March 2008 Archives

Yahoo launched a new site Monday, for women between ages 25 and 54, who are called the “key demographic underserved by current Yahoo properties”, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The launch of Shine will help bring in more opportunities for the Internet company to sell advertising targeted to the demographic. According to Yahoo, advertisers in consumer-packaged goods, retail and pharmaceuticals may be those who would like to reach those consumers most aggressively.

Streaming content in U.S. will bring in about $70 billion revenues by 2013, according to Insight Research’s forecast.

This includes revenues generated from the transmission of digital audio and video files, either via the Internet, an IPTV network, or a mobile phone. The files can be streamed in real time or on-demand, but they cannot be stored.

ZenithOptimedia has lowered the forecast for 2008 U.S. ad spending, due to the effects of the housing crisis and the fading consumer confidence.

Newspaper advertising, according to ZenithOptimedia, is experiencing a bigger impact, while online spending grows much faster than expected.

Chris Bunyan has been appointed the digital director of Trinity Mirror’s regional division, Journalism.co.uk reported Monday.

Previously, Bunyan was the director of portal management at Virgin Media.

Hearst Corporation, parent company of the San Francisco Chronicle, is contemplating either developing or selling the paper’s headquarters and neighboring land, Editor & Publisher reported Friday

According to a San Francisco Chronicle report, Hearst Corp., is retaining the services of real estate company Forest City Enterprises.

Print ad revenue at U.S. newspapers suffered its largest decrease last year since at least 1950, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

According to the Newspaper Association of America, there continue to be signs within the newspaper industry that point to worsening trends continuing into this year.

In the past 13 years, the number of free newspapers published in South America has grown from one to 16, Newspaper Innovation reported Friday.

In 1995, the only newspaper published in South America was MetroNews in São Paulo. By 2000 that number was up to six.

Advertising or editorial links in newspapers and on television are more likely to drive consumers to a Web site than links on Google Adwords, according to findings of a survey of 1,000 UK consumers by Greenfield Online.

However, friendly customer e-mail from companies consumers already have a relationship with are most effective, with 52 percent more likely to visit the company's Web site, Global edge reported Thursday.

WEHCO Media, parent company of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, will buy the Jefferson City (Mo.) News Tribune, Editor & Publisher reported Thursday.

The News Tribune has been owned by the Weldon family since 1927, and was published by Betty Weldon until she passed away in 2007.

Michael Steib, Director of Google TV Ads, stressed at the Television Bureau of Advertising’s annual marketing conference in New York that the Web giant is eager to work with broadcasters, in order to bring more ads into the TV market, Broadcasting & Cable reported Thursday.

Google TV Ads, “an end-to-end digital system for buying, selling, measuring and delivering television ads” on Google’s Web site, had a trial in 2006 on a California cable system, before it expanded to Dish Network satellite subscribers last May.

U.S. online advertising totalled more than US$12 billion in 2005, reached nearly $16 billion in 2006, and exceeded $18 billion in 2007, according to WR Hambrecht + Co.

In 2005, search and display accounted for two-thirds of the total ad spending, with $5.13 billion and $4.25 billion, respectively. E-mail classified was ranked as the third, with more $2 billion. Referrals and online video made up very little.

Shareholders have approved Thomson's acquisition of Reuters, paidContent reported Wednesday.

Almost 99 percent of Thomson shareholders approved the merger.

YouTube is releasing more details about who's watching their video clips and when, which provides advertisers more insights to target their customers, the Associated Press reported.

The free programme, called YouTube Insight, will be launched on Thursday.

Diversified industrial manufacturer Illinois Tool Works announced Thursday it will buy newspaper handling equipment maker Quipp Inc., Reuters reported.

The deal is expected to be between US$6.4 million and $8.4 million, and the final price will be decided based on Quipp's cash, cash equivalents and debts.

Television and newspapers were the most popular news sources in U.S., according to the Pew Research Center Biennial News Consumption Survey 2006.

Nearly six out of 10 respondents said they got news from TV yesterday, while 40 percent said so from newspapers, 36 percent from radio and 23 percent from Internet.

As an industry, advertising has changed from being an extremely competitive field, where the majority of costs were in the mainstream media, to substantially more wide-ranging and growing hyper-competitive, G. Patton Hughes wrote for the PBS MediaShift Idea Lab Wednesday.

This year, ad spending on alternative media, which includes user-generated Web content, Internet search, mobile, gaming and branded entertainment, is speeding to increase 20.2 percent to US$88.2 billion, even if there is a slump. However, overall ad spending is up a mere .02 percent for the year, Hughes stated.

Worldwide mobile ad spending is expected to increase from US$2.7 billion in 2007 to $19.1 billion in 2012, according to a new eMarketer report, Media Post reported Thursday.

