Your Media Morning: Meredith Corp is Basically The Only Bidder For Time Inc, Guardian US is Scaling Back, Rolling Stone Gets The Same Old Advice

WELL WISHES  GET WELL SOON DAVID BROCK "David Brock suffered a heart attack while working in the Washington DC office early Tuesday," Bradley Beychok, Brock's chief of staff, said in a statement. "He was quickly transported to a local hospital, received prompt medical treatment, and we are looking forward to a swift recovery." Post it Tweet it Share it Forward it Good Media Morning to you. Here's what's happening elsewhere. But First, FORWARD THIS ISSUE MEREDITH RAISES THIRD QUARTER 2017 EARNINGS OUTLOOK THANKS TO STRONG DIGITAL ADVERTISING For the third quarter of fiscal 2017, Meredith now expects earnings per share to range from $0.85 to $0.87, driven by stronger than expected advertising performance, particularly from digital operations in both its National and Local Media Groups.  The higher outlook compares to the previous range of $0.75 to $0.80 communicated on January 25, 2017.  Meredith will provide more details when it reports fiscal 2017 third-quarter results on Thursday, April 27, 2017. SCALE OVER QUALITY OR QUALITY OVER SCALE? Condé Nast exec and Interactive Advertising Bureau chairman Jim Norton got a hero’s reception at the IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting in January when he called on brands to make sure their ads only appear next to quality editorial content in the face of clickbait and fake news. Quality may be the rallying cry of 2017, but scale is far from dead in digital media. NICK DENTON: THE GAWKER PROPERTY MAY ONE DAY BE RESTORED, BUT NOT BY ME The Gawker properties evolved from blogs, the simple and fast digital publishing format that encouraged individual writers to “say everything” and dispense with the stuffier conventions of the mainstream media. My own background was journalism in London, the most competitive news market in the world, where I worked for the Financial Times. LINKEDIN LAUNCHES TRENDING STORIES SECTION, BRINGS IN EDITORS TO RUN IT LinkedIn will use a combination of human editors and computer algorithms to detect important storylines, then collect articles and posts related to those storylines and put them into individual feeds. The product looks very similar to what Facebook does with its own trending topics section, and is somewhat similar to Twitter’s Moments feature. MAJOR COMPANIES CONTINUE TO REMOVE ADDS FROM GOOGLE AT&T, Verizon, Enterprise and Johnson & Johnson have halted ads on certain Google platforms after major brands learned their promotional posts were appearing alongside extremist content. GUARDIAN US LEAD BY FORMER TIME INC EVP EVELYN WEBSTER IS ELIMINATING JOBS Guardian U.S. which is lead by former Time Inc executive vice president Evelyn Webster as its interim CEO is making some cuts in an effort to break even in the next year or two. The company was also supposed to move some of its operations into a building owned by Jared Kushner's company. A FORMER DISNEY EXEC AND THE FORMER HEAD OF NICKELODEON RAISES $6 MILLION FOR KIDS DIGITAL CONTENT START UP A former Disney executive is teaming up with an ex-Nickelodeon chief to try to create the kids’ content platform of the future. Chris Williams, who has held senior positions at Walt Disney Co. and its digital video network Maker Studios, is launching Pocketwatch, which aims to create, acquire and distribute content for kids ages 2 to 11. He has tapped Albie Hecht, a former head of Viacom Inc.’s Nickelodeon, as chief content officer. THE HEADS OF GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, MICROSOFT AND OTHERS READS THIS GUY'S WEBSITE EVERYDAY Techmeme may be a niche site compared to the Facebooks and the YouTubes of the world, but the tech-news aggregator influences the people who make the Facebooks and the YouTubes of the world: Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai are both confessed readers, as are LinkedIn's Jeff Weiner, former PayPal exec and current Facebook Messenger head David Marcus, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, and Microsoft's Satya Nadella. NETFLIX IS THE KING OF STREAMING BUT HULU HAS LOYAL USERS One big difference between regular TV and streaming TV is that streaming TV is pretty murky when it comes to numbers: We don’t know much about how many people are watching streaming TV services, or what they’re watching. ROLLING STONE GETS ADVICE ON HOW TO SPEND $100 MILLION AND ITS MORE OF THE SAME RECYCLED IDEAS Assuming it has enough money, and the support of its minority stakeholder? Video, of course. More specifically, original, scripted and unscripted OTT video, along with more mobile social video, and maybe even a cable network that could rival Fusion and Viceland (I heard NBC has an open network slot since Esquire TV is ending its run this summer… just sayin’). WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE INSTALLS NEW EDITOR After eight months without a permanent editor, the Washington Post Magazine is getting one in Richard Just, who will join on April 3. This won’t be the first time Just has helmed a magazine, having served as editor of the National Journal and The New Republic. BAUER MEDIA INSTALLS TWO NEW EXECUTIVES Steven Kotok, who took over last fall at Bauer Media USA as CEO and president, has made his first two appointments. Joining the company as EVP of advertising revenue is Jeff Wellington, previously with Meredith, while Dow Jones veteran Brian Beaudry has been tapped to serve as EVP of consumer revenue. Don't forget to share this morning's issue with colleagues and friends by clicking/tapping the button below SUBSCRIBE

[post_ad]