November 2008 Archives

SFN Blog staffers will be taking a break Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving, and will return Monday.

Google said it is "significantly" reducing the number of contract workers, but currently has no plans to lay off employees, the Wall Street Journal said in a report, Reuters reported.

“We have been thinking for some time, before the acute phase of the economic crisis, about significantly reducing the number of contract workers,” said spokeswoman Jane Penner, according to the Reuters article posted on The U.S. Daily.

After being for sale for almost eight months, Lycos Europe has acknowledged that no one wants to buy the portal, and announced Wednesday it will close its Web hosting and portal activities, and begin stripping its assets and putting those on the auction block.

The company is still planning to sell its shopping sites, Danish business and domain names, and will have to pay €50 million to its shareholders this year. Between 500 and 700 people will also lose their jobs.

Former financial columnist for the St. Petersberg (Florida) Times took an early retirement in August and together with a former colleague has created a financial advisory firm, the Sarasota Herald Tribune reported Tuesday.

Helen Huntley and Rhonda Holifield, the Times’ former business news editor, launched Holifield Huntley Financial Advisers in St. Petersburg, and after only a few months, the Huntley is managing about US$4.3 million of the firms $27 million in assets.

Three sub-editors, a librarian and other staff will likely lose their jobs at the UK South-West daily newspaper the Herald Express, in Torquay, HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk reported. Currently the newspaper has five sub-editors.

Casual staff has already been cut, including about six community reporters, and admin and sales staff have already left.

As classifieds continue migrating online, Australian newspapers are likely to experience up to AU$1 billion revenue loss in the next decade, The Australian reported.

Ivor Ries, head of EL&C Bailleau stockbrokers research said at the Future of Journalism conference in Melbourne that main newspaper companies in the country had lost $450 million in classified ad revenue in the past four years. “This process has just started and in the next 10 years at least another $1 billion will be sucked out of mainstream newspapers," he added.

Growth in Internet ad spending has greatly slowed down, according to eMarketer, which just cut its revenue expectations for 2009, Media Week reported.

Online ad spending will increase by 8.9 percent to US$25.7 billion next year, as the economy has eriously impacted all media segments. However, eMarketer predicted in August, before Wall Street's meltdown, that spending would boost by 14 percent in 2009.

Gannett Co. Inc.-owned USA Today will lay off 20 employees in early December, as well as cut its 2009 budget, Ken Paulson, the newspaper's senior vice president of news, and John Hillkirk, executive editor, told staffers in a memo Sunday.

“We wish this wasn't necessary, but we're facing unprecedented economic challenges and we have to cut spending,” Paulson and Hillkirk stated in the memo, posted by Romenesko.

Making data used in reporting stories available online, in addition to what appears in and alongside articles, would add value to newspapers and make them more relevant, TechDirt stated in an opinion article late Tuesday.

TechDirt states that newspapers “have access to all sorts of interesting and useful data – but traditionally, they've hoarded it and only used it as a resource for editors and reporters in creating stories.” Newspapers could argue that most, if not all, the data they have access to (such as crime statistics) comes from information and records that are open to the public – they just go to the trouble of collecting it all. What TechDirt points to is database journalism, and as newspapers aim to be online portals to their coverage areas, they are increasingly looking to incorporate databases as part of their online offerings.

Fairfax Media seems to be uninterested in buying stake in APN News & Media, owner of The New Zealand Herald, NZPA reported, according to the article posted on The National Business Review.

Besides the Herald, APN also publishes the Listener, a range of regional newspapers in New Zealand and Australia. It is also the half owner of NewstalkZB stable The Radio Network.

More than half of the U.S. online population is made up of active online social networkers, yet advertising on these sites is still flat, according to a new report by market research firm IDC, part of International Data Group. The report calls marketers’ attempts to tap into these sites’ unique social nature “stillborn,” MediaWeek reported.

This report, titled “U.S. Consumer Online Attitudes Survey Results Part III,” found that more than three out of four social networking site users log on at least on a weekly basis, and 57 percent do so daily. These people also spend lots of time on the properties - more than 61 percent of users spend at least half an hour on these sites per session, and 38 percent stay for at least one hour.

China is splitting its newspapers into two groups, public service-oriented and profit-oriented, and the government has said it will financially support the so-called public service ones, FollowtheMedia reported Tuesday.

The government will help fund newspapers that spread Marxist and Party philosophies, government and Party bulletins and newspapers targeting foreign readers, ethnic minorities and farmers, according to FTM. Meanwhile, the government will try to more heavily control so-called profit-oriented newspapers, such as metropolitan dailies, to “transform them into running as proper businesses,” and has asked local newspapers to work together.

Spain’s four primary national free newspapers have decreased in circulation by 13 percent from January through October this year compared to the same period in 2007, Newspaper Innovation reported Tuesday.

Although circulation at 20 Minutos, Metro, Qué! and ADN was cut back in June and July, it was down even more in September and October (free dailies aren't published in August).

A "peaceful" legal settlement was reached at a Moscow court between state-owned media holding firm All-Russia State Television and Radio Company (VGTRK) and Internet site Mail.ru, Vesti.ru reported Monday. VGTRK sued Mail.ru last month for violating copyright laws, after the site's users posted the company's rights-protected video clips online.

According to the court hearing, the agreement does not include any financial compensation to VGTRK and all negotiations are considered final. Both sides refused to comment in order to retain the confidentiality of the matter, according to Vesti.ru.

Social networking site Facebook will not be acquiring micro-blogging utility Twitter, AFP reported Monday. Discussions between the two sides started in mid-October, but the deal fell apart almost three weeks ago after disagreements over the US$500 million that Facebook offered to pay.

Both companies said the proposal was an "all-stock offer" that was based on the $15 billion valuation that Facebook attained after Microsoft bought a 1.6 per cent stake in the firm for $240 million in October last year.

Trinity Mirror is asking employees at two of its Scottish titles, the Daily Record and Sunday Mail, to take voluntary redundancies, the publisher's managing director said in a statement on Friday, Journalism.co.uk reported.

“The global economic downturn is having an adverse impact on readers and advertisers,” Mark Hollinshead stated.

New York Times Co. shares on Friday plummeted after the company axed its quarterly dividend by 74 percent and said there will unlikely be no immediate relief in ad revenue downturns, MarketWatch reported Friday.

NYT stock fell 7 percent and on Friday closed at US$5.32, but earlier that session fell to a new 52-week low of $4.95. The stock has fallen more than 80 percent in the past three years.

Telegraph Media Group may cut jobs before Christmas, as newsprint costs have continued to increase while ad revenue has gone down, and digital revenues have not been enough to make up the gap, Media Guardian reported Monday.

