Audit Bureau of Circulations figures out Thursday did not look good for most newspapers in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as just one in more than 30 weekly Welsh papers reported a sales increase in the second half of 2007, compared to the same period a year before, the Guardian reported.

In some places in Wales, year-on-year circulation decreased by as much as 18.4 percent.

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A new Sunday Zulu newspaper will hit newsstands across KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa on March 30.

Isolezwe ngeSonto, published by Independent Newspapers KwaZulu-Natal, aims to fill a “gap in the market,” as research has shown most readers there don't read newspapers on Sundays, even though Sunday is the preferred day to read a weekend edition.

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Fairfax Digital is finishing its new Web site, codenamed Kwerky, which will target “free-spending hedonists desperate to have their say,” The Sydney Morning Herald, a Fairfax newspaper, reported this week.

The Web site will be launched within weeks, and aims to bring in an audience Fairfax believes other social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, have overlooked, by publishing off-beat news articles, opinions and reviews on music, entertainment, fashion and sport, and let the users review the reviewers, according to The Herald.

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Google’s Print Ads programme, which sells contextual display spaces in print newspapers, is now working with 750 newspapers, according to a speech by Stephanie Davis, head of publisher development for Print Ads, at the NAA Marketing conference in Orlando.

According to Davis, newspapers and Google are helping each other. However, an article on the Local Onliner pointed out that perhaps newspapers need Google more. “Even if CPC rates may be peaking for Google and display is a much needed growth channel,” according to the article.

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The Netherlands took the lead in European broadband penetration in the third quarter of 2006, with a reach of nearly 65 percent, according to Exane BNP Paribas.

In the Nordic countries of Finland and Sweden, the broadband penetration is also high – with nearly 55 percent and over 45 percent respectively, ranked on the second and the third spot.

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Music Web site Last.fm announced Thursday that asking external developers to build complementary services has led to a boost in audience numbers to about 19 million users globally, who are using its services through applications and widgets on third-party sites, the Guardian reported.

These 19 million users are in addition to the 21 million users who access the site each month.

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The Business Standard is aggressively launching Hindi and Gujarati editions, agencyfaqs! reported Thursday.

It launched its first Hindi business Daily on February 16 in Mumbai and New Delhi. Over the next 10 days, the Business Standard it launched Hindi editions in Lucknow, Chandigarh and Bhopal, and Gujarati editions in Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Rajkot. Two more editions of the Hindi version are scheduled to be launched in Patna and Kolkata in March.

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Philadelphia's two largest dailies announced another round of job cuts - 68 non-newsroom employees lost their jobs as the recession of the newspaper advertising market continued, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

According to the union Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia, the papers’ parent company, Philadelphia Media Holdings, cut 68 jobs in advertising, circulation, customer service, finance, marketing and systems. The union said Wednesday that a "very small" number of managers will be laid off.

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Trinity Mirror reported a pre-tax profit of £203 million for 2007, due to improvements in the ad market and selling off of its south-eastern titles and The Racing Post, Brand Republic reported Thursday.

In 2006, the publisher of the Daily Mirror reported pre-tax profits of a loss of £11.5 million. When adding in the sale of several titles, such as the Croydon Post, its sports division and the South London Press, the publisher made £263 total in 2007.

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Mobile ad spending in Western Europe is expected to skyrocket within next few years, according to research firm eMarketer.

The mobile ad spending will exceed US$3.46 billion in 2011, from merely $454 million in 2006. The growth in Western Europe is nearly sevenfold.

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Eighteen months after combining three publishing companies into one multi-media group, Belgium's De Persgroep is ready to report on the lessons of its transformation at the World Newspaper Congress, to be held in Göteborg, Sweden, from 1 to 4 June next.

Christian Van Thillo, chief executive officer of De Persgroep, will discuss what worked and what didn't after the merger of Aurex, De Morgen and Magnet Magazines into De Persgroep in November 2006.

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Free daily 20 Minutos is the highest circulated daily in Spain, with distribution of 1,043,000 copies a day in 2007, Newspaper Innovation reported Wednesday.

Following in second place is Qué!, with 957,000 copies.