Most ad dollars will go to text messaging, which is expected to continue to be the dominant “non-voice mobile service” over the next few years, particularly in large markets in China and India that lack 3G networks. This year, U.S. mobile spending is predicted to almost double to $1.7 billion.

The new chief executive of Dow Jones & Co., Les Hinton, said he expects Dow Jones flagship, the Wall Street Journal, to see “a 40 per cent increase year-on-year in actual audience” in the Asia-Pacific region for its Web site, The Australian reported Thursday.

Hinton also said it is increasingly unlikely that the entire wsj.com site will become a free, completely ad-based site.

Many new media experts believe that no matter who wins the tussle between Microsoft and Yahoo, newspapers will end up being the ones “who get squeezed,” Editor & Publisher stated Wednesday in a special report.

The back-and-forth between the two online giants can only distract Yahoo as its online ad tools are rolled out for its newspaper consortium, according to the report.

Due to changing consumer habits, U.S. advertisers and marketers are about to switch their investments to new digital and out-of-home media platforms, according to the latest forecast from research firm PQ Media.

The report pointed out that companies will spend over $160.8 billion in 2012, 82 percent more than in 2008, on 18 emerging markets, which include online videos, store-based TV screens, sponsored events, TV and movie product placements, mobile phones, video games and digital video recorders.

The BBC will relaunch its news and sports Web sites next week, adding a video service, more photos, and an increased emphasis on breaking news and live events, the Guardian reported Wednesday.

Migrating video content from a pop-up player to an inserted Flash video player that is embedded in the page is hoped to further increase traffic numbers. Just during trials of the new player, it increased user numbers by more than 10 times.

The Freedom Newspaper is accusing the Gambia Telecommunication Company (GAMTEL), the country’s main Internet service provider, of blocking the online paper’s Web sites’ IP-address because of a story it carried about the company, online newspaper Foroyaa reported Wednesday.

The Freedom Newspaper reported March 9 that GAMTEL was on the edge of total bankruptcy for its misconduct.

According to research firm TNS Media Intelligence, U.S. ad spending lagged in the fourth quarter because marketers cut newspaper and radio ads due to the weakening economy.

Ad spending dropped 0.1 percent compared with the same quarter in 2006. It rose 1.3 percent from the third quarter of 2007, and slid 0.2 percent from the second, according to TNS.

Florida-based syndicate DBR Media closed operations last week after eight years, Editor & Publisher reported Tuesday.

DBR had more than 400, mostly weekly, newspaper clients who could no longer pay for the syndicate, DBR Vice President of Editorial Operations Diane Eckert told E&P.

English-language media, which accounts for only 15 percent of the total Indian newspaper market and has at least seven times less readership than Hindi-language media, claims the biggest share of total print ad space, according to a study conducted by local brokerage firm Motilal Oswal.

According to the study, this can be attributed to much higher ad rates in the English media, which usually came from the perception that the purchasing power of the niche readership of English newspapers is much higher than that of Hindi readers.

The Irish Times has increased its stake in the Gazette Group from 43.8 percent to more than 50 percent, to become the controlling stakeholder, the Sunday Business Post reported Sunday.

The Gazette Group, which publishes eight newspapers in the area surrounding Dublin, and the Irish Times are awaiting final clearance on the deal from Ireland's Competition Authority. The actual stake is in Relevance Publishing, a holding company behind Gazette's newspaper group.

India has passed the 250 million mark and reached 258.53 million mobile subscribers in February, and in the first half of April 2008, the country will outpace the United States and become the second largest wireless network after China, the Times of India reported Tuesday.

According to telecom regulator Trai, 8.49 million telephone connections were added during February. Meanwhile, landline connections went down from 8.74 million connections in the previous month.

Free daily newspapers are continuing to win over new readers at the cost of the traditional press in Switzerland, according to the latest market share figures, SwissInfo reported Tuesday.

From September 2006 to September 2007, 20 Minuten, the German-language free sheet, had 1.24 million readers and was the most read newspaper in Switzerland, according to circulation figures from media research institute WEMF.

New online ad network QuadrantOne has signed on 26 more papers from The Newspaper Consortium, BizReport reported Tuesday.

Launched by newspaper publishers the New York Times Company, Hearst, Gannett Company Inc. and Tribune Co. QuadrantOne has only been around for a few weeks, but has quickly gained ground in the market.

According to the latest forecast by Carat, global advertising spending will grow by six percent this year, downward slightly from the group's September 2007 forecast of 6.2 percent growth.

Mainardo de Nardis, CEO of Aegis Media, said that some important factors driving the strong global growth include the Beijing Olympics and the U.S. Presidential elections. “The growth in ad spend for this year is six percent, up from 4.6 percent in 2007."

Mobile Internet reach among mobile phone users in Western Europe will reach 38 percent (125 million people) by 2013, according to the latest estimates by Forrester Research.

