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Thursday, Feb 02

Morning Media Newsfeed 02.02.12

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Facebook Officially Files SEC Documents For $5B Offer (AllFacebook)
Facebook officially filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a forthcoming $5 billion initial public offering. Inside Facebook: Facebook had $1 billion in net income on $3.71 billion revenue in 2011, according to its filing. The company's revenues grew 87 percent year-over-year from 2010, which, in turn, more than doubled from the year before. Payments and fees revenue made up $557 million, or about 15 percent of revenues for all of 2011, showing that the company is still heavily dependent on display advertising. Ads made up $3.154 billion in revenue. Just to note, Facebook has $3.91 billion in cash and marketable securities. TechCrunch: We learned a lot of things about Facebook Wednesday from its IPO filing. But there is one detail that sticks out for its improbable exactness: The $1.000 billion in profits Facebook reported for 2011. The number wasn't $998 million. It wasn't $1.003 billion. It was $1.000 billion right on the dot. Inside Facebook: Facebook announced new usage milestones in its S-1 filing Wednesday: 845 million monthly active users, including 425 million users who access the service on mobile devices. CNET: Buried in Facebook's filing for its much-ballyhooed initial public offering is the sort of contradiction that might sink a lesser company: The more that people use Facebook's mobile offerings, the worse the company's bottom line becomes. CNET: The social-networking giant's initial public offering document reveals a wealth of detail about its business operations previously known only to the likes of co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, and the company's legion of private investors. AllFacebook: Co-founder Dustin Moskovitz has almost 133.8 million shares in the company, but none of the co-founders who've left the company appear in the list of the top stakeholders, meaning that Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin have pared down their stakes in the company. Ditto for Sean Parker, the company's former president and currently an investor in Spotify. B&C: In terms of compensation, Zuckerberg received a base salary of $483,333, bonuses of $220,500, and other compensation valued at $783,529, for a total of $1,487,362 in 2011. Sandberg received a base salary of $295,833, bonuses of $86,133, and stock awards valued at $30,491,613, for a total package of $30,873,579. The second-highest-compensated executive was Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering, who received a total package of $24.7 million in 2011. Inside Facebook: Zuckerberg will take a $1 annual salary starting next year, mirroring other iconic public company founders like Apple's Steve Jobs and Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Mashable: The filing noted that Zuckerberg spent nearly $700,000 for costs related to private plane use "chartered in connection with his comprehensive security program and on which family and friends flew during 2011." Business Insider / Silicon Alley Insider: Facebook has approved the use of a private plane for Zuckerberg and Sandberg. NY Post: The first-ever peek behind the curtain at the eight-year-old tech titan shows just how powerful the 27-year-old CEO is -- including controlling 57 percent of Facebook's voting power and being able to name a successor, even one after he is dead. Inside Facebook: Facebook revealed that it took steps to increase the reserve price in its advertising auction system, which increased the minimum bid for some advertisers. Inside Facebook: Facebook also revealed that it spent $68 million in cash and stock on acquisitions last year. Inside Facebook: Facebook said it paid out $1.4 billion to developers through payments on its platform in 2011. Apple paid out half that much to iPhone, iPod, and iPad developers last quarter. AllFacebook: Wednesday's S-1 filing revealed that Facebook generates approximately $550 million annually through Credits, $375 million of which can be attributed to Zynga. Inside Facebook: Facebook named Google as its prime competitor among others including Microsoft and Twitter. CNET: Facebook is painting itself as the David to Google's Goliath. TechCrunch: It appears that the excitement over the Facebook IPO has crashed the SEC's website. LA Times: Just moments after Facebook filed its long awaited S-1 Wednesday afternoon, the S-1 itself got its own Twitter feed. NY Observer / Betabeat: One underwriter slipped through: boutique New York-based investment bank Allen & Co., which puts on the annual Sun Valley conference that regularly attracts billionaires and media moguls. Business Insider / Silicon Alley Insider: Newark Mayor Cory Booker is probably smiling right now. Zuckerberg donated $100 million of his stock to the school system back when Facebook was worth $20 billion. If Facebook IPOs at the anticipated $100 billion valuation, the public school system will get five times that amount, which means one of the country's worst school systems may soon be $500 million richer. CNET / Molly Rants: Facebook's IPO will make some bankers, some venture capitalists, some privileged early investors, and some early employees rich. Everyone else should steer clear.

Fox News Wins Florida Primary, But Only CNN Improves From Non-Primary Night (TVNewser)
Fox News easily won the cable news coverage of the Florida GOP primary, drawing more than the combined average of CNN and MSNBC. But the early finish of the primary, with the call at 8 p.m. ET going to Mitt Romney, may have sent viewers elsewhere. B&C: CNN was second with 1.09 million total viewers and MSNBC third with 984,000. In the key adults 25-54 demo, FNC drew 641,000 viewers, CNN had 402,000, and MSNBC saw 245,000. AP: Social media will again play a role in disseminating the results from a state caucus. Results of the Nevada Republican Presidential Caucus Saturday, Feb. 4, will be released through Twitter and Google, state GOP leaders have announced. Google had a similar role in the Iowa caucuses. Yahoo! News / The Ticket: Fresh off his double-digit victory in Tuesday's Florida Republican primary, a chipper Romney hit the morning talk-show circuit Wednesday, appearing on the Today show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, Fox and Friends, and CNN's Starting Point via satellite from Tampa. CJR / Campaign Desk: A suggested reading list for getting up to speed on this Super PAC thing. Yahoo! News / The Ticket: Among the 150-plus major donors disclosed by Restore Our Future, a super PAC supporting Romney: Marc Andreessen, the Netscape co-founder who's become one of the biggest venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. TVNewser: Cracker, a pejorative term generally used to describe Southern rural white people, turned up at least twice Tuesday during cable news coverage of the Florida primary. TVNewser: Neil Cavuto, meet Kevin Costner. "I think of it as like a Field of Dreams thing," says Cavuto as he prepares to anchor his fourth night of live political coverage (five if you count the State of the Union) this month. "If people see you're serious, they will come. And every time, every caucus, every primary, every major speech, it creates buzz, it creates recognition."