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China's first English-Chinese mobile newspaper was launched Tuesday in Beijing, China Daily reported.

Zhu Ling, editor of China Daily, and Wang Jianzhou, chairman of China Mobile, launched the mobile news site in a joint ceremony. The mobile news site will be produced by both China Mobile and China Daily, and will be called China Daily Mobile News.

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Roularta Media Group SA has bought Belgian freesheet Het Gouden Blad, for about one million euro, Thomson Financial reported Wednesday.

Het Gouden Blad publishes in the two towns of Waregem and Deinze.

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Six out of ten Canadians say they prefer newspaper ads to TV advertising, according to a survey released by the Canadian Newspaper Association.

This survey was conducted by Ipsos Reid on behalf of the Canadian Newspaper Association from January 31 to February 4, 2008, with an interview sample of 1,428 adults equally proportioned across the demographic groups.

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The San Francisco Chronicle announced the launch of the new homepage SFGate.com, as part of a redesign.

The news site has simpler and top-of-the-page navigation, which allow users to access to multimedia features, and more search tools.

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The World Editors Forum has re-launched its Editors Weblog to increase functionality and make it easier to navigate.

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The Fiji Sun's publisher, Russell Hunter, was deported Tuesday after his paper printed reports that the country's finance minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, had engaged in tax evasion.

Hunter was described by the Fijian government as being a threat to national stability. He was given deportation documents Monday night by four soldiers and an immigration official and arrived in Australia Tuesday afternoon, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Wednesday.

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Social networking has been booming in Australia and New Zealand, according to a recent Nielsen Online study.

According to the study, 55 percent of Australian and 62 percent of New Zealand's online users used a social network in 2007.

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Yahoo has finally announced the launch of its long-rumored Buzz portal, a social news site where users can vote on stories, and send the most popular stories to a featured spot on the Yahoo homepage, according to the Wired Blog Network.

It is obvious Yahoo Buzz is aimed to compete against Digg and Reddit. However, Buzz is not simply trying to imitate Digg, the Wired Blog Network reported.

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Weekly business newspaper The Myanmar Times, which is closely tied to Burma's ruling junta, may soon be permitted to publish the country's first privately owned daily newspaper since the military took over power in Myanmar in 1962, The Irrawaddy reported Monday.

Sources in Rangoon told The Irrawaddy, a Thailand-based newspaper that covers Burma and Southeast Asia, that it seems “very likely” The Myanmar Times will receive permission to publish the new privately owned daily following a national referendum held by the regime, which is scheduled for May.

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As part of a deal with a media watchdog group, Norwegian media group Schibsted ASA will sell its entire 34.3 percent stake in newspaper group Adresseavisen ASA in order to create its Media Norge newspaper group.

The Independent Media Ownership Council authorised Media Norge's establishment Tuesday, on the condition that Schibsted sell its Adresseavisen shares, Thomson Financial reported.

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The print industry in India is preparing a list of demands for the Finance Minister, to be delivered before the Union Budget 2008-09 is presented.

The list will demand the removal of the Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT), and lower taxes on the buying and selling of newsprint, among others, exchange4media reported Monday.

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The American Press Institute's latest project, Newspaper Next 2.0, means newspaper companies “will have to venture farther afield and become the indispensable guide to everything that anyone in their local community needs to know to live there,” The Poynter Institute's media analyst Rick Edmonds stated Monday.

The report, a sequel to the original 2006 Newspaper Next report, was published online last week, and states that despite the problems plaguing the news industry, from circulation declines to online revenues that can't make up for them, newspapers can survive, and even see “dizzying growth rates” j – but not without dramatic changes in the way they think, the strategies they adopt and the innovation processes they use.”

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Sales of traditional paid newspapers in Ireland are not being impacted by freesheets, Paul McCabe, head of media buying agency MCM told the Sunday Business Post.

McCabe's opinion is based on the Audit Bureau of Circulations data for July to December 2007, which showed only marginal changes for newspapers in the country.

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As television audiences become increasingly fragmented, traditional TV players are reaching out to online audiences, eMarketer reported Monday.

“It hasn’t happened yet, but full-blown convergence between television and the Internet is on the way,” the company's latest report states.