Currently about 42 million Europeans surf online on a regular basis using their mobile phones.

A senior official at the Chinese state council information office announced that the country welcomes closer ties with other countries to develop China's growing digital media sector, but also warned that foreigners should not use “Internet issues” tamper with the country's “internal affairs,” the Guardian reported last week.

Cai Mingzhao, a vice minister with the information office, explained China's digital media policy to a roundtable discussion held at Reuters' London offices Thursday.

The UK-based Eastbourne Gazette will launch its new youth newspaper, called The Jigaroo, next week, the paper reported Monday.

The youth publication will be available in the newspaper, and is being produced by an editorial team of students.

As demand for the paper newspapers are printed on shrinks, the cost of that paper is on the rise in the United States, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.

Paper companies spent much of 2007 idling the machinery used to make the paper, and sometimes even having to sell that machinery. This decrease in supply means paper companies have more power over pricing their products, and have turned to raising prices in the face of shrinking demand and revenues as readers turn to online.

National newspaper web traffic in the United Kingdom decreased month-on-month in February, falling back after high visitor levels the month before, according to figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulation Electronic, Journalism.co.uk reported last week.

The five UK national newspapers reported that monthly figures for unique users visiting their sites in February were down in the short-term, but long-term, figures looked promising.

The world's largest mobile phone group's chief executive has announced that mobile advertising will be a top area for growing revenue in Australia.

Vodafone Group CEO Arun Sarin told The Australian that he expects sales to reach more than US$100 million (AU$108 million) within a few years.

The New York Post has shut down its standalone entertainment and celebrity gossip site PageSix.com after less than four months, paidContent reported.

News Corp.-owned PageSix.com became an independent site in December.

The New York Times reported late Thursday that three tycoons, one of whom is Rupert Murdoch, are considering purchasing Long Island newspaper Newsday from the Tribune Company, according to Editor & Publisher.

The Times stated that the news came from “people involved in the sale process.”

The Tribune Co. is planning to sell the offices and printing provisions of two Connecticut newspapers, according to a company executive, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday

Tribune sold The Advocate of Stamford and Greenwich Time newspapers to Hearst Corp. in November. However, it kept hold of the rights of the real estate, as the two papers have moved to other locations.

U.S. online local ad spending surpassed US$7.5 billion in 2007, and is predicted to reach $14 billion in 2012, according to research firm Borrell Associates.

In 2007, about two-thirds of spending came from banner and listing, which totalled more than $5 billion. Online video and paid search, on the other hand, only accounted for $2.2 billion, or 29 percent.

Google is testing a new barcode technology for its Google Print Ads, aiming to better track results of newspaper ads placed with the programme, ClickZ reported Thursday.

Newspapers are likely making less on ads sold through Google Print Ads than if they had sold those placements directly, but Google wants to show them the volume of advertisers who wouldn't be buying newspaper ads without the service.

As suburban growth in Johannesburg South has been heavy, publishing group Caxton will launch another community newspaper to better serve the growing area, BizCommunity reported Thursday.

Because of high levels of development in the area, it is now too large to be serviced by just one local paper, the article stated.

Japan outperformed the United States. and six Western European countries in terms of the 3G subscription and penetration, according to the 2006 data from Screen Digest.

In 2006, nearly 70 million 3G subscriptions were reported in Japan, and penetration exceeded 50 percent, making it the most 3G-advanced country among all surveyed.

A number of top U.S. newspaper publishers announced Thursday they will dedicate online advertising space to a network that simplifies placing ads on hundreds of newspapers’ Web sites, Reuters reported.

QuadrantONE, which debuted February, will get space from 138 sites, representing more than 250 newspapers.

Annual revenues of mobile search services are expected to reach $4.8 billion by 2013, Juniper Research firm has predicted in a study.

Some of the factors driving the growth include the decline of carriers' "walled garden" approach, falling data costs and the entrance of search giants such as Google and Yahoo.

Well established media are dying and young people are not interested in traditional text or audiovisual media.

The above statement about newspapers and media today is one of the most believed, and also the most untrue, Robert Picard, one of the world's foremost media economics, management and government communications policies experts, wrote Tuesday.

Glasgow's evening newspaper, the Evening Times, is launching 12 more community-based Web sites Wednesday, in addition to the 12 it launched earlier this month, as part of its goal of launching 80 such sites by the end of the year, AllmediaScotland reported.

“Plans for the second dozen were accelerated after feedback from readers wanting to know when their area was going to be included,” the paper stated.

Wall Street closed Tuesday with all publicly traded newspaper companies in positive territory, Editor & Publisher reported.

The newspaper sector's biggest gainer was the Sun-Times Media Group, which closed the day at 79 cents, a 19 cent (27.1 percent) increase. Previously, STMG had been barred from on-the-floor trading because of its low stock price.