Staff at TMG were notified of the possible cuts on Friday, and are expected to be given more information on how many cuts will be made and which departments will be affected sometime this week, according to Media Guardian.

Yahoo! has been looking to sell European comparison shopping service Kelkoo for some time, and has found a buyer in UK private equity firm Jamplant, paidContent reported Friday.

Yahoo! bought Kelkoo in 2004 for €475 million, and will sell it to Jamplant for less than €100 million, in a loss-making deal of at least €375 million.

According to the latest data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, online ad spending is on track to remain flat for the rest of the year. Spending in the third quarter accounted for US$5.9 billion, only 2 percent ahead of each of the previous two quarters, Media Post reported.

Although 11 percent higher than a year ago, “ad revenue in the quarter underscored how online growth has all but stalled in 2008 in the face of deepening economic uncertainty,” according to IAB. If the situation remains, online advertising could end up increasing only 10 percent to nearly $23 billion this year, much lower than last year's 26 percent growth to $21.2 billion.

The BBC Trust has rejected the BBC's £68 million plan to add video news to its network of 65 local UK Web sites, saying on Friday that it would hurt local newspaper publishers who are also trying to compete in their local online video markets, BBC News reported

Had the local video services been launched, yearly revenues at existing providers would likely decrease by up to 4 percent, and could cause local commercial media to fall behind in online innovation, a study by broadcast watchdog Ofcom had found.

Mobile Web use in the United Kingdom surged by 25 percent in the third quarter of 2008, Nielsen Online research has found, PC Pro reported Monday. Since the second quarter of his year, the number of users jumped from 5.8 million to 7.3 million.

Younger users may be more likely to surf the Web from mobile platforms, as a quarter of mobile Web users are aged between 15 and 24, compared to 16 percent for PC-based browsing.

Russian publishing house Kommersant may shut down or temporarily halt publication of Avtopilot, an automobile magazine, Lenta.ru reported Monday.

The firm's Commercial Director Pavel Filenkov said that a final decision would be made by December 1 and that the probability that Avtopilot would close is "very high.”

Online video game ads and blogs are gaining influence with consumers, particularly among younger users, ages 18 to 34 years old, according to a study conducted by the National Retail Federation and BIGResearch, AdAge reported.

Although the numbers for all adults are relatively small – for example, online video-game ads influence 7 percent of electronics purchases, text messages influence 3 percent of clothing purchases – they boost to significant levels among those between 18 and 34.

Although journalists in every age group and across all coverage areas are increasingly adopting social media tools and incorporating them into daily work, “Millennial Generation” journalists have the highest usage and highest hopes for these tools, a new study from Middleberg Communications and the Society for New Communications Research has found.

The “rapid adoption of new media and online communication among all journalists” is the “most dramatic and significant finding of this new survey,” MiddleBerg Communications stated. “The disparity in usage and perceived value of these new tools and technologies to the future of journalism is particularly striking among the youngest demographic versus the oldest.”

Social networking is a top online destination category for Internet users in Brazil, with 85 percent of the country's online population age 15 and up visiting a social networking site in September, up from 76 percent last year, the latest comScore study on the state of the Internet in Brazil indicates.

Compared to other countries with more than 10 million monthly unique Internet visitors, Brazil ranked in the second spot in terms of percentage of reach in the social networking category, with 85 percent, only slightly behind Canada with 87 percent, according to the comScore press release posted on Biz Yahoo!.

In light of the financial crisis and plummeting advertising revenues, between 20 and 40 magazines are predicted to shut down in Russia, gipp.ru reported Friday.

The assumption is based on trends seen across the printing industry that indicate declining production of publications and feature not only magazines, but newspapers and books as well. The data was obtained by studying nine months out of 2007 and a part of 2008, revealing that the total growth of the printing industry amounts to 1.6 percent since last year.

Local search revenues in the United States will exceed US$2.6 billion in 2011, according to data from the Kelsey Group, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2008 reported.

In 2006, local search generated $922 million. It is expected to boost to $1.5 billion by the end of 2008, up more than 60 percent from two years ago.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has launched a new bimonthly “luxury and lifestyle” glossy magazine for the wealthy, bundled into 115,000 newspapers distributed to home delivery customers living in affluent postal code areas, the Associated Press reported.

The 56-page magazine, called I, is similar to The New York Times' T magazine and The Wall Street Journal's WSJ., and will be distributed six times each year. It will include subjects such as social events, dining, home decoration and fashion.

In an effort to further cut costs in its regional UK newspaper division, Newsquest North-East will cut 17 editorial jobs, close five district offices and freeze workers' pay by January 1, Media Guardian reported Friday.

Staff will be made redundant at three of the Gannett-owned Newsquest titles: the Northern Echo, Darlington & Stockton Times series and free Advertiser series. Employees were notified of the cuts at about noon Friday.

Free dailies located in southern European countries usually close down for the summer holidays, and free dailies in Switzerland are now considering doing the same, Newspaper Innovation reported Friday.

Located between the North and South, the country's free dailies Le Matin Bleu (published in the French speaking part of the country) and .ch (published in the German speaking part), are considering closing in the summer time as well.

Harbinger Capital Partners Master Fund holds a 19.3 percent stake in The New York Times Co., and over the summer placed even more bets that the company's stock would go up; however, as Times Co. stock has dropped by about 50 percent, Harbinger is pulling away from a number of those bets, Editor & Publisher reported Wednesday.

Harbinger bet on the changing price of millions of Times Co. shares, making about 30 “equity swaps” with a brokerage firm in London that specialises in derivatives, E&P reported. Harbinger predicted in a “long” position that the prices would rise, and expected to collect the difference when the swap concluded. However, if the price goes down, as is currently the case, Harbinger would pay out the difference.

The New York Times Co. reflected the economic difficulties caused by plunging advertising revenues across the newspaper industry by cutting its quarterly dividend by 74 percent from 23 cents to 6 cents a share late Thursday, MarketWatch reported.

The trust for the founding Ochs-Sulzberger family stated that even though the move was “very difficult for all shareholders, it is the appropriate and prudent business response given the extraordinary challenges of the current economic environment.” The slash is one of the company’s actions that serve to “decrease debt” and optimise its liquidity, said Chairman Arthur Sulzberger.

Mobile subscribers in Europe totalled 703 million in 2005. Nearly 60 percent was from Western Europe, and the rest from Eastern Europe, according to the European Information Technology Observatory, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2008 reported.

This figure is expected to grow to 923 million in 2010, with an annual growth rate of 5.6 percent. The CAGR in Eastern Europe is more than three times that in Western Europe, with 9.4 percent versus 3 percent, respectively.