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Deutsche Bank cut its rating on shares of The New York Times Co. Monday, as the industry continues to battle soft U.S. advertising trends, the Associated Press reported.

Deutsche Bank's Paul Ginocchio cut his rating on the company from "Hold" to "Sell," and lowered his price target to US$15 from $17.

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Could television be the next industry run over by the Internet? An article on Wall Street Journal pointed out the possibility - Online video has been a hit. In December alone, Americans watched more than 300 million videos on YouTube, and spent 34 percent more time watching it compared to the same period in 2006.

Although it has not been entirely at the expense of television viewing, the growth still comes as a shock to network executives. What’s more, Google's new plans to squeeze money out of online video advertising could also cause broadcasters a lot of pain.

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Following the American Press Institute's release of its report Newspaper Next 2.0: Making the Leap Beyond 'Newspaper Companies,' the World Association of Newspapers will host the first-ever Newspaper Next event outside North America at the end of its UK Study Tour 2008.

Newspaper Next's Managing Director, Steve Gray from the American Press Institute, will present a day-long strategy session during the study tour's seminar in London at news agency Reuters.

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Trinity Mirror has launched a new free weekly newspaper, to be delivered to and around 10,000 homes in Daventry, England, and surrounding villages, Holdthefrontpage reported Friday.

The Daventry Post will be delivered every Thursday, and compete with the Johnston Press title Daventry Express.

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A new report from Outsell Research suggests a worrying trend: many U.S. online newspapers aren't attracting readers fast enough.

“In online usage, what stands out is that most sites are just treading water,” Ken Doctor, Outsell affiliate analyst and author of the report, told Editor & Publisher. “A few have managed significant growth year-over-year, but most are somewhere between barely growing and losing audience.”

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Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin called Microsoft's bid for Yahoo an "unnerving" maneuver that threatens Internet innovation, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

Brin reiterated the company’s position that a merger could violate antitrust laws and harm Internet users, after an event at the company's headquarters.

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The mobile music market in Western Europe will continue to boom within next three year, as the overall mobile music spending has grown more than double from US$636 million in 2006 to $1.7 billion this year, and is expected to achieve $3.25 billion in 2011, research firm eMarketer announced.

In 2006, more than 80 percent of the spending came from ringtones and ringback tones, which accounted for $515 million. However, they are losing ground with time. In 2011, they are expected to reach $1.63 billion, but only represent 50 percent of overall spending.

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USA Today has launched a new lifestyle magazine, Open Air, Editor & Publisher reported.

The new publication covers various topics including workout tips, athletic gear, and travel destinations, and will be distributed quarterly in the Friday editions of USA Today.

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The Orange County Register's new publisher, Terry Horne, is taking a “three-pronged approach” to weathering falling advertising revenue and declining circulation, and is hoping free community newspapers, expanded online offerings and a smaller print version will help get the Register through the newspaper industry's tough times.

“The Register has to become a 21st century business,” Horne told the Register Wednesday. “We can't have the same model that worked 10 years ago.”

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Investor group Firebrand Partners and hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners have increased their stake in the New York Times Company to 15.6 percent, making them the largest shareholder, and are pushing for four seats on the board, Brand Republic reported Friday.

The two dissident shareholders doubled their stake to 10 percent last week, before increasing it again to 15.6 percent this week. Scott Galloway, founder of Firebrand Partners, has been calling on the Times Co. to invest more in digital operations.

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Singapore Press Holdings announced its latest digital initiative Friday, an interactive Web TV service to be launched later in the year, Asia Media Journal reported.

The Straits Times Razor TV will be a free-access, interactive Web television service, and will deliver live studio content and on-demand videos over a real-time interactive platform, SPH Chairman Tony Tan stated in the announcement.

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Although its last year's acquisitions of Rural Press and Southern Cross Broadcasting's radio network confused performance results comparisons, Fairfax Media is already reaping the benefits from the buys, The Age, owned by Fairfax, has reported Friday.

Fairfax is “humming along very well and personally I'm very happy about what is going on in this organisation,” said Ron Walker, the company's chairman.