UK national newspapers can increase revenues by hundreds of millions of pounds each year just by changing the way they charge for advertising on their Web sites, Ernst & Young research has revealed, Thomson Financial reported Tuesday.

Search giant Google Inc., for example, charges advertisers on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, meaning that they charge advertisers every time a reader clicks on a Web ad. According to the Ernst & Young research, UK newspapers charge advertisers only every thousand times their ad appears on a Web site.

West Australian Newspapers shareholders should not worry about Kerry Stokes looking for seats on the publishers board of directors, a director of Seven Network said, ABC News reported Wednesday.

Stokes, who owns almost 20 percent of WA Newspapers and controls Seven Network, said he is looking for a seat for himself and fellow director Peter Gammell, because he wants to “refresh the direction of the company,” the report stated.

Dayton Daily News editorial workers on Tuesday received a boost of support from a U.S. senator in their quest to receive a new contract, as employees have been working under a contract ratified in 1986, the Associated Press reported.

“I stand with you as you fight for this,” U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told the 75 people gathered outside newspaper offices, including editorial workers, city officials and labour leaders.

The World Association of Newspapers and other publishers organisations on Wednesday welcomed Google CEO Eric Schmidt's statement supporting the aim of the Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) to give publishers more control over the use of their content.

Speaking to a reporter in Sydney earlier this week, Schmidt said the only barriers to Google's implementation of ACAP were technical, and he denied that Google was reluctant to embrace the system because of commercial self-interest. "It is not that we don't want them (publishers) to be able to control their information," he said.

In an effort to drive more traffic to its Web site and grow advertising revenue, Journal Sentinel Inc. on Monday became the latest newspaper publisher to join Yahoo Inc.'s newspaper advertising consortium, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and McClatchy Tribune Information Services reported Tuesday.

The Yahoo's newspaper consortium is now at 27 newspaper publishing groups and more than 635 newspapers in 43 of the top 50 U.S. markets. Journal Sentinel's flagship is its Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

According to a report by Springboard Research, the Indian mobile TV market will generate US$360-million revenues in 2008.

The study surveyed 1,215 mobile users in six major Indian cities, and found out nearly 85 percent of respondents were interested in using mobile TV, if it was available and affordable.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations approved initial changes to newspaper circulation rules Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.

Last November, the Audit Bureau announced the proposals, that would aim to give publishers a wider range to market newspapers in, which would end up lowering inspection costs and simplify circulation rules. The agency announced Tuesday that along with the initial approval, its board has further refined the changes.

The Seattle Times Co. placed its Maine newspapers for sale Monday in an effort to save money and protect its flagship newspaper from an industry-wide advertising revenue slump, The Seattle Times reported Tuesday.

However, industry experts say they don't think the company will make nearly the same amount it paid 10 years ago for the weekly and three dailies.

Google Inc. will offer online publishers a new service to help them manage online ad sales and serve up ads each time a users pulls up a Web page, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

The new Ad Manager service will be free.

Financial problems in news organisations have reached a crisis level, and are now journalists' top concern, even over editorial problems, such as quality of news coverage and credibility, according to the Pew Research Center's latest survey, out Monday.

Sixty-two percent of U.S. journalists say journalism is “going in the wrong direction” and 49 percent have a “negative view about the state of their profession,” the survey states, noting that “soaring economic worries underlie these sour assessments.”

Newspapers' poor showings over the last several years in the United States show no sign of slowing down or getting better, as circulation, flat ad revenues, rising expenses and shrinking staffs at papers across the country have turned the once stable media into a race against time, the Project for Excellence in Journalism proclaimed in its 2008 annual report on American journalism.

“The (newspaper) industry has been in declining health for some time now. It got sicker rather than better in 2007, and 2008 offers no prospect of a quick cure,” states the report, by the project and the Poynter Institute's Rick Edmonds.

Media stocks became intertwined in Monday's chaotic market, leaving ITV’s share price at an all-time low, the Guardian reported Monday.

UK-based ITV on Friday had a closing price of ₤64.5, but fell 4.7 percent to a record low of ₤61.5 Monday morning. At around 11:05 a.m. it rose to ₤62.

Everything about media is changing rapidly, perhaps nothing more quickly than advertising.

Lawyers for former newspaper titan Conrad Black appealed his case Friday, saying there was not adequate evidence he hid documents or defrauded anyone, the Associated Press reported.

A federal Jury convicted Black last July of three counts of fraud and one count of obstruction, but acquitted him on nine charges.

Italian sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport has launched English language coverage on its Web site for the first time, Press Business reported Thursday.

RCS MediaGroup announced an English-language Web site within the existing Italian-language site, La Gazzetta dello Sport.it International, will offer content entirely in English.

The World Association of Newspapers has once again called on Google to make use of Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) technology, which allows the terms and conditions of Web sites to be placed in machine-readable format that allow publishers to control how aggregators and search engines use their content.

