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Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times Apostolis Kaparoudakis at the controls of the Athens radio station and cafe of which he was a founder.
ATHENS - Late on a recent evening, crowds gathered at the Radio Bubble cafe in downtown Athens, drinking beer and talking politics. The cafe, in the trendy yet rough-around-the-edges Exarchia neighborhood, funds a small leftist online radio station of the same name, which broadcasts from inside.
People gather at the cafe for drinks and music, and also to talk politics.
At the sidewalk tables outside, where guests smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, the conversation inevitably turned to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's unilateral decision in June to shut down the state broadcaster, the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, known as ERT, overnight, turning an institution once seen as a bastion of patronage hires into a veritable martyr to press freedom.
“When a war begins, they send an army to protect public TV,†said Apostolis Kaparoudakis, who was a founder of Radio Bubble in 2007. “Here they sent it to close it down.â€
As a song by the Beastie Boys played in the background, Mr. Kaparoudakis said he had started Radio Bubble to play good music, “which is a political act,†but also as a challenge to the mainstream news media in Greece, almost all of which is owned by the country's business elite, who often dictate the editorial line.
The radio station, which has an active presence on Twitter, is one of many small, often left-leaning news media outlets that have cropped up in Greece in recent years. Although their audiences are still relatively modest, they are playing an increasingly vital role in the conversation, largely because they question the country's dominant power structures.
Even before the economic crisis hit, polls showed that Greeks lacked trust in the mainstream news media almost as much as they lacked it in politicians, seeing both as intertwined in a kind of crony capitalism that helped push the country to bankruptcy.
Now, four years into the crisis, Greeks are even more skeptical of mainstream news organizations and even hungrier for information from nontraditional sources, especially if it veers from the government's line that Greece has no alternative to the austerity policies demanded by its foreign lenders.
“There's a great lack of trust that is no longer there,†said Ioanna Vovou, who teaches media studies at Panteion University in Athens. “It's true that people, mostly younger people, say they have turned to alternative sources of media.â€
At the same time, the economic crisis has fueled rampant speculation about the true sources of Greece's misery, sometimes drowning reliable information in a cacophony of conspiracies. But alternative news media have increasingly tried to bridge the trust gap by fostering citizen journalism and taking on topics that remain taboo for the more established news organizations.
Some of the new sources, like Radio Bubble, the magazine Unfollow and the web portal The Press Project, lean left and are critical of Mr. Samaras's coalition government, an uncomfortable alliance between the center-right New Democracy party and the Socialists.
The most interactive of the three, Radio Bubble urges its audience to use Twitter to send images and updates using the hashtag #rbnews during developing stories. The tweeted information helps fill out the picture of chaotic events, like street demonstrations when protesters clash with the police, who often fire tear gas.
“We call ourselves citizens' media, not alternative media,†said Theodora Oikonomides, a former Radio Bubble editor who was a humanitarian aid worker before returning to her native Greece in 2009. Mr. Kaparoudakis added, “We don't want listeners, we want citizens.â€
He said the station came into its own in December 2008, broadcasting around the clock when riots broke out in Athens after a policeman killed a 15-year-old boy. Today, Radio Bubble has about 9,000 followers on Twitter and streams about 100,000 hours of programming each month on its online radio station. Bar revenues cover operating costs and only bar employees and the station's two founders are paid.
Outlets like Unfollow and The Press Project are trying investigative journalism in a country that does not always embrace the undertaking. In 2013, Greece dropped 14 spots to number 84 on the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. (Finland was No. 1, Germany 17 and the United States 32.)
Unfollow, which has 7,000 to 8,000 subscribers, made a name for itself this year when it was sued by Dimitris Melissanidis, the head of Aegean Oil, after it reported on a slow-moving court case against a member of the family on fuel-smuggling charges. The smuggling charges were later dropped after the statute of limitations ran out. The magazine now faces a second defamation lawsuit for another article about a Melissanidis family enterprise.
“What we're doing in Unfollow, we're trying to do a job that's impossible in the mainstream because of the connection with big enterprises that impose their views and their will,†said Aris Chatzistefanou, a co-founder of the magazine and a documentary maker whose film “Debtocracy†argues that Greece should leave the euro.
Mr. Chatzistefanou added: “Usually they say it's the government that controls the media. I think it's the other way around, it's the economic elites that control the government.â€
After the government shut down ERT, The Press Project ran the ERT signal on an alternative platform. (Since then, ERT has been kept in operation by about 600 unpaid employees.)
When it grabbed the ERT signal, “It was a test that we could do it, that we could provide the TV signal to the whole of Greece,†said Costas Efimeros, who started The Press Project in 2010 as a sideline to an information technology company he runs, with several profitable sports and car websites.