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National newspapers' online editions in the United Kingdom that publish monthly Audit Bureau of Circulation traffic data are seeing large traffic growth, Journalism.co.uk reported Thursday.

Web sites for Times Online and The Sun, both owned by News International, saw high levels of growth. The Sun's year-on-year traffic was up nearly 40 percent, and it's growth from December to January was 27 percent, from 10,474,814 uniques in December, to 13,322,535 in January. Times Online saw users grow by 35 percent from December to January, and recorded a year-on-year growth of 39 percent, to a total of 15,087,130.

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The Albuquerque Tribune will publish its last edition Saturday; the is closure due to plunging circulation.

Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co., which owns the newspaper, announced in August last year that the paper would be shuttered if a buyer could not be found, the Associated Press reported.

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Staff at Berliner Zeitung have held several emergency meetings to discuss both the newspaper's future and the 20 percent cuts media group Mecom Group Plc, which owns the paper, is rumoured to be considering.

The staff also wrote a personal letter to David Montgomery, Mecom's executive chairman, stating that he must “rethink his current business policy,” and that “if Mecom is unable to come up with such a strategy, in the interests of the paper and its readers a new, appropriate proprietor should be sought,” the Guardian reported Wednesday.

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Although print circulation is dropping, there is a hope emerging from online readership, as the online newspaper audience is currently making up 28 percent of print readership losses, according to Scarborough Research.

This study surveyed local newspaper Web site users of 88 newspapers in the top 50 U.S. markets from August 2004 through March 2007. It found that online newspaper readership grew 14 percent over that period, and 70 percent of all newspaper Web site visitors also read the printed papers.

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In the last two years, TV advertising has lost ground due to the digital competition, according to a recent study by the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research.

According to the study, 62 percent of marketers believe television is less effective than in 2006. This echoed the fact many TV marketers are interested in experimenting with new digital platforms for video commercials.

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More than 70 percent online users in the United Kingdom never use online search on the mobile devices, according to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive.

Seventy-one percent of UK Internet users said they have never tried mobile Internet. Another seven percent said they have tried only once, 12 percent use it once a fortnight or less, and one out of 10 said they use mobile online search on a weekly basis.

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The Evening Standard has a created a competition for advertisers, rewarding the winner with a £200,000 media campaign in the newspaper.

Those competing for the prize had to submit a 500 word essay on why their brands or clients want to reach the Evening Standard's audience, and how they “plan to use a selected range from the newspaper's media opportunities,” the competition announcement stated.

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The dean at Northwestern University's journalism school, John Lavine, is being taken to task for his use of anonymous quotes in two introductory letters for the school's alumni magazine last year.

Last week, a column in The Daily Northwestern, the student newspaper, called his use of an anonymous source into question. Following the column's publication, written by senior David Spett, a firestorm of media coverage has ensued over the journalism ethics practised by the dean, and on Tuesday 16 members of Medill School of Journalism's faculty released a statement saying that the “matter has become a crisis for the school.”

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Hindi daily Nai Dunia is preparing to venture out of it's home in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, and spread across the entire Hindi-speaking belt in about six months, the Business Standard reported Wednesday.

Vinay Chhajlani, director of Nai Dunia News & Network Private Ltd, would not name specific states the newspaper plans to launch in, but did say Nai Dunia is “in an aggressive mode and ready to venture outside Madhya Pradesh.”

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According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday, dissident shareholder Harbinger Capital Partners has increased its stake to 11.8 percent in New York Times Co.

Harbinger, a New York University business professor, has criticised the Times for not aggressively focusing on its digital businesses.

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Over 98 million mobile subscribers in the United States and Western Europe played games on their handset during December 2007, according to new research from M:Metrics.

In spite of high demand, advances in mobile technology and the emergence of mobile marketing service providers, the market is still not yet ripe enough to draw major ad dollars, Media Post reported.

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The Sun-Times Media Group (STMG) Tuesday announced it will outsource its advertising production work to Affinity Express, which by estimate would save US$3 million annually for the company, Editor & Publisher reported Wednesday.