Ron Jonas, head of media and publishing partnerships for Google in Europe, rejected ACAP once again on Wednesday.

It's becoming a little easier to predict UK newspaper sales, and publishers are becoming increasingly anxious due to fragile consumer confidence about the predictions for advertising revenues over the coming months, the Guardian reported earlier this week.

After a difficult 2007, ABC volumes have fallen to a stable -3.4 percent year-on-year average for the last three months.

News and comedy are the top two most popular video categories in the United States, with over 30 percent of online video viewers having ever watched them, according to Pew Internet & American Life Project Tracking Survey.

Educational videos and music are also quite popular, with over 20 percent having watched it in the past.

Google has again rejected to make use of Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) technology that publishing groups believe could end conflict between content providers and search engines over the use of content, Journalism.co.uk reported Wednesday.

The primary drivers behind ACAP are the World Association of Newspapers (WAN, which Shaping the Future of the Newspaper is part of), the European Publishers Council (EPC) and the International Publishers Association (IPA).

Free daily GASTE launched in Istanbul Feb. 11, leading the market with a print run of 500,000 overnight. The local daily, in turn, has launched its own free daily, 20 Dakik (20 Minutes), Newspaper Innovation reported Thursday.

20 Dakik's print run is not yet known.

The Associated Press announced Thursday the company will consolidate management of its newspaper, new media and broadcast business units, Editor & Publisher reported.

AP President and CEO Tom Curley said the newly created position of senior vice president and chief revenue officer will be in charge of the unified sales and marketing department. Tom Brettigen has been appointed to this role.

The Washington Post released terms of previously announced employee buyouts Wednesday. Its new publisher Katharine Weymouth added that if there is no enough staff participated, layoffs were possible, The Post reported Thursday.

Last month the paper announced its buyout offers, or "voluntary early retirement incentive programmes," to its employees to reduce costs. The plan just released targets employees who aren't eligible to be members of the Newspaper Guild, typically editors and other managers.

TIVO Wednesday announced an agreement with YouTube, which allows subscribers to the DVR service to view YouTube videos on TV, Media Post reported Thursday.

According to the company, the service will be launched later this year, targeting broadband-connected subscribers with TiVo Series3 DVRs, including the new TiVo HD.

Trinity Mirror had a successful pilot and now plans to create a network of local job sites across the United Kingdom, the Guardian reported Wednesday.

The network of hyperlocal community Web sites each cover a single postcode, for the company’s expansion strategy for digital media.

As The Sun moves to full colour, it is planning a more widespread design change as well as aiming to get a move on with its competitor the Daily Mirror by being the first to implement the changes, the Guardian reported earlier this week.

The Sun is planning to introduce its makeover within the next two months. News International’s flagship daily tabloid is in the development of presenting models of suggested design changes to media buying agencies.

Circulation declines in the United States have not happened all at once, but have been slow and steady. As the old saying goes, “slow and steady wins the race” – a race the newspaper business would rather not be in.

Editor & Publisher on Tuesday reported that the top 20 newspapers in the United States have together lost 1.4 million copies in daily circulation from 2003 to 2007.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram and Maine Today have announced job cuts. The Post-Dispatch will eliminate 31 jobs, while the Press Herald will cut 27 positions, which includes 15 layoffs.

Newsroom jobs will be spared at the Post-Dispatch, while the cuts will mainly take place in the circulation department, the classified phone rooms, the production department, purchasing, telephone operations and the marketing department. The paper said the cuts include some management positions, but no specific number was given, according to Editor & Publisher.

According to the second annual study from Knowledge Networks on how viewers use Web sites to watch TV programmes, the percentage of people who watch TV shows on Web sites is not expanding, but those who use those sites tend to watch more programmes.

The study also found that younger viewers use such sites more often than older generations, and they are more willing to accept advertising during the programmes.

The Hawaii Tribune-Herald violated federal labour laws when it fired two reporters and suspended another for engaging in union activities, Editor & Publisher reported Wednesday.

The daily paper in Hilo, Hawaii fired the two reporters in 2005 and 2006.

Google executives announced it will be even more aggressive in the online display advertising business following approval from the European Commission Tuesday that cleared the way for its buyout of DoubleClick, Mediaweek reported.

Google bought the online advertising business for US$3.1 billion. It received approval for the deal from the Federal Trade Commission in December, with the EU Commission being the final hurdle for the acquisition.

The Yeni Azerbaijan Party's newspaper will complete a range of reforms, aimed at increasing the newspaper's quality, the paper's editor-in-chief told Trend News in an article Tuesday.

Hikmat Babaoglu (Mammadov), however, did not specify what the changes for the ruling party's newspaper, Yeni Azerbaijan, will be. Mammadov was appointed editor last week.