New Zealand's largest newspapers were unable to cover Thursday's Test cricket match, after the papers and Cricket Australia could not reach an agreement on usage for online content. CA would not give Fairfax-owned titles, the New Zealand Herald and the New Zealand Press Association accreditation after they did not join a scheduled teleconference, said Peter Young, a CA spokesman, The Australian reported Thursday

The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse have suspended their coverage of all cricket matches and other related events, while Getty Images announced it will not make photos available for editorial use.

Guardian.co.uk upped its lead over Telegraph.co.uk and was close to breaking the 26 million unique user mark in October, according to official national newspaper web traffic data released Thursday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations electronic, Press Gazette reported.

Mail Online came in third with more than 21million monthly unique users, passing the Times Online.

The Daily Mail & General Trust's full-year profit fell 9 percent after advertising expenditure at its UK national Associated Newspaper division dropped 10 percent in October, the Cumbrian Business Gazette reported Thursday.

DMGT is looking to save £100 million in its national and regional newspaper divisions to combat sinking ad revenues, and has already cut 400 jobs in the past two months, the Daily Telegraph reported. Media outlets in Europe and North America have been hit hard as businesses have tightened their belts and cut advertising spending.

Media General Inc. Thursday announced its October revenues dropped 5.8 percent because the continuous publishing ad sales downturn offset the increasing revenues of interactive and political advertising, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

This group, which has newspaper and television operations, reported revenue for the period ended Nov. 2 declined from US$91.2 million to $85.9 million.

UK regional newspaper publisher Johnston Press saw its share price go down again Wednesday, following a 20 percent drop Tuesday, allmediascotland.com reported Thursday.

Johnston Press publishes newspapers across the United Kingdom and Ireland, including The Scotsman, Evening Telegraph and The (Sheffield) Star.

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said his company has “moved on” and is no longer interested in buying Yahoo, pointing out that the focus is now on an Internet search agreement between the two firms, Reuters reporters Wednesday.

Following Ballmer’s announcement, Microsoft shares dropped by 3 percent to US$18.99 while Yahoo’s plunged by 19 per cent to $9.38. Earlier this week, Yahoo shares were up due to speculation that Microsoft may once again offer a bid for Yahoo after the firm’s Chief Executive Jerry Yang divulged the possibility of departing.

Trinity Mirror will implement a company-wide pay freeze, the Times Online reported Wednesday. Chief Executive Sly Bailey also announced that no bonuses will be given for 2008, as the publisher’s profit objectives were not achieved.

However, the UK publishing group plans to launch a “special 2009 incentive scheme” that entitles all workers to receive a bonus of up to £1,000, Bailey added.

News International has delayed a plan to redevelop its Wapping site in London due to the economic recession, a spokeswoman said, Reuters reported Wednesday.

News International, which is News Corp.’s UK subsidiary, said in September it would redevelop the site instead of moving to a new location. News International, publisher of The Sun, The Times, News of the World and The Sunday Times, has been based at the 20-acre site since 1986.

Six Apart, the blogging company that created Movable Type and TypePad, has now created the TypePad Journalist Bailout Program, designed to help “recently-laid-off or fearful-of-layoffs” journalists, the company announced on its TypePad Web site.

Although nothing can replace a full-time job with benefits, the programme helps journalists set up their own sites, in which they receive a free TypePad Pro blog account, are enrolled in the Six Apart Media advertising programme, their sites are promoted on Blogs.com, and more, such as a programme to help drive traffic to their sites.

Russian publishing group Afisha announced in a corporate letter that its magazine Bolshoi Gorod will no longer be distributed for free, Lenta.ru reported Tuesday. The decision was made following the possibly worsening advertising industry in Russia.

Afisha can no longer afford printing costs and free distribution of 11 of its regional magazines, the letter said. Starting early next year there will be a single “centralised” edition of Bolshoi Gorod in Russia, which will cost between RUB 30 (US$1.1) and RUB40 (US$1.5).

One of the largest comics syndicators in the U.S., used by newspapers nationwide, will launch Comics Kingdom next Tuesday in an effort to generate online revenue for newspaper Web sites, USA Today reported Wednesday.

Hearst-owned King Features Syndicate will unveil the new digital platform newspapers can embed on their sites, which will feature the the company's 10 biggest sellers, such as Blondie, Zits, Baby Blues and Hägar the Horrible.

The new voice-activated Google Mobile application for the iPhone is now available, CNet reported Monday.

The search application is able to execute a Google search based on voices, and uses the phone's location data to narrow results. For example, if a user tries to search a sushi restaurant, he can just say “sushi” and will get the closest sushi restaurants at the top of the search results. The application, CNet reports, is “freakishly accurate.”

Ziff Davis Media will close the print edition of flagship PC Magazine with its January issue, following which it will be an all-digital brand, available at PCMag.com, MediaWeek reported Wednesday.

Due to the closing, seven print production staffers will be leaving, and print subscribers will be given a digital version of the printed magazine, according to the company.

Free Swiss newspaper News will publish its last Mittelland edition December 5, just one year after the paper launched, Newspaper Innovation reported Wednesday. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, free dailies are faring better, as 15 minut and Obzor took second and third place in autumn readership numbers.

Paid newspaper Segodnya had the most daily readers in Ukraine, at 519,000, but 15 minut and Obzor were up in the autumn over the previous survey, at 394,000 and 314,000 respectively, according to Newspaper Innovation.

UK regional newspaper publisher Newsquest has signed up for new Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) six-month certificates. The move will allow the group to release overall Internet traffic numbers for its sites and to also focus on individual figures for larger Web sites such as its Swindon Advertiser and the Lancashire Telegraph, Journalism.co.uk reported Monday.

In the past, the publisher announced its ABCe data in an informal manner. Its unique users/browsers per month added up to an average of 5,124,715. The ABCe figures will now account for daily, weekly and monthly unique users/browsers, an ABCe release reported.

Social networking’s marketing advantage has been on the rise amongst small businesses in the United Kingdom, and in the last six months, the numbers of firms that use social networks to promote themselves has more than doubled, from 7 percent to 15 percent, SME Web reported Tuesday.

A British Telecommunications Group (BT) Tradespace survey found that social networks are most popular amongst start-up companies, with 22 percent of surveyed businesses using them. Meanwhile, 13 percent of home-based and 11 percent of growing firms employ the promotional tool.

As the U.S. newspaper industry has struggled to cope with the advertising market downturn, circulation slumps and migration of print readers to online, publishers are increasingly looking at offshoring work to India as a way to cut costs, in addition to other cost-cutting measures, such as reducing staff and streamlining production and resources, a new report by Research and Markets shows.

“This trend is set to gain traction in the next few years,” the summary of “Offshoring by U.S. Newspaper Publishers” report states.

A new study shows that many young adults not only buy brands, but also discuss them and add brand content to their instant messenger services, Web pages and social networking sites, The ClickZ Network reported.