"Partnering with Affinity will enable us to significantly upgrade our service to our advertisers while reducing our costs," said president and CEO of STMG Cyrus Freidheim Jr. in a statement. "This is one in a series of actions to make our company more nimble and efficient."

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The Baltimore Sun Media Group will launch a free daily tabloid and Web site targeting young adults, which will focus on news, sports, pop culture, entertainment and night life, The Baltimore Sun reported Wednesday.

The new free daily, to be called b, and Web site, bthesite.com, will target younger readers, ages 18-to-34-years-old. The newspaper will also publish content from other publications, including Chicago free daily RedEye, both of which are owned by Tribune Co.

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The ten staff members at Irish language newspaper Lá Nua have been given redundancy notices, and the tabloid is expected to close at the end of the month.

At the same time, plans to launch a Welsh-language daily, Y Byd, were abandoned last week. Closure of both papers is due to inadequate funding, management for both papers have said.

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The Bay Area News Group newspaper publisher, controlled by MediaNews Group Inc. is cutting jobs at newspapers including the Contra Costa Times and the Oakland Tribune, in a sweeping cost-cutting measure includes offering buyouts to almost all of the group's 1,100 employees.

San Francisco-based Bay Area News Group will not disclose how many jobs will end up being cut, or how many it intends to save, The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

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The World Editors Forum, Reuters and Zogby International Wednesday began collecting data for the second annual Newsroom Barometer, a global survey of chief editors about their attitudes and strategies in the multimedia age.

The Newsroom Barometer aims to provide a better understanding of the changes in newsrooms through the eyes of editors-in-chief and senior news executives.

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Free daily Metro continues to have the highest circulation in Hungary, distributing 332,000 copies in the fourth quarter of 2007, Newspaper Innovation reported Tuesday.

The country's second highest circulated paper was paid daily Blikk, owned by Swiss publisher Ringier, which sold 227,000.

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The Newspaper Association of America spent almost US$1.6 million last year lobbying the U.S. government on issues ranging from advertising to freedom of information requests, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

According to a disclosure form from the Senate's public records office, the NAA spent a total of $1,578,000 (€1,071,428) in 2007, lobbying the government on issues such as “whether drug companies are allowed to market directly to consumers, the laws forcing government agencies to provide reporters with requested information, rules on how many properties media companies can own and whether telemarketers can call people who do not want to be called,” the AP stated.

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Two auditors of newspaper and magazine readership, the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) and the National Readership Survey (NRS), will appoint a joint chief executive, and will meet next month to decide whether to merge, Brand Republic reported Tuesday.

Appointing a joint chief is one of several steps toward merging in the long term that ABC and NRS are considering, such as merging their public relations operations. However, it is not an understanding that the two bodies will combine their offerings of data for media planners and buyers.

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Chinese mobile phone users are much more likely to listen to mobile music than users in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy or Spain, according to a survey by M:Metric.

The survey, conducted in December 2007, showed that almost 35 percent of Chinese respondents listened to mobile music in the previous month. Following are Spain and the United Kingdom, with 20 percent and 18.9 percent of respondents, respectively. In United States, however, only 5.7 percent of mobile subscribers were listening to music, which lagged behind any other countries surveyed.

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According to an interview with Bill Gates, Microsoft is not haggling with Yahoo over the rebuffed $31-per-share buyout offer, the Associated Press reported.

"We sent them a letter and said we think that's a fair offer. There's nothing that's gone on other than us stating that we think it's a fair offer. They should take a hard look at it," said the Microsoft chairman Monday.

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According to Parks Associates, the spending on "new multimedia" platforms will increase to US$12.6 billion over the next five years, which includes broadband multimedia advertising, estimated to be more than $6 billion, and embedded video advertising, which will account for over one-third of the total.

Mobile news and entertainment will achieve $5 billion in 2012, dominated by display and search, while on-linear TV services, such as video-on-demand and digital video recorders, will generate revenue of less than $1 billion, most of which are interactive ad spots.

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The Daily Mail has launched a new mobile phone service that, after connecting mobile phones to the Internet momentarily, allows them to send an unlimited number of free text messages to anyone on the system.