The West Australian Newspapers Holdings board will use company funds only to pass along information to shareholders, and not for “electioneering,” Peter Mansell, the company's chairman said, The Australian reported Tuesday.

Electioneering, or defending directors' positions, will not be allowed, he said, following news that 15 candidates are up for four board positions at West Australian Newspapers.

According to Nielsen Mobile’s report for March, 58 million U.S. mobile subscribers have seen a mobile ad on their phones in the past 30 days, which represents 23 percent of all mobile subscribers in the country.

About half, or 28 million, claimed to have responded to a mobile ad at least one time.

Readership of most paid newspapers has been stable for the past five years, Newspaper Innovation reported Tuesday.

In 2007, the Irish Independent continued its streak as the most read Irish newspaper, with 570,000 readers.

Heavy users of U.S. blog sites are particularly more likely to consume news and entertainment online content, compared with the average Internet population, comScore reported.

According to a new study released Monday by comScore, using its Segment Metrix tool, those "heavy bloggers" consumed over three times as much content on social news ranking site Digg.com as the average online user, and also had much more consumption of content at other news sites, such as CTVGlobeMedia, DrudgeReport.com, HuffingtonPost.com, Salon.com and ABC News Digital.

News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch said at a Bear Stearns conference Monday that he is becoming “a lot more pessimistic about the economy,” but believes things will look up in a year or two, especially for Dow Jones, Silicon Alley Insider reported.

“Wall Street Journal is simply a brand and a window into what we do. Dow Jones is what we bought. Big opportunity. May be in for a temporary downturn, for a year or so. But overall there's a big boom, especially in markets like China and India, and that's what we're going to take advantage of,” he said.

In the face of low share prices and dissident shareholders calling for the selling of assets, the flagship newspaper is the only part of the New York Times Co. that is sacred, the company said Tuesday, Reuters reported.

Harbinger Capital Partners and Firebrand Partners have climbed aboard the company, and look to push the company into investing even more into its digital businesses. Meanwhile, stock prices have dropped 35 percent since a high last June, according to Reuters.

A newspaper company that distributes in Plano, Texas, is suing Plano over an ordinance that allows the city to prohibit the distribution of printed materials if residents complain, The Dallas Morning News reported Monday.

The lawsuit brought on by Addison, Texas-based American Community Newspapers, will soon head to a federal appeals court, in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Lisa Marie Presley has sued the Daily Mail for an article that stated she was “piling on the pounds,” forcing her to announce she is pregnant, Reuters UK reported Monday.

The Mail, published by Associated Newspapers, reported last week Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley, was gaining weight.

Four local newspaper titles in Ireland ceased operation last week, putting 40 people out of work.

The Voice Newspaper Group blamed a downturn in the economy and heavy competition from UK newspaper groups for the closure of its Cavan, Tipperary, Monaghan and Kildare Voice papers, RTÉ News reported Friday.

Online ad spending in New Zealand in 2007 reached $135 million, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau of New Zealand.

This also made up 5.8 percent of total ad spending in the country.

Mobile phones are becoming more web-focused, with one in five Irish mobile users accessing the Internet, especially younger, white collar workers, or those living in Dublin, the Sunday Business Post reported Sunday.

Although just one in three people surveyed said they would respond to a mobile phone advertisement by text, more than 60 percent have sent or received a video clip or image on their mobiles, a Lansdowne Market Research survey of 1,000 people concluded.

Bear Stearns' analyst Alexia Quadrani warned that 2008 will be even more troubling for newspaper publishers than last year, according to Editor & Publisher.

The research firm said the newspaper industry is undergoing dramatic changes, including margin drops from 25 percent to 27 percent, the "peak levels” early in the decade, to a forecast 23 percent this year.

Telegraph Media Group has appointed start-up agency Adam & Eve and its pitch partner AMP to handle its £8 million advertising and direct marketing accounts, respectively, Brand Republic reported Friday.

Adam & Even won the pitch in a final round against Rapier, TBWA\London and Tequila and Archibald Ingall Stretton, and will deliver a “wide range of creative and marketing solutions, particularly in the digital arena,” the Guardian reported.

Global mobile entertainment market has continued to prosper in recent years, and expected to reach US$38 billion by 2011, according to eMarketer.

In 2006, market revenue totaled $18.9 billion. Based on a prediction by Informa, it will grow more than double within five years to $38.1 billion in 2011.

The chief executive of Polish media group Agora has said he does not know anything about the company attempting to find a buyer for its majority 35 percent stake, as Reuters had reported, based on unnamed sources.

“I know nothing of this. I do not comment on market speculation. Again, I know nothing of this,” Marek Sowa, chief executive of Agora, told Thomson Financial.

People who grow up reading a newspaper are better, more engaged citizens, the Newspaper Association of America has reported.

