Two groups of editors have written complaints about several new Associated Press practices, such as new fee structures and news coverage practices. The two letters, sent to AP executives in past weeks, were obtained by Editor & Publisher.

The letters partly responded to AP's rate structure change, set to take effect next year, which the AP says will make the service more flexible, allowing a la carte services and a decrease or unchanged price for most newspapers. Editors, however, say the changes will actually make some fees go up, and need to be revised in this time of economic hardship for newspapers, E&P reported.

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Financial management and advisory company Merrill Lynch cut its forecasts for advertising growth in Australia due to a downturn in global earnings, The Australian has reported Wednesday.

The company's media analyst, Alice Bennett, cut her 2008 forecast for growth from 7 percent to 6 percent.

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News Ltd. and Fairfax Media will co-produce their rival auto sales Web sites, The Sydney Morning Herald reported Tuesday.

Fairfax Digital's drive.com.au's sales team will take over all car dealer listings on carsguide.com.au, News Ltd.'s site, and the listings will appear on both Web sites at the same time.

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Spanish media group Vocento SA announced monday its CEO Belarmino Garcia Fernandez has resigned.

The group announced in a statement that Jose Manuel Vargas Gomez, formerly Vocento's general manager for the national market, will replace Fernandez.

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Despite many downward ad forecast revisions, and concern over an economic recession, WPP's GroupM unit released a report calling for relatively healthy growth in the worldwide ad economy in 2008, Media Post reported.

The report pointed out that this year, growth in the U.S. marketplace will rise 3.7 percent due mainly from two factors: cyclical stimuli, such as the Olympics and presidential elections, and increased ad spending on the Internet. Without the incremental effects of the Olympics and election spending, U.S. ad spending would increase only 1.8 percent in 2008. Without the effects of the Internet, the U.S. ad market would rise only 0.6 percent, and would leave it at almost the same as it was in 2007.

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Many Asian telecom operators are expected to see opportunities for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) soon in the Asia-Pacific region, according to Standard & Poor's (S&P).

Mergers and acquisitions will be hot in this region for the pursuit of economies of scale, S&P credit analyst Yasmin Wirjawan stated in a report Friday.

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As a flurry of changes continues at the Wall Street Journal following the purchase of its parent company, Dow Jones & Co. by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. late last year, another change is in the works.

The Wall Street Journal is planning to move away from Wall Street, Yahoo Finance reported Tuesday.

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Reuters and Bloomberg make millions selling financial news first to businessmen and women around the world who are willing to pay to get into the market first. Updated information and share prices that are available for free online are usually delayed 15 to 20 minutes for the average reader to whom it isn't important to make immediate buy or sell decisions, Philip M. Stone of FollowtheMedia wrote Tuesday.

And as volatile as the markets have been lately, professional investors can't afford not to pay premium prices for real-time information – so why give it away for free?

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