This month, The Press Project opened an English-language version. It also has a web television station in the works. The site does not accept advertising from banks or government organizations, “since such sources of advertising in Greece have been linked to manipulation of information,†it wrote in a mission statement.
Back in 2009, when the crisis hit, “we felt there was a big gap in the media,†Mr. Efimeros said, as he sat at a desk in the company's office in Gazi, a trendy, formerly industrial area in downtown Athens. “We want to create a media to discuss the situation of the media in Greece,†he added.
Mr. Efimeros said that he supported Syriza, the main opposition party, in the last elections and that his web company runs sites related to the party, as well as other Greek political parties. The Press Project, some of whose contributors have also worked with The New York Times, had a scoop this month about a member of Parliament from Syriza under investigation for tax evasion, a case that tarnished the image of the party, which has cast itself as a clean alternative to the mainstream parties.
As discontent with the government grows and financially struggling channels increasingly broadcast reruns rather than original programming, alternative sites may gain even greater popularity.
“In the past year, both my parents joined Twitter,†said Janine Louloudi, 30, a freelance journalist, as she sat at the Radio Bubble cafe. “I've seen that shift in other people's families, too. You're going to see more people the age of my parents getting their news from the Internet.â€
“What happened at ERT started a debate about what kind of media we want,†said another young journalist, Vassilis, who said he did not want to reveal his last name because he hosts a show for Radio Bubble under the name Polyphemus, after the mythical Cyclops. “Because,†he said, citing a variation on an old saying, “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man sees.â€
A version of this article appears in print on October 30, 2013, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Greeks Question Media, And New Outlets Pipe Up.
Mary F. Calvert for The New York Times Tom Wheeler testified before the Senate Commerce Committee in June.
WASHINGTON - The Senate voted unanimously on Tuesday to confirm President Obama's two nominations to the Federal Communications Commission, overcoming obstacles by Republican lawmakers.
Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, had held up the nomination of Tom Wheeler to be the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
The vote came after Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, lifted a hold earlier in the day on the nomination of Tom Wheeler as chairman, with Mr. Cruz saying he had received assurances from him that the commission would not immediately pursue changes for political advertising on television.
Mr. Wheeler was confirmed along with Michael O'Rielly as a commissioner, filling the two F.C.C. seats that have been empty since the previous chairman and a Republican member announced their resignations in March.
Mr. Cruz had blocked consideration of Mr. Wheeler's nomination two weeks ago, saying he was worried that Mr. Wheeler would push the F.C.C. to expand disclosure requirements for political advertisements on television.
That became an issue in the 2012 elections after the Supreme Court ruled that corporations and unions could make unlimited donations to political groups. The F.C.C.'s regulations on political advertising imply that such disclosure is required, but the F.C.C. has not forced the issue. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, and chairman of the Commerce Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday that it was a crucial time for the commission, with the F.C.C. “facing decisions that will shape the future of our nation's telephone network, and the wireless, broadband and video industries.â€
Before the vote, Mr. Cruz said that Mr. Wheeler had “stated that he had heard the unambiguous message†that Congress, rather than the F.C.C., should decide on requiring full disclosure in political advertising. At a confirmation hearing in June, Mr. Cruz warned Mr. Wheeler that the issue “has the potential to derail your nomination.â€
Mr. Wheeler referred any questions concerning his nomination to the White House. A Democratic official with knowledge of Mr. Wheeler's meeting with Mr. Cruz said the nominee discussed his priorities with the senator and said that the issue required more study.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, also removed another roadblock in the way of the F.C.C. nominations on Tuesday.
Mr. Graham had said he would prevent any confirmation votes until the Obama administration allowed survivors of last year's attack on the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya, to testify before Congress. But Mr. Graham issued a statement on Tuesday saying that he would not block the F.C.C. nominees because the nominations predated his hold related to Libya.
Although Mr. Cruz's action cleared the way for the nominations to go through, it also appeared to stymie some Democrats' efforts to get the commission, under Mr. Wheeler's direction, to use its regulatory power to do what the Senate has failed to do. In 2012, Democrats fell a single vote short of passing the Disclose Act, which would have required the public disclosure of contributors to so-called super PACs, the anonymously financed lobbying groups that can engage in unlimited political spending independent of any candidate's campaign.
At his nomination hearing in June, Mr. Wheeler dodged a question from Mr. Cruz about whether the F.C.C. had the authority to regulate political speech. “That's an issue that I look forward to learning more about,†Mr. Wheeler said.
