2013: the media year in pictures

March: Hacked Off campaigner Brian Cathcart speaks following the cross-party agreement on a new system of newspaper self-regulation. Most publishers rejected the government's resulting regulatory proposals backed by royal charter, which received royal approval in late October, and are forging ahead with their own new body, the Independent Press Standards Organisation – due to be up and running by May 2014 Photograph: Andrew Cowie/AFP/Getty Images

March: ITV's Broadchurch became one of the year's biggest critical and ratings hits, mirroring the broadcaster's rising fortunes in 2013. The main ITV channel is on course to increase its annual audience share for the first time since 1990, while ITV plc's share price has nearly doubled over the past year, trading at about 190p in the week before Christmas Photograph: Patrick Redmond/ITV

April: Tony Hall's first day as BBC director general. Fallout from scandals preceding his arrival – Jimmy Savile, executive payoffs and the £100m Digital Media Initiative fiasco – continued to dog the BBC in 2013, but Hall has set the corporation on a more even keel. So far, so good. Now for the real challenge – making a compelling case for charter and licence fee renewal Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters

May: ITV News airs camera phone footage filmed by a member of the public of one of Lee Rigby's killers, Michael Adebolajo, shortly after the murder. The Woolwich murder and the hunt for the Boston bombing suspects highlighted the growing influence of social media and smartphones in live coverage of major news stories Photograph: Reuters

June: The first story based on whistleblower Edward Snowden's leaked documents about the NSA's surveillance activities is published in the Guardian, prompting headlines worldwide and a debate about the balance to be struck between state security and online privacy Photograph: The Guardian/AFP/Getty Images

July: The Sun prints 'This is our Britain' wrap cover highlighting what it stands for ahead of the 1 August launch of its £2-a-week Sun+ online subscription offering. In early July Parent company News Corporation formally split into two separately traded businesses, News Corp (newspaper and book publishing) and 21st Century Fox (film and TV) Photograph: The Sun

August: BT Sport launches, featuring presenters including Jake Humphrey. BT doubled down on its pay-TV strategy in November, forking out £900m for exclusive live Champions League rights (from 2015) to add to the Premier League coverage launched in August – and reinforcing its challenge to BSkyB's 20-year dominance of the market Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

August: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos buys the Washington Post for $250m – 1% of his estimated personal wealth – provided the starkest example yet of the contrasting fortunes of mainstream media and digital businesses, and the rapid pace of change in the industry Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

August: Kevin Spacey delivers the MacTaggart lecture at the Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival. Spacey, star of Netflix's $100m House of Cards adaptation, all 13 episodes of which were were made available online on 1 February, urged TV executives to back talent and embrace ambitious storytelling, new formats and forms of distributing programming Photograph: David Cheskin/PA

September: Educating Yorkshire was one of Channel 4's biggest critical and ratings successes of 2013. But overall it was a difficult year for the broadcaster, following the success of 2012's Paralypmics coverage, summed up in a Broadcast magazine ratings analysis headline: 'Award hits but ratings misses' Photograph: Gary Calton/Channel 4

September: Just when I thought I was safe, they drag me back in ... Former BBC director general Mark Thompson, now New York Times chief executive, returned to London to answer questions from MPs on the Commons public accounts committee about executive payoffs during his tenure at the corporation. He squabbled with BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten and other senior corporation figures over who knew what and when about the payoffs, in a 'grossly unedifying' hearing that did the BBC's public image no favours Photograph: PA

September: US cable channel AMC begins airing the final episodes of Breaking Bad. In the UK, where no broadcaster has aired the show for several years, its popularity grew via word of mouth, DVD box sets and Netflix Photograph: Frank Ockenfels/AP

October: Mishal Husain makes her debut on Radio 4's Today programme, the show's first Asian presenter. The move was seen as a step in the right direction by BBC director general Tony Hall and director of news James Harding to getting more women on air – but critics argue more needs to be done Photograph: Jeff Overs/PA

October: Great British Bake Off finalists Ruby Tandoh, Kimberley Wilson and Frances Quinn with judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. The BBC2 show's fourth series was a runaway hit with the final averaging more than 8 million viewers – and earning the show a transfer to BBC1 for 2014 Photograph: Des Willie/BBC/PA

October: Rebekah and Charlie Brooks arrive at the Old Bailey on the first day of the phone-hacking trial Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

November: Rupert Murdoch divorces Wendi Deng Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

November: Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo and co-founders Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone at the New York Stock Exchange for the company's IPO. Priced at an initial $26 a share, the stock ended its first day of trading at $44.90 and was at about $60 just before Christmas Photograph: LAN/Corbis

November: BBC1 airs the Doctor Who 50th anniversary episode, Day of the Doctor. The family Sci Fi drama, like Sherlock, is now a global BBC franchise marketed with Hollywood-style chutzpah. Day of the Doctor was shown in 3D in cinemas in 15 countries, taking $10.2m in three days Photograph: Adrian Rogers/BBC/PA