The MailTXT system requires readers to download a Java application to their phones, but there is no contractual requirement, and no subscription fee, Brand Republic reported Monday.

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A recent slide in results for Finland's SanomaWSOY and Schibsted in Norway could be just a bump in the road, or they could be an indicator of downward trends to come. Either way, both groups say 2008 is already looking better.

Schibsted saw shares slide 36 percent year-on-year, while Sanoma was down 25 percent from 2006 to 2007. Both missed fourth quarter forecasts.

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The Montenegrin government will offer only 51 percent of its shares in Pobjeda, the oldest state-run daily in Montenegro, in a bid to take the newspaper private.

Offering only 51 percent will allow the government to retain power over decisions about content, design and production, The Montenegro Times reported Monday.

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The Business Standard has launched a Hindi business daily, which hit newsstands Friday.

The new paper, named after the Business Standard, will be published in New Delhi and Mumbai, and more editions are expected to be announced in the next few months, agencyfaqs! reported Monday.

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The Rocky Mountain Collegian of Colorado State University is in jeopardy of being taken over by Gannett Co., Inc., a move the university paper and its staff fears would quash its status as an independent student newspaper, The New York Times reported Monday.

J. David McSwane, the paper's editor, learned early in January that the university's president was meeting with representatives from the city's daily, The Fort Collins Coloradoan, owned by Gannett, to discuss a possible “partnership” between the local paper and the student paper.

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Telegraaf Media Groep N.V. has bought communications firm Nobiles Media BV and 100 percent of both of its joint ventures, Smart Events B.V. and Info Pinnacle B.V., Thomson Financial reported Monday.

Financial terms of the deal, effective Saturday, were not disclosed. Nobiles Media had previously held a 50 percent in Info Pinnacle and Smart Events.

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Media employment levels were "slammed by the slumping newspaper industry,” falling to a 15-year low of 886,900 in December in the United States, AdAge.com reported Monday.

“Since media employment peaked in dot-com-infused 2000, media companies have eliminated one in six jobs (167,600),” according to AdAge.

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Yahoo Videos has been relaunched with new features, including a larger media player, in order to increase users’ engagement with the site, Media Post reported.

In addition to the new wide-screen player, the site now aggregates video from all of Yahoo’s other sections. It also provides upgraded tools for playing, sharing and organising videos. For example, users can upload bigger files up to 150 megabytes, which can accommodate longer and higher-quality videos.

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The Kunming Daily, in China's southwestern province of Yunnan, published local government officials' contact information, with government permission.

The information appeared Saturday in a four-page special section, and included telephone numbers, positions and responsibilities of local government officials, as well as leading officials of the municipal Communist Party committee, Xinhua reported Monday.

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Those working in journalism, public relations, photography and broadcasting are 50 percent more likely to work overtime for free than the rest of the workforce, according to the Trades Union Congress, the national trade union centre in the United Kingdom.

Four in 10 media industry professionals work an average of six hours and 42 minutes for free each week, adding up to unpaid overtime worth about £288 million total each year, the TUC announced Friday.

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The Sun-Times Media Group Inc. announced Friday it has retained investment banking firm Lazard to help evaluate strategic financial alternatives, including selling its flagship newspaper the Chicago Sun-Times.

Earlier this month, Sun-Times Media announced it had formed a strategic alternatives committee to investigate future actions, including selling some or all of its properties, and partnerships with third parties, The Chicago Tribune reported Friday.

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The Los Angeles Times named Russ Stanton its new editor-in-chief Thursday, the fourth person to fill the role in the past three years.

James O'Shea, the paper's previous top editor, was forced out three weeks ago by resisting another round of staff cuts. Many newsroom staffers resent how O'Shea and his predecessors were treated, and for years editors and reporters haven't seen eye-to-eye with David Hiller, the paper's publisher, or the Tribune Company, its owner, The New York Times reported Friday.

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Due to insufficient funding, plans to publish the first daily Welsh-language newspaper have been abandoned, as a £200,000 annual grant for the next three years just isn't enough, the company behind Y Byd (The World) announced.

Dyddiol Cyf criticised the assembly government for not supporting Welsh-language press by not expanding its funding, BBC News reported Friday.