Critics of unlimited political donations have pushed the commission to fill in the blanks left by the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision. F.C.C. regulations require that a television station “fully and fairly disclose the true identity of the person or persons or corporation, committee, associate or other unincorporated group or entity†that sponsors a political ad, and that the station post that information online.
But the F.C.C. has not said whether the requirement goes beyond the “I approved this message†tagline or the tiny gray type that appears on-screen at the end of most political ads.
In April 2012, the F.C.C. approved new regulations that required broadcast television stations to make their public service requirement files available online. Those files include information on the buyers of political advertising. Previously, stations were required only to maintain the files at their office and make them available for public inspection.
Some Democrats pushed for the commission to require more disclosure. But critics of the idea noted that the F.C.C. had authority only over broadcast channels - not cable stations, websites, newspapers or other media commonly used for political advertising.
The confirmations of Mr. Wheeler and Mr. O'Rielly bring the agency back to its full strength of five commissioners - three of them Democrats and two Republicans - and will allow the commission to get to work on several pressing issues that have not moved forward since the former chairman, Julius Genachowski, announced his resignation in March.
Those issues include the structuring of so-called spectrum incentive auctions, in which the commission would sell licenses to mobile phone and broadband companies allowing them to use newly available bands of the public airwaves to transmit phone and data traffic.
Unlike previous F.C.C. auctions of airwaves, these auctions have several moving parts. The F.C.C. first has to persuade the current license holders to use the airwave bands - mostly television broadcast stations - to either give up their spots or agree to move to another location in the electromagnetic field over which radio signals travel.
As an incentive to get those television stations to cooperate, Congress gave the F.C.C. permission to offer to share some of the proceeds of the auctions with the stations. Most of the remainder of the proceeds are designated for use in building a new nationwide public safety network for use by first responders.
A version of this article appears in print on October 30, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: New Chief Of the F.C.C. Is Confirmed .
L'Oréal Paris is testing out-of-store retailing in the 42nd Street-Bryant Park subway station.
REMEMBER the vending machines in New York City subway stations, even on platforms? (O.K., maybe not, as it was decades ago.) Among the products straphangers could buy were cigarettes, candy and gum; there were also scales proclaiming, “Horoscope and weight 1¢.â€
The beauty giant L'Oréal wants to revisit that era in a high-tech way with a project it is sponsoring inside the 42nd Street-Bryant Park station from Monday through Dec. 30. Passers-by will see screens and a mirror that use cameras and sensors to recommend women's cosmetics bearing the L'Oréal Paris brand name, which can then be purchased.
The project, called the L'Oréal Paris Intelligent Color Experience, is being described by the participants as an entry in the realm of interactive shopping outside of traditional stores. It is another example of a trend known as experiential marketing, which seeks to give brands more tangible form beyond retail shelves.
The goal is a “real-life experience through technology,†said Marc Speichert, chief marketing officer at the L'Oréal Americas unit of L'Oréal. “If this experiment is successful, we might bring it to other places.â€
“What's amazing with the technology is that we'll have the ability to measure the level of engagement,†he added, based on “the number of people who pass by, the number who interact with each screen, the number who leave their information.â€
The project, with a budget estimated at $700,000 to $1 million, was developed by the R/GA Lab unit of R/GA in New York, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies; R/GA is the digital agency of record for the L'Oréal Paris brand. Also involved in the project are CBS Outdoor, which sells advertising space in the subway system, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
“What we're trying to find out is whether there is an appetite for something between e-tailing and brick-and-mortar retail,†said Paul Fleuranges, senior director for corporate and internal communications at the M.T.A.
“We hope to do some market research while this is up and running,†he added, and based on the results, “we may be willing to do other pilots.â€
“We have a lot of retail space that is not currently under lease,†Mr. Fleuranges said, adding: “If we can find ways to generate revenue from those assets, that's a good thing for us. If we can add to the passenger experience, that's a good thing for us. If we can bring new technology into the system, that's a good thing for us.â€
The L'Oréal Paris project will be in a vacant newsstand space in the station, Mr. Fleuranges said, on the mezzanine level above the No. 7 line. The installation, 7 feet tall by 14 feet wide, can be stocked with up to 700 items; plans call for 27 types of L'Oréal Paris mascara, eye shadow, lipstick and nail polish. The items will be priced at $5.99 to $9.99 each, and purchases will be made with credit cards.
A passer-by will see on the left side of the installation a full-length mirror. Digital animations will present her silhouette and the colors she is wearing, then ask whether she wants cosmetics to “match†or “clash.â€
In the center, she will see under the words “Love the look? Make it yours†product suggestions, among them Colour Riche eye shadow, Voluminous Butterfly mascara and Colour Riche nail polish. She can touch the screen to buy them, and the products emerge from underneath the screen. Or if “Not ready to buy?†as the screen asks, she can “email the look†to herself. The right side of the installation has a screen with photographs and posts from beauty bloggers.
