Cord-cutting is "picking up the pace as the cost of cable and satellite TV service continues to climb skyward," writes Todd Spangler. In total, the U.S. pay TV industry lost 316,000 subscribers for the 12-month period ending in June, according to a Moffett Research report that called the loss far from huge, but "statistically significant." Cable operators were hit the hardest.

It's unlikely The New York Times will be bought by a deep-pocketed billionaire, following in the recent fate of The Washington Post and the Boston Globe, according to several analysts interviewed here by Leon Lazaroff. Among the reasons cited: the Times' relatively happier financial outlook, including more success on the digital realm than the Post; and the New York paper's family ownership. "I continue to be convinced that the Sulzbergers would never sell the Times, regardless of how advantageous a deal could be to the family's wealth, there's just too much dedication there," notes an analyst, adding "Of …

Here's the tale of a public service direct-mail campaign with a, uh, smelly twist, launched by McCann Erickson: dog walkers who failed to scoop the poop in Brunette, Spain, received special delivery packages of their dog's waste matter, in an effort to shame them into cleaning up after their pooches. The town's mayor estimates a 70% improvement in poop-scooping -- and the campaign's agency mastermind says it's brought "some very serious clients" to the agency.

Time magazine has hired design studio Big Human for the redesign and relaunch of its website set for fall. The design firm has never worked on a news site, and "most of [its] past experience has been on the tech and startup side," which makes it an "interesting choice," writes Anthony Ha. A Time exec says Big Human's focus on e-commerce will help the company "figure out 'how do we merchandise our news and surface things a lot of different ways?'”

Atlantic Media's business publication, Quartz, just launched a new feature, Annotations, that allows readers to publish comments beside specific paragraphs of a story, instead of just having comments in a separate section at the end of an article. Citi will be the first sponsor.

Cable operator Comcast is in the preliminary stages of developing a piracy-fighting system that "would provide offending users with transactional opportunities to access legal versions of copyright-infringing videos as they’re being downloaded," writes Andrew Wallenstein. Currently the company is having preliminary talks with film and TV studios and ISPs in hopes of getting them to join the effort, "even for a beta trial that would be concentrated to a limited selection of programs and Internet subscribers. No timetable has been set, however."

"If it wasn’t clear that newspapers have become trophies for the wealthy with an interest in journalism or power — or a combination of both — it should be now," writes the New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin, one of many responding to the news of Amazon's Jeff Bezos' purchase of the Washington Post for $250 million and The Boston Red Sox' John Henry's buying the Boston Globe for $70 million -- chump change for both.In an interesting take on the news, veteran Washington Post writer Carl Bernstein, who became a journalistic icon for the investigative pieces …

In what is reportedly a "first for Hearst," the publisher worked with OMD and Estée Lauder for "what they describe as the first Flipboard magazine created for a product launch," out today, writes Julie Naughton. For Lauder's revamped Advanced Night Repair, the Estée Lauder Beauty Book will discuss the product's scientific attributes as well as provide content from Harper's Bazaar, Elle and Marie Claire editorial teams, along with content created specifically for the project.

In the latest wrinkle in the continuing soap opera that's the Time Warner Cable-CBS carriage dispute, Time Warner just suggested that CBS "make its stations available on an a la carte basis at price and on terms of its choosing, with 100% of that price remitted to CBS," according to a memo by TWC chief sent to CBS, cited by David Lieberman. "This way, rather than our debating the point, we would allow customers to decide for themselves how much value they ascribe to CBS programming," continues the memo.This is kind of a historic suggestion, isn't it? A …

Norman Lear and Amy Poehler both pirouetted when accepting their awards at the Television Critics Association Awards ceremony, copying dancer and "Bunheads" castmate Katilyn Jenkins, who took a balletic turn when accepting the award for Outstanding Achievement In Youth Programming for her now-canceled show. We wish there was video on these historic moments, but we'll have to make do with the photos (and commentary) posted here by Alan Sepinwall.