LA Times Revenue Officer Departs (TheWrap.com / Media Alley)
Los Angeles Times executive John T. O'Loughlin has become the latest high-ranking official to leave the newspaper.


Former Intern Sues Hearst Over Unpaid Work And Hopes To Create A Class Action (NYT / Media Decoder)
A former unpaid intern for fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar filed a lawsuit Wednesday, accusing its parent company, Hearst, of violating federal and state wage and hour laws by not paying her even though she often worked there full-time. paidContent: In a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, Xuedan Wang says she was not paid for working 40-55 hours per week during 2011. NYT / Media Decoder: Do you have a story of an internship that changed or ruined your life? Or telling examples of how the free labor of interns is built into the business model of publishing?

In Networks' Race For Ratings, Chicanery Is On The Schedule (NYT)
Viewers who tuned into ABC's Good Morning America during the last week of 2011 would have found the same mix of news, gossip, and soft features at the usual time of the morning. But as far as Nielsen ratings were concerned, four of the shows that week weren't Good Morning America at all. They were labeled "special" programming by ABC, which told Nielsen that it would be called Good Morning Amer.

Live With Kelly Ratings Drop 10 Percent (THR / The Live Feed)
Since Regis Philbin left Disney's syndicated hit talk show, Live, last November, his co-host, Kelly Ripa, has been rolling along, with ratings up an average of 4 percent compared with a year earlier, when they were still together -- until last week.

Manhattan's A-List Turns Out For Harvey Weinstein's Giants Pep Rally (FishbowlNY / Lunch)
I've been covering Wednesdays at Michael's for five years and have never seen anything like the head-spinning scene that unfolded there this Wednesday. Harvey Weinstein and Steve Tisch threw a pep rally to end all pep rallies, and the media A-list all came out to cheer on their favorite team. TVNewser: Among the attendees were Fox News CEO Roger Ailes; Fox News anchors Brian Kilmeade and Jamie Colby; ABC's Katie Couric and Andrea Canning; NBC's Matt Lauer, Brian Williams, and Savannah Guthrie; CNN's Piers Morgan; CBS' Chris Licht and Gayle King; and, just for good measure, Whoopi Goldberg, Star Jones, singer John Mayer, John McEnroe, Cablevision CEO James Dolan, and movie tycoon Weinstein, among many others.

Good News: More People Are Visiting Newspaper Websites (FishbowlNY)
OK, so maybe this isn't such great news for print purists. But according to an analysis of comScore data performed by the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper websites in the fourth quarter of 2011 averaged more than 111 million monthly unique visitors, an increase of more than 6 million compared with the same period a year ago.

So Much For Surprise: See The Super Bowl Spots Already Released (AdAge / Super Bowl)
Remember a time when we gathered around the Super Bowl TV, cross-legged and yellow-eyed, waiting for the horrible halftime show to come on so we could rush off to the bathroom? Remember when we were afraid to leave the room during commercial breaks because we didn't want to miss one single commercial? Well, goodbye to all that. Daily Beast / Sexy Beast: We've compiled a list of the 10 most anticipated ads that will air during the big game Sunday -- just in case you'd prefer to skip the man-on-man dog piles and get right to the good stuff. AdAge / Super Bowl: General Electric will air two commercials during the Super Bowl, but the ads aren't as boisterous or humorous as those you'll see from Volkswagen, Pepsi, or many other marketers. Business Insider / Silicon Alley Insider: Samsung just released yet another teaser for its big Super Bowl ad that's premiering this weekend. Google Blog: While thousands of lucky fans will brave the crowds at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to fill the coveted seats at this Sunday's Super Bowl, many more in the United States will enjoy the game from home -- in front of the TV, with mobile phones and tablets at the ready.

Men's Journal To Relaunch Site With Product Focus (Adweek)
After overhauling RollingStone.com in 2010, Wenner Media is turning its attention to another publication with a less-than-impressive Web presence: Men's Journal, whose current site is more of an afterthought to the magazine than a stand-alone digital destination.

Time Inc.'s Maghound Shuttering (Folio:)
Time Inc.'s print magazine venture, Maghound, is closing. The service debuted in 2008, and is expected to fold early this year. Dubbed the "Netflix of the magazine industry" in the press, Maghound hawked multiple titles for a discount price, without the commitment of a subscription.

Hacking Inquiry Widens To Times Of London (NYT)
The hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers took a new turn Thursday when a lawmaker said police investigations had spread to the flagship Times of London.

HBO Crew Briefly Shuts Down Hill Hearing (Washington Times)
House Republicans assailed the Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday morning for its claims that "fracking" caused water contamination in a small Wyoming town, but the hearing was overshadowed by the arrest of Josh Fox, a controversial HBO filmmaker and natural-gas industry critic.

Report: Broadcast Networks Will Get 8 Percent Higher CPMs At Upfront This Year (paidContent)
The rush of content announcements from video companies in recent days, from players like YouTube and Hulu, has caused a number of people to suggest that internet video has reached a new tipping point with consumer and advertiser adoption. But if it has, it doesn't appear to coming at the expense of traditional TV. A new research report says that TV broadcasters will get even more money for their commercial time next season.

Musical Chairs At The Times Metro Desk (NY Observer)
The New York Times reporter formerly known as The Nocturnalist isn't the only one working a new beat in 2012.

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