The global survey, conducted by Synovate in conjunction with Microsoft, noted that 28 percent of respondents talked about a brand on a discussion forum, 23 percent added brand-related content to their IM service, and 19 percent added it to their homepage or social sites.

Due to the worldwide appeal of Japanese pop music and video games, MySpace said it will increase the number of artists by more than double on its Japanese pages to get more clicks globally, Reuters reported Monday.

New sign-ups and page views are slowing in Japan, where people are opting for rival networking services such as mixi Inc. MySpace Japan, which launched two years ago, however, plans to buck the trend by expanding the number of sales artists can make on its site.

The Independent and Independent on Sunday will lay off up to a quarter of journalism staffers as the UK arm of Independent News & Media aims save £10 million, the company announced Tuesday, the Financial Times reported. A total of 90 out of 424 editorial workers will lose their jobs.

INM has been struggling with a simultaneous downturn in advertising and circulation, all while a possible recession looms on the horizon. The FT reported that analysts estimate the two titles are losing as much as £10 million per year.

The Knoxville News Sentinel, of Knoxville, Tennessee, showed off a new design Monday that cuts costs by merging four sections – local, national, sports and features – into two sections, for two editions each week, the Associated Press reported.

Editions on Tuesday through Saturday will still have four sections. However, other standard features are changing, such as stock tables now being available on the newspaper Web site only.

The Crossroads Journal, a locally owned monthly newspaper in Browns Summit, has just ended all print editions and is now only available online, the Greensboro Telegram reported Sunday.

The tabloid-style newspaper has been printed since 1999, serving U.S. communities in the North Carolina counties of Guilford and Alamance counties.

Free newspaper thelondonpaper, owned by News International, announced it may pull out of the National Readership Survey (NRS). However, until a new chief executive is assigned, the decision will not be finalised, Brand Republic reported Tuesday.

Managing Director Ian Clarke urged the NRS to change its analysis method, suggesting that the current sample size should be larger and should include online surveys, as current methodologies cause data to be "misleading" and "increasingly irrelevant" for free titles. “There were 312 respondents for thelondonpaper for the last six-month survey, during which time more than 30 million papers were distributed,” he said.

Online advertising in France is still stronger than other media in the economic slowdown, as it is in the U.S. and the UK, eMarketer reported.

The Internet will be the only channel to have significant growth in advertising this year, according to data from France Pub. Spending on display and search reaching €913 million (US$1.36 billion), increasing 23.4 percent from 2007.

The Internet and new technologies will only boost the newspaper industry to “new highs in the 21st century,” and will provide new opportunities rather than hurt newspapers, Chairman and Chief Executive of News Corporation Rupert Murdoch said in an Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio address on Sunday.

“Among our journalistic friends are some misguided cynics who are too busy writing their own obituary to be excited by the opportunity,” he said, according to ABC Radio National.

The Financial Times has gone to great lengths to promote the redesign of its Web site, which debuted Nov. 11, PR Week reported Thursday. The newspaper's PR staff briefed journalists in the United Kingdom, United States and in Asia prior to the launch, and also requested embargoes when notifying employees of the planned changes.

This is part of a six-month-long rollout of new features on the site, which began earlier this year.

Mobile phone company 3 unveiled its lower cost smartphone alternative INQ1today, and will launch it in the United Kingdom, Australia and Hong Kong beginning in December, the Guardian reported Monday.

Pronounced “ink one,” the phone targets users who want to surf the mobile Web, but can't really afford smartphones like the iPhone, Blackberry Storm or G1. Sure to be called the “Facebook phone,” INQ1 has a button that sends users straight to Facebook.

Another study from IBM supports the idea that online video eats away at television consumption, while at the same time shows that online viewers don't care about the commercials too much, The Hollywood Reporter reported Monday.

According to a poll of 2,800 people in six countries, 76 percent have viewed online video, and 45 percent are regular viewers. Among people who have watched online video, 15 percent say that as a result they watch “slightly less” TV, while another 36 percent said they watch “significantly less” TV, the IBM report stated.

The United Kingdom's top three free titles have watched their readership numbers rise in the past few years, according to the last National Readership Survey (NRS), Newspaper Innovation reported Sunday.

Metro saw its readership increase to about 3.2 million, up from less than two million readers three year ago. Compared to the entire year of 2007, Metro saw a 20 percent increase in readership in 2008.

Sky News and Times Online will share video content on their sites, Journalism.co.uk reported Monday.

The shared content will centre on business, UK and foreign news. Sky News footage will be coupled with analysis from the newspaper's commentators, and breaking news video from Sky News will still run on Times Online under the new deal, according to a release from Sky News.

The U.S. newspaper industry's struggle has become a “full-blown crisis,” and one that won't be remedied without outside help, last Thursday's American Press Institute Summit concluded, according to an executive summary of the closed door, CEO-only summit, Editor & Publisher reported Friday.

“The biggest hurdles to progress (are) the industry's senior leadership, including some people in this room,” James Shein told the group. Shein is a turnaround specialist and professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. “I am not sure you can take a look at your industry with fresh eyes.”

Global mobile messaging revenues are expected to grow from US$66 billion in 2006 to $100.7 billion in 2010, according to a Frost & Sullivan’s study, commissioned by mobile open application platform Funambol, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2008 reported.

In 2006, nearly 70 percent of the revenues came from SMS, which accounted for $45 billion. In 2010, although SMS is expected to continue retaining the lion’s share, its revenues are actually not expected to grow much, totalling a projected $47 billion.

Milan, a French press group for youth, announced Friday that by the end of December, 32 full-time positions will be cut and numerous publications halted or merged within the publishing firm, AFP reported.

The group will also stop publishing 34 supplementary magazines as well as a fortnightly news magazine Les Clés de L’actualité and its youth-oriented counterpart.

Although the Daily Sun saw its largest growth ever in the third quarter, almost 70 percent of daily newspapers in South Africa saw circulation drop compared to figures the same time last year, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations data released Thursday, BizCommunity Africa reported.

Although dailies and weeklies are down compared to 2007, and the hybrid category (The Times) is unchanged, “within this general performance, we still see specific titles delivering significant growth, which provides proof of consumer or reader vitality and support,” ABC Vice President Gordon Patterson said in an ABC presentation in Johannesburg Thursday, according to BizCommunity.

As Australian consumer confidence and spending has declined, so has overall newspaper circulation for the country's Fairfax Media Ltd, which reported decreased circulation at most of its titles in the third quarter, Bloomberg reported Friday.

Weekday editions of the Sydney Morning Herald experienced a 1 percent year-on-year decline in circulation to 209,508 copies. According to a Fairfax statement, sales of the Sun-Herald, the Sunday Telegraph, the Sunday Times and the Australian Financial Review also dropped.

