highly anticipated because of its sleek form factor and large screen. During CES,…

Hearst has about 70 apps under its LMK banner in the iTunes App Store right now and it just plans to keep adding more and more. Most of the LMK apps sell for about $1.99, while a handful cost $0.99 per download. The LMK initials stand for “Let Me Know”…

Local newspapers may actually have an easier time charging for content than national and international news brands like the New York Times (NYSE: NYT). And what’s the biggest threat to paid music? Well, probably not piracy. These were among the assertions by panelists on paidContent2010’s The Truth About Subscriptions, who…

MSNBC is continuing to try make better use of social media as a distribution tool with a small effort that ties its @BreakingNews Twitter account to a dedicated Facebook page. It’s not clear how much Facebook fans want real-time news mixed with their friends’ status updates—as opposed to following @BreakingNews…

About 25 staffers were let go from Bloomberg BusinessWeek as the title prepares for its major redesign late next month. Among the 25 who were cut were senior reporters Tom Lowry and Michelle Conlin, FishbowlNY reported. The layoffs were attributed to “redundancies,” a Bloomberg rep told Mediaweek. Separate from the…

News Corp.. (NYSE: NWS) Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch celebrates his 79th birthday with a cameo on his own Fox Business Network. Among the topics ... the newspaper ad model not dead yet (if we were Gawker we’d have to follow that with “neither am I”); iPad will attract more…

Just a few weeks after NYTCo (NYSE: NYT) chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and president and CEO Janet Robinson discussed the company’s new metering pay model at our conference, the pair continued to tease out the idea. at Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Media Summit 2010. In a conversation with James Ellis,…

In Rob Glaser’s first public appearance since stepping down as CEO of RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK), he implored that it is incumbent upon companies to work together in order for the wireless sector to continue its break-neck pace of innovation. Glaser did not hint at what he might do next, but…

One of the favorite sports of most media conferences these days involves trotting out Wired editor Chris Anderson’s “freemium” idea—which is predicated on balancing free online and paid premium content—and kicking it to the ground. The topic served as a introduction to discussing the problems associated with paywalls and display…

It’s the Bloomberg BusinessWeek Media Summit now, but the two-day conference is still at the McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP) Building. CNN President Jon Klein led off in a Q&A with Bloomberg BW Editor Josh Tyrangiel, talking about the magic—and often illusory—word “synergy.” Klein talked about the ties that the Time Inc.…

Like many other developers, uLocate works closely with ad networks to monetize WHERE, its free mobile app that is available on a number of carrier networks and Android, iPhone and Palm (NSDQ: PALM). But WHERE often struggled to keep its fill rates high, and when campaigns ran out, it had…

Barring a last-minute fix or change of strategy, at midnight Tuesday Hulu.com will switch from a co-host for online video of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report to a referral engine for the popular shows. Viacom (NYSE: VIA) execs like to call it a test but…

News aggregator Daylife will begin reselling pictures posted by users of London-based citizen-photo journalism site Demotix to create an “open image wire service.” The arrangement is an expansion of Daylife’s existing image programs. Last fall, Daylife began partnering with Getty Images—which is also an investor in Daylife—on products that lets…

Newspapers have blamed Google (NSDQ: GOOG) for their woes, and Google, in turn, has helped remind newspapers that they did a pretty good job of digging their own grave. The latest Googler to weigh in on the business is Chief Economist Hal Varian, in a speech to the FTC today.…

Celebrity gossip site TMZ has quietly unveiled a gentler fashion-oriented offshoot called Too Fab. Although TMZ maintains high traffic—February uniques were up 6 percent to 14 million, per comScore (NSDQ: SCOR)—and gained new credibility by breaking the news of Michael Jackson’s death last year, many advertisers remain uncomfortable with the…

The Financial Times has a sizeable and nicely growing subscription business—so why mess with micropayments? FT.com Managing Director Rob Grimshaw says that half the FT’s print customers are newsstand buyers, and the company needs to offer an similar a la carte option online as well. Grimshaw, in an interview with…