Recently by Erina Lin

Guardian Media Group (GMG) Friday announced a salary freeze for the '09-'10 fiscal year, which will impact staff across its wholly-owned businesses, including the Guardian and Observer, guardian.co.uk and MediaGuardian.co.uk; the Manchester Evening News local newspapers and GMG Radio, operator of the Smooth Radio and Real Radio networks Media Guardian reported.

The company blamed the freeze to "the impact on revenues of the economic downturn." It anticipated "worsening conditions in the coming year."

Global newspaper market totaled US$184 billion in 2006, with 65 percent on average from advertising and 35 percent from circulation, according to World Press Trends 2006, SFN's New Print Products reported.

In the United States, the market reached $60 billion in 2006, with about one-sixed from circulation. Western Europe contributed over $55 billion, with about two-fifths from circulation, while Asia Pacific brought in nearly $50 billion, half of which from circulation and another half from advertising.

McClatchy announced its losses of US$21.7 million, or 26 cents per share, in the final quarter of 2008. More deep cost-cutting plans are expected this year, The Associated Press reported.

The depressing results reflect the declining value of its papers, including The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. According to the company, it plans to cut more costs by $100 million to $110 million.

Paid-for and free dailies combined worldwide marked growth both in circulation and number of dailies from 2001 to 2005, according to World Press Trends 2006, SFN's New Print Products reported.

Within the five years, the overall circulation worldwide went up nearly 10 percent, while the number of dailies increased by about 15 percent.

Axel Springer AG, the biggest newspaper company in Europe, announced that it is selling stakes in some German regional newspapers to Madsack GmbH & Co. KG. The estimated value is about 310 million euros (US$399 million), Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

According to Springer's statement, it plans to sell a 24.5 percent stake in Kieler Nachrichten, a 49 percent share in Luebecker Nachrichten, 44.9 percent in Leipziger Volkszeitung and a 23 percent north German holding in Hanseatische Verlags-Beteiligungs AG.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) Tuesday announced to launch an integrated ad platform, which provides advertisers with options across its portfolio of digital, print and direct media vehicles.

With the new service, called AJC Media Solutions, "we're now a one-point-of contact solution across digital, print and direct marketing platforms that can help businesses navigate their messaging to the audiences and consumers they seek," said W. Michael Clay, AJC Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer.

Three newspapers in western Ohio are cutting Tuesday editions due to the economic downturn, The Associated Press reported.

The new schedule for The Troy Daily News, Piqua Daily Call and The Sidney Daily News will be effective next week. The Troy will publish six days a week, with the Miami Valley Sunday News on Sundays. The Piqua and Sidney will print only five days as they don't have Sunday edition.

The New York Times Co. relaunched its online syndication service site, according to Media Post. Users can now purchase articles, features, multimedia and images from the Times or other affiliated media properties.

The new site will provide more than 250 articles from all sections of the paper as well as content from other NYTimes' properties, including the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, WQXR-FM, NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded the credit ratings of Gannett Co. Monday, the Associated Press reported.

The ratings agency, concerning the publisher's falling ad revenue, said that 2009 "will be incrementally challenging for the company's newspaper and broadcast operations."

Swiss publisher Tamedia is acquiring the majority of share in tilllate.com, the leading Swiss nightlife online platform. It bought another 51 percent, which makes 86 percent owned by the publisher in total, Press Business reported.  

The other 14 percent will still belong to the founders, who will keep on supporting the platform's expansion.

Online video ad spending in the United States will keep growing by 22.5 percent this year. However, the increase has slowed down since 2006, according to estimates by AccuStream iMedia Research in January 2009.

The growth level last year was 36 percent, but it would rise again in 2010 to 28.2 percent, according to eMarketer.

In November 2008, 34 percent of mobile phone users in the region who visited social networking sites only accessed social media exclusive of all other mobile Internet content.

Senior executives at advertising, marketing and interactive companies expect the economic recession to be a great opportunity for the industry, especially firms in emerging marketing and media, according to the AdMedia Partners 15th annual survey "Merger and Acquisitions Prospects for Marketing Services and Internet Marketing Firms," Media Post reported.  

Although overall ad spending is estimated to drop 5 percent this year, respondents said a 5 percent growth in interactive advertising, as well as their businesses, is expected. Most online categories will increase too, especially word-of-mouth, social media, search, mobile marketing and behavioural and contextual marketing.