“We looked at a lot of stations with the M.T.A., I would say 20,†said John Jones, senior vice president and executive creative director at R/GA, before deciding on 42nd Street-Bryant Park, which offered benefits like “the right audience for L'Oréal Paris†and “the best visibility.â€
“There are some specific goals and a list of hypotheses†for the project, he added, principally “the connection between an engaging brand experience, a brand halo effect, and people buying products.â€
Erin Lynch, group executive creative director at R/GA, said she believed the “element of participation†would “help women unlock their unique beauty potential, which goes back to ‘L'Oréal Paris, because I'm worth it.'â€
Ms. Lynch said she was pleased that subway riders will use the station to reach major seasonal attractions: the annual holiday shops and skating rink at Bryant Park, scheduled to return on Friday.
“We're creating this underground experience when a lot of experiential is going on above ground,†she added. (Underlining that is a sponsored name, the Bank of America Winter Village at Bryant Park.)
“We were setting up all weekend,†Ms. Lynch said of the project, “and people would do a double take, exactly what we wanted to happen as we're bringing this color, this engaging technology, to an unexpected place.â€
During the setup, Ms. Lynch said, she tried it out, and as a result would be “wearing matching nail polish†at a media preview scheduled for Wednesday.
Mr. Fleuranges said he remembered the original subway vending machines, particularly those “on the inside of columns facing the platform.†The gum machines, which usually had mirrors, “probably went away in the '70s,†he added.
Those with long memories may recall penny gums sold in the subway, mainly American Chicle brands like Chiclets (two pellets in a tiny box) and Adams California Fruit Gum.
A version of this article appears in print on October 30, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Stand Clear of Closing Doors! Protect Your Manicure.
The CBS Corporation is developing a 24-hour news channel that would be streamed online and would mainly repurpose video and reporting already produced by CBS News, according to executives involved in the planning.
The head of CBS News, David Rhodes, is said to be a champion of the 24-hour channel.
The executives spoke on the condition of anonymity because the channel, if it were to move forward, would not be publicly announced for weeks or months. The channel does not have a formal name yet, but it is known internally as CBS News Stream, the executives said.
It is a collaboration between CBS News, which is spearheading the journalistic planning for the channel, and the company's interactive division, which is handling the distribution. David Rhodes, the president of CBS News, is said to be the project's biggest champion.
The project's existence was first reported by BuzzFeed on Tuesday. In response, a CBS Corporation spokesman, Dana McClintock, said that “we are currently talking to a number of partners†about a potential streaming news service.
“There are all kinds of exciting opportunities offered by new platforms, and we intend to keep pursuing them,†said Mr. McClintock, who declined to comment further.
For CBS, which sat, sometimes glumly, on the sidelines while its rivals created cable news channels like MSNBC, an Internet channel would be a relatively low-cost way to spread out its news-gathering costs and, maybe, reach viewers who are not home for the “CBS Evening News.â€
It might also help attract attention to its website, CBSNews.com, which has lagged behind most other American television news sites.
Executives involved in the planning emphasized that CBS News Stream would not be an investment on the scale of MSNBC, which NBC News and Microsoft started in 1996, or Fusion, the cable news and pop culture channel that ABC News and Univision started earlier this week.
Plans for the Internet channel might be best likened to a 24-hour news radio station, which intersperses live updates with prerecorded interviews and features. The channel would have video clips from news broadcasts like “CBS This Morning†and “60 Minutes,†as well as additional material that did not make it onto television, presented in both a linear format like a normal cable channel and an on-demand format like a website.
CBS has tried to liven up its website with new video efforts before, but to limited success. Mr. Rhodes says this time is different, according to the executives involved in the planning, because Internet streaming has become more mainstream thanks to services like Netflix and YouTube.
Virtually all of the major media companies in the United States are experimenting with Internet video destinations, sometimes to recycle shows and movies they already own and other times to introduce new programming.
These streaming channels may someday show up right next to traditional cable channels on the app-like interfaces that are gradually replacing old on-screen guides.
But CBS, if it decides to start CBS News Stream, will enter an ever-more-crowded marketplace.
Another potential obstacle could be the company's agreements with its affiliate stations, which prevent CBS from live-streaming its newscasts except in certain circumstances. The executives said that any Internet channel would respect those agreements.
A version of this article appears in print on October 30, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: CBS Said to Be Developing Streaming News Channel .
Barnes & Noble is set to release a new black-and-white e-reader with a glowing backlit screen on Wednesday, as the bookseller enters the holiday season with declining sales and a cloudy digital future.