Research on young readers show that 62 percent of Americans who read newspapers as teens took part in volunteer work, while only 37 percent of those who did not read newspapers volunteered.

The Chinese Daily news will appeal a court ruling that awarded former and current employees back pay for overtime violations, stating that the judge has “blatant biases and (made) judicial errors,” New America Media reported Friday.

Two hundred current and former newspaper employees filed the lawsuit against the Monterey Park, Calif.-based newspaper in March 2004. The Chinese Daily News is the Southern California edition of the World Journal, one of the largest Chinese-language newspapers in the United States.

The Bay Area News Group-East Bay will cut its staff levels in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area by 10 percent, and will avoid layoffs because enough employees took buyout offers, the Associated Press reported late Thursday.

Of the company's 1,100 employees, 107 from took buyouts, cutting staff numbers at the Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times and 14 other daily and weekly newspapers. The cuts will be seen in all departments.

NRC Handelsblad on Thursday became the first Dutch newspaper to publish a daily electronic version, making all sections and supplements available on ePaper in the Netherlands and abroad, at any time to subscribers with an iLiad eReader, according to a press release.

In 1995, newspaper was also the first national Dutch newspaper to launch its own Web site, stated Birgit Donker, editor of NRC Handelsblad.

New advertising laws in Australia require advertisements to disclose the full cost of products and services, The Australian has reported Friday.

The changes will be introduced into parliament, and state that advertisements that do not reveal the full price when they highlight “component” prices will be banned.

The San Luis Obispo Tribune will outsource five advertising production jobs to a San Jose-based company with employees in India, The Tribune reported Thursday.

“This is a painful decision,’’ said publisher Chip Visci, according to The Tribune. “The five employees directly affected are valued colleagues with a lot of talent. Each of them has served Tribune customers well.’’

Irish telecoms and media tycoon Denis O'Brien has once again increased his stake in Independent News & Media, the Guardian reported Thursday.

O'Brien has upped his holdings of the media group to 19.35 percent, from 18.05 percent, the owner of the Independent and Independent on Sunday said. He bought 5 percent of the company two years ago, and has been building up his stake in INM steadily over the past months.

The Citizen has extended its partnership with Joburg.co.za, from providing content for the newspaper's weekly CitiGuides supplement, to also handling the sale of online advertising for the paper's Web Site, BizCommunity Africa reported Thursday.

The Citizen's redesigned Web site, Citizen.co.za, reported a record 254,000 unique visitors last month.

An unofficial list on Los Angeles Times newsroom staffers who have applied for a buyout has been published by LA Observed.

It is unknown who, if any, on the list were asked to take a buyout, and some applications may be declined, although David Hiller, the paper's publisher, has said in the past that anyone who wants to leave will be able to take the buyout.

U.S. online social networking ads will boom in the next few years, according to research firm eMarketer.

The spending of online social networking advertising totaled US$350 million in 2006. With an amazing jump of over 160 percent, it reached $920 million in 2007.

The first issue of Open Air Magazine, published by USA Today, will hit newsstands Friday.

The lifestyle magazine will focus on adventure, travel and the outdoors, and will be available four times a year in Friday editions of USA Today. The magazine will next appear in the newspaper May 2, Sept. 5 and Nov. 7, USA Today announced in a press release.

More than 75 percent of adults in Canada read print or online newspapers, the Newspaper Audience Databank announced, Editor & Publisher reported Wednesday.

Online readership in Canada has grown 11 percent since 2006, with 17 percent of adults reading a newspaper online every week in 2007.

Thanks to the U.S. presidential primaries and a surge in celebrity news, newspaper and other media Web sites saw a 22 percent rise in visits the week ending February 23, compared to the same week in 2007, Hitwise announced Wednesday.

The surge helped Web sites for U.S. print publications the most, including newspaper and magazine portals, MediaDailyNews reported.

Yahoo and Time Warner have stepped up talks for an alternative to Microsoft’s offer, according to the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The talks underway would involve folding AOL into Yahoo, while Time Warner takes a sizable minority stake in the combined entity.

Radio advertising revenue declined to 2003 levels last year, according to a recent report from the Radio Advertising Bureau.

Over-the-airwaves radio ad revenue was US$19.63 billion total in 2007, down 2.6 percent from $20.14 billion the year previous. The figure has stayed around $20 billion for the past few years, and hasn't reported any big gains since the online boom of the late 1990s. However, radio's online and other off-air revenue increased 10 percent to $1.68 billion last year.

The New South Wales Supreme Court is asking for new powers that would enable the court to penalise the media pay for criminal case retrials if the original trial is aborted due to news reports, The Australian reported Tuesday.

Judge Roderick Howie called for the court to be able to “make orders against a publisher for the financial consequences of publishing an article which results in the discharge of a jury even though the article does not amount to a criminal contempt.”

Swiss free evening daily heute, published by Ringier, will be pulled off the market in June, and replaced by the free evening edition of the publisher's flagship tabloid Blick, Newspaper Innovation reported Tuesday.

Ringier is aiming to put Blick on multiple platforms, including print, online, TV and radio. The timing of switching heute for Blick is due to the Euro2008 football championship, set to take place in Switzerland and Austria in June.

Executives at online video service Blinkx will launch mobile photo blogging service NowThen in the United Kingdom today, Brand Republic reported Tuesday.

NowThen began as a tool to be used by employees to visually communicate between their U.S. and UK offices, but became so popular that developers Erin Laye and Kat Malinowska were asked to launch the service to the public.

Although the number of newspaper and other periodical titles in Pakistan has decreased rapidly from 1997 to 2006, readership has grown, a survey conducted by the Statistical Department of Pakistan has found.

The number of newspapers and periodicals in the country dropped from 4,455 in 1997, to 1,464 in 2006. Meanwhile, total circulation of newspapers and periodicals written in all languages spoken in Pakistan was at 3,912,301 in 1997, but rose to 8,208,874 by 2006, the Daily Times reported Tuesday.

The Press-Telegram and Daily Breeze, two newspapers owned by MediaNews Group Inc., will cut staff and combine their Internet, copy editing and pagination operations due to sagging ad revenue, an editor said Monday.

The move involves nine job cuts at the Daily Breeze, located in Torrance, Calif., and about 10 at the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.

Moody's Investors Service raised Central European Media Enterprises Ltd.'s ratings Tuesday, citing its solid financial performance.

The corporate family rating and the ratings on its senior unsecured notes were lifted one notch in junk status to "Ba2" from "Ba3." The outlook is stable, Moody’s stated.

Online advertisements are going to beat television advertisements beginning next year, according to Daewoo Securities Co.

Internet advertisements are expected to increase by 36.8 percent in 2008 compared to last year, making up 19.5 percent of the advertisement market. If it keeps on growing, the number of online advertisements will exceed that of television by 2009, The Korea Herald reported.

The Glasgow Evening Times has launched 12 community Web sites today, a first wave that is planned to finish when a total of 80 community sites are up by the end of the year, covering every district in the city, HoldtheFrontPage reported Tuesday.

All of the sites will be built under the Evening Times brand, but each will be tailored for coverage on its specific district.

Former media baron Conrad Black began his six and a half year sentence today at Coleman federal correctional complex in Florida, the Guardian reported Monday.

Black, 63, once stood at the helm of Hollinger International, controlling some of the most influential newspapers in the world. He had a fortune estimated at £136 million, and owned more than 200 newspapers at the height of his career, including the Jerusalem Post, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Telegraph titles in Britain.

The Gauteng and Free State editions of Media24's Afrikaans tabloid Son will close, as growth outlooks don't look promising, the Daily Dispatch reported Monday.

Closing the editions “was based on a combination of market- related factors, including the increasingly weaker growth prospects that these editions faced under tighter economic conditions,” according to a Media24 statement.

London-based publisher Pearson announced it is confident it will have “another good year,” following its full-year results that came out above market expectations, Thomson Financial reported Monday.

However, the company, which owns the Financial Times and Penguin Books, saw its share price fall due to concerns about its U.S.-based education publishing business. As of this morning, shares were down 20 pence (3 percent), valuing Pearson at £5.21 billion.

The deadline for New York Times newsroom employees to accept buyouts is Tuesday, in an attempt by the newspaper to shrink the newsroom by 100 positions. The buyouts, however, are viewed by some inside The Times as “a victory of sorts,” Portfolio.com reported Monday.

The business side of the newspaper has “taken a majority of the hits so far, while the newsroom has stayed untouched,” an unnamed source close to business management at The Times told Portfolio.

Mobile music applications are one of the fastest growing mobile services, according to results of a global survey by TNS Global Technology.

In 2007, the use of mp3 players on mobile phones increased 78 percent; listening to the radio on mobile phones was up 140 percent.

The U.S. newspaper industry continues to suffer, as advertising declines have dragged profits down and resulted in more job cuts.

The Washington Post Co. said fourth-quarter profit dropped 13 percent, mostly due to declining print ad sales and costs to reorganise some units such as Kaplan education group, the Los Angeles Times reported last week.

YouTube will launch a live video service later this year, according to reports by Industry blogs TechCrunch and NewTeeVee late last week.

YouTube co-founder Steve Chen verified the news during a conversation with Pop17 videoblogger Sarah Meyers.

As different types of media lose advertising shares to online, the share of television advertising budgets worldwide will remain the same through 2012, media research firm Screen Digest announced, according to Brand Republic.

Money will be diverted from print, radio and cinema budgets to online and digital television over the next five years, the firm stated in its global forecast.