Marty Pompadour, the head of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp European division, is leaving the company after nearly a decade spent developing the firm’s broadcasting and outdoor advertising sectors in Russia and Eastern Europe, Reuters reported Friday.

The company stated that the step was part of a transition plan that began in May, when Tom Mockridge was named chief executive of European television. Rupert Murdoch’s son, James Murdoch, is currently in charge of News Corp’s European and Asian operations.

Online live communications platform Meebo, based in California, has teamed up with Hearst Magazines Digital Media, Business Wire reported. The publisher’s Seventeen.com and PopularMechanics.com will feature Meebo’s instant messaging and chat services to boost revenues, user interaction and the time people spend on the sites.

The partnership “seamlessly links traditional media and social media with cutting-edge community tools,” Meebo COO Martin Green said in the statement.

USA Today publisher Gannett Co. Inc. has acquired social media services and tools provider Ripple6, Media Post reported Friday. In addition to social media services, the firm also offers content publishing, social marketing and a word-of-mouth analytics feature.

As part of the deal, Gannett also bought out the 10 percent holding Gannett's Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer Chris Saridakis had in Ripple6. The publisher said Saridakis did not participate in transaction negotiations. The terms of the agreement are not yet disclosed.

Television viewership in the top four networks in the United States is slowing, the latest Nielsen Media Research data shows, Media Week reported Thursday.

Although its numbers are down, CBS won out in the U.S. network battle as the most-watched network between Oct. 30 and Nov. 12 (known as the sweeps period) with 11.33 million viewers, 470,000 more viewers than second-place ABC, according to Nielsen Media Research data. ABC has 10.86 million viewers, while NBC has 8.11 million. In fourth place is News Corp.-owned Fox, with 6.72 million.

The Evening Standard debuted front page advertising for the first time today, featuring an advertising wrap promoting British Gas, Brand Republic reported Thursday. The ad wrap covers a strip of the front page, and takes over the entire last page.

The advertising was planned by media company Carat, owned by marketing communications firm Aegis. Carat Press Director Dominic Williams stated that the move demonstrates that the press’s creative progression, according to Brand Republic.

Investment group Maine Media Investment LLC has agreed to buy Blethen Maine Newspapers. The price of the deal and its terms, and the exact date of the final sale are not yet known, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

“Although the sale is still contingent on the buyer obtaining a portion of its financing, both parties are optimistic that the transaction will close, despite tight credit markets,” said Charles Cochrane, president and CEO of Blethen Maine Newspapers.

Advance Publications will downsize staff at its eight newspapers in Michigan, United States, the Michigan Business Review reported Thursday. The publishers reported that the step is a response to the economic situation.

Newspapers to face buyouts and consolidations include The Ann Arbor News, The Grand Rapids Press, The Flint Journal, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, The Bay City Times, Muskegon Chronicle and The Saginaw News.

Computer giant Microsoft has thrown its hat into the social networking ring with the release of new Windows Live applications. There is a "race to simplify the Web," Windows Live General Manager Brian Hall told the San Jose Mercury News on Thursday.

Microsoft's latest offering will help it compete with Facebook and MySpace, while previous applications like Hotmail, Web storage tool SkyDrive, the Calendar, Messenger and social network Spaces will continue to be available. However, users will now be able to personalise home.live.com to adapt to individual choices. Hotmail and Messenger have been revamped, Hall said.

Mobile messaging and content revenues in Western Europe will exceed €26 billion and €23 billion by 2011, respectively, according research by Analysys Research, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2008 reported.

In 2005, mobile messaging and content revenues in Western Europe collectively accounted for €23.3 billion, of which €4.9 billion was contributed by mobile content, while €18.4 came from mobile messaging.

Daniil Kupsin, owner of Russian business radio station Business FM, announced that he will launch an online business news source, RIA Novosti reported Thursday.

Bfm.ru will be run by Russian Internet journalist Anton Nosik and will feature nearly 30 reporters. Acceding to Nosik, the outlet’s users will have the chance to customise the site to match their interests and to add or delete parts of the site depending on content they wish to view. In addition, users can adjust the setting to receive news from other online sources.

U.S. public radio network NPR (National Public Radio) will be led by Vivian Schiller, NYTimes.com vice president and general manager, FollowtheMedia reported Thursday.

Schiller will become CEO of NPR beginning Jan. 5, replacing interim NPR CEO Dennis Haarsagar.

UK newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror and its flagship title the Daily Mirror warned that more job cuts may be inevitable as new measures are taken to lower costs amid a turbulent economy, The Independent reported Thursday.

So far, the regional publisher has closed 28 local titles just this year, 11 of which, including the Derby Trader and Formby Times, were shuttered in the four months leading up to October 26. The publisher has stepped up its target for cutting costs by £5 million, to £25 million total, and will cut an additional £20 million, minimum, in yearly costs next year.

The Limerick Leader has made its Web site the “focal point for entire community's grieving,” after the tragic shooting death of Shane Geoghegan over the weekend. The Irish newspaper's iAnnounce page for the 28-year-old has received more than 17,600 visitors in 36 hours, more than 8,500 “virtual candles” have been lit and 2,000 messages of condolence have been written by readers, Journalism.co.uk reported Wednesday.

iAnnounce is used by newspapers in Trinity Mirror, Newsquest and Johnston Press groups, and is designed to be a social networking tool for newspaper birth, death, marriage, weddings and birthday announcements, among others.

Tokyo-based agency holding company Dentsu Holdings announced Wednesday it will acquire New York-based ad firm mcgarrybowen, whose clients include JPMorgan, Chase, Kraft, Disney, Marriott International, News Corp. and more. Terms of the deal were not yet disclosed, Media Post reported.

mcgarrybowen, founded in 2002, is a full-service agency providing both traditional and digital advertising.

Total Johnston Press ad revenues for the 44 weeks ending on Nov. 1 were down 15.5 percent from the same period last year ShareCast reported Wednesday.

The overall performance for the UK regional newspaper publisher has deteriorated since the first half of this year, because of “further substantial declines in property advertising combined with significant falls in employment and display advertising," according to the company’s statement.

Although traffic for financial news is swelling, the advertising industry is seeing its most difficult period in decades, both due to the economic turmoil that began globally in September, Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang said Wednesday at the Internet Advertising Bureau's Engage conference in London, Media Guardian reported.

"We are watching carefully (because we are) not sure whether a consumer-led recession will impact (the search sector)," Yang said, according to Media Guardian. "We do see search continuing to grow but the only question is whether people will search for commercial or non-commercial items."

About 12 percent of European Internet users paid for online content in 2007, but that number is expected to increase to 19 percent by 2013, a new report by JupiterResearch, LLC predicts, paidContent reported Tuesday. This means online paid content could rake in €5 billion in Europe 2013, up from €1.4 billion in 2007.