The new Nook, with a sharper display and lighter weight, is an update to a device released in 2012 that was meant for nighttime reading.
Barnes & Noble executives said that despite the perception of simple e-readers as transitional products, they believe there is still demand for them as more consumers shift to multifunction color tablets.
“Black-and-white e-readers aren't growing the way they were three or four years ago,†Michael P. Huseby, chief executive of Nook Media and president of Barnes & Noble, said in an interview on Tuesday. “But for our particular market, our customers who visit our stores and really value Barnes & Noble as a brand, this is a product they really value.â€
The device will appear just before the holiday season, when publishers and booksellers depend on a major boost in sales. It will cost $119, similar to the Kindle Paperwhite that appears with advertising on the screen.
Mr. Huseby said there were no plans for Barnes & Noble to release a new color tablet by the end of the year. “That does not mean we won't do so in the future,†he said. “We're being more measured in terms of how we pace the production of devices.â€
Barnes & Noble is the country's largest bookstore chain, with 674 retail stores.
James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, said he believed that the new Nook was “spectacular,†with a sleek design and superb battery life.
But the long-term viability of Barnes & Noble and its Nook business could be a major obstacle in the mind of consumers who are weighing whether to buy one of the company's devices.
“If you were just engineering a device that you wanted people to fall in love with, then yes, it's a great device,†Mr. McQuivey said. “But the bigger problem is, will people perceive that Barnes & Noble as a company will be around to fulfill the promises that that device makes? It's a shadow that hangs over the entire Nook enterprise right now.â€
Another problem, Mr. McQuivey said, is that the previous generation of devices is not obsolete.
“Probably most of the intended target for the devices already have another device,†he said. “The urgency is not there because the old devices are still very good.â€
Allen Weiner, an analyst for Gartner, said that Barnes & Noble was compelled to release a new device that would “get them in the spotlight.â€
“This represents, hey, we're still here, and we're still relevant,†he said. “This is a logical step in their evolution.â€
A version of this article appears in print on October 30, 2013, on page B5 of the New York edition with the headline: Barnes & Noble to Release Upgraded Version of Black-and-White Nook E-Reader.
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The autobiography of the pop star Morrissey, which has become a quick sensation in Britain, has found an American publisher. G.P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House, acquired the memoir, two people involved in the negotiations said on Monday.
Several publishers were vying for the rights to release the book, which has already been reviewed in the United States after its publication as a 457-page Penguin Classic in Britain. Writing in The New York Times, Ben Ratliff said that the book, titled “Autobiography,†is “as sharp as it is tedious, both empathetic and pointlessly cruel,†adding that Morrissey, the former singer for The Smiths, is “a pop star of unusual writing talent.â€
The book is expected to be published quickly to take advantage of the holiday book-buying season. Since "Autobiography" was released in Britain two weeks ago, it jumped to the No. 1 spot on Amazon.co.uk. Fans in the United States who were unable to buy copies from American booksellers have ordered them from online merchants in Britain at inflated prices. A spokeswoman for Putnam declined to comment.
The autobiography of the pop star Morrissey, which has become a quick sensation in Britain, has found an American publisher. G. P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House, acquired the memoir, the publisher said on Tuesday.
The 457-page book, simply titled “Autobiography,†has become a bestseller in Britain, where it was released two weeks ago, and several publishers in the United States were engaged in a fierce auction for the American rights last week.
Putnam, whicht has published Tom Clancy, A. Scott Berg and Nora Roberts, got word on Friday that it had won the auction, said Ivan Held, the president of Putnam. “We were thrilled,†Mr. Held said on Tuesday. “People were jumping up and down here.â€
The book will be released in hardcover on Dec. 3. “We're going to crash it through,†Mr. Held said. “That's about as quick as you can do it and get proper distribution.â€
The American version of “Autobiography†will be nearly identical to the edition that has already been released in Britain by Penguin Classics.
That edition, which was released in paperback, has already been reviewed widely in the United States, even though fans of Morrissey had to order copies from Britain if they wanted to read the book. Writing in The New York Times, Ben Ratliff said that “Autobiography,†is “as sharp as it is tedious, both empathetic and pointlessly cruel,†adding that Morrissey, the former singer for The Smiths, is “a pop star of unusual writing talent.â€
Since “Autobiography†was released in Britain, it has jumped to the No. 1 spot on Amazon.co.uk.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia posted troubling third-quarter results on Tuesday, a day after announcing that it had hired a new chief executive after a 10-month search.
The company, which has been trying to stem losses in its publishing and broadcasting divisions, reported total
revenue for the quarter of $33.8 million, compared with $43.5 million in the same period a year earlier. While the company's merchandising revenue grew to $14.2 million, from $13.2 million, its publishing revenue dipped to $19.4 million, from $27.6 million. Broadcasting revenue was a fraction of what it was in 2012, falling to $294,000 from $2.7 million.
The drop-offs in publishing and broadcast revenue were partly driven by the budget-cutting that Martha Stewart Living introduced to get its costs under control. Last November, the company said it was de-emphasizing two of its four magazines. Earlier in 2012, the company trimmed $12.5 million in broadcasting costs by not renewing its daily programming deal with the Hallmark Channel, breaking its lease on its television production studio and ending its live audience for “The Martha Stewart Show.â€
Last December Lisa Gersh, the former chief executive, announced that she would resign and the company said it would start to look for a replacement who could build its more profitable merchandising business.
But even as the company tried to find profits in merchandising, it suffered further setbacks. Last week, Martha Stewart Living announced that it had trimmed back the merchandising agreement it had with J. C. Penney, days before a court was expected to rule in the long-running dispute between Macy's and J. C. Penney over selling Martha Stewart housewares. Under the agreement, J. C. Penney announced it would not sell Martha Stewart kitchen, bed and bath products.
Over all, the company suffered an operating loss of $4.1 million in the quarter, compared with $50.7 million in the same quarter last year. The loss last year included a $44.3 million write-down related to the publishing division.
David Bank, an equity research analyst with RBC Capital Markets, noted that Tuesday's results revealed just how dependent the company had become on J. C. Penney. Much of the advertising declines for its publishing division occurred because J. C. Penney cut back on ads in Martha Stewart publications.
“That seemed to be the biggest driver of the shortfall for advertising revenues,†said Mr. Bank.
The company announced on Monday that Martha Stewart Living had hired Daniel W. Dienst as its new chief executive. Mr. Dienst most recently worked as chief executive of Sims Metal Management, which processes the plastic, metal and glass collected by New York City's Sanitation Department. Mr. Bank said it remained unclear how Mr. Dienst would apply his background, which does not include merchandising, to Martha Stewart Living.
“There was a clear message that the company should be performing better and there was no use in blaming a past administration,†said Mr. Bank, referring to Mr. Dienst's comments in a conference call after the earnings were released Tuesday. “It's just unclear how that will be executed.â€
LOS ANGELES - Issues and politics mostly ruled, as the International Documentary Association on Tuesday announced its nominees for its annual documentary awards. In the feature film category, nominations went to “The Act of Killing,†about Indonesian genocide; “Blackfish,†about orca whales in captivity; “Let the Fire Burn,†about a 1985 standoff between police and activists in Philadelphia; and “The Square,†about Egyptians struggling for social change. Those were joined by one very personal story, Sarah Polley's “Stories We Tell,†about her discovery of a family secret that surrounded her own birth. The association also announced nominees for short films, television documentaries, and entries in other categories. The awards are to be presented at a ceremony in Los Angeles on Dec. 6.
“The Walking Dead,†the zombie apocalypse drama that is more popular than anything else on AMC (and most other channels, for that matter), will continue for at least a fifth season, the channel said on Tuesday.
In a statement, the AMC president, Charlie Collier, called news of the fifth season “one of the most anti-climactic renewal announcements ever.†That's because “The Walking Dead†is the envy of the television industry, having hit a new ratings high of 20 million viewers at the beginning of its fourth season earlier this month.
Mr. Collier noted that the season premiere “became the biggest non-sports telecast in cable history.†The second and third episodes of the season are expected to rate almost as highly once on-demand viewership is added up.
AMC did not say when the fifth season would start, but all the seasons to date have had their premieres in October, timed to Halloween. The channel said that Scott Gimple, who became showrunner at the start of the fourth season, would remain in charge during the fifth season.
The renewal is especially significant for AMC because one of its other tentpole dramas, “Breaking Bad,†came to an end last month, and another series, “Mad Men,†is scheduled to end in 2015. The channel, hoping to capitalize on the momentum it has, is developing loosely connected spinoffs for both “Breaking Bad†and “The Walking Dead.â€
This blog contains archived content which is not being updated. Current content can be found at www.fivethirtyeight.com.
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A leading nonprofit organization in the field of investigative journalism is getting a free branding and advertising campaign, courtesy of a leading creative agency.
An ad by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners promoting the Center for Investigative Reporting includes a logo that mimics a censored document.
How did the organization, the Center for Investigative Reporting, manage to woo the agency - Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, part of the Omnicom Group - into producing the campaign? It took only a bit of investigative reporting to learn that the principals of the center and the agency share a connection that dates back almost three decades.
Phil Bronstein, executive chairman of the center, which is based in Berkeley, Calif., knew Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, the co-chairmen of Goodby, Silverstein, from the days when the agency handled the account of the newspaper for which Mr. Bronstein was a reporter, The San Francisco Examiner.
The cheeky, innovative campaign created in the 1980s by the agency - then known as Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein - was acclaimed for its casting of the publisher, William Randolph Hearst III, in a leading role that invoked his grandfather, William Randolph Hearst, and “Citizen Kane.â€
Mr. Bronstein, in a phone interview this week, recalled ruefully an ad in the campaign that promoted his reporting from the Philippines on the fall of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, which included his “getting into the presidential palace soon after the Marcoses had left.â€
“The ad said, ‘While other reporters were going to press conferences, Phil Bronstein was going through Imelda's drawers,' †Mr. Bronstein said. At the time, he added, he believed the ad was “trivializing my work,†but he eventually came to consider the campaign to be “very effective.â€
Fast forward to about a year ago, after the center had merged with The Bay Citizen, a nonprofit news organization covering the San Francisco Bay Area. The center's leaders began considering ways to raise the organization's profile.
“Within the world of journalism, it's pretty reasonable to say people know what we do,†Mr. Bronstein said. But “as investigative reporting becomes more of an endangered species, it struck us that people, audiences, we want to reach should know us.â€
That was reinforced in May, when The Bay Citizen and California Watch, which the center started as a separate entity in 2009, were both placed under the center's umbrella.
“We had a number of identities,†Mr. Bronstein said, adding, “None of us were brand experts, but even as journalists we came to the conclusion it was confusing.â€
The center needs a strong brand personality, Mr. Bronstein said, as it continues working with commercial media outlets like CNN.
“Anderson Cooper was mentioning ‘the C.I.R.' 18 times†during a recent report, he added, “and who knows what the C.I.R. is?â€
That goal is also important as the center pursues ventures that include The I Files, a channel on YouTube, and a pilot for a series for public radio stations in partnership with Public Radio Exchange, known as PRX, Mr. Bronstein said, adding, “We're exploring every opportunity we get to expand what we do.â€
The idea for the campaign was suggested by “Broken Shield,†a series by California Watch that investigated problems at centers for the developmentally disabled. When reporters received documents they had requested from state officials, “the documents were entirely redacted,†Mr. Bronstein said, “not just the words but the margins.â€
“Rich took that redaction notion,†he added, “to deliver the message that we are the antidote to redaction.â€
The center's new logo looks like a redacted document, with everything unreadable except for five words: “the,†“center for,†“investigative†and “reporting.†The logo will appear in numerous places like the center's Web site, video clips and movie-style posters that promote the center's reporting.
For instance, a poster for “Broken Shield,†showing a hospital X-ray, reads: “In the disabled ward, no one can hear you scream. Certainly not the police. A CIR special report.â€
The logo is meant to symbolize that “you have to go beyond that blacked-out material to find the truth,†Mr. Silverstein said in a separate phone interview.
“Newspapers and investigative reporting just can't go away,†he added. “They do so much, keeping society in check. What would we do without sources of real information?â€
The work for the center marks a “return to our roots,†Mr. Silverstein said of himself and Mr. Goodby, for another reason in addition to the connection to The Examiner.
“Jeff was a reporter at The Boston Herald and I was an art director at Rolling Stone,†Mr. Silverstein said. “I remember watching the Watergate hearings live while pasting up Rolling Stone.â€
The agency's work on the campaign was “a labor of love,†he added. “You can say hundreds of hours.â€
“It's so nice to give something back,†Mr. Silverstein said. Moments later, he added, in a characteristic Groucho Marx-like aside, “I still want to sell potato chips and cars, by the way.â€
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 10, 2013
Because of incorrect information provided by the Center for Investigative Reporting, an earlier version of this column referred incorrectly to the center's partner on a pilot for a radio series. Although the series is for public radio stations, it is not an NPR production; for distribution and production on the project, the center is working with Public Radio Exchange, known as PRX.
A version of this article appears in print on October 10, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: For Journalists Who Seek Out Hidden Things, a More Visible Brand.
Cable television demonstrated again Wednesday night that it can produce powerhouse drama that can match or exceed anything on network television â€" the latest example being the new season of the FX drama “American Horror Story.â€
The premiere attracted the biggest audience in that show's history Wednesday, pulling in 5.54 million viewers, up 44 percent over the show's previous high of 3.85 million. In the financially crucial department of viewers between the ages of 18 and 49, the show topped everything on broadcast television Wednesday night except “Modern Family†on ABC. "American Horror Story'' was watched by 3.87 million viewers in that age group, up from its previous best of 2.04 million.
The BBC and the Discovery Channel are essentially dissolving a relationship that dates to the 1990s and delivered natural history programs like “Blue Planet,†“Planet Earth†and “Life†to American viewers. Some of the BBC's wildlife documentaries and films will be co-produced by its cable channel BBC America instead of Discovery in the future, the British broadcaster said Wednesday. Discovery will continue to work with the BBC on some programs, but will also strike deals with other producers for science and natural history programs. The two collaborators have become more like competitors over the years. Discovery is increasingly an international brand, and it wants to have worldwide rights to its programming; meanwhile, the BBC wants to bolster its own branded channel in America. The two companies said they had mutually agreed to go their separate ways.
A version of this brief appears in print on October 11, 2013, on page C2 of the New York edition with the headline: BBC and Discovery Cut Back on Collaborations.
LOS ANGELES - Warner Brothers responded harshly on Thursday to a legal complaint over the authorship of its Clint Eastwood baseball movie, “Trouble With the Curve.†But its opponents did not back down.
Amy Adams and Clint Eastwood in the 2012 movie, “Trouble With the Curve.†The film's authorship has been challenged.
In an unusually sharp response to a lawsuit filed here last week, the studio publicly called the accusations of script theft “reckless and false.â€
The studio and several of its business partners also said they had overwhelming evidence that the original script was created more than 15 years ago, without foul play, by its credited author, a virtually unknown screenwriter named Randy Brown. But Gerard P. Fox, a lawyer for a plaintiff, instantly dismissed the supposed evidence as “manufactured.â€
Warner's response was in part an attempt - probably futile - to stem Hollywood table talk and media fascination with a suit that charged wrongdoing by both the studio and Mr. Eastwood's Malpaso Productions, though Mr. Eastwood was not personally included among more than a dozen named defendants.
The suit portrays a web of duplicity unusual even for the film business, with shenanigans only slightly less colorful than those in Elmore Leonard's movieland caper “Get Shorty.â€
Among other charges, it contends that Mr. Brown knew very little about baseball but was set up as a bogus screenwriter, while a script actually written by a hidden third party wound its way through talent agencies and low-level producers until it found its home on the big screen with Mr. Eastwood.
In Hollywood, where everyone is eager to claim credit for a great idea, charges of script theft are as common as cocktail receptions, and usually as fleeting. Few lawsuits ultimately prevail, partly because claimants often overvalue an idea's originality.
But the aggrieved keep trying. Just last week, James Cameron was granted dismissal of a suit - one of several similar actions against him - that claimed he had misappropriated material in creating “Avatar.†Two days earlier, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal in a copyright case connected to the 1980 film “Raging Bull.â€
The complaint against Warner, filed in the United States District Court in Los Angeles, names Malpaso, the United Talent Agency and a series of lesser-known film figures. Those include Robert Lorenz, who has long been Mr. Eastwood's producing partner, and who directed “Trouble With the Curve.â€
The suit was filed by Ryan A. Brooks, a former college baseball star who was scouted by the pros, but suffered an injury. Instead, he became a film producer successful enough to share credit for “Inocente,†a documentary short that won an Oscar earlier this year.
In his complaint, Mr. Brooks said that Mr. Lorenz and others were engaged in a conspiracy to credit Mr. Brown, a cover-band drummer who had little experience as a professional writer, with a sophisticated script about baseball scouts and a failing father-daughter relationship.
In Mr. Brooks's version of events, “Trouble With the Curve†was actually written by Don Handfield, a former character actor, whom Mr. Brooks hired to write a script called “Omaha,†based heavily on Mr. Brooks's knowledge of college baseball.
According to the complaint, Mr. Brooks and Mr. Handfield researched baseball on trips together. They created a crusty old widower who was much like the aged scout portrayed by Mr. Eastwood in “Trouble With the Curve.†And they peppered their work with details - a clog-dancing scene, players who had to work as peanut vendors, a long, painful confrontation with a mirror - that also appeared in “Trouble.â€
“Omaha†particularly focused on a father-daughter story that, in Mr. Brooks's account, was based on his mother's experience with her own estranged father. In “Trouble,†Mr. Eastwood plays an aging father who reconciles with a daughter played by Amy Adams.
“Trouble†opened to mixed reviews and modest ticket sales on Sept. 21, 2012. By then, Mr. Brooks and Mr. Handfield had parted in a business dispute, and Mr. Handfield had directed his own pet project, a football fantasy called “Touchback.â€
A version of this article appears in print on October 11, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Fit for a Film: Suit Filed Against Warner Bros. in Screenplay Theft.