Behind the expected spike in paid content is the number of people migrating to legal online music downloading services. Although music netted 29 percent of paid content revenues in Europe in 2007, it is expected to make up 51 percent of all online paid content by 2013, the Jupiter report states.

The Sunday Herald's sales figures dropped 15.6 percent year-on-year in October, the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures for the independent Scottish newspaper show, AllMediaScotland reported Tuesday.

The paper’s average sale in October, measured by Average Net Circulation, was 43,095. This is also down 527 from its average September sales, according to ABC figures.

Newsday's new owner, Cablevision Systems, will rebrand the New York-based newspaper's print and online auto classifieds section as Optimum Autos, beginning Jan. 1, Editor & Publisher reported.

Once Optimum Autos at Newsday launches, it will offer reviews and price information from auto resources Kelley Blue Book and J.D. Powers and Associates, as well as search capabilities, full exterior and interior views of cars and videos, according to E&P.

The global economic crisis is undoubtedly adding pressure on newsrooms, which have already suffered from circulation and ad revenue decline, the head of Britain's Society of Editors said Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.

Nigel Pickover, editor of the Ipswich Evening Star, said in the annual conference that “revenues were blitzed and papers were losing staff and even folding amid the financial turmoil.”

The Kansas City Star will lay off 50 employees, an executive announced Monday, the Kansas City Business Journal reported. The Star is owned by McClatchy Co., the third largest newspaper publisher in the United States.

This job reduction came after The Star’s layoff of about 30 employees Sept. 17, and was in addition to roughly many “who had accepted the newspaper’s most recent early-buyout offer,” publisher Mark Zieman stated in an internal e-mail.

Traditional media advertising in Australia is expected to slump between 3 percent to 5 percent, experts predicted at the Commercial Economic Advisory Service of Australia in Sydney on Monday, The Australian reported. But although analysts predicted spending will fall, media buyers said advertising clients have not yet given any signs that they will make large cuts in ad spending.

Other than the Internet and pay-TV, media budgets will continue to tighten through the end of the year, cutting growth to 4.8 percent for 2008, said Steve Allen, media analyst for Fusion Strategy. Total spending for the year is expected to be AU$12.13 billion, he said.

The American Press Institute last week announced it will host a “crisis summit” for 50 CEO-level newspaper industry executives this coming Thursday at its Reston, Virginia, headquarters. The conference is by invitation-only, and will take place behind closed doors.

This secretive meeting “is the last thing the newspaper industry needs,” new media and journalism expert Jeff Jarvis stated on Tuesday.

The world’s largest international newspaper, Metro International SA, announced that it will cut its overall workforce in Denmark by 20 percent to 25 percent, due to the current global economic downturn, Metro announced in a press release Monday.

Metro's two Danish titles are MetroXpress and 24 Timer. The precise number of redundancies will be decided after Metro negotiates with the Danish Union at the end of the month.

In the future, the BBC may share content with other news outlets as well as take a lead in developing industry standards for metadata, Pete Clifton, head of multimedia at the BBC, told the Society of Editors conference, Journalism.co.uk reported Monday.

The sharing of video content has already been addressed within the BBC, and is a “well articulated part” of the group's plan for local online video.

The iPhone 3G beat Motorola's Razr as the most popular mobile phone in the U.S. during the third quarter, according to the NPD Group. It was the first time a smartphone has won the top-selling consumer phone, and the first time in the past three years that the Razr has been bumped from the first place, Media Post reported Monday.

However, the iPhone's gains were not enough to make up the overall phone sales loss in the quarter, which declined by 15 percent compared to 32 million units year-over-year. Handset sales revenue fell 10 percent to $2.9 billion, even though the average selling price was up six percent to $88.

National media outlets are feeling the effects of the serious slowdown in advertising trends that have impacted local media this year, Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Wienkes stated in a note to investors on Monday, the Associated Press reported.

Wienkes said the auto and financials industries are dragging down the year-over-year advertising revenue, and added that he does not expect “the declines to hit bottom before 2009 or possibly later.”

The Tribune Co. disclosed on Monday that its third quarter net loss totalled US$121.6 million, with revenue down 10 percent, to $1.04 billion. In the same quarter in 2007, the Chicago-based media company's net income was at $152.8 million, while revenue was at $1.16 billion, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.

The large slump is due to “negative industry conditions, restructuring charges and a steep rise in interest costs,” on the company, which amassed heavy debt when Sam Zell, now chairman and chief executive, took the company private last year, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Sun-Times Media Group Inc. announced it lost revenues of US$168.8 million in the third quarter amid the weakening economic market, Crain’s Chicago Business reported Thursday.

Advertising sales in Chicago were down 19 percent in the quarter, and according to CEO Cyrus Freidheim in a letter to investors, it “likely won’t begin to increase again until 2010.” The company plans to cut an additional $45 million to $55 million in costs over the next nine months in order to survive.

Telecommunications firms in Korea are cutting back on spending next year due to worries that the global financial turndown will soon hit home, The Korea Herald reported.

Most of the telecom industry's revenues come from the domestic market, and mobile carriers and fixed line operators are expected to either maintain budgets into 2009, or cut 5 to 20 percent.

Omnicom Media Group (OMG) on Friday unveiled a plan to aggressively expand OMG’s Search's market coverage in Asia, which is aimed to become the largest provider of search marketing services there, Media Post reported Friday.

The plan is based on a strategic alliance with dgm, the search and affiliate marketing unit of Asia's Deal Group Media, which will help OMG’s presence in some key Asian markets.

The secret to making money online is to segment your audience, Mark Smith, managing director of S1, the Glasgow Herald Times group's online classified business, told the UK Society of Editors conference, Press Gazette reported Monday.

S1, owned by Newsquest, made £6 million in profits on £10 million turnover last financial year, making it perhaps one of the most profitable online ventures in the United Kingdom. S1's classified sections include property, jobs and motors.

The global financial crisis was felt by Norwegian media group Schibsted, which on Friday announced a profits decline in the third quarter, as advertising revenues decreased by 3 percent year-over-year, RTT News reported.

Net income in the third quarter totalled NOK 25 million (€2.87 billion), down from NOK 52 million (€5.98 billion) in the same quarter last year. Net income attributable to majority interests dropped to NOK 11 million from NOK 18 million last year. Earnings per share were NOK 0.16, compared to NOK 0.26 in the same period in 2007. Adjusted earnings per share fell year-over-year to NOK 0.51 from NOK 1.72.

The Financial Times will revamp its homepage, FT.com, in order to better exemplify its brand image, and as part of the newspaper's strategy to give its digital presence a makeover, Brand Republic reported Monday.

FT.com will debut 5 redesigned homepages on Tuesday along with a series of updated features such as new masthead, editors’ picks for top stories and new tools the designers hope will make the user experience easier and more pleasant.

Egypt's first free daily launched earlier this year, Newspaper Innovation reported on Monday, citing a report from a reader. The newspaper, 24 Hours, began circulating in Cairo, likely in the spring.

Although newspapers in Egypt do not have official circulation figures, 24 Hours' circulation is estimated by some to be at 50,000, but by others to be at 15,000, Newspaper Innovation stated.

Gannett Co. Inc. is planning to sell its property in Hawaii next to the Honolulu Advertiser’s headquarters, Editor & Publisher reported Thursday.

Since the Advertiser's printing operations were moved to a US$82 million plant in Kapolei, a nearby town, Gannett has used the property for parking. Newspapers around the world are feeling an even tighter squeeze by the global financial crisis, and are looking to save money in every area possible.

Global mobile entertainment revenues will boost from less than US$30 billion in 2008 to nearly $60 billion in 2012, according research by Juniper Research and eMarketer, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2008 reported.

Music and games make up the two biggest chunks in 2008, contributing about $10 billion and $8 billion. In 2012, they are expected to remain as the top two, but with relatively flat growth compared to other sectors.

The Times Online has launched Times Mobile, which may be the first South African news Web site to publish mobile multimedia content, BizCommunity reported.

“The African mobile market is currently the fastest growing in the world, so it's important that every media company gears their strategy towards having a strong presence in the mobile arena,” said Colin Daniels, publisher of The Times Online.

Google's mobile phone operating system, Android, is not a threat to Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer announced at a news conference in Sydney, Australia on Thursday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported. Ballmer predicted Google will likely face difficulty in getting mobile phone makers to use Android, which it is giving away.

“If somebody thinks the formula is you give away your operating system to get (traffic to Google search), the operators are much too smart; they'll know they can still ask to be paid to carry your service,” Ballmer said.

Online social networking giants Facebook and MySpace on Thursday announced their expansion plans at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. MySpace Chief Executive Chris DeWolfe said his company is looking to weather the current economic storm through an ad expansion programme and its own music site, and may even launch a music player to compete with the iPod, the Guardian reported Friday.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg pointed out he does not care as much about profit rankings as his competitors do, and said his company will continue grow globally.

U.S. newspaper company E.W. Scripps Co. announced that it will delay its dividend and cut 400 newspaper positions, due to “continued weakness” in both newspaper and TV advertising sales, the Business Courier of Cincinnati reported Friday.

“During this period of uncertainty, we’ve made a series of decisions - including head-count reductions, suspension of the dividend and other expense reductions - that will keep our debt low and our balance sheet healthy,” Rich Boehne, Scripps president and CEO, said in a statement.

Although U.S. local media and local TV stations generated big advertising gains from the Web this year, in 2009 they are expected to experience a serious downturn, Media Post reported Thursday.

According to Borrell Associates, these companies will likely gain some 47 percent more online ad revenues to US$12.9 billion this year, over $8.7 billion in 2007. However, they should brace for a sharp slowdown in the Web areas in 2009.

Former Chief Editor of Russian magazine The New Times Raf Shakirov, announced the launch of an online initiative focusing on business-related news called Daily Online, Lenta.ru reported Friday.

Shakirov said the Web outlet will evolve by taking the current financial crisis into consideration.

The London Evening Standard grew its full-price sales numbers by 9,000 copies in October, a 4.85 percent year-on-year increase to 306,747 copies a day, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures, out Friday, Press Gazette reported.

The evening paper, owned by Daily Mail & General Trust, has faced stiff competition from London freesheets since 2006, but also managed to post a 3.02 percent month-on-month increase last month.

Free daily M2F is looking to expand outside Shanghai and to cover most major cities in China in the next three years, the newspaper's owner announced on its Web site.

Published Monday through Friday, M2F has a current circulation of 300,000, and is distributed to people on their way to work in public transport, entertainment locations, residential and business areas. The newspaper's slogan is “Breakfast for the Brain,” Newspaper Innovation reported.

A new domain extension for the Russian Federation will emerge next year, Lenta.ru announced Thursday.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) said that the domain, which will be in Cyrillic letters, will be administered by the Coordination Centre for TLD RU.

Investment in Russia’s publishing industry will not be affected by the global financial crisis, Donald Kummerfeld, president of the International Federation of the Periodical Press (FIPP) announced Thursday, gipp.ru reported.

According to Kummerfeld, Western businesses understand that the publishing sector may be evolving and brimming with potential. The industry will continue to develop throughout the crisis, even if at a slower rate. Companies may not be interested in backing out of the Russian market, he added.

Gannett Co. Inc. announced late last month it would lay off another 10 percent of employees in its local newspapers division in early December. This came after a 3 percent cut in August.

Initially, Gannett said all job cuts would be involuntary, BusinessWeek reported at the time. Now, however, the company has told employees they can apply for voluntary buyouts, according to memos e-mailed to employees.

U.S. local online advertising is growing steadily. According to the local Internet advertising model constructed by Jupiter Research, in 2005 it totalled US$3.5 billion, will reach $5.7 billion by the end of this year, and is expected to achieve $8 billion by 2011, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2007 reported.

Classified advertising is the biggest contributor to total local online advertising. In 2005, it accounted for $2.4 billion, representing a nearly 70 percent share. It is expected to reach $4.9 billion, however, with the share dropping to about 60 percent in 2011.

U.S. newspapers may have gotten a much needed circulation boost Wednesday, as titles across the country reported that Barack Obama's presidential victory increased demand for copies, with most newspapers disappearing from newsstands and boxes before noon. Demand was so high that many newspapers, such as The New York Times and Chicago Tribune, are printing more copies of Wednesday's paper.

The New York Times stated that its typical morning print run was initially increased by 35 percent on Wednesday, which wasn't even enough. The Times then had to print an additional 75,000 copies. The Chicago Tribune’s preliminary 690,000 copies also sold out by morning, and another 130,000 copies were printed, the AFP reported.

Print group Polestar and media group News International are partnering with the UK Leeds College of Technology to create new in-plant colleges, PrintWeek reported Wednesday.

News International is set to unveil learning centres in its UK sites in Glasgow, Knowsley and Broxbourne early next year. Courses will allow workers to earn National Vocational Qualifications awards and City & Guilds Technical Certificates.

In a strategic move from a “domestic news agency” to a “multimedia content business,” the UK Press Association has unified all its sub-brands under one main identity, HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk reported Thursday.

The PA hopes the unification will give customers a better understanding of the association's services, and has launched a new corporate Web site, pressassociation.co.uk, to showcase its offerings.

Newspapers across the United States sold out quickly on Wednesday, as people everywhere snatched up copies reporting on Tuesday night's historic victory for Barack Obama.

In Chicago, the site of Obama's presidential election-night rally, copies of the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune and its free daily the RedEye were gone by the time the last waves of commuters stepped onto trains and buses in the morning. Even home-delivered copies, sometimes still waiting at front doors when workers returned home in the evening, were snatched up and brought inside not long after delivery.

The Scottish office of the Daily Mirror, currently comprising four staffers, will be axed to become a single "district reporter" post, All Media Scotland reported.

Publisher Trinity Mirror announced Tuesday in a statement that a total of 11 proposed job redundancies are being discussed across the United Kingdom and their representative body, the British Association of Journalists. The move is “part of the ongoing review of the Daily Mirror's editorial structure,” the publisher stated.

Google has withdrawn from a proposed search advertising agreement with Yahoo! after the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would not allow the deal to go through on anti-competition grounds, the online search giant confirmed, Media Guardian reported Wednesday.

"Google notified Yahoo! of its refusal to move forward with implementation of the agreement following indication from the Department of Justice that it would seek to block it, despite Yahoo's proposed revisions to address the DoJ's concerns," Yahoo! said in a statement. "Yahoo continues to believe in the benefits of the agreement and is disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court."

Management at the Belfast Telegraph and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) are discussing a possible change in shift patterns for employees at the paper in which all editorial staff would begin working on Sundays, The Sunday Business Post reported. The proposals were strongly opposed during the union meeting.

The newspaper's management is also in separate talks with the Unite trade union about voluntary redundancies for production and clerical staff.

U.S. newspaper Web sites had more than 68.3 million unique visitors on average, and reached 41.4 percent of the U.S. online population in the third quarter, up 15.8 percent year-over-year, according to a custom analysis by Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America, Media Post reported Monday.

These site visitors also viewed an average of more than 3.5 billion pages per month throughout the quarter, a growth of 25.2 percent over the same period.

Swiss presses manufacturer Wifag-Polytype Group has purchased Spühl/Legett & Platt’s Digital Printing Department as part of its plan to enter the digital printing market, Editor & Publisher reported Tuesday.

Wifag Polytype Holding will incorporate the department, along with its current 30 staffers in Switzerland and the United States, as part of its WP Digital AG business unit, which will be located in Wittenbach, Switzerland.

French regional newspaper group Dauphine Libere has launched its second free title, a free weekly, in Avignon, Newspaper Innovation reported Tuesday.

AVIGnews.com appeared at the end of October with a circulation of 25,000.

Media literacy programmes help students learn to read news critically, but often leave them ignorant and cynical about the essential role of a free press in society, a study has found.

The study of 239 University of Maryland undergraduates to evaluate the effectiveness of media literacy education, the largest study of its kind, found that such courses increase their ability to understand, evaluate and analyse media messages. But the courses often turn out cynics who lack an understanding of the media¹s essential role in democracy.

The “prestigious” Zurich-based daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) announced Tuesday that it will be laying off tens of employees as a response to the economic difficulties hitting the advertising industry, AFP reported Tuesday.

The job cuts at the German-language newspaper will be mainly “natural” and will include NZZ workers who intend to retire. The title said that the layoffs cannot be avoided.

Gannett Chief Executive Craig Dubow is taking a 17 percent pay cut as the publisher plans to lay off hundreds of staffers because of plummeting ad revenue, Brand Republic reported Tuesday.

Dubow announced Monday in an employee memo that he would take a voluntary cut of US$200,000 (£126,000) from his $1.2 million (£758,000) salary starting now through 2009. The company has also frozen salaries for corporate and divisional officers for 2009.

The first social network for airlines will be launched by the end of this week by the Air France-KLM group, Le Figaro reported Tuesday.

Web site www.bluenity.com will allow passengers to engage with others on the same flight or individuals heading for the same destination. The Web 2.0 site will be available in English, French and Dutch. It may be accessed once the flight is reserved and users are in possession of an electronic ticket.

Sixty-four percent of UK consumers feel they can discover and learn about products through advertising, while 59 percent consider ads “entertaining,” the latest YouGov study, backed by the Advertising Association, has found, MarketingWeek reported Monday.

“These results are heartening and encouraging for the advertising industry. At a time when business is very concerned about the present economic situation it will be those that stay ahead of competition during hard times who will reap considerable rewards on recovery,” said Advertising Association Chief Executive Baroness Peta Buscombe.

Want Want Group, the Taiwanese snack maker, is in talks to buy the China Times Group, according to the president of the publishing company, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

It is quite possible that a deal will be completed soon, while an official announcement “could be quite quick,” said Lin Sheng-fen, president of the China Times newspaper, in a phone interview with Bloomberg. According to the Economic Daily, Want Want intends to acquire China Times Group for NT$20.4 billion (US$619 million), although Lin did not confirm the price.

The weekly newspaper Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph is one of the latest to link up with Google, making its archives available on the Internet giant's search engine, The Chronicle reported Tuesday.

The Chronicle-Telegraph launched in 1764 as the Quebec Gazette, and claims to be North America's oldest continually published newspaper. The Quebec, Canada-based newspaper is looking for more ad revenue streams, and hopes partnering with Google will help.

Weeks ago, News Corporation announced its plan to withdraw from Eastern Europe, and has now started pulling out of the area, starting with Poland, FollowtheMedia reported. The company announced it will sell its 35 percent stake in TV Puls back to the station's majority owners, according to a TV Puls statement on Monday.

Dariusz Dabski, TV Puls CEO, has now upped his stake from 5 percent to 49 percent, leaving the Franciscan Order with 51 percent.

A German magazine and newspaper publisher may cut down on the number of its publications in an attempt to decrease the company's expenditures by about 20 percent next year, Press Business reported Tuesday.

Hamburg-based Gruner+Jahr, part of Europe’s media conglomerate Bertelsmann, owns hundreds of magazines and newspapers in 22 countries, including Financial Times Deutschland, Stern magazine and GEO.

Local advertisers in the United States this year are expected to spend nearly five times the amount spent in 2004 on Internet advertising, according to research firm Borrell Associates. In contrast, newspaper Web sites saw 44 percent of local online ad revenue in 2004, but just 27 percent in 2008, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Borrell estimates U.S. local advertisers will spend about US$12.9 billion in online advertising by the end of this year, and newspapers owned by McClatchy, E.W. Scripps Company and A.H. Belo are changing their online sales strategies to capture a bigger percentage of these ad dollars, according to The Times.

Australian companies will spend more than AU$17.9 billion in 2009 to deliver digital services, 17 percent more compared to this year, according to a new survey by the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA), The Australian reported.

However, the authors of the survey blamed the government for not supporting the growth of a so-called “vital